Medieval Shop Buildings

Hi! So, I've been taking about my medieval shops for awhile, but I haven't ever posted pictures, so here they are:

This building is going to be my fish market.

This building is going to be the butcher.

This building is going to be my bakery.

 So, as you can see, lots of work has gone into these buildings, but there is still lots to be done. I still have to use my wallboard joint complex and brick all of the corners of my buildings. I also have to build and install ledges in my big windows for meat displays. The roof tiles you see on the two side building are terracotta tiles. My mom and I are making them using terracotta colored paper. we curl, score, shape, and glue the tiles onto our roof in strips. After they are glued on completely, we will stain them to make them dirty, and put a protective coat of modge podge over them.

After the buildings themselves are done, we have to decorate the inside, and finish making our cobble stone base. Here's a picture of the cobble stones in progress:

To make the stones, we are cutting egg cartons into stone shaped pieces. Then, I'm taking glue and gluing our "stones" to a wooden base. Once all the stones are finish being glued, we will use wallboard joint compound and grout in between each stone. Lastly, we will paint the stones a nice color, and oila! I hope it works.

Well, that's the building so far. If we finish before July 2, my mom and I will enter an online contest with our house, which will give us a chance to earn up to $500. I hope we finish. $500 could found our dollhouse exploits for a long time...

Bye!

Cake Pictures

Hi! Here are the pictures of the cakes I made. I'm not going to write how I made them; If you want to know, go to the cake tutorial in the post below this one. Here are pics:

This is a chocolate, light pink frosted cake, topped with three chocolate roses.

This is a vanilla cake with light pink frosting, topped with three bright pink roses.

This is my vanilla frosted red-velvet cake, topped with three blood red roses.

This is a vanilla frosted lemon cake topped with three yellow roses.

As you can see, I kinda went to town on the roses, but they look the nicest on cakes. I'll post about my almost finished medieval buildings next. Bye!

Hi! So, I just found the most amazing cake tutorial ever. Here's the website: http://www.cdhm.org/tutorials/making-a-miniature-cake.html. This is the best. It made the cakes I'm making look sooooo professional. I'll post pics of them soon. Also, if you have time, please check out this blog: http://cynthiascottagedesign.blogspot.com/. Bye!

Lots and Lots of Medieval Food

Hi! I have finally completed all of my medieval fruits, vegetables, meats, and fishes. I've been working very hard on all of them. If there is a certain type you want to know how to make, just comment below!



Here are my meats! On the top right, I have two different types of sausages. On the bottom right, I have some lamb legs. Bottom left are geese. Above the geese, I have a hanging pig, a turkey, dead rabbits, roast turkeys, a roasted boars head, hanging fowls, and stakes.



Top right I have some eels, next to them, I have some little crawdads. Next, I have some river fish in a basket. Below the basket of fish, I have some mackerels. I then have some rainbow trout, fish stakes and some large fish.



These are leeks.

These are yellow and green pears.



These are figs, freshly picked.



  

These are apples.

These are peaches.

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These are plums.

These are carrots.









These are cabbages.

So, as you can see I have been hard at work. I hope you like all the food!!!!



Finished Plague Victims and Dead Bodies

Hi! I have finally completed my bodies and dead people! Here are pics:



To make my linen wrapped body look dirty and gross, I used dry (not oil) artists pastels. I scribbled with the brown pastel on a piece of paper and mixed it with an teeny tiny bit of water. I then used my finger to spread the pastel over the body in smudges.




Here is a picture of my finished dead cart with the bodies. I stained the dead cart a darker color, used a thin black wash over it, and then scored it with the blunt end of a craft knife, to make it look like there are many planks nailed together to built the cart. I also used a super fine tipped black sharpie marker to dot little nail holes.




Here are pictures of my finish living, or freshly deceased, plague victims. I used blue and black pastels mixed with water to give my people a blueish black tinge. The lady in green is gonna have a head covering and be a dead body, because she has plastic hair, which I don't like.



