The Mad Hatter's Hat Making Table

At last, Ive finally got round to taking pics of my Mad Hatters hat making table!

A few months ago I bought yet another room box cheaply on ebay. This was a long narrow room with perfect dimensions for my version of the Mad Hatters room from the new Tim Burton Movie.
In the film, the Hatter has a work table, beautiful dressing table for the queen to preen herself, and a pretty chaise .

The roombox all needs redecoration and lighting but in the mean time I just couldnt resist starting on some of the internal furniture!

I have lots of furniture I could use in the room, but had trouble finding a suitable table. Eventually the perfect ornate table came up on ebay and I set to work

Id like to thank Nikki Rowe for her immense help and loads of tips and advice. I had secretly hoped Nikki would take on the project for me, having seen her fantastic witches hat making tables but I knew that Nikki dosnt really like to take on comissions so instead I took all her advice in hand and got started on it myself!
Thanks too have to go to Kat the Hat for sending me loads of trim, beads, material, and lots more that she had knowing it would suit my project! I could never done it without you two so huge hugs! And also to Susan for all her help on my questions I bombarded her with after seeing her own fantastic Alice Hatter room scene. Seeing this room really spurred me on to get on with my own and inspired me no end! Plus Susan was so kind and helpful with how to make and buy different things I needed in the room.

So now onto the table itself. I bought this deep mahogony table and chairs and edged the table in gold and re-upholstered the chair with red velvety material, gold trim and a heart shaped decoration.

The the fun began!! I made lots of different size cotton reels, some from balsa wood dowel and buttons, some from....well just about whatever I could cut up really. I was cutting up the children's pencils and all sorts to get differing widths and sizes of reels. I decorated each top with a tiny logo . I chose 2 logos, one of a vintage style Hatter hat and one of the Hatter himself but not Johnny Depp, the older Lewis Carol Hatter, which was more colourful and showed up clearer than the Depp images I found.


I made several with ribbon, some with thread, some with trims. I also made lots of pieces of card with the Hatter logo which I wound ribbons and trims around. I made stacks and rolls of materials.

Then I continued to dress the table with jars of feathers, beads, buttons, bottles, hatpins etc etc



The fantastic hat pins, hats and the unmade hat on the right of the table are all made exclusively for me by dear Kat!



It took quite a while and I kept changing the layout until I was happy enough to start sticking it all into place. After all with all these little fingers in the house I dare not leave it all loose!

I had a couple of gaps left on the table top and then something spooky happened. Id tried and tried to make a pincushion and just couldn't get it right. Then I recieved my parcel of perfume bottle displays I had ordered from Victoria of on Etsy and in there was a little bag of goodies that Victoria had made and sent me knowing I was doing the table! In it was the cutest little red pin cushion on a c cotton reel, a pair of oversized dressmaker scissors which was exactly what I was after, and a yard stick Victoria had also made herself!! Just wonderful minis, so thankyou Victoria, it all came at the perfect time!! I can still see a couple of little gaps that I can fit some tiny buttons etc in to fill them up . Funny how you notice them when you take pictures!



I dressed the table top and then got to work on stacks of material , hat boxes, patterns, cotton reel boxes etc for underneath the table so the whole setting looks really stacked with things to look at.

I had so much fun making the table that I got to work on an old sewing machine on a small table I have had sitting in a box for years and this will go next to the table, as I just didnt have enough room on the table itself for him to do his sewing.



So , hope you like it so far, I think the Hatter will when he gets here!



I now have a great material holder to decorate with reems of material and the chaise to reupholster.

Soon I will have finished the dressing table which Im so excited about as once again another brilliant blogging friend has made lots of exceptional miniatures for it which I cant wait to show off! I am waiting on the parcel with them and then will start to to dress the furniture this week!

I am also awaiting a totally unique and amazing creation made for me by another talented, lovely fellow blogger and friend which is all hush hush until it arrives then it will blow you away!

I suppose I best get to work on the decorating too, not much point in having all this fun furniture and no where to put it all to show it off!!

Eva's Wonderful Dragon Miniatures!

Staying on the Dragon theme now

In the holidays I ordered 2 great miniatures from the lovely Eva
http://mini-escenas.blogspot.com/ for mine and Emily's projects and at last have the time to show them off to you all.

I was lucky enough to buy the dragon tail board and potion board from Eva's Etsy store http://www.etsy.com/shop/evamini
before anyone else did and they came really quickly and we both love them, they are beautifully detailed .
Thankyou Eva for such treasures. We are proud to be able to have some of your creations in our projects and hope to come back for more soon !

