Mini Mansion - The Workshop

Another interior that I arranged prior to the completion of the house itself.

The workshop was a Christmas present for our builder and has temporarily been installed in a wine box.

On the right side
... there is a little bench where the worker can sit down and have a rest.
The shelves above it were just meant to be provisional - they are roughly cut from thin plywood and stained the same color as the chair and the bench. Looked suprisingly good. There are tools on them - all bought.
One thing I`ll never do again: The glove is made of Fimo - two very, very thin layers. Actually I wanted to make a pair, but soon decided that the other would be missing!
The petrol can was bought and my mother gave it the dirty "used" look. There`s quite a mess on the floor around it!

The Bench
There are a magazine and a coffee mug on top of it. It is muddy outside, and so were the hands and feet - look at the towel and the shoes. There is a dustbin with a hand-brush beneath it, the favorite hiding place for the workshop mouse. The little fellow knows too well that there is a mouse trap, too.
The old wheel in the foreground is a find from the flea market in Berlin. People dig up such stuff from the old rubble hills around the city. Prior to World War II this must have been a little boys toy wagon wheel.

The Shoes
I made them from Fimo - very thin layers (... though not as thin as those of the glove). They are quite worn and out of shape - I had my walking boots, which had toured Scotland twice, in front of me while shaping the mini version. I made holes for the shoe-strings. My mother put thin threads through them and painted "spots" and scratches onto the boots.

The Workshop Chair
Another flea market inspired project. The chair cost me 50 cent - it isn`t very carefully crafted and was painted in an ugly green. I removed the paint and stained it, thereby trying to resemble blots and scratches (half satisfied with the result). The newspapers - printouts from Jim Collins`page (look on my link page for the web adress) - hide the somewhat bulky chair legs.

The paint cans (or tins?) were a challenge. I bought aluminum pipe, 9 mm in diameter, and cut it into 13-mm-pieces. Then I cut wooden plugs of 8 mm diameter into slightly shorter pieces and stuffed the pipe with them. By painting the top and bottom with a silver paint I got can lids with the typical rim. The two cans on this picture have been opened and used - the piece of wood was even smaller and painted the desired color. Of ourse, this paint had to be spilled all over the place... I did not find paint labels on the Internet, that`s why they wear canned food labels. I hope this does not disturb the picture.
The paint brush on top of the black paint was made from Fimo. One end is pointed, the other painted silver to resemble the metal ring that holds the hair. I put a drop of glue on this end, then sticked the top of an old real-size brush into it. After drying I cut the hair of real brush in the middle and the bundle of hair sticked to my mini brush! It might be sensible, in order not to waste one paintbrush for every mini brush one creates ( ... how crazy am I!?), to apply the same technique to other "hairy" things or materials like plush.

On the right side ... there is a little bench where the worker can sit down and have a rest. The shelves above it were just meant to be provisional - they are roughly cut from thin plywood and stained the same color as the chair and the bench. Looked suprisingly good. There are tools on them - all bought. One thing I`ll never do again: The glove is made of Fimo - two very, very thin layers. Actually I wanted to make a pair, but soon decided that the other would be missing! The petrol can was bought and my mother gave it the dirty "used" look. There`s quite a mess on the floor around it!
	The Bench There are a magazine and a coffee mug on top of it. It is muddy outside, and so were the hands and feet - look at the towel and the shoes. There is a dustbin with a hand-brush beneath it, the favorite hiding place for the workshop mouse. The little fellow knows too well that there is a mouse trap, too. The old wheel in the foreground is a find from the flea market in Berlin. People dig up such stuff from the old rubble hills around the city. Prior to World War II this must have been a little boys toy wagon wheel.
The Shoes I made them from Fimo - very thin layers (... though not as thin as those of the glove). They are quite worn and out of shape - I had my walking boots, which had toured Scotland twice, in front of me while shaping the mini version. I made holes for the shoe-strings. My mother put thin threads through them and painted "spots" and scratches onto the boots.