Saturday, May 18, 2019

Today's workshop - what fun! Personal note.

My friend, Marijke, is a wonderful miniaturist who lives in New Brunswick and writes a blog Pulcinella's Cellar Miniatures. I met her years ago at Camp Mini HaHa and we've kept in touch over the years. She was here a couple years ago and came for coffee at my place to meet some fellow miniaturists.

Now all three of her and Chris's children are living in Alberta so they are here on a visit. When I learned about the trip, I asked her if she would be willing to teach a class on DAS air drying clay while she was here. And she agreed.

Unfortunately, because it's a long weekend, many club members were unable to attend but those who did had a wonderful day and learned a lot.

Joanne, Cheryl and I shared a table.

Chris set up a laptop and monitor playing a loop of some of Marijke's  work for us to enjoy. Here Marijke is pointing something out to Joanne.

This is the sheet of bricks that I made.

Joanne working on her bricks.

Tina finished her 1" scale bricks then made this incredible pathway of bricks in 1:48 scale for a project she is working on.


More brickwork:




Rosalle of Needlecraft Art does the loveliest crochet work including plant hangers. She can no longer find pots for her hangers so she wanted to make pots to fit them....and she did.


I had to leave for awhile to visit my Mom and when I returned, Sunni, Marijke and I had a great conversation about miniaturists Marijke and I had met through Camp Mini HaHa. Then at the end of the day, Joanne and I spent some time in my condo with Marijke visiting and looking at some of my recent projects.

The miniaturists who attended thanked Marijke with some wonderful gifts of appreciation. To share with her club, I gave her a number of the eyeglasses that Jillian had made. (I know 3 of the 4 members of the club personally.)  I also gave her free rein to choose what she could use from my "Toy" bulletin board as she is planning a toy shop.

It was just a really enjoyable day. Thank you so much, Marijke and Chris, and the club members who attended.

On a personal note: I know I said I would tell you about turning that ugly piece of upholstered furniture into a beautiful leather piece of furniture.

We had to take my 95 year old mother to emergency care Wednesday night. Didn't get home until 6 a.m. then had to be back at 8:30 a.m..to talk to the attending. We brought her home Friday afternoon so I've been sleepless for a few days.

Will try to get caught up soon.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

And more glasses.......... and a new project!

I didn't give you any idea of the scope of the glasses Jillian gave me - I think there were about 85 - 100 total! And even more shapes than I had originally realized. Here are the ones I have left:


I made 5 more tonight at Stitch and Bitch. They were a great hit!

 New Project:

When we took the gift over to Diane at Mission Hill Village, Mirabel (the MHV housekeeper) told Diane that her 20th anniversary of working at MHV was coming up and she would like something like that as an anniversary gift.

Mirabel is a lovely woman who is at the heart of MHV so, of course, I wanted to make something for her.

My plan at this point is to make a living room/dining room roombox for Mirabel. I have the actual roombox I plan on using and think I have most everything in my stash to fill it.

Something like the living room/dining room in the Bombay House:



I have a good-sized tube of 1/4" cherry veneer strips for the floor so I think I'll start with that. I'll need to paint the inside of the roombox - probably in white - have to think about that.

The only thing I have decided on for sure is this couch.

I bought the afghan and cushions from Rosalle Pinske (Needlecraft Art) who is an Associate Member of Miniature Enthusiasts of Edmonton. We have a Garage Sale at our last meeting in June but Rosalle can't attend that so she came to the May meeting and wonderfully offered her wares at 25% off.



The Couch

Isn't that a wonderful white leather couch? And it feels good - not stiff or anything.

I think it looks SO great and the ladies at Stitch and Bitch were very impressed.

BUT this is what it used to look like......

This is the original underside of the couch!
I will tell you how to do this tomorrow. I had hoped to link it to an old post but I can't find one so will have to start from the beginning. This is one of my favourite techniques!


Saturday, May 11, 2019

Another mini-obsession....

As if I needed another one after the jewellery!

My friend and fellow miniaturist, Jillian, used her Cricut to make these absolutely wonderful eyeglasses on a sheet of acrylic! She posted them on FB and I commented on them and, bless her heart, she gave me a sheet of about a hundred of them at our meeting on Tuesday night.

My DS, Carol, came down to see Mom on Thursday so I had forgotten about the gift from Jillian until Friday morning.

Then I spent some time playing with the eyeglasses....and what fun!


The top eight were done with Sharpie pens. Just an edging around the lens and a narrow edge across the top and colouring the arms. Sometimes edging the lenses in colour and sometimes in gold. I did colour the lenses themselves on the second row left pair with a green Sharpie.

Some time ago, my DD Leanne gave me a great supply of very thin rolls of adhesive tape in different colours (from China and meant for nail art).


So I used a strip of that across the top of the glasses and the arms on the glasses in the foreground.

Because the tape is so narrow and both the glasses and the tape are so light, I lost this pair on the floor when I was trimming the tape from the end of the glasses!

After about 20 minutes of fruitless searching, I had the AHA moment! Got on my knees with a flashlight and caught that elusive flash! FOUND IT!

TIP: If you slip when you're using the pen, you can clean that slip up with a Q-tip dipped in nail polish remover.



Thursday, May 2, 2019

Edmonton Miniature Show and Sale September 15, 2019


Only the name of the venue has changed. The location is the same.

For a number of reasons, Alex and Sigal of Victoria Miniland have decided to no longer make the long trip to the Edmonton Show and Sale. We are therefore looking for new dealers to come to the Show and Sale. If you know of anyone who might be interested, please pass have them contact me or give me their contact information. Thanks.

The Show and Sale WILL go on...but we need help from all to keep it going. So far, we have at least one new dealer who makes dolls, among other things.