As you can see,  all my dead people are looking a lot more realistic and dead. Here's one more picture of a new creation:



This is a tiny jar of leeches for my plague hospital. To make it, I first used black clay and made some leeches mirroring those I found in pictures. My favorite leech picture that I mirrored my tiny ones on is below. After I baked my leeches, I used a hardening clear liquid, like scenic water. I melted this with a makeshift double boiler and poured it in my jar in layers, putting in the leeches a few at a time. I put in my cork and I was done! I'm going to cover the cork with a brown linen, but other then that, I'm finished!



So, as you can see I'm really progressing fast. I'll be posting pics of my medieval food dollhouse soon. I've mostly glued it together, so hopefully (cross you fingers for me) it will be done by the end of the week.

Bye!

Building

Hi! Sorry I haven't posted for awhile. I've been really busy. I was just cast in the show called Annie, so I've had rehearsals and stuff. However, I have got lots of work done on my doll houses. My mom and I have decided to enter a competition with medieval meat, fish, vegetable, and bakery shops, so I now have two doll houses to work on.

For the plague hospital, I have been doing a lot of work. So far, I have my wooden shell put together, bricked, and painted the base color. Here are pics of each step:

(Sorry the pic is sideways... I'm not very computer savvy and I couldn't figure out how to rotate it. to do the bircks, I used some stuf that comes in a red tub called "Wallboard Joint Complex. It comes in gigantic tubs the are sold at ace hardware, probably home depot, and other such stores. The consistancy of it is thick and goopy. After spreading it on my wooden structures, I used a flexible plastic palate knife the trace brick lines in it, leaving blank lines the thinkness of my second floor, so I can just pop it in easily. After my bricks were dry, i painted with with a paint color called "Latte", as a base coat.)



This is the painted building. Over the latte base paint, I used a maple water based stains, mixed with water (always mix paints with some water, It helps them spread, and makes your paint last longer. Just be careful about your added water quantities, you don't want too much) and lightly coated my bricks. I then gently used a rag to dab away the extra paint. Over this, I paint a very watery wash of the latte color, which I almost immediately wiped away. I then used a water black wash, and a watery burnt sienna wash to paint a few random brick different colors. I wiped the excess from these, and tah dah!!!! My bricks were done!!!





For the floor, I first painted it a base color of mud stone paint, then i did a series of washes of brown and finally a VERY watery wash of black. If you make one, just keep experimenting until you get the look you want.

I've also been hard at work on bricking and painting my shop buildings, but the look pretty much the same as the plague hospital, so I won't show you pics until it's all put together.

All I have left to do for the plague hospital is put in my second floor, my roof, and decorate my interior, as well as strategically place the rat i made!!!! But, I'll write more on my rats, and my finish dead people and bodies in my next post!!! Bye!



       

Cannoli

Hi! The other day, I was craving some Italian pastries called cannoli. As they don't sell them in the US, I decided to attempt to satisfy my craving by making some doll house cannolis. It didn't work... But, I did make some pretty cool pastries! I made the cannoli shells using beige clay textured with fake sand. I then baked and filled the shells with wallboard joint compound mixed with acrylic paint. After the filling in the shells dried, I glued three vanilla and three chocolate onto real porcelain trays. Hop you like them!Bye!

Fish Tray

Hi! Here is the fish tray I made:

The bunches of green are parsley. To make them, I pushed softened polymer clay through a fine colander. Be careful if you try this. It is hard to clean the clay out of the sieve, especially if your colander if super. I placed my fish, parsley, and some lemon slices on a tray I made myself out of clay. I hope you like it!

Meat

Hi! I've been making meat lately for my butcher shop. Here are pics:

These are made out of polymer clay. The darker reddish pieces or meat are lamb legs. The lighter pink ones are hams.

These are sausages. I used a mix of translucent clay, a bit of red and terracotta clay, and a pinch of parsley flakes and Cayenne pepper. They smell really nice for real! I am planning to make about 5 more sausage strings, two more in this color, and three more in a darker red color.

These are my birds to hang in the shop. The light colored big one is a dead goose. The darker ones are beheaded pheasants. Again, these are all made from polymer clay. I'll post a fish tray I made soon.

