Christmas goodies (recipe included)

Christmas... How wonderful it exists. It does have so much magic!
Who does not like that great atmosphere filled with smells of cakes,
Christmas tree, and white snow? Christmas brings also something
more: Faith in most beautiful things - good and love.
And all those Christmas preparations, carried out together by the
whole family, are for me nothing else but a celebration of this miracle
of good and love.

Here is such a Christmas preparations scene I have made.
A little boy is helping his grandmother bake Christmas goodies.
Specially for this scene, I made a miniature wooden table, on which
all the stages of making sweet crescent rolls are presented (I used to
bake such crescent rolls every Christmas - see a recipe below :-) ).
The wooden table is painted with a dark brown varnish.
Everything on the table is made of polymer clay and floured
(it's not a real flour, though).

The characters are in 1:12 scale. Grandmother is wearing a long
brown dress and a kitchen apron. Her hair, sprinkled with grey,
is tied in a bun. She is 16 cm tall.
The boy is full of energy, running all over the kitchen, curious about
what is going on on the kitchen table. He is wearing a white cotton
sweater, brown trousers, and a warm gilet. His little feet are bare.
He is 10.5 cm tall.

When taking photos of the scene I was trying, above all, to reflect
the relationship between the grandmother and her grandson.
I hope I succeeded in doing so.

I am sending you all Christmas greetings and wish you that faith
in good and love may never leave you, though it sometimes is so
extremely difficult. Merry Christmas!

 

A recipe for sweet crescent rolls

Ingredients:

• 750 grams (26.5 oz) of flour
• 250 grams (8.82 oz) of sugar
• 250 grams (8.82 oz) of melted margarine or butter (may be warm but not hot!)
• 2 whole eggs
• 10 grams (0.35 oz) of yeast
• 3 tablespoons of warm milk

Method of preparation:

Mash the yeast in a bowl and mix it with two tablespoons of sugar
and three tablespoons of warm milk. Add the rest of the ingredients
and knead the dough. Cover the bowl with the dough with a clean
kitchen cloth and allow the dough to rise in a warm place.
The dough should approximately double its volume.

Once it has risen, take pieces of the dough and roll them
(with a rolling pin) into circles of about 25 cm (9.84 in) in diameter
and about 4 mm (0.16 in) thick.

Cut each circle into eight equal pieces (they will look like isosceles
triangles with a curved base).

Cutting a dough circle into eight equal pieces

Put a filling - marmalade, chocolate, or whatever else you like - 

on each piece (closer to the base than to the vertex), roll the piece 

around the filling all the way up starting from the base side. 

Form into the crescent shape.

Bake at 180 C (356 F) for 10-15 minutes (until browned). Enjoy! :-)

My debut in Dolls House & Miniature Scene! :-)

Dear Fans of my miniature sculptured characters, I'm so happy! Soon you can read an article about my miniature work in the English dolls house magazine Dolls House & Miniature Scene: http://www.collectors-club-of-great-britain.co.uk/Store/Dolls-House-and-Miniature-Scene-February-2013-Issue-224/_prod2517

                                          Many hugs,

                                                        Agnieszka Pawlowska

                                                                       

"It should be pink and with lots of blonde curls!" - a toy making story :)

Here are two sets which I prepared as a gift specially for my friend's little daughters.

The sets differ in style from my usual work (which you can see in other posts in this blog), but this is because I was constrained by the wish the girls had expressed so clearly: "It should be pink and with lots of blonde curls!". :) Moreover, I took care of making it soft, so instead of my standard materials I used a very thin felt for making clothes and accessories.

To avoid any fights between the girls the two sets are very similar, but they are obviously not exactly the same.
Dolls are made in 1:6 scale (1:12 would be too small for awkward childish hands).

Each set contains a girl figurine, a baby doll in a baby carrier, and a basket filled with baby accessories: a bottle, a dummy, a rattle, a teething ring, a bath duck, and two nappies. Additionally, there are heart shaped lollipops hidden in the pockets of the figurines' aprons.

Well, the only thing that remains now is to wish my friend's two daughters, Weronika and Marta, a great fun! :) 

 

In safe nanny's arms

When you're small and helpless and the world around is so big and sometimes even frightening and incomprehensible, there is nothing better than someone's secure arms warmly wrapped around you... 

Just look at the figures I made. A nanny full of calm and a sleeping baby girl . It's 1:12 scale. The nanny is about 15 cm tall . She's old-fashioned. She has a grey blouse, a black skirt and a white apron. In the apron's pocket a baby bottle is hidden. In nanny's right hand there is a dummy (not larger than 0.5 cm). On the nanny's grey hair there is a white nanny's cap. The baby girl is 6.5 cm tall . She is dressed in a white dress and a white baby cap that can be removed.