Im trying to do as many posts as I can on my new minis as Lola is wanting me to help her out with photos etc so she can do her blog posts so watch out for Lolas blog soon too as she has some darling new minis too!

Now meet the Queen of the Dragons!!

I mean this in the nicest way!!!

I have bought many miniature birds and animals from the ever-so talented and lovely Nicky Cooper, and always thought of her as the queen of birds and wildlife, although I soon discovered she makes the most beautiful dolls also.

Well a few weeks ago Nicky made something with a difference and I think I can safely say that ever since that, her love of these little fellows and our love of them too, has grown and grown.

Nicky made a dragon head plaque and called him 'Ice' he was just incredible and I knew Emily would love him for her Merlin room. So I was lucky enough to buy him.




THEN a few days later Emily saw that Nicky had made another dragon and she loved it even more as its style was more suited to her project and so I bought her 'Midnight' and she just adores him! I was quite chuffed as it meant I could keep Ice for myself and we had one each!


When he arrived, in the parcel was a gift from Nicky of something she had been experimenting with, a baby Ice hatching out of his egg. He is precious and will go in the Potter house in Dumbeldore's office for him to look after.

Since those first couple of dragons , it has just gone mad for Nicky, she has created loads more dragons on plaques, dragon babies, naughty twins, dragon fountains, the list goes on and on. I think she must be working from dawn to dusk and the quality is just superb!!

Please check out Nickys wonderful work on her ebay page.
http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/nickycc41/
You will soon see from the great feedback how many people are loving these new creations!

And its not just dragons, but Nicky is also making other fantasy work, and next week I hope to get a very special piece that leapt out at me for Dumbeldore's office that I was very very lucky to win! He is this amazing Firebird which will proudly mount on the study wall! Cant wait to get him!


These are new, original and creative miniatures that are taking the miniature scene by storm, hence why I now call Nicky the 'Queen of the Dragons!!'

Fabulous Alice minis

Well as promised here are pictures of some of my Alice in Wonderland Miniatures. Sorry the pictures arnt great, my good camera is playing up so using my old one whos macro leaves a lot to be desired!! I have used some of the actual pictures from the miniaturists etsy sites on some of the minis where I could.

Firstly I was so delighted to see Susan from http://tabithacorsica.blogspot.com/was selling some beautiful sweet treats on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/tabithacorsica, which were perfect in their style for my Alice table scene.




Look at the detail they are just stunning and so beautifully made. The stands are filagree and heart shaped too and each tiny candy has dainty little details, my favourites being the white with red hearts! You just know the Red Queen will want them all to herself!



I was a dope and forgot to tell Susan about the customs charges once US parcels come into the UK and so got that dreaded customs bill to pay and so the lovely Susan very kindly sent me another fab parcel of goodies to compensate for this and look at the cool red queen cupcakes and the halloween display set and an adorable plate of tiny little chocolates which are going straight in my candy store thankyou so very much Susan! Lola was happy too with some cute little cupcakes of her own. As I said to Susan the scale of these little candies is just perfect. So many times I have ordered from ebay from unknown sellers and been a tad dissapointed in sweets and cakes being far too large but Susan makes them just right and hoping they will be on the table soon so you can see them in situ at the tea party. Its always so lovely to have the work of friends and fellow bloggers in my projects!

I also have a big thankyou to say to the wonderful Lory
( Etsy store is http://www.etsy.com/shop/64tnt , dont forget to take a look at all the wonders on there!) who made such amazing Alice themed goodies for me! I emailed Lory as I have bought from her many times before and just love her work, she is so very talented. I asked Lory to make me some cakes similar to some valentine ones shes made before but when I told her the setting was to be Alice she told me she was already planning and making Alice minis and would give me first refusal, how kind!!

Although I loved them all, I had to be good to keep in budget and so bought 2 beautiful sets of Alice cupcakes.


I later ordered the yellow and white daisy cake from Lory's Etsy store once Id saved a few more pennies . I love them all , as always with Lory's work they are just perfection! !! I also bought a dainty red heart style teapot but it wont have its picture taken so that can be saved for later!



Trying to follow the look of the picture I am using for inspiration of the tea party , I was also on the look out for a strawberry cheescake and saw the perfect one by Kerry Fawcett of
http://ella-roseminis.blogspot.com/ , and just adore the tiny little berries , its so realistic thankyou Kerry!


