What a job...

But worth every minute. I was out most of the afternoon so still haven't finished cataloging all the magazines. So far have 41 issues of Dolls' House Magazine; 75 issues of Dolls House World; 49 issues of Dolls House and Miniature Magazine and 19 issues of the large format Nutshell News.

Still have 22" stack of Miniature Collector, 17" of Dollhouse Miniatures Magazine and 4 1/2" of Miniature Showcase to sort through and meld with my own copies.

One I'm really thrilled with it the Dolls House & Miniature Scene Projects issue from Autumn 2006. It's the Shops & Stalls issues which will really come in handy this year when our club does market stalls!

Hopefully I can finish tomorrow.

Treasure Trove

I'll post later about what I've been up to lately but in the meantime you can drool over my latest acquisition. A friend of mine called last week and said she and her husband had sold their house and would I like her collection of mini magazines. Would I?!?! You betcha!

It's going to take a while to make room for them on my bookshelves and catalogue them but I'm going to enjoy every minute of it. What fun!

Afternoon at Holly's

Our club, the Miniature Enthusiasts of Edmonton, doesn't meet during the summer but most summers one of our members will open her house to us and show off her collection. In fact, it was at one of these open houses that I first got involved with the Edmonton Club.

Yesterday member Holly welcomed us into her home to see her miniatures. I had seen her collection first about ten years ago but hadn't seen it since.

I only took pictures of about half of her collection but even so there are WAY too many pictures to show here. You can see all of the pictures I took here.

To whet your appetite.....

The big house!

The bakery display (must be well over 100 cakes and pies here).

 Gentleman's study

 the garage

My head is still reeling!

Backpack

If you want to make a backpack in miniature, this might work. I didn't print out the pattern so don't know how it would be size-wise but it would give you a starting point at least.

Edmonton AB Show and Sale

I'm pleased to announce that we can add Ms Mini (Sherrill Bedu) from Calgary to our list of dealers at the Edmonton Show and Sale on September 18.

Sherrill sells 1:12 and 1:48 dolls, furniture, accessories and kits, etc.. It's always a pleasure to have her join us.

Edmonton AB Show and Sale

The Miniature Enthusiasts of Edmonton are holding their 15th annual Show and Sale on Sunday, September 18, at the Executive Royal Inn, 10010 - 178 Street, Edmonton, AB, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission: Adults $4.00; 7 - 15 $2; under 6 free. No strollers please.

DEALER LIST 2011

Another World Miniatures (Linda Maddaford, Bev Perret)

1:12 scale fine furniture, glass, silver, Goebel figurines, fabric, ribbon and accessories

http://dollhouse-miniature-projects.com

Bits by Barb (Barb Striethorst)

Plant kits, plants, slippers, bonsai, basket kits, landscape supplies

bstriet@shaw.ca

Boyne Miniatures (Michelle Alberni)

Porcelain dolls, china painted porcelain vases, food, teddy bears, baskets, glassware and some commercial items

alberni@mts.net

Brigitte’s Minis and Kristina Bears (Brigitte and Kristine Simon)

Floral minis, food and miniature bears

kristinabears@yahoo.com

Danielle Perry Miniatures

Closing Out Sale

Furniture, accessories, electric, building supplies dollhouses

DaniellePerry@shaw.ca

Danielle Perry Miniatures Artisan Table

The work of these artisans is not included in the Closing Out Sale.

Jenny Wren – Jennifer Elliot

Monica’s Miniatures – Monica “Peaches” Lavoie

Penny Spence

Sher McGirr

L.A. Genuine Gems – Linda Austin

Aleeta Kent

Eileen Shannon

Handwoven items in 1:12 and 1:48 scale, some tatted items

e_k.shannon@shaw.ca

Hummingbird Miniatures (Kathy Barbier)

Hand-painted garden accessories

barbier@telus.net

Janice Crawley, IGMA Fellow

Ceramic dishes, tiny porcelain dolls (dressed and undressed)

Judy Mitchell

Various items in 1:12 and 1:48 scales

Jmitchell4@shaw.ca

  

Luba Barnes

Miscellaneous miniature items

lubarnes@telusplanet.net

MiniLAND

Full line of roomboxes, furniture and accessories

http://www.miniland.ca

info@miniland.ca

Nana’s Minis (Eileen Morgan)/Cheryl Hartlen

1:12 readable books, games, Christmas items

http://www.nanasminis.ca

Eileen_is@shaw.ca  

Cheryl will be representing several Nova Scotia miniaturists.

