Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Finishing touch to scrapbook vignette

It's taken me a while to decide how to finish the front of the box for the scrapbooking vignette. The top of the box (front of the vignette) has a picture frame so I decided to use it to give some information about the vignette.




I had a couple people over after coffee this afternoon to show off my miniatures. Two had been over before but one was completely new to miniatures so it was really interesting to see the reaction through new eyes. (She loved them, by the way.)

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Miniature Enthusiasts of Edmonton


We've had some members who, because of distance (Halifax, Calgary), other commitments (work, other interests), health issues, etc., found that regular membership ($60.00 per year) was too expensive to keep up for the few times they were able to attend meetings/workshops.

With that in mind, we've opened up Associate Memberships for $20.00 per year.

A MEE Associate member will:
1. be over the age of 18.
2. be unable to join MEE as a regular member because of distance, health, employment or other commitments.
3. pay membership dues of $20.00 per year.

A MEE Associate member will not:
4. be a voting member of MEE.
5. be counted as part of a quorum for voting purposes.
6. be eligible to stand for any MEE positions.
7. be a member of any MEE committees (e.g. Show and Sale committee, Nomination Committee, Audit Committee)
8. have borrowing privileges from the MEE library

A MEE Associate membership includes:
9. access to the MEE Yahoo group.
10. attendance at all MEE-sponsored all-day workshops. This does not include the cost of any kits or materials.
11. receipt of the monthly MEE newsletter.
12. attendance at the MEE Christmas Party.
13. One additional evening workshop at no additional charge other than the cost of the kit and/or materials.

A MEE Associate member may:
14. attend additional workshops/general meetings at a cost of $5.00 per event. This does not include the cost of any kits or materials.
15. bring one guest to a workshop, at a cost of $5.00 per event. This does not include the cost of any kits or materials.

A MEE Associate member is expected to:
16. display their miniatures at the annual Show and Sale.
17. contribute time and effort to supporting MEE activities (e.g. assisting in putting on the Show and Sale ).

So if your location/circumstances have kept you from joining us, perhaps this will give you extra incentive to become part of our club.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Whew! Room done!

First of all, congratulations to Jazzi,  Margaret, Amber and Carolyn who each won a copy of the book I offered yesterday. There's one copy left...


Oh, this feels good! Still have to put all the bulletin boards back in the closet but that won't take long.

Tour around the room going clockwise from the door:






Now I'm itching to get started on something but first I have a ton of RL paperwork to tackle!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Just about there...

I'm hoping that a couple hours tomorrow will finish this. I never have the nerve to take pictures of my workroom at its worst so even if I showed you how it looks now, you probably wouldn't think there had been much improvement. Other than immediate family, my friend Joanne is the only person who ever gets to see it "as is".

I do have one small indicator of how much work has been done in one area at least. While I've put away a lot of tools, supplies and mini furniture, probably the most time-consuming part has been bagging, sorting and hanging all manner of accessories (and some items with possibilities for accessories in the future).

To give you some idea of how much I've accomplished in that regard:

I started with this overflowing box of pushpins:

And these are left:

I was totally blown away myself when I realized just how many pieces that represented - well over 100, I'm sure.

Today was simply spent sorting and putting away but I did play with one thing. VBG...You know I can't resist!

I came across a piece that at first glance looked like a button. It was some quilling paper that I had wound and wound into a flat piece about 5/8" -  3/4" across. Sorry, it never occurred to me to take a picture of it in that state.

Anyway, I pushed down on the centre of it and shaped it into a bowl. Then gave it several coats of clear nail polish (1) to hold the shape and (2) give it a gloss finish.



HELP! Please!

I've tried everything I can think of, including putting this over a domed form to shape it but I cannot get a smooth finish on the bowl.

It's not the end of the world...these bowls look pretty good in a cupboard or on a counter...and if you fill them with cookie dough - who cares?!

Well, darn it, I do! There has to be a way...and I really want to know what it is...Please!

Another interesting thing:

I found 9 copies of a book I made a long time ago.
It's a book of 20 inspirational pages including these :

"Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow"

"You don't stop laughing because you grow old: you grow old because you stop laughing."

