We're into the last few days for the Readers' Choice Nominations. Looks like no one is building kits in anything other than 1:48 scale! If you have a building kit you love, please nominate it before the close of nominations, 5 am Greenich mean time or 12pm Eastern Standard time on February 16th. For those of you in the west that will be 9pm February 15th Pacific Standard Time.

There are some great miniature blogs being submitted, but only the five most popular will make the final voting stage, so keep nominating your favorites! Art pieces featuring miniatures and new products are the final two categories, so get those nominations in!

All the category descriptions and nomination forms are on the Readers' Choice form linked above. The four categories again are:

• Best Miniature Blog
• Best Miniature Building Kit (any scale)
• Best Use of Miniatures in Art
• Best New Miniature Product or Tool

I've been experimenting with Sakura 3D Crystal Lacquer which is a viscous, sticky PVA suggested for adding a clear gloss dome coating to sections of paper designs or items like Transparencies for Fairy Wings. The 'lacquer' is easy to clean up with water, and sticks well to a number of substrates, including metal foil. This is an easy way to make custom 'rhinestone' trims tiny "puffy" stickers and even opalescent counters or surfaces in miniature as you can add watercolor to produce custom colors and use the lacquer to coat inclusions like glitter, microbeads and irridescent films.

Yesterday I used the glaze to make 'jelly candy heart' decorations for my valentine's heart cake, and you can see in the photos with the review how it works to add depth to things like vein lines in transparent wings.

Photo © 2012 Lesley Shepherd

Make custom dollhouse cakes in minutes using dry florist's foam. You can spend much more time decorating them when they are this easy. Very light weight they are surprisingly strong when finished and you can easily cut open the decorated cakes and reveal a nice "spongy" cake like interior which can be colored to resemble any cake flavor you want.

These cakes can be personalized for your favorite valentine using your printer and the techniques shown for making miniature photo cakes. As the miniatures are very lightweight, they make interesting earrings and other jewelry pieces, although make sure you give them a thorough coating of gesso to protect the foam base!

Signs of spring are taking me outdoors more often, and I'm thinking of setting up some fairy scenes, using the Woodland House and landscaping it with some pruned thyme trees.

Of course fairies are usually shown with wings, so I've been experimenting with mini transparent wings from OOAK Artist Emporium. These are lovely prints, and a good size for any fairy figure smaller than 6 inches as can see from the photo. I'm not sure which type of wings I prefer, probably the silk ones, but the transparent wings are wonderful for the clear dragonfly or cicada wings when combined with a dimensional glaze.

Photo © 2012 Lesley Shepherd