Breakfast food items, new listings on Ebay & Etsy stores

I have some new food items I just finished, which are listed on Ebay in my Ebay store 
Pumpkin Hill Studios & my Etsy store. Click on the Etsy box above on the picture of the item to take you there.
First up are the items on Ebay: 2 plates of pancakes, sausage, and eggs with butter, syrup and blueberries. One plate has fried eggs, the other scrambled. These are large plates 2 inches across. They were alot of fun to make, as my husband loves to eat a big breakfast, so this is just the kind of breakfast for your Hommes, GI Joes, Ken, or your action figures. 
Each plate took alot of time to create- $12.99 each and both have free shipping.

I have shown my foods here also with Barbie, Poppy Parker, GI Joe, as well as my Blythe doll Alice. I am really pleased with these two items as I achieved the realism I desired - I always try to improve with each new dish I create. 
Next up is the cake with slice cut out of it and it has 5 candles- just blown out!

This one is on Etsy for $15.99 free shipping in the USA only

It is GI Joe's 50th anniversary birthday this year, so this is a perfect cake for him! It has 5 candles on top (they do not light) and one slice cut out of it. 
I am working on more miniature food! Please shop my Etsy store links as well as my Ebay store links for these items!

More Food- 1:6 scale Hot Dogs and Fries

I did some backtracking today and played with the clay! It was fun, and my GI Joe collector's club Man of Asia arrived. Well, seems he isn't too fond of Sushi, so I took a break from the Japanese diorama and made him some real 'man' food- hot dogs and fries!

The hot dogs all measure about 1 inch long. I have two listings in my Ebay store- click HERE and go to Lisa's artisan items or Doll food . The plate of plain dogs is $9.99 with free shipping and the plates of hot dog with mustard, fries, and ridged sandwich pickle are $6.00 each- all my miniature foods come with free shipping if you are in the USA. I will also do commissions- Contact Me  with your ideas and I can give you a price. Plenty of examples of my commission work in my Flicker album if you are interested.

I have more pics of the Japanese diorama, and will be posting them here later. Happy Sunday!

Japanese room in 1:6 scale

I finished the back wall with the wall hangings and the niche today and set up the Re-ment Hina set. It looks great. I just need to finish the other side wall with another faux Shoji door, and this room will be complete in time for Hinamatsuri on March 3rd.

The table is made of scraps of wood. The four panels on the wall are copied from the internet and printed, then put onto scraps of foamcore with the edges painted gold. I think they were called the Four Seasons. Hinamatsuri set is made by Re-ment and is one of my most treasured miniature pieces..I have extras which I will scatter about the room. 
I currently have a Mini American Girl doll Ivy who I purchased online from Walmart for $15 to be the little girl in this scene, and a Man of Asia GI Joe will also be on the way soon, I hope. My Kyori and him will be a couple with Ivy as their little girl. Miss Happiness (Hanoko) is my Barbie Basics asian doll shown above, and my IT Summer will be Sachiko or Miss Flower- I have not yet dressed her in a kimono for this scene.
The unusual wooden dinner set with carp goldfish painted on it was a set purchased in Chinatown when I was a child in New York, when my father took us on a trip up there. I still remember that little shop in Chinatown, I was about thirteen at the time. I am hoping to use this room for the main room also when I create the Shogun Japanese restuarant later. So for the month of March and possibly April I will be immersing myself in Japanese culture for these dioramas, which I have enjoyed building and researching.

Tutorial: Faux Japanese 'Shoji' or sliding screens

Another entry today, but with a twist- I finished the one wall of the Japanese diorama I am working on, and I have pictures/and a rough tutorial on how I created the faux 'Shoji' or sliding screens in Japanese. These are the traditional doors with paper in the frames in traditional Japanese homes. I used the book Miss Happiness and Miss Flower by Rumor Godden because of its directions I bashed for my own purposes for this.

I at first thought of creating the Shoji so they really could slide open, or at the least hinging them like I did the French doors, but decided against that. I will have the back wall done by tomorrow afternoon I hope, so you can see a somewhat complete diorama.

First, I used black foamcore, and lots of balsa stripwood pieces, and one 1/2 inch wide stripwood piece to go across the top. I also used Golden Oak miniwax stain, as well as two sheets of 12 x 12 vellum scrapbook paper, as well as a 12 inch wide x 4 inch high wood grained contact paper.

First, I measured across the paper 

                                 Then I cut a piece of contact paper 12 inches wide by 
                                  4 inches high, and stuck that across the bottom onto the foamcore
                                 I taped down TWO pieces of 12 x 12 vellum scrapbook paper down 
                                   first.

Then I measured my balsa strips. The total height of the SHoji is 15 inches high, 12 inches wide. After all the strips were laid out, cut, measured, I then stained them with Golden Oak miniwax stain and let them dry.

I used regular tacky glue for this so I could adjust the strips. I used a ruler at the top to make sure the strips going down the middle were somewhat even. 

More gluing. It will look a little messy with the glue excess, but don't wipe, just let it dry naturally- it will dry clear.

