The Tail of a Salty Dog

It was yet another fine morning for real life adventures. My good friend Boatswain (Don's dog) and I headed to the marina to visit the Lady Washington a tall ship in port for a visit. Those of you who have seen the "Pirates of the Caribbean - Curse of the Black Pearl" will have seen lots of on deck action on this ship aka the HMS Intruder; she was the fastest ship in port that Captain Jack Sparrow stole to chase down the Black Pearl.

Here is Boatswain, aka Bosun', persuading the Bosun's mate of The Lady Washington to let him sign on as a crew member. The dog being an alpha male really wants the job of the captain of the ship but he was given another important assignment, one he is equally skilled at.


Bosun was assigned to guard the ship while it was in Seattle. Here he is on the gangplank making sure no unauthorized intruders get on board. Just minutes after this photo was taken the ship and crew were attacked by a very long Sea Monster who resembles somewhat the famed Loch Ness Monster. Bosun, single pawed, drove off the monster with his ferocious barking no doubt saving the ship and the lives of the crew. Good job Bosun!


As I was leaving to head to my workshop just a few blocks away I turned around to snap one last photo and to my surprise caught the image of the monster heading back out to sea. If you click on the photo to enlarge it you can get a good look at the Shilshole Sea Monster. A tall image of a classic tall ship and a whopper of a tall tail(tale)to go with it.

If you would like to sail on the Lady Washington she will be around Puget Sound most of the summer and for a fee you can have an experience of a lifetime to remember and help to keep her sailing for many years.

Boatswain the dog is normally the Bosun's mate of the fine ship Antelope. He will return to his duties there shortly when he is not busy being the guardian of all I own. At the moment he is in his bunk under my workshop sink getting a little shut-eye before the nightwatch.

Feather Boards

No I am not talking about controlling people, I am talking about getting good quality cuts on a table saw. It does not matter if you are working on a big 10 inch table saw (shown in the photo) or on a miniature tablesaw because a tablesaw is a tablesaw and no matter the size they cut the same way.

There are three aides shown in this photo for achieving better control. One is a push stick that does not really look like a stick, it looks like a shoe. You don't have to go out and purchase fancy pushers, you can make them out of scrap wood. This one is about 9" long by 4" tall. You don't have to match those exact dimensions, it just needs to be tall enough to keep your fingers out of the blade and long enough to put some pressure over a greater distance than one tiny spot. There is a notch cut along the bottom edge leaving just a little tab at the tail end. The notch has to be less in height than the wood you are going to push. Easy to adjust by cutting the tab a little shorter if needed.

You will notice how the plywood on the pusher is chewed up along lower edge. That is because I often cut very thin strips on my full size table saw and the shoe shaped push stick lets me do that safely. It is OK if my table saw blade takes a little nip out of the pusher, in fact it covers up the sharp blade and protects my fingers. I have this same kind of pusher for my miniature sized table saws.

The second aid shown is a feather board. The end of the board with all the feathers cut in it is angled. You lock the feather board into position just in front of the saw blade putting just a little bit of pressure against the board you are going to run through the saw. What happens is the feathers will flex one direction and keep the board against the fence while resisting the board you are cutting being pushed back towards you. The angle cut on the end of the feather board creates that special one way control. Hey you don't have to work so hard with your hands trying to keep the board against the fence while you push and that is a good thing. Now you can concentrate on smooth and steady feeding of your piece of wood to get a nice smooth cut.

The third aid is a zero clearance throat plate. That is the red piece you see surrounding the saw blade. The one in the photo is only used for making 90 degree cuts, I have another for making 45 degree cuts and a couple more for other small ranges of angles. The idea is you always have good support of smaller sizes of materials right next to the saw blade. Only draw back is all the saw dust does not get sucked down into the saw and gets tossed around in you face. Oh well maybe someday I will get a bigger dust collector and have suction up on top too.

The 1:12 structure I am building is a birdhouse. I decided I wanted to make it a little taller so it is more visually pleasing to me so I am adding on a band of half timber detailing. There are going to be brackets built into this band that support the roof overhang. The bracket detail will give the piece additional visual interest as you look upwards to the birdhouse. It does not look so great at the moment but I can see it in my mind even if you can't.

Texturing timbers

The items you see in the photo above are involved in some of the stages of creating textured timbers that are going to be used on a 1:12 scale structure I am building.

One of the popular teachers of storybook cottages has the students texturing timbers by scraping the wood with a piece of saw blade. The tales of days of pain in hands and arms from this method can heard round the world!

