SAPL dollhouse update

 Joanne and I returned to the St. Albert Public Library today and finished refreshing the Storybook dollhouse. She finished cleaning it and added the "cow jumping over the moon" and the second dalmation.

I patched the area where the stairs would have been and replaced the two shingles that had been missing.

We cleaned the plexiglass covers and reattached them.

You would hardly ever know that it's 14 years old.

Interestingly enough, SAPL is now thinking that the dollhouse might still be kept in the central library for awhile before it is moved over to the Jensen Lakes branch.

Whatever SAPL decides to do with it, it has been such a joy to have been involved with it over the years and especially in the updating of it this week.

Revisiting an old friend

In 2009, with a lot of help and encouragement from a fellow American miniaturist, Dick Tabor, the Miniature Enthusiasts of Edmonton Club began working on a dollhouse filled with references to children's literature. Dick provided a list of literature he had used in his dollhouse with the same theme and club member, Joanne Root, who worked in the children's department of the St. Albert public library added her suggestions.

The house, an RGT Quick Build colonial, was purchased from a  MEE member who had used it as a demonstration model in her business. Members of the club were divided into geographical groups and each group was assigned a room in the house to furnish.

The house was completed at our Show and Sale on September 18, 2011, and donated to the Children's Department of the St. Albert Public library on October 11, 2011.

Original pictures are here.

After the first year, we felt that the dollhouse needed to be protected so plexiglass was added to the front of it and Joanne and I made necessary repairs to the contents.

It was a big hit with children who gravitated to it at SAPL where it remained on display until the pandemic hit in 2020 when it was temporarily put in storage where it has remained during recent SAPL renovations.

The library has decided that the dollhouse should now be moved to the Jensen Lakes branch in St. Albert and asked Joanne and me to once again go in and spruce it up a bit.

So that’s how we spent our morning today. What fun!

There were really not that many actual repairs to be made. The chimney had broken off but was easily glued back in place. The front stairs were missing for the second time so we decided not to replace them.  I will patch that area. Joanne touched up the paint on the doors and windows. There are two shingles missing so I’m trying to match the stain on the replacements.

There was a reference to one book that we could not find nor could we find any reference to the book itself so that will be deleted to the list of search items for the children. Joanne will supply two missing references and the library will add a few items that we found to the search list.

We will be going back on Thursday to finish our work and, hopefully, the refurbished dollhouse will be installed at Jensen Lakes branch library by next week. 

Many thanks to SAPL for the great care they have taken of the dollhouse and may a new generation enjoy it again at Jensen Lakes.

Back of the Forever Christmas Shop

I took all the pictures made from the Hershey's The Grinch candy wrappers made into a tree and glued them to a piece of cardboard the size of the back of the Christmas shop then added two "Customer Parking Only" signs and this is the result:

 I'm pleased with it and, although my DD Leanne hasn't seen it yet, as the future owner of the roombox, she thought it sounded like a good idea when I told her about it.

I like the Customer Parking signs myself.

Little Help from my Friend

 My friend, Tina, made me some wonderful, circular frames. 

These are 1/4" wide. The top one fits a picture that I made in one of her art classes.

The bottom one has been painted with a silver nail polish, and circled with a braided silver trim. The picture is of Vern and I cutting our wedding cake almost 53 years ago.

One of my Christmas gifts was a bag of Hershey's kisses with a Grinch theme. 

Now it's stupid but every single tinfoil wrapper that comes inro my house is saved. And these were so unique that I just couldn't resist.

So I had Tina make me some more pieces: Six with an outer diameter of 2" and one with an outer diameter of 1.75". She then cut 1/8" "frames" from around all the pieces. Then I covered the inner portions with the tinfoil from the candies and framed them with the outer pieces. The smaller frame was painted red and the larger ones were painted green.

Then I put the green pieces in the shape of a tree and topped it with the red-framed Grinch.

Sort of silly I know but it was fun to do. So I showed it to my friend, Marg, who of course asked what I was going to do with it. Just as I was about to type "Darned if I know!", it came to me! I'm going to mount it on poster board and mount it on the back of my Christmas shop. That's the plan anyway.

Tina has a shop on Etsy with all sorts of great things - especial if you're into 1:48.

Jo's Scrapbooking Vignette

 This is such a mess. Because I was in such a rush to finish, unfortunately I didn't take pictures of many of the steps and pieces. However, my entries from February 2012 are much more detailed and cover anything I missed here.

Most of the printies I used for this scene were from a blog that is no longer available but fortunately I had saved them to document files at the time. For some reason I think they came from mizshelley but I can't confirm that. In any event, thank you to the originator of them.

Eight pieces of nine different scrapbooking pages.

Bulletin Board frame:

Pegboard on one side and corkboard on the other. The pegboard is made from a square of matboard with holes punched in it using a pushpin.

Frame painted

Pegboard and corkboard in place.

Couple cartoon pieces and Cricut guides on the bulletin board and various plastic grid tools for cutting shapes on the pegboard. The original one had several scissors hanging on the pegboard but my vision is not good enough these days so those didn't happen.

50 or 60 pieces of scrapbooking sticker pages and divider identifiers.

The box to hold rhem

In place

The unit containing the scrapbooking papers. And below, the photo boxes.