I laid the remaining strips across and glued

I used a heavy book to add some weight and make it dry a little quickly. The book has over 900 pages and is the Autobiography of Henry Vlll as written by his fool, Will Somers by Margaret George. (highly recommend)

I used a 1/2 inch wood strip across the top of the door/shoji. That makes for a more defined focal point on the side wall.Below are photos of the finished faux Japanese door

 Ta da! I am really pleased with how this came out- it came out much much better than expected. I saved a ton of money by using my 25% off total purchase amount coupon at Michaels when buying the paper, stripwood and foamcore. I have been rattling this around in my head for a couple of days figuring out how to put it together and I finished this in a day and a half- if I had had all of the materials I needed to start with it would have been finished quicker. The design of my dioramas can change from the original plan I have in my head once I start shopping for materials and doing furniture placement. 

I hope you enjoy this tutorial. I am hoping to do another for the opposite wall as these walls will be used in my Shogun steakhouse diorama too. Right now, I am doing a simple Japanese home diorama to celebrate Hinamatsuri, and the Shogun restuarant will be a more involved diorama.

Yes, I admit I love GI Joe...

I am old enough to have very fond memories of playing in the sandbox with the kid next door and his GI Joe's, along with my Malibu Barbies- Ken, Barbie, PJ & Skipper. The 60's and early 70's are when the 12 inch GI Joe was at his peak- and the kid next door had it all- the mummy terrain vehicle, the command control center, all of that neat stuff that Joe had back then. He also had the 'fuzzheads' as they are referred to. My Barbies preferred dating the Joes next door as they had uniforms and a 'real' job- Ken even in my childish perception- was a bum- and a beach bum with no tuxedo, no suits, just swim shorts and a surfboard. How could he take Barbie out to the swanky dinner in that?? lol..

I had purchased a 40th anniversary Joe previously last year off of Ebay, a sailor one, but was very displayed with his body- it was not all like I remembered. Doing my research that is because Hasbro changed the wondeful vintage body on Joe so I had this ham fisted incredible hulk joe. He has served as a filler person in the doll town, and recently I used him to display the sushi I made.

This Photo on my Flicker album has already, since being uploaded on February 15th, 34 favorites and 6,894 views!!!!  Entitled Joe serves Sushi' I am still trying to figure out what is so special about it!!

Closeup of the Hasbro GI Joe and my sushi. 

I definitely do not think it is my attempts at Sushi in polymer, as this was a first try. You never know what people will go over the top for when you upload pics to your flicker albums.

But back to GI Joe...yes this is the 50th anniversary of GI Joe's appearance in the toy world. Hasbro, which originally manufactured it, has no 50th anniversary doll- mostly just the toy conventions do with the convention dolls. The collectors are sadly lamenting it, and as a doll collector, we were virtually pelted with an array of 50th anniversary Barbies.

I joined the GI Joe Club on Saturday, and you get two choices of what 'figure' size you would like- I chose of course the 12 inch. 

Joining the third class domestic I paid $44 and I was also able to purchase the 

2008 club exclusive Man of Asia for $23. GI Joe club is having an incredible sale on some of their exclusives in their shop- you have to be a member to buy them- for 50 days and something new shows up on sale virtually every day. You also have forum access and get a newsletter /magazine (are you listening Mattel?) The club exclusive dolls are made with a similar vintage body, great for posing. If you join by March 16th, your club exclusive will automatically be sent to you free. So after March I have another Joe joining my herd.

I also have joined the one GI Joe forum called The Trenches and learned something 

new, guys view these dolls as action figures, not dolls, dude. While doll collectors and diorama artists go for the nitty gritty on reality- only a portion of the Joe collectors go for that- their fond memories revolve around playing in the sand box with mounds of natural scenes saving Joe, having him parachute into a fox hole, and so on. (I admit to liking that as a little girl too...lol ..what can I say- I am and was a born miniaturist!)

A word of warning- the Club does not ship quickly. A look at the club forum and the Trenches and some people ordered two or three weeks ago and were JUST receiving their orders. I am hoping my Man of Asia gets here soon as I want to start working on my Asian family to be celebrating Hinamatsuri on March 3rd. Hinamatsuri is the Dolls' day or Girls day Festival in Japan. I have the Hinamatsuri set and want to work on a Japanese diorama for the month of March. My Man of Asia will be a Shogun chef- in a Japanese steakhouse. He will probably be married to my Love the One Kyori and I am hoping to acquire a small doll to be their daughter. Kyori's cousins who are sisters- Sachiko and Hanoko, (Happiness and Flower- named after Miss Happiness and Miss Flower in Rumor Godden's famous book about two little Japanese dolls) will also work in the restuarant as well. Hence, that is my reasons for making sushi. 

I have put a hold on my Chateau project for right now. I have acquired a Kyu for a body swap for my Emmett who will be transformed into Louis, so Marie Antoinette & the Princesse de Lamballe have been put away for awhile I work on the Japanese diorama, which I have wanted to do for quite a while. Yesterday was a wonderful day and I went shopping for supplies and materials, I hope to have enough done to get some pictures today.