My hands would never hold up to long days of that kind of abuse. Besides I like power tools and they save vast amounts of time to say nothing of pain. Downside is of course the cost of the tools and the need to control the sawdust. There will always be sawdust no matter the method. It does help to have a good dust collection system. I have dust collection but it is far from perfect. The black shape you see in the photo is a dust collection hood I use with various tools around the shop. It helps keep the fine dust out of my face and lungs.

Stage one was sizing the timber on the 10 inch tablesaw.

Stage two was routing a decorative edge, you can't see really see that edge on the piece of wood since I took the photo at distance. Note that I am not using a Dremel Motor as a router, I use a 1/4" router for this kind of work. It can be done with a Dremel but I don't care for their router table.

My router table has a special feature that allows me to adjust the height from the top of the table, pure workshop luxury! I just got a digital readout that I will be adding to that router setup so I can tell how many thousandths of an inch I have moved the bit, major pure luxury!

To create the texturing I used my reversible direction Foredom motor with a structured tooth carbide bit to rough up the surface of the wood. The last stage is removing any little fuzzy bits sticking out on the piece of wood. That is quickly achieved with a few swipes of a 3M Scotchbrite pad. That aluminum wool material cuts the fuzzies right off without removing the texture.

My workshop smells great from all the cedar sawdust I have been making.

Cutting edge miniatures

You would think that a new out of the box knife blade would be sharp. Unfortunately that is often not the case, the one you see in the photo was very dull indeed.

An essential item in your tool box should be a small sharpening stone. I purchased the "stone" in the photo from my local hardware store, it is coated with very fine bits of industrial diamonds. Regular sharpening stones are fine too, just as long as you have something on hand to touch up your cutting edges. A small size stone is handy for taking along in a toolbox or stashing in a drawer with your knife.

Working with dull blades is really frustrating, a time waster and you are more likely to get cut. It only takes a few licks across the stone to make working a pleasure and improve accuracy too. The trick is to hold the blade at the same angle as the cutting surface was ground and then push it along the stone as if you were cutting something. One direction only rather than back and forth works best.

Finding Inspiration

Old Fireback

I am a book lover, always have been, always will be. Over the years I have collected quite a few books on old buildings from used book stores. A few of these books in my collection were printed before 1900. That means they are not protected by copyright. Google along with the Gutenberg project has taken to scanning these books and making them available as free downloads. I will give you a sneak peak here of one of the old books in my collection "Art in England" by Aymer Vallance. This book in my collection happens to be available for free as a download from Google. It contains many photos of old half timber buildings and a very good discussion on the design styles and details used on those old buildings. There are also illustrations of furniture, hardware and even needlepoint chair covers.

Here is a link to the free downloadable book from Google. Copy and paste it into your browser.
http://tinyurl.com/mju6jm

When I was browsing through the book at bedtime yesterday I was reading about the subject of firebacks. Firebacks are cast metal plates used at the back of the fireplace to protect the brick work so it last longer. This also helps prevent chimney fires from spreading through cracked mortar on the back wall of the fireplace. What I found interesting was that one method of making the mold for the fireback was pressing objects into a bed of clay then pouring the molten metal over the clay. The impressions in the clay become raised areas. Well how simple is that for making a miniature fireback? Of course we can use resin instead of melting metal. Get some clay, press some design by using metal stampings or other small objects, create a surrounding dam and pour in the epoxy resin. Trim off any flash after the resin is cured and spray paint it flat black. One of the items they pressed into the clay was rope. You can see the rope impressed fireback in the illustration above. Go to page 76 of the book for the discussion on the history of old firebacks.

I love being able to share a good book with all of you.

Santa's workshop under construction

I thought you might enjoy a little excursion into the past back to the time I was building the Santa's workshop. I don't have a lot of photos of that time but I do have a few.

This photo shows the balcony area over the main work room. The balcony rest on the hammer beam truss structure that supports the roof over the workshop.

Have you ever heard of a dollhouse built with two scales? You are looking at one. The the balcony, the box beds and the adjoining room over the kitchen are all sized for the elves. Mr. and Mrs. Claus could never fit into any of those spaces. As I recall the beds are only 3 inches long even though the photo makes them seem larger.

