NAME Day Hutch...Published!

How excited I was that Miniature Collector published the NAME (National Association of Miniature Enthusiasts) Hutches that my club made.  We are the Lone Star Miniature Club of Austin, TX.  Thanks, Miniature Collector!  See the November 2011 issue, pages 22 (group photo) and pages 24-25 for the hutches we made.

November Miniature Collector:

 

Inside the magazine (p 24-25):

Mackenzie-Childs Theme Hutch - How I enhanced my NAME kit

Outside Finishing:  I tried to model some of the finishes on the Mackenzie-Childs furniture.  One piece had a sort of amber background with tiny painted flowers and areas of crackle.  FIRST I basecoated only the areas I wanted to be crackle.  I used a burnt umber in just a few splotches (you can see the brownish areas in the photo that show up under the crackle, above).  STEP 2 - I put the crackle product ONLY on the brown areas and let it dry.  STEP 3 - I painted over all the outside with a an amber color (maple sugar?).  The crackle worked well but you can still see the brown which I didn't paint all over.  I still think it has an aged look. STEP 4 - I added tiny flowers here and there.  These weren't too detailed, just a few strokes with red and green paint.  FINAL STEP was acrylic varnish.

For the Checkered areas - I printed off a checkered paper which I added some grayish and yellow-ish streaks to and 'decoupaged' it to the crown and base moldings of the piece.  THis was tricky and I still had to touch up some of the more curved areas with white and black paint but overall it achieved the look I wanted.

Landscape prints on cupboard doors:  I copied some landscape pics from the web, shrunk them to fit the doors and 'decoupaged' them on with Mod Podge.

Close up of Marble finish and pleated ribbon trim

Marbleizing- I tried to recreate the marbleized design from the M-C furniture on the cupboard door frame and counter survace using acrylic paint trying to mimic some of the colors of the M-C pieces.

Original Trim (above)

 Shaped Trim, after sanding and rounding the points

Shaped trim - on the upper edge of the hutch top and on the drawer fronts I applied a common laser dollhouse trim, (found at most dollhouse stores and websites, Houseworks #7183, or similar) which I made more rounded and scalloped by sanding down the points.  I painted it with stripes blue and cream like on some Mackenzie-Childs furniture.

Interior finish - I painted the inside back wall of the upper cupboard a blue with streaks (never use only one color...advice I received once from an artist).  The shelves are just an ecru.

Filling the shelves:

Glasses -  inexpensive ice cream glasses painted with acrylic paint (not glass stain, just plain acrylic).

Courtly Check canisters were made from dowels, checkered paper, beads and findings.  I also covered the lid of the glass canister (middle right) with the courtly check and beaded knob (it opens!).

The tray with butterfly handles is made from Metal Miniatures pieces.  The clock is also painted metal minis with a tiny metal turtle as a finial.

All other items are porcelain pieces and beaded flowers from my collection.