Sunday afternoon at the beach house

 First Sunday of my break, and I'm thinking of holiday houses again. Travelling in my imagination is definitely much safer (and cheaper!) at the moment, and something I seem to do regularly at this time of the year.

And before you ask, yes, there is a 13 in the scene: in fact it was one of the things that inspired the whole thing, as I was propped up in bed yesterday morning searching through image search for suitable 13 inspiration.

The other piece of inspiration was a fashion picture in the January 2021 Australian marie claire (my special beginning-of-holiday treat to myself that I was reading in bed in between image searches).

I really liked the old-holiday-house by the beach vibe, and decided it was worth getting out of bed, showered, and dressed in order to head down to visit James at Victorian Dollhouses to buy some white wood french doors and windows to have a go at staining.

Which meant when I got home I headed down to my workshop to work on something for the first time since I moved in. Which was a bit of a milestone.

This morning I was up and out of bed bright and early to finish off the staining (and varnishing) and then made my biggest scene in a while. Which included a courtyard with a pergola which can be seen through my beautiful, completed french doors.

And a touch of artificial sun, as the studio in this flat faces the opposite direction to my one in my last flat, so I can't borrow the real thing without moving everything to the other side of the flat: which is just too much extra effort.

Apart from being pleased with how the doors came out, I'm also pleased that I've used a number of bits and pieces from stash that have been waiting to be used for a while.

For example: the rug covering the sofa is from MitchyMoo Miniatures (I used it last year as well...). Pieces in the bookcase came from Kitty and Kat Miniatures in our last swap, from my friend Miggs, and from Whirlwind Designs during my last visit to New Zealand. Kat also supplied the canoe and palm in the courtyard, and the dream catcher and elephant on the wall. The Mako my day artwork has been waiting patiently for a scene since I picked it up in Wanganui in 2016, the piece next to it from Rotorua on the same trip, The large floor vase and the palm tree posters were from various Canberra shows. The end table by the sofa is from an op shopping trip during last year's challenge, as is the fence in the courtyard. And the rug?  Dead stock from when I used to have a stall at miniature shows here and in Sydney.

And now I'm a wee bit exhausted. And already worrying about how I'm going to pull another scene out of my brain tomorrow, especially as my studio is in desperate need of a tidy-up after today's effort...