The major style intent was to capture the feel of Victorian era, German Christmas card featuring a snow covered building in a forest. The owner of the dollhouse has many such cards displayed at Christmas time in her Victorian home. The detailing on the dollhouse beams is meant to resemble the hand carved ornamental style of wooden toys or cuckoo clocks from that era rather than a hand adzed beam more typically found in real buildings. There is also a very strong Scandanavian influence in the carvings on the structure and on those built in elf beds. This building has a lot of carving on it and I will show more of that in future postings.


The underlying structure of the dollhouse is a metric plywood, just under 3/8" thick. You can see all the layers of materials in the construction photo. This is a specialty plywood, waterproof glues and almost no voids. I purchase it from a lumber company that supplies to the wooden boat industry in the Pacific Northwest. It is the same plywood I use for my birdhouse building. I feel it is a museum quality way to build a dollhouse although it does make for a heavy house.

The timber framing details are Western Red Cedar. I hand select for dark colored, old growth heartwood with very tight grain patterns. Most cedar is fairly soft but this wood is sometimes so hard it can be difficult get a carving chisel through it.

24 Rue St. Nicholas

Yes there really is a 24 Rue St. Nicholas, it is located in the fascinating, medieval city of Rouen, France. Located at 24 Rue St. Nicholas is perhaps the most charming dollhouse/doll/miniatures store in the whole world. Of course that is just my humble opinion based on my limited travels in the world. The owner of the store gave me permission to photograph, it was very gracious of her.

The photos speak for themselves. Wouldn't this make a great project to do in miniature including the crystal chandelier in the window?

Of course I adore the fact that it is located in a tall medieval timber frame. This type of building is called colombage or pan de bois in French.The old historic district of Rouen is filled with many buildings of that type so take your comfortable walking shoes so you can tour all the twisty, turning lanes they are located along.

Last day of school

I thought you might get a kick out of the contrast in scales I work in and the size of the machines versus the size of the parts they can make. I took the two photos shown above this afternoon, the last day of the spring quarter of the CNC machining course I am taking.

The photo showing only one machine is of a CNC lathe. The lathe is about 6 feet tall but the part I made on it the other day was less than 1/4 inch in diameter and 7/8" long.

The machines in the other photo are all CNC milling machines. We have been making parts on them as well. Obviously these big machines can make large parts but they can also make tiny parts with a high degree of accuracy.

I am really glad I am in the program but thrilled to have the summer off.

Jobs I have done

Once upon a time I was an aircraft mechanic....


A challenge is being passed along in the Blogs from Katiesclaycorner.blogspot.com to tell all about the jobs we have had over the years. Hey isn’t that resume writing? Here is my bedtime read for you today......zzzzz

One early job was right after high school, I worked for a veterinarian doing things like cleaning kennels, feeding and washing dogs and even a little bit of assistance in the exam and operating room. Then a sales job after my freshman year in college that I enjoyed where I earned enough money to run away from home in Texas and move to Seattle. In Seattle I got a boring secretarial job for few months until something fun turned up, architectural drafting. That job paid my way to move to Anchorage, Alaska doing something that helps when designing dollhouses. I was let go when the bosses son got his girlfriend pregnant and he needed his old job back. Back to retail work and college for the next few years as well as becoming a new mom.

All along during this time I was creating fiber and textile art. I made custom clothing, did embroidery and crochet, learned weaving and of course did tie-dye. I also volunteered doing sets and costuming for local theaters and I was chairperson for my local community school where I taught textile arts.

I left Alaska when I divorced my son's father and moved back to Seattle. Being a single Mom I took the best paying job I could find. I became an aircraft mechanic at Boeing. Over the 15 or so years I spent there I learned all kinds of technical things and used many different tools to make and assemble all kinds of things for the airplanes. One of my favorite jobs there was working on that full scale model airplane you see in the photo above. Yes I am the person in the foreground of the photo. One ever useful bit of extra curricular education I began to learn in the late 1980's at Boeing was designing in 3D CAD programs.

I left Boeing in the early 1990's due to  health problems. I decided to take some of my savings and set up a woodworking shop in an unfinished room in our home and then started creating miniature buildings. My husband at that time was an architectural illustrator so I spent time in our own illustration business along with some model making. He was the primary illustrator but I also did hands on work on projects including the one shown here. But truthfully I can't draw all that good mostly because I rarely do it. Being really good at drawing takes lots of  practice and putting in time at it and I just have not caught the bug where I feel I want to devote the time to it. I do stuff the picky color details. Skill I developed with this work that is still useful is how to use photoshop.



