I'm feeling a bit green ;)

nope, not seasick :D. But as you might have noticed this scene, as did my last two, has a green background (although the last and this one not very noticable, while they're quite green in person), so I guess I'm a bit in a greenzone. I've always loved green, mostly the mossy and olivekind of shades, but never used it in mini-scenes before recently. I like it!

the wooden fruitbowl - it's maple - is not what I had in mind for this scene as you can see below. But remembered having it again and finally having some fruit because of that other bowl, just wanted to try this one out too. It turned out I liked it even more..

I've had to wait quite some time to order the fruit - and for it to arrive - to complete this scene. Which started a while ago with a lovely mossygreen 8-squared bowl from Fennicole Miniatures (they sell at a Dutch online marketplace). Well actually the one I ordered was a regular darkgreen, but that one turned out to be sold, however she did have this mossygreen one: even better! :D

when I came across it I ordered it for the Oldtique Store, but because I liked it so much, for the time being just gets it's own little scene. And although being great on it's own, I thought it would be nice to have some fruit in it.

and that's where Dream Raven Designs on Etsy comes in. Great name by the way. I was sold when I saw her beautiful and very realistic looking fruit (she also has lovely vegetables)! She opened her Etsy shop in the summer of last year, so she's new to it, but I predict (and hope for) a very succesful future for her. It would at least make sense: as you can see she's good!! Mentioning her here might help a bit I guess. She also has a website and takes custom orders.

while the fruit started out as filler for the bowl, I think they've ended up steeling the show, I just LOVE it!

the apples are Woody's, the pears ripe Bartletts

the piece of fruit on the right is a Chandler pummelo, a large familymember of the grapefruit, but then a sweeter kind as I understand from the seller, the left is a mango (and there's two more of those in the fruitbowl)

as mentioned at the beginning of this post, I thought I'd try out another bowl as well. One I've had for a couple of years now that I wasn't too sure about. But seeing it in these photographs, with some fruit in it, I think it's awesome! It's very thin, which is what I didn't like about it when I received it, it just seemed too flimsy. I never realized it's what makes it exactly right to scale and in the photo's the thickness is just perfect! And of course it had been missing some fruit :D.

I don't know the maker, the webshop didn't say, just 'maple wood bowl #A' and that it's made in the US. I ordered it in 2012 at Swan House Miniatures. He still has other ones if anyone is interested (not as great as this one I think though, sorry.. ;) ). Whoever has made it, he/she is amazing to be able to make a bowl so thin. It must have been very difficult without destroying it somewhere in the process. If anyone might know his or her name, please let me know and I can add it here to give credit for this gorgeous piece of work.

the top of the dresser used to be wood like the rest of it, and still is, but at some point I applied a decal to transform it into 'marble', as you've already seen in my sugar pourer-scene. I think it gives it a more balanced look. It still needs a proper finish and I will make the rest of the wood less orange and maybe give it a slightly aged feel, but that's for later. Here's the before and after so you can see the difference so far (the difference in woodfinishcolour between these photo's is because of different camera's and lighting, haven't done anything about that):

before: nice. after: nicer! :D

the lamp is one I changed over time too and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Although it has some nasty superglue-stains on one side on the inside because I keep forgetting not to use superglue with glass and transparant plastics :(. But I did forget, there's no ctrl-Z in real life :D and haven't been able to get rid of most of it on the quite uneven surface. So I just decided it's the 'glass' being tarnished over time, being an old industrial-type lamp an' all :D. The original lamp is from Dolls House Emporium and for as far as I know is discontinued. And to be honest I don't think that's a bad thing.. (no offense DHE, but the size and ratio of this lamp is way off).

when seen like this it looks great right? Although I'm personally not a fan of shiny brass, but that is easily fixed.

but in a scene it's a different matter...

I know I can be picky and quite critical about the miniatures I use, but I'm pretty sure that's not it with this lamp.. I can't use it in a scene without looking way off, as you can see. Not as a tablelamp and not as a floorlamp; it's both weird I think.

but that's okay as it's been the lampshade I always liked most about this lamp anyway, so after a bit of thinking I thought I could use that to make it into an industrialtype pendant. And then it's bigger shade is also fine. Although a bit too big for above the dresser in the scene above, I think it still works and really liked having a lamp above it for this 'photoshoot' and didn't have anything else. It will - of course ;) - become part of the Oldtique Store interior where its size will be perfect in the bigger space.

and to put the two together, here's the before and after.

as you can see, I also put a different kind of cap on top of the shade, something I had in my trash-treasure-stash. Don't have a clue what it is, but was so happy I had it! The little coil on top of it comes from a bronze earingbase, cut in half. They both had the colour they're in, the bottomring of the pendant I removed by warming and softening the glue and fired the ring on the stove to get the natural aged bronze-look. The electrical wire is thin twisted wire from Modeltrain Software I had and I 'painted' with some Tacky glue to make it a bit more cohesive and slightly thicker and then painted it black.