Bye!

More Cakes and Pies and Sugared Roses and Plums...

Hi! I've been busy making lots of cakes! Here are pics:

These Cakes are all made of Polymer caly (textured with corn flour), Wallboard joint compoud with a bunch of acrylic paint mixed in (for frosting on cakes), and tiny roses or rosettes I made using a mold and polymer clay.

These are 3-tiered wedding cakes.

This is the best cake I made. It's a red vevelt cake with roses and vanilla frosting. Doesn't that make you hungry? I'm just glad my mini cakes turned out better than my edible cakes. I can never make an edible cake just right. They always end up looking sloppy...

Here is a berry pie I made for fun. It is filled with rasberries, strawberries, blueberries, and black berries. l my beries are made from clay, which I then glazed with clear nailpolish after baking.

I made these Surgared roses and plums awhile ago for a sweetmeat shop (a sort of candy shop for medieval people).

Those are all of my baked goods. I'll post my other creations soon - meat!

Bye!

Finished Apothecary

Hi! My mom and I recently finished our apothecary shop! An apothecary is like a medieval pharmacy. Here are pics:

My mom did most of the work on the apothecary, but i did help a good amount. I made the door handles from polymer clay. I also did the bricks myself. I helped my mom make the candles, which we made using really thin candles and cuting and burning them, and I also helped filling jars and making books and posters. Everything else was done by my wonderful mother while I was making clay food. If you have any questions, feel free to comment!

Medieval Oven for a Butcher Shop

Hi! So, my mom and I are also working on making a row of medieval shops, my plague dolls house and food being part of our larger project. Tonight, I worked on making a medieval oven. Here are some pics:

First of all, I started with a plain piece of foam board, a very sharp craft knife (as I found out from experience), a pencil, and a ruler. I first measured my foam board and cut it to 8 inches tall by 11 1/2 inches wide. I then measured a space for my oven in the middle, and cut out a large rectangle. This was rather difficult, and as I mentioned above, I found out just how sharp my knife was when I happened to miss the foam and cut my finger. After a five minute intercession of waiting for the bleeding to stop, I was right back on cutting my foam board. Once I was done cutting out my rectangle, it was time for stage two.

Stage two was creating the oven. I basically made a simple foam box with four solid sides, leaving the front and bottom open. For my front, I cut two windows out of a properly sized piece of foam and then glued that on the front, using flat headed pins to hold everything together while the glue dried. I left the bottom open. For tonight, that is as far as I got. Next, with my mom's help, I will use paper clay (air drying clay) to cover my foam base and then I will carve brick outlines into the clay. we'll see how it turns out. However, while I was hard at work with foam, my mom painted the bricks on our apothecary. Here are pictures:

I'll post pics of the buildings as soon as they are finished. Bye!

Roast Pigeons, Roasting Spit Pigs, and Grapes

Hi! So, today I was hard at work again! I made roast pigeons and pigs. Here are pics:

For the pigeons, I took ochre colored clay and first shaped it into triangular-ish balls. I then used a toothpick to draw a line down the center of my bird. I then used a fine sieve to texture the ends of my birds. I took thin rolls of clay and made wings and legs. I then dusted each bird with a mix of gold, brown, and reddish brown colored pastels. In between each I put watercress bunches and turnips i made.

This is my real fest for the day, a roasting pig. I made the animal from beige clay and then brushed it with the same colors of pastels as I used for my roast pigeons. I also made the roasting spit. I still need to glaze my pig with nail polish, but other than that, it's finished!

Lastly, my amazing mother made grapes for me today. She made them by rolling wine reddish purple clay and translucent clay with a touch of green in it into tiny balls, and pressed them into bunches. She made all the grapes in this basket except for the tiny lighter purple bunch with a clay leaf towards the top pf the basket, which I made a few days ago. I love my mom's grapes! She doesn't like them as much since seeing my bunch, but I don't get why, because hers are just as good if not better than mine. If there is anything you really want me to try and make, just comment below and I will try to make it. Bye!