A lot of my time used to be taken up with working on real life houses until the crash of the housing market which also coincided with my back getting so bad I could no longer do very much of the bending, lifting and working off tall ladders stuff.  But boy have I learned a lot about houses over the years and could easily host one of those curb appeal and fix it up for sale shows. I am a  house wizard, I can look at a place and know what it needs to make it a hot commodity. That understanding of creating emotional appeal is very important for designing  miniatures. Plus I also know how buildings are put together and all the bits and pieces needed.

A decade ago I went back to college and took more courses in computer technology and engineering technology including more engineering drafting. I also learned how to build computers, write basic programs,  to network computers as well as troubleshoot hardware and software issues. My primary job at the moment is full time student studying CNC machining. I also create miniatures and do some 3D CAD work. When not in school I subcontract my time in CAD drafting, prototype model making, teach occasional classes in building miniatures and work on call as needed for long time clients. However I would like to find a great full time job with good benefits. People think artist must hate working in industry but I love the technical side of what I do, it keeps my brain alive. Update: I retired from working for other companies when I turned 62 as my progressive spine issues no longer allowed long periods of sitting and standing. I also quite taking commissions for making miniatures as my health makes it difficult to meet deadline schedules. I like taking classes but the chairs in schools are so bad for my back that I finally quit going  to courses.

I don’t know what the future will bring along but it is bound to be a new learning experience and that suits me just fine. Whatever it turns out to be I suspect like many skills I have learned I will end up using them making miniatures. My newest venture is becoming a paper architect using the laser cutter and vinyl cutters for intricate cuts on tiny buildings that are only a few inches tall at the most. Everything I have learned along the way somehow ends up being relevant to the making of miniatures.

Visitors to the workshop

My friend and his dog. This very large dog is my security force. He is on guard duty every night and takes his responsibilities very seriously. But it is also fortunate that there are people in the building 24/7. Nice situation to have in a city where one has to be concerned about things like rascals looking for opportunity.

Cats into miniatures

My two Siamese enjoy the miniatures although they can be a little rough on them. This time they opened the door of the case and snuck in there. Any forbidden place or object is just that much more exciting to them. Beans is in the back and Zak is sticking his head out the door. I found this old display case in an antique store and could not resist it. I currently use it to house a 1:12 scale fire engine model.

These two guys love to get into any kind of miniature building they can. I have not told them that the plastic cat carrier they love to sleep in is not exactly an attractive building. Maybe someday I will build them a new bedroom that looks like a fairy tale come to life.

Spring time is for the birds

Just so you are not confused this is a real life birdhouse, not a birdhouse for a dollhouse. I love creating small architectural objects and build them for a number of functions.

Every now and again I will raid the piles of accumulated materials I have gathered and build something. I made this Victorian inspired A frame, chickadee sized birdhouse a few years ago. I used Vermont Green slate roof shingles, a copper pipe for the ridge with a brass stamped cap shaped piece for the ends of the pipe. The green patina solution I put on the copper and brass looks to be a close match in color with the green of the slate. Cutting the slot in the copper pipe to fit over the shingles was the scary part. It was done on a 10 inch table saw, I had to hold the copper pipe in a custom fixture I built.

The walls are made from salvaged tongue and groove boards from a old house I used to live in. I decided to shape the ends of the boards into triangles to repeat the overall shape of the house. The rest of the wood pieces I cut from cedar except for the little dentil molding. That was a dollhouse molding I had sitting around. I gave all the wood a finish of semi-transparent white oil based stain.

It was a rather whimsical and fun project to build and sold just about as soon as it reached the gallery.

Maybe someday I will recreate it as a birdhouse for a dollhouse in 1:12 scale.

1:12 fireplace from real stone

You can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Here are the promised photos of a fireplace I built for a dollhouse. The stone was gathered from a leftover stone pile from a real life chimney in Carmel by the Sea, California. I am able to work this soft limestone with a hammer, chisel and tile nippers. I do cut down larger chunks on a water cooled diamond tile saw although they could be split up by hand just about as easily. There is a hollow plywood box as a form under the stones for the chimney and interior for the fireplace. I hope you enjoy seeing it. Real stone looks so grand and yes so very real. I love the crisp, sharp, broken edges. That would be very difficult to achieve with paper-mache.

As you can tell by the interior scene this is a Christmas themed dollhouse. The elves are busy cooking in the kitchen. More photos of the project below.

Bonjour Poupée

You can enlarge the photos by clicking on the images.