I have loads of Kerrys minis in my candy store and am always delighted with Kerrys work Kerry sells on ebay , here is the link and I noticed she has some really cool Halloween minis on right now so take a look! http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/ella-rose36

So Im getting there, slowly and surely.

NEXT.......those magnificent dragons!!!

And of Course they could ONLY be Kats Fabulous Alice Hats!!!

Of course my new hats could only be from Kat the Hat herself, who else!!

I bought a great long narrow room box a while back and decided it was the ideal Alice Hatter room and have been busy picking out furniture and dressing it, reupholstering etc, and all I have to do now is decide on the actual flooring and wall covering and it can all go in.

Of course I Had to have several of the Red Queen's Hats and there was only one person to ask and Kat gladly took up the task. I think you can see for yourselves from the pictures, that Kat really enjoyed making them, and Id like to say the biggest thank you as Kat made these at the very difficult time for her when her lovely Nan had just passed away. Although I told her to leave them for a while she wanted to finish them and said it helped take her mind off things and cheer her up abit so I'm glad they did that Kat, and you can really see how much hard work, imagination and perfection has gone into making each and every one!

Kat made up the designs, just using a few pictures for the film and from props used in the film as inspiration and her own materials and she then kindly gave some to me to use in the room box. Kat knows how I love over the top Hats, with lots of feathers and embellishments so these were exactly what I had in mind and more!!

The stands were once again ideas from Kat but made by myself. Kat suggested I take apart old hat stands and replace the centre shaft with a longer stem. For this I used bannisters! With the others, I used old wooden wheels and polystyrene circles from Hobbycraft, and for 2 of the others, I used wire and fimo and then added detailing to them, baked them and added fancy filagree feet! Then I just painted and gilded them.
This gives me all sorts of varieties in height for displaying the hats on.

All of the Hats except one will be standing on display in the room box. The hat on the small stand is for my hat table, as is an unfinished hat Kat sent me .

Thankyou Dear Kat for all these special and wonderful creations, and for all the extra goodies you sent me. When you see the table I think you will see just how much I have managed to use on the project and I'm hoping you will love the result as much as I do!!

But before I show off the table, I have more Fabulous Alice goodies to show you from other friends and fellow bloggers so don't go away!!!

Plus the most fantastic new dragons to show off to you which you will adore as i do, just the very best of work from another blogging friend!

Oh My Giddy Hare!!

With 1 more day this week of some peace and quiet, I can show you my 3rd parcel this week, and the latest in my miniatures that I am collecting for my 2 Alice projects.

Although progress on my actual decor for the Tea Party and Hatter hat room are slower than Id like, I have dressed several pieces for both projects which I will show next week.

I have though collected many minis both large and small for both projects and this is one of the bigger ones!!

I asked Jain of http://giddykippercharacters.blogspot.com/ for a Mad hare as her first Hare sold in seconds at KDF in May.

So here he is and just outstanding I think you will all agree!

Jain dressed him exactly as I asked her, with little stripy trousers, waistcoat and tie and a lovely grey textured jacket!

I will have him stood on a chair throwing a teapot I think, although Emily wants him holding a spoon in hand, she loves that part of the film where he just examines the cutlery saying 'SPOON!!!' in his crazy harebrained manner!!

I think he is very Burtonish, as is Dormouse, but with Jains Giddy twist and we all love him so very much and thank Jain for all her hard work and for getting her mojo back to finish him for me so quickly!!

He is residing in the Hat room at present keeping an eye on my table, hope he dosnt mess it up before I get chance to show you it !

So I now have 3 Alice dolls, which will be next on my list I wonder !

Coming up next, my fabulous new Alice in Wonderland Red Queen Hats , made by..........well, they could only be by one lady of course couldnt they!!! Please come back to see them!

Catch up Number 2, Another US Marvel!

My second parcel this week is from another fellow blogger , and extremely talented lovely lady, Victoria from http://darksquirrelminiatures.blogspot.com/ from the US

I found Victoria's blog a while back and watched in awe as she builds the most intricate perfume displays with a difference. They are all for fantasy projects, great for haunted houses, for witches and wizards and more!

