some inspiration

When I'm not building or working otherwise on one of my dollhouses, I like to read and daydream with some books. I have collected quite a few house/castle/dollhouse/interior/exterior related books the past few years, some are special and dear to me, others a lot less special but very usefull all the same.

In the first picture you see a booklet with postcards from France. I bought it on my first holiday that I went on, without parents but with my boyfriend. We visited chateaux Rosanbo, such a tranquil and enchanting little place it was!

No picture taking was allowed. Lucky enough there was a small stand with only postcards and pens for sale, and the booklet are the only images I have of the fabulous interior and exterior. That, and those in my photographic memory offcourse;)
This one is a lot less special but nonetheless very usefull! I bought it at the bookshop "de slegte". It is a very heavy and large book, full of lovely pictures and some usefull background information on european gardening styles for estates and casltes. It is very inspirational since I will have to do a lot of exterior work on my castle-like dollhouse soon! ;)

And so my bookcollection is ever growing :)

Doing some dollhouse stapling on a sunny day

Not to long ago my dollhouse was stil a boring pile of carefully measured, drawn out and sawn out pieces of MDF wood... No one could imagine what that pile would look like when every piece would perform its part in this dollhouse play...

We had some sunny days last week and I started building again on the house. My internship has been keeping me from doing so quite often, and it was due time to start again.

Armed with a pneumatic stapler (my worst childhood nightmare! But that's a long irrelevant story), a bottle of glue, and a very sweet and handsome helping hand from bf ;) I have been building the sunny weekend away!


Slowly but surely the house is taking shape... and showing revealing it's karakter.
I'm now working on the atticfloor and roof. They will go onto the structure shown above. The towerpart wil get another extra storey before it gets its pointy roof. And on the right side (of frontview) there will emerge a wing of the building...
I love this part where the hard and boring work comes together and shows some visible results!

Brass vase and fresh flowers

I'm almost finished with my large flowerarrangement. It took many hours but I think the result is worth it. The last thing left to do is attach the leaves and arrange the flowers in a vase.

A vase! Why yes, and not just any vase! The beautifull brass vase my dad and I (but mostly dad ;) ) started making a while back is finally finished! We had to find the time in our busy schedules to finish it: polish it and cut it of, the finishing touches. It shines so bright and truly has the appearal of gold!

Here is the result. It is perfect for the flowers, I'm so happy with this little piece of art!
Thank you so much dad!

I've also done some turning myself but I dare not show the result next to this wonderfull vase! It's not as easy as it looks to turn brass like this!