The sticker box and the laptop computer.

The Cricut box

The lower half of the scene

With the Chrysnbon chair in place

And the finished scene.

Finished it and gave it to Jo before Christmas. She was pleased with it.

Bit off more than I can chew in that time frame....

After I decided to do the scrapbooking room for Jo, I spent the first night cutting out 8 pages of 9 different scrapbooking pages. OMG, I had forgotten how long it takes to cut out little pieces of paper.

With the printing of all my saved files out of the way, I decided to look for the wallpaper to use in the room. Found two nice pieces in my wallpaper drawer then proceeded to look for the thin cork board to use in the scene. 

Well, that's where life got interesting! I have a great piece of very thin corkboard  from Lee Valley that I used in the last scrapbooking vignette. However, it is not hanging on a skirt hanger in the closet where it used to be. Double check - definitely not there! Try the other closet on the off chance - not there. Check the workroom bulletin boards - not there.

Flip through my wallpaper drawer - don't see it. Try that drawer again - don't see it but find a nice piece of flooring that I can use.

I'm SO frustrated! Take pages out of my wallpaper drawer level by level and LO AND BEHOLD! Found it!

I've spent three hours looking for that one elusive piece of cork board.

By the time this is all over, it's time for our M.E.E. Christmas party. That was a lovely evening...a visit from Santa, some enjoyable games, including a great "Is it mini or is it real" slideshow, draws for some really wonderful door prizes and, as always, a beautiful Christmas story read by Joanne.

So yesterday I had a couple mini friends over for lunch. We had a wonderful visit although their trip here was marred by terrible freezing rain.

This is the original room. I'm hoping to get this one done within the next week or so.

Jo plans to bring her scrapbooks of her wedding in Hawaii over to me before Christmas so I'm going to try to have the room ready for her then.

Well, since I started this entry on December 5 and it's now February 1, all I can do now is hope to catch up a bit on what I've been doing.

Catch up again!?!

Writing this blog has been on my to-do list forever it seems but always got relegated to 'tomorrow'.

Louise Z., a founding member of M.E.E. and a regular dealer at our Show and Sale, has moved and had a garage sale to really downsize her stash...and what a stash...rooms of supplies, tools, and minis. Since I, too, should be downsizing, I knew I had to be pretty judicious in what I bought.

These are what I went to buy! During Covid, Louise made hundreds of these wonderful gifts and I knew I wanted to get lots of them as I was down to just a few in my stash and they make such a great addition to almost any scene.

Love this little painting. This is an artist that Louise and her husband liked in RL and she asked him to do some in miniature for her.

Mae A. the Executive Producer for Oniva, who borrowed Ann's kitchen for an upcoming show lives in St. Albert, so she was kind enough to return the kitchen to me after they filmed the show. Because of that and because she is so enthusiastic about miniatures, I made her this little scene which I made in a 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" x 6" plastic box.

Bit of carpet on the floor.

desk with a vase of flowers, a laptop and my readable book about St. Albert

 with a wastepaper basket underneath.

and a chair

painting above the desk

and from the side.

Oh, shoot! Just looked back and realized that I missed writing about actually doing the potluck dinner scene. 

I needed a table to go with the chair and loveseat, so I threw this together. The end pieces are cut from an old fan and the top and bottom shelf are from scraps of wood. The whole thing is stained black with a felt pen.
 

I made cushions for the chair and loveseat from some ribbon from my stash. Cut three small strips of ribbon, folded them in half, glued the sides, then stuff them with some cotton cut from a cotton ball, then glued the final opening shut and held it in place with a clamp until the glue dried.

I my last post, I mentioned that Barb R. and I had brainstormed about the loveseat and chair and decided they would look better if they were green. So I coated them with gesso and when that was dry I painted them hunter green. Love the look. 

Still having trouble with working in 1:24 so the cushions were too big for cushions so decided to use them as seat cushions instead.

Needed something to put on the coffee table and I remembered I had some square 

plates I had made from square sequins in a class that Tina had taught so grabbed one for this.

Here's the finished scene.

And here you can see it hanging from its stand.

And I got this years "The Book" done! I finally cut back from 20 to just six for immediate family this year so it wasn't quite as daunting a task as it has been in the past.

Had a lovely call from a neighbour who won a miniature at a Christmas potluck. Her DIL was quite taken with it and wanted to know if I sold any of my work. I said 'no' but mentioned I had a front door and porch but that it was Hallowe'en themed. She had her heart set on Christmas so I told Marg to give me an hour or so and I'd see what I could do.

So I took all the Hallowe'en stuff off and replaced it with the wreath and some wooden holiday ornaments that my DS Marie had given me. Then I added one of Judy M's tea-light scenes and took it up. DIL was thrilled with it and I was glad to pass it on. Win:Win.

And the Hallowe'en stuff will go to Joanne for her shop!

My cleaning lady is a high school friend of my son Sean so I've known her for years. She's a scrapbooker so I got the bright idea to make her a scrapbooking scene for Christmas. I've done one before and I've saved most of the printies, etc., so don't have to start from scratch. But the problem is that she comes on Tuesday so if I want to have it ready for then, it's going to be a long night of cutting out printies. Not to mention a long day tomorrow putting it together.

So I guess I better sign off and get cutting.