Inspiration : colour & metal framed chairs.

More inspiration from Elle Decoration (more metal framed chairs, & more bright colour <3).    This time from the January 2015 issue, which featured a small guesthouse in Bethnal Green, designed by the Danish designer Nina Tolstrup & husband Jack Mama of STUDIOMAMA, & some very dashing orange metal framed chairs which grabbed my attention.

I'd just been admiring Pepper's gorgeous orange kitchen for her Fenton Lodge & thought of her when I saw the chairs.

Love the Danish daybed/sofa (which reminds me so much of the 1958 Mattel Modern sofa) & the blue bench/coat rack.

I'd only seen one thing by STUDIOMAMA before - the On Off clock made for Lexxon in 2006, but lots more products & furniture can be seen at their website.  I really like their pewter bowls & love the orange Re-Imagine chairs they used in their guesthouse. 

 

For their Re-Imagine chair they took salvaged chairs that they found in a pile near their East London studio. The chairs were stripped down to their frames before new seats, backrests & armrests were added, then finished with colourful paint and upholstery.

Photos: by Ben Anders from dwell.com, via emilyescaped.co.uk, studiomama.com, & dezeen.com.

This morning I swapped out the windows from my new set - the shutters on my original house are a deeper & slightly less orangey red than the shutters on the new window + my original frames are a lot whiter, so I swapped out the panes from the new window & put them in my old frame with the original shutters.  I was a bit worried that in trying to get them out I'd crack the plastic or snap off the hinge nobs.  They were difficult to get out, but thankfully there were no breakages & the window is now ready to go back in the house.  One tiny step forward!

Catching up + Obsessions : Franz West Uncle chairs.

I have a pile of Elle Decoration from January this year onwards to catch up on, what with everything that has been going on since January I haven't had time or inclination to peruse them until now.

I got a replacement window in the mail today - my Lundby Dream House has all its shutters, but had a missing window pane, so now all the windows will be complete. 

As I'm getting back into the swing of things I've been thinking about things I'd love to try to make in miniature. One of them being the Uncle chair by Franz West.

 Photo: Christies

Franz West (1947-2012) was an Austrian artist & furniture designer. His Onkel Stuhl (Uncle Stool) were made in the 2000's & are brightly coloured synthetic straps woven over a steel tubular frame (86 x 51 x 55 cm).

With the colours & patterns created with the straps they remind me a lot of African textiles - they're very much like nwentom/kente cloth, a fabric made by the Akan (from West Africa - Ghana, the Ivory Coast & Benin) which is made from brightly coloured interwoven silk or cotton cloth strips.

 

Photos: Artforum magazine cover, October 2009 via Tumblr.

I particularly love how they were used in this kitchen, designed by India Madhavi in this Parisian loft apartment.

 

Photos: by Matthew Salvaing for admagazine.fr

I'm wondering if I could make some from wire with paper or flexible plastic in bright colours for the seats & backs (I'm sure these 2 tutorials would be very helpful - 1 & 2).  Something to think about..

Where the heart is..

I thought I'd take some quick photos of the most recent house I added to my little collection - it's the same as Caroline's Home made by Barton, but came out some time in the 80's after Lundby took over Barton in 1984 & sold as "The Dream House".  I bought it about a year & a half ago & haven't done anything yet, other than cleaning it up a bit, but I think it'll be a good place to start.

It's probably silly, but i'm so nervous about redecorating & making a mess of things, but this house is screaming out for some TLC & attention.  It's not in horrible condition, but it's far from mint, so I don't feel precious about it which helps my nervousness.   I'm thinking of totally redecorating not only the inside, but the outside.  I love the red door & shutters, but i can imagine the exterior could look great with some work.

The first dollhouse furniture I ever had was actually Caroline's Home furniture by Barton.  I didn't have the Caroline's Home house, but I clearly remember having a number of the items made for it when I was very little (5 or 6 years old).  I had the bedroom set (wardrobe, dressing table, bed), a sideboard & bearskin rug, pots & pans, plates of food & a pink tea set, a rocking horse, & maybe a pink & black bathroom set (bath, toilet, sink, which I think might have been Lundby rather than Barton), a cot & grandfather clock.  I'm not sure what happened to my first dollhouse or the furniture & accessories I had for it.  My Mum & I lived with my Grandparents until I was 6 years old. I can't remember the dollhouse coming with us when we moved & have no idea what happened to it.

 

 

 

 

I think I'm going to swtich the layout of the downstairs - most often I see the ground floor room on the left as the kitchen, with the larger room with the stairs as the living room.  I think the bottom left room works better as a kitchen when it's in the version of Caroline's Home with a window on the back wall, but for this version I think it will make a better living room/snug, with the larger room being a big open plan kitchen/dining room.

For the upstairs I know there's going to be a main bedroom & bathroom, but I'm not sure what the third room will be yet & I'm not sure what the layout will be like, that will all depend on where the furniture fits best.  At the moment I think the third upstairs room might be an office/craft room.

Anyway, yet another project & lots to do.. I haven't bought any of the furniture I want to use for it yet, I have pieces in mind for the bathroom, & kitchen/dining room, but I have no idea what i'll use yet for the living room & bedroom.   