If you'd like a copy of this, I'll mail a book to the first five followers who send me their snail mail addresses to mheucher@shaw.ca 

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Slow going...

Every time I clean, I promise myself that I'll just put things away. But every time I come across items just waiting to be made and I just can't stop myself. VBG

I had taken these beads and mini brads out of one of my bead boxes with the intention of making a series of spice jars. Rather than put them back, decided to go ahead and make the jars.

I got these tiny scrapbooking brads (5/16" long) on clearance at Michael's in Kelowna. I've had the beads (7/32" long) for years.

Using my Pilot pen, I painted the ends of the brads silver.
 I clipped about 1/3 off the ends of the brads.

Dipped the ends of the brads in glue and inserted them in  the beads. And, voila, six spice jars for the kitchen!

Also on the table was a partial sheet of paper with two Lysol can strips and two spray starch strips. Makes more sense to make them up than tuck the paper away...and it also gave me a chance to try my new quilling tool.

Good start on the cleaning/organizing...

I'm not finished but at least got off to a fairly good start. (Made the mistake of picking up a book this morning but used my timer and read for a half hour then worked for a half hour so the day wasn't a complete loss...until my Mom brought over a true crime book about an event in my home town...but I finally managed to put that down and get some more work done.)

As I was sorting through and bagging the items in the shoeboxes I showed you earlier, I came across a bag of canned goods. In that were 2 cans of spray glass cleaner that I had forgotten I had made...one will go on the shelf in the laundry room in the Bombay house.


For those of you who have been following the progress on the Bombay house, it's sort of on the back burner while I work on the dining room area. I'm in the process of  trying something for the dining room table cloth and until that's finished (if it works) I can't put all the dishes, cutlery and food back on the table. Plus the kitchen is a real disappointment since I put the cupboards and appliances back in so that's back in the 'thinking' stage. But I will get back to it.

And of course, I was busy with the scrapbooking vignette. And hope to do our Canada Minis Trash to Treasure Challenge before we leave for Arizona to see the Tucson Miniature Time Museum and attend the Phoenix Show and Sale.

But nothing is going to get done on any of my projects until I get some major cleaning/putting away done!

With that in mind, I sat down with the two shoeboxes of minis that I've purchased/made/took out and haven't put back and sorted through them and have started putting them away properly.



For those of you who don't know me, I store my miniature accessories in ziploc bags on cork bulletin boards that I hang in a closet at the end of my workroom.

As you can see on the second bulletin board from the right, I wire clothes hangers to the bulletin boards.  I have 21 of these boards (I've been a miniaturist for a LONG time) and they are such a great way to keep things organized.

When I first started, I used the parts storage cabinets like these. And they were fine but as my collection increased the separating and labelling got harder and harder. Especially once I started using things from the collections. I had to remember to cross off what I had used from the label and remember to add additions to the label.

Going with the bulletin boards eliminated the specificity.  Now I could go with general categories per bulletin board and specific categories for each board. And if I removed something from the board, it didn't require relabelling.

These four are for food, dishes and pots and pans.

Here's the edge of the first corkboard on the left: Pots/Pans; Baking Pans; Baking; Pantry


These will go on the food boards: salad made from artificial snow, sundae on a pushpin, grape jelly from Lite-Brite peg; wedding cake (Dollarama wedding favour; bag of canned goods made from strips of paper; cake on pushpin stand; salad; potato chips from pepper seeds; cake from cork; bottles of pasta made by my friend Elaine; another sundae on a pushpin; licorice allsorts by Le Gourmand; purchased ice cream sundae; more licorice allsorts bought in Calgary years ago; watermelon made from tutorial in American Miniaturist magazine

Mixing bowls made from food dye containers; knife block with knives made from turned toothpicks (I made both the knives and the block); mixing bowl made from contact lens container: drinking glasses (stained glass paint container lids); Three teapots made from beads and findings (I bought these from Another World Miniatures but you can get the findings from Oriental Trading); great Tupperware bowl miniatures (I got these from a Tupperware dealer selling at the Glenrose Hospital in Edmonton); plate templates (a gift from Tina M., MEE chairman); a bag of Chrysnbon dishes and silverware from the Edmonton Sale and Show; and a wonderful Chinese takeout meal from Ann Vanture.