A couple of summer's ago I took my first trip to Europe. I chose to spend several weeks in the Normandy region and the better part of a week in Paris. Now and again I will be posting some of the photos I took. The trip was for me a research excursion to see in person many of the types of real life structures I would like to create in miniature.

As I was touring in some of the towns and villages I began to notice that more than a few people chose to display their dolls in the windows of their homes and apartments.

I thought you would enjoy seeing them and perhaps thinking about doing something like this in your French Cottage.

Good night for a movie

Don't you just love these two architectural models by Timothy Richards? I sure do.

http://www.timothyrichards.com/

Today  I will introduce you to an extraordinaire model maker from Bath, UK., Timothy Richards. You can buy his models in the USA through several sources. His website will tell you where and it is full of great photos of his projects.

I know they are not dollhouses but that does not mean he can't teach us how to build dollhouses.

What I really went crazy for on his web site was a terrific 19 minute film. He shows some of the steps of building his models and the casting molds they are made in and he talks about how hard he tries to capture the spirit of the building, not just the dimensioned details of it. It is really good to hear the artist talking about what moves and inspires him to work at the artistic level of exceptional quality he has achieved. 

Great buildings have soul and and often character that comes only with time and weathering effects. In this film he shows making a detailed brick mold and then aging the molded wall section.

This youtube channel has uploaded a number of films taken in the Timothy Richards studio covering many of the aspects used in the making of the models.
https://www.youtube.com/user/barryjwright/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=0

Where the small power tools live

These two shelving units hold many of the smaller sized power tools I use for creating miniatures. Those of you who might have read my postings in newsgroups over the years will have seen me posting about using them. Now you get to see some of it. Actually this is only 8 feet wide by 18 inches deep of a 57 foot long room that is 15 feet wide.

There are a lot of tools on those two shelving units. A microlux tilt arbor saw, a Jim Byrnes table saw, a couple of Dremel table saws. A grunch of Dremel motors and various drill press stands and also a couple of  router tables and a shaper. A Cameraon deep throat drill press, that was a real jewel I found at a local  second hand tool store. There is a small metal shear, 3 sizes of power miter saws plus a lion miter trimmer. A wire bending tool, lots of jeweler's hammers, pliers, anvils, torches, soldering irons, a resistance soldering machine. Two high speed air turbine carvers, hot knives, air brush and air eraser, foredom carver, power chisel carver, miniature belt sander plus a mini disk sander and a small lathe. I have a diamond lapidary saw with a thin blade that is water cooled for cutting up tile and stone and a scroll saw is tucked in there too. There is a hot polyurethane glue gun as well as a regular glue gun.

If you were wondering why so many miniature saws there are several reasons. One is that I would like to teach more classes on how to use power tools. Another reason is that it is very nice to create a little production line where I have a saw setup for one type of cut such as cutting to width, the next might be setup for the second width rip on the same piece of wood another cut on that part, say a groove down the middle and the third might have a sled jig or jigs for cutting to length at an angle or cutting a notch across the narrow width. This is very handy when creating limited editions of a furniture piece or a building a dollhouse. Of course to have that many saws I need to search for affordable, used miniature saws. But mostly I want the duplicates for teaching classes so 10 students don't have to get in line to use one or two saws.

I keep the miniature tools on the shelves until I am working on a task I need them for. Then I bring the tool over to one of the work tables. I am sure over the next year or two you will see most of these tools come out to play and be shown in use on this blog along with the various jigs used with these tools.

Do I need all this stuff to make birdhouses and dollhouses? Heck no, I am just  a tool junky. It must be phychological compensation for the fact I have a EE size foot and can't buy a closetful of cute shoes so I can dress like a girly girl. It is important to have a ready excuse to blame on your genetics for any over indulgence. My grandfather was a very skilled  man who could fix anything therefore I can't help myself, it is in myDNA to own  tools, a biological imperative.

Acorn Cottage materials

Click on the photo for a closeup, use the back button to close the closeup

I am often asked about the trees that form the timber structure of the cottage, what kind of trees are they and where did I dig them up? I dug them up at the Home Depot in the lumber section, they started out as Western Red Cedar, square lumber spindles for deck railings. Turning them into trees is band saw work as well as carving with a structured tooth carbide bit in a Foredom Motor hand piece  and then a little more detailing with a hand chisel. An amazing number of jigs for the bandsaw and also the routers are used to create this piece. The acorn which tops the cottage was turned on one of my lathes and then detailed with a hot knife. 