A little inspiration..

A Dolls House - I completely missed out on this when it was actually happening in 2013 (during the period I was without a computer & internet access), & only found out about it more recently, but felt very inspired when I saw some of the doll houses made for the project.

In 2013 Cathedral Group asked 20 architects & designers to design & build a dolls house.  The brief was to make a house suitable for a 750mm x 750mm plinth & include one unique feature to make life easier for a child with a disability.  The completed houses were auctioned by Bonhams in November 2013, with the £90,000 raised going to the disabled children's charity KIDS.

The designers who participated in the project were Zaha Hadid, Rogers, Stirk, Harbour + Partners, David Adjaye, MAKE, AHMM, FAT, Studio Egret West, ShedKM, dRMM, Duggan Morris, Morag Myerscough, Glenn Howells, Mae, DRDH, FCBS, Guy Hollaway, Amanda Levete, Phil Coffey, Amodels and HL, alongside other collaborators who worked with the designers & architects.  The project was inspired by Edwin Lutyens 1924 dolls house for Queen Mary which more than 1,500 artists, designers & craftspeople contributed to.  In the same spirit, Cathedral Group challenged the 20 architects & designers to work with their own artist, designer, and furniture-maker collaborators to make the end products even more special.

My particular favourites are the AHMM, Duggan Morris, & Coffey houses, followed by the Mae, SHEDKM, & Adjaye Associates houses. 

  

 

 

 

All photos from cathedralgroup.tumblr & adollshouse

What's aristocratic about this forest?

Well, it's been a while hasn't it..  I've been meaning to start posting again here for some time now but wasn't sure where to start. 

The last few years have been difficult, amongst other things my Grandfather was in hospital for much of last year & was very ill until he died in January, I was diagnosed with M.E. in April last year (a month before my Grandfather was admitted to hospital with a brain abscess), & for a year & a half or so of the 4 years since I last posted here I had no computer or internet access from home which made updating this blog & keeping up to date with my favourite miniature blogs impossible.

Not so much has been going on in the Mame houses, but my Mame family has grown in the past few years & I'm hoping to start working on their houses again at some point.  I also added another house to my little collection of Lundby houses, an extra floor for the ELC house + some new inhabitants to live alongside the Mames.  I haven't added much furniture to my collection, but I did buy lots of wallpaper, though I haven't done anything with it yet.

Significantly, I finally completed my collection of Mame Momokos about a month ago & now have all 37 of the Mame Momokos that were released between 2004 & 2006.   The last on my list to get was Ichigo Shirayuri, a limited edition collaboration release from 2004, based on the character from the film Shimotsuma Monogatari (Kamikaze Girls).  I really enjoyed the film when I saw it years ago & have been meaning to watch it again.

Anyway, hi again if anyone is reading this! 

Little Red Riding Hoodie..

Very little has changed in the Mame houses recently, as I've been concentrating on trying to improve & gain confidence in my sewing.

I started out trying to make an outfit for a larger (1:6) doll, who is a clone of a vintage doll, Mary-chan, made by Shiba.  I made her a t-shirt, knee socks & a dungaree dress (not pictured) & ended up also making her an A-line denim skirt with a box pleat & top stitching + matching denim messenger bag that can also be worn with the t-shirt & socks.

In a moment of madness, I also decided to try & use some of the red ribbed jersey scraps that were left over to try & make a sleeveless hoodie for the Mame Momokos (from a pattern in Dolly Dolly Coordinate Recipe #4), but I'm glad I tried because I think it turned out well for my first attempt sewing something so tiny.

I thought I'd have to sew it all by hand, but managed to do all but the armholes on my sewing machine, a big relief, because I hate hand sewing.

Mames make me laugh, they can look like such grumpy little thugs. Mame Hollis from the back reminded me of a gunslinger, all she needs now is a pair of Playmobil pistols, a cowgirl outfit & some Ennio Morricone music.

A thing of beauty..

Some quick photos of my beautiful mini wall-unit/room divider made by Mitchy Moo Miniatures.

It's based on a G-Plan Librenza 880.  I wanted a piece that was more similar in style to the 1950's version of the Librenza 880, but had the dimensions (slightly lower & wider) of the later 1960's version.

Pepper did a great job translating this into miniature & I feel really honored to own one of her pieces, it's beautifully made & just what I wanted.  The piece is made of spruce, stained in dark oak, with white formica fronts on some of the cupboard doors.

It arrived almost a week & a half ago, but after what must have been some rough handling by Royal Mail (grrr!) the top section of the Librenza had shaken loose in transit.  I ordered some of the same wood glue that Pepper uses, & with some helpful advice from Pepper, was able to re-attach it.  Hopefully it looks OK, I was very nervous about doing a poor job & spoiling it.

All the cupboard doors & drawers open & I'm looking forward to digging out more miniatures to display on it & taking some better photos of it (once my current bout of vertigo has passed & I stop feeling dizzy & disorientated every time I move).  The Re-Ment displayed on the Librenza so far are from the 2005 Table Ware Collection set.