I've tried to put links to the 'how-to's" or information on these particular pieces but if I've missed anything or you want to know more, please let me know and I'll try to add the info.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Working in chaos

No wonder I can't find anything - even if I've just used it!

Surrounding my computer: 18 various pens, pencils, and markers

From the dining room table: 8 pens, pencils and markers, 4 paint brushes

From the coffee table: 18 pens, pencils and markers, 3 paint brushes, 1 clear nail polish and THREE bottles of silver nail polish!

Not to mention the four X-Acto knives and 7 pair of scissors I've already put away!

The good news is that I found the first set of St. Albert books that I made for Arizona. That was really frustrating me so last night before bed I got thinking that the last time I remembered seeing them was when I worked on  them at Tina's and that I had transported them in a transparency box (have about a dozen of these from my working days that I use for storing small/flat things). There were four of them on the coffee table shelf and when I checked them AGAIN, sure enough, there the books  were in the bottom box!

Hit the jackpot (mini, of course) at the meeting on Tuesday night:

Luba dropped off all these lovely pieces of bunka that I got from her on the Canada Minis Pass It On Challenge.

My name was drawn for a door prize and I got these great cushions! Either for my Christmas shop or my soft furnishings cart.

And since our birthday lady, Barb. S., won't be at the March meeting, she gave me my birthday gift early - this lovely corkboard/whiteboard.

Now the work begins...still tables to be cleared...but the big thing is to get out all my bulletin boards and sort through these boxes and put everything away in the proper categories.



Thursday, February 23, 2012

books, couple additions to vignette, time off

Didn't get much mini-ing done yesterday. Just put the covers on 11 more City of St. Albert books for Arizona.


Then this morning, I found a couple more things to go in the scrapbooking vignette. The camera and film are from Wee Dreams and Cobwebs (Judy M. of St. Albert) and the scissors from my stash.

The mug is from my stash and I printed GCCS (Glenora Child Care Society) on it with a micro-tip pen (from a set of four that I got at Dollarama a couple years ago).

New items in  place.

Everything is in such a mess around here - my 'work table' has extended from my workroom to the dining room table, the coffee table and the couch...and I can't  find the first set of books I made for Arizona! And we leave Wednesday after next. So minis will have to wait until I get some cleaning done.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Scrapbooking vignette finished (sort of)

There are a few fiddly bits I'm hoping to make and add in the next few days but it's finished enough to take to our MEE meeting tonight for Show and Tell.



Scrapbooking vignette printer

Once I decided not to go with the luxury 11" x 17" Canon printer, my mission was to duplicate my own Canon PIXMA iP3500.

When I'm duplicating something, I try to take pictures straight on from all angles. Sometimes, those can be sized down and worked with to make a printie - like I did with the Cricut box.

That wasn't going to work with this. I needed to look at the printer itself and break it down into a few components.

I took the measurements of the printer, converted them to miniature with the help of Peter Tucker's scale conversion chart,  'drew' then on the computer, printed that out then traced and cut it out on 1/4" balsa wood. Made two on balsa and two on matboard.


From the base of the printer up: a matboard piece, a balsa piece with a cutout, another balsa piece with a slanted cut out for a paper feed and a top matboard piece:

All inner pieces 'painted' with black marker

The four pieces stacked: top matboard, paperfeed balsa, bottom layer balsa, bottom matboard:

I sanded the wood and matboard edges then painted the ends silver with my Pilot pen to match the Canon iP3500


All the other exposed edges coloured black



There's a back piece on the printer that the cord comes out of so I cut that piece out then on one end dug out a portion where I could glue in the piece of black elastic from a a price tag for the electrical cord.



Then that piece was glued to the back of the printer.




Printed out some blank sheets of paper and one photo in miniature.


Put them in the printer.


Still wasn't right so I gave all the black surfaces a coat of clear nail polish. It's still missing the Canon logo but I'm afraid I'll louse it up if I try to add it so this will have to do.

In place in the vignette.