I also get a lot of people asking where I got those special leaf shaped shingles. They are ordinary cedar, rectangular, miniature, dollhouse shingles but I shape the end of each one into a leaf by cutting it with scissors. After the glue dried the shingles were wire brushed to soften the edges and give them a time worn appearance. A varied stain of green is applied and a lot of aging solutions along with some brighter green paint here and there for a mossy look. A good looking roof is a great deal of work and thank goodness this is just a small one room cottage.

Most all of the landscaping materials came from the woods except for the moss which I scraped off the docks and the sidewalk near where I live.  The tree closest in this photo is a broken branch from a coral bark maple and the tree on the far side of the cottage is a branch from a curly willow. The stones around the base are local pebbles. The tufty bits that look like grass are the blooms of the moss. The moss has a floral preservative on it. It would turn brown over time but the secret to keeping it looking green forever is to tint it with water color. I mix my own paints so I get a wide range of greens instead of a flat and un-natural looking monotone. The shorter looking grass area is watercolored as well but it is made from the cedar sawdust I get from my power miter saw. The sawdust is much nicer looking than model railroad foam grass and it cost nothing. It is a very common practice in Europe to use sawdust to make grass for miniature projects. It will last a few lifetimes at least. And the moss I use is also long lasting, it won't crumble to dust like Reindeer type moss.

Acorn Cottage Fireplace

Click on the photo for a closeup, use the back button to close the closeup

My what an ornate fireplace for such a humble, woodland cottage. Well that was not unusual in the Cottage Orne style as these were not humble real life dwellings, they were indeed fantasy pieces inspired by the romantic notion that the simple life was the good life. Creature comforts and luxury along with the arts were part of the fantasy.

This fireplace beneath its faux limestone finish is of humble origins, it is EPS blue insulation builders foam. I bet you would never have guessed that. I designed the fireplace on the computer and then carved it using burrs in a computer driven milling machine. It was cut as 5 pieces and then glued together. The stone block lines were detailed in by hand. The stone finish is acrylic paint, no stucco coating as that would hide the fine details in the foam.

I made the grate for the fireplace as well as the chandelier from various bits and pieces of brass and solder. The light bulbs in the chandelier were tinted a warm golden color with Krylon yellow, stained glass spray paint. Squirt a little into a cup and paint it onto the bulb with a brush. What a warm glow it gives the room and it takes away that harsh white glare of very bright miniature light bulbs. The fireplace bulbs were coated with the red and orange versions of the stained glass, spray paint.

The ceiling has a mural of a cloudy sky with just a hint of sunset pink glow to the edges of the clouds. I never would have thought I could paint a convincing sky but it is easy and someday I will show you how to do this.

The print on the wall is from "Les Tres Riches Heures" a devotional book of hours commissioned by the Duc du Berry. I felt the gothic arches in the print went nicely with the gothic detailing on the Acorn Cottage. Tall trees with arching branches in the forest inspiring the arches inside a cathedral all celebrating the glory of God was a common thought in the olden days. Of course my project is simply a cottage in the woods but maybe you will find it inspirational in some small way.

Acorn Cottage Interior

Click on the photo for a closeup, use the back button to close the closeup

The interior of the cottage was my fantasy for a music room where one could slip away for a quiet afternoon, a private concert or a cozy read by the fire and cup of tea.  Much of the furniture is by Bespaq and was chosen for its small size for a small space.

Acorn Cottage 1:12 Dollhouse

Click on the photo for a closeup, use the back button to close the closeup

The Acorn Cottage is a small one room dollhouse I built a few years ago. It is now owned by Sue Herber of Seattle, WA.  Sue Herber is the chairperson for the N.A.M.E 2010 national convention that will be held in Seattle, WA. Sue has told me she intends to display this piece at the convention. She will have it furnished with her own items and I am sure it will be  delighfull.

In the mid to late 1800's and early 1900's it was fashionable in Europe to build picturesque cottages on the estates of royalty and the wealthy. The style was sometimes referred to as Cottage Orne or Ornee.  My design was inspired by those small buildings. 

All of my original designs have been copyrighted. You may not  make copies of them, this includes the Acorn Cottage presented here.

Karin Corbin

COPYRIGHT
Unless otherwise attributed, all photographs, images, and writing on these pages are my exclusive property and are protected under United States and International copyright laws. You may not use the photographs, downloaded copies of my miniatures or written words, you can not reproduce them, copy them, store them or change/manipulate them in anyway without my expressed written permission.