One of the first posts I found was a large Sin cabinet stacked full to the brim with bottles and jars, candlesticks and much more, in shades of red. It had the great name 'The 9 Circles of Hell'
I fell in love with the cabinet and ordered it on its completion from Victoria's Etsy store. http://www.etsy.com/shop/darksquirrel

Little did I know just HOW utterly incredible it would be. It arrived beautifully packaged and was extremely heavy. The dresser itself is such solid wood, its like a real piece of furniture in itself!! I took ages to take in just how marvellous this piece of work was, so much to look at, such detail and hard work. It has to be seen to be believed really!

Victoria was just finishing another cabinet in shades of greens , my favourite colour and had I had the money I would have snapped that up too as it was just gorgeous but Ill have to wait and save!

But in the mean time I couldnt stop there. Victoria's work is just too precious so I did order more, and found this beautiful little piece in her store, the Black widow perfume display, which will proudly grace the dressing table in my haunted house.

So kindly Victoria also made me a gift of this little green set as she knew how much I loved her large green dresser. isn't it pretty! AND there was a little bag of goodies as I had told Victoria I was working on my Alice in Wonderland project, and had nearly finished my Hatters hat making table.

It was kind of spooky as Id struggled 3 times to make a little pin cushion and gave up. Then in my parcel was this cute little pin cushion on a cotton reel, and it fits perfectly in the gap I had left on the table!! I had room for one more item and used that for the pair of dressmaker scissors that Victoria kindly gave me! And check out this fab Yard stick , perfect for going under the table with all the materials.

Once again I was just so taken aback by the superb quality of Victoria's work, its just the very best!

So a huge thank you and big hug to you Victoria , you are such a lovely lady and I hope to be back for more and more!!


In fact watch this space as both of us got talking about Alice and there IS more to come very very soon!!!

Oooh and I'm trying to get some pics too of my table, all finished and ready to show off!! Has taken me long enough!

Much to catch up on. Loads of Wonderful new Minis!

Well the children are back to school and I will have 3 mornings a week now all to myself, so this will be my Mini and blogging catch up time. ( After the ironing, hoovering and dusting of course lol)

I have been making some fantastic purchases over the 6 week summer break so have loads to show you, and have also been quite busy in the last week or 2 with some projects of my own to show off.

Thankyou so much to everyone who supported me in my Ebay sales, thanks to you I have been able to add some beautiful new miniatures to my collection which you will be able to see for yourselves. I really appreciated you buying some of my furniture and I still have quite a few boxes left to go through and sell so look out for more soon!

Right, where to start!

Ill go from most recent backwards i think.

This week I have had 3 parcels. 2 of these from the States from the lovliest and most talented of miniaturists.

Firstly Id like to show off all my miniatures made for Emily and I ( and a lovely pressie for Lola too!) by Lorraine of http://dollhouseminisbydfly.blogspot.com/

We asked Lorraine to make us lots of different minis for both my own projects and Emily's Merlin roombox.

They arrived this week and we were blown away by Lorraine's talent and attention to detail, everything is just fabulous!

I am showing the pics that Lorraine took herself until I put the minis into our projects and will show them off again once in situ in their rightful homes.

Between us we wanted lots of potion bottles, herbs, skulls, candles etc, and the selection is brilliant. Emily adores the waxy look candles so much and is determined to give her candles another go now to try and make some more! The skull Em wanted was an open topped one for putting scroll, feathers etc, and 1 to have as an ink well and Lorraine designed and made this all herself. Emily also gave her the challenge of an animal skull and I think even Lorraine was chuffed to bits with how this badger skull turned out! Em already has plans for more skulls now!

We also had pumpkins in both plain and with faces on, made to stand next to these awesome gravestones. I will reveal the project they are going into soon!
In the same project will stand my tree. It stands at 7 1/2 inches tall and is just the right size for where its going and came completely intact which is because Lorraine had packed it out perfectly with loads of bubblewrap!

Also for this scene will be one of my favourite items that Lorraine made, and they are the Nightmare before Christmas Jars. I sent Lorraine a picture of the jars from the film and they came back to me, EXACTLY as in the picture, just incredible work!!

Lola has 2 beautiful items that Lorraine's talented daughter made for her made her but wants to show them off on her blog so I' m leaving that to her but we would all like to say a HUGE thank you to Lorraine and her daughter for all this hard work. I literally cannot stop buying now to add to my collection and have ordered some more pieces from Lorraine's Etsy store, so please go and check it out, there are some great minis in the shop and loads more to come as Lorraine's imagination is bursting it seems with all these ideas! http://www.etsy.com/shop/dollhouseminisbydfly

Back later with parcel number 2. Need to see if I can get my poor old camera to work first!