Sculptures, pottery, charcoal sketches

Needleart Treasures by Rosalle

Crocheted accessories for the mini home

rosecrochetminis@aol.com

Porcelain Beauties

Small dolls and supplies

http://www.porcelainbeauties.ca

porcelainbeauties@shaw.ca

Reenie’s Teenies (Reenie Desarker)

1:12 miniatures and supplies

d_reenie@hotmail.com

  

Rock-a-Bye Dolls

Assortment of miniatures and show cases

vcorraini@telus.net

Sher My Miniatures (Sher McGirr)

Flowers, Hallowe’en, Christmas, etc.

smcgirr@shaw.ca

Tiny Treasures (Louise Zawada)

1:12 miniatures and supplies

louz@shaw.ca

More to come….

Shopping

DD Leanne and I spent the better part of yesterday shopping. More to spend the day together than actually shopping.

One of our stops was at Michael's where we got 25% off everything including sale items! Plus I had a 40% off coupon good on one item. Picked up a bottle of Crafters' Pick Ultimate glue as I'm just about out and it's my glue of choice these days. Also got three pieces of 1/16 x 4 x 24 basswood. I do NOT like the basswood from their new supplier Revell but it's the only game in town. The cashier made it quite clear that I wasn't the first person to complain. Guess I'll have to find an address for Michael's and write a letter.

We did find a great bargain at Staples. Our coffee table has a top that lifts up for meals or crafting or using a laptop. Looks like the first one third row here. We found one at Staples on sale for $129 (an incredible bargain). Couldn't find it on their website but it's similar to this one but has an additional shelf across the bottom.

The other day when Joanne and I were at Dollarama we spotted 19" x 10.5' rolls of polyester tissue fabric ($2) similar to rolls of 5" wide ribbon I had bought there previously. Wonderful stuff in that it absolutely does not fray when cut but, unfortunately, because it's polyester doesn't take a pleat. Otherwise it would be great for sheer curtains in mini.

So I passed on it at the time but later had one of those just before falling asleep light bulb moments and thought it would make some great long skirts for Holly for the Tickle Trunk - or maybe even a tutu if I fold it in half and gather along the fold line. So Leanne and I picked up two rolls of it yesterday, the red above and a silver. Have to dig out the sewing machine.

Joanne's Gentleman's Study

What a wonderful time we had yesterday! Joanne has the flooring and wallpaper in the room and after much trying out of various pieces had decided on which pieces of furniture would go in it and where they'd be positioned in the room. She finally found the elusive Alice Zinn Dodo bird a couple days ago which was a big relief.

Got the holes drilled for the cords for the lamps and sconces so she's all set to finish the electrification of the room. As soon as she papers the outside of the roombox, she'll finish the wiring and start loading the room.

I am SO looking forward to seeing the finished room. Joanne has three incredible Alice Zinn pieces to put in it and some other wonderful accessories that are going to look so great.

Michael's has a big sale on today so Leanne and I are off to do some shopping. I'm running low on basswood and I'm hoping that replenishing my supply will trigger my muse and enable me to finish the bar for the barroom below the detective's office. Really have to get cracking and finish some projects for display at the show and sale on September 18.

Making hats

Sunni had her dining room table all set up for us to begin work when we arrived - complete with project instructions from Dolls House World magazine for Straw Hats made from 32 gauge cloth covered wire and thread and a men's leather top hat.

First she showed us the bananas she had made for Curious George in the club's Co-Operative dollhouse. Aren't they wonderful! Polymer clay and I are not friends and I so admire anyone who works with it.

Now to the hats!

Sunni had already made the straw hat.

You know how when you're working from a spool of material it sometimes gets away from you as you pull the material off the spool...Sunni solved this by handing the spool on a ribbon around her neck! How ingenious is that!

The gentleman's  top hat instructions are for Steampunk but Sunni didn't take it that far. It's still at the 'waiting for glue to dry' stage but it's looking good.

Joanne got right into the swing of things and completed two hats and started work on two others.

I sat and played with various pieces of fabrics and trims but the muse just wasn't speaking to me :-(

It looked like my lone contribution to the day was discovering that the cork from a Scotch bottle makes a great hat form.

Finally inspiration came and I made one hat. Wasn't what I had been aiming for but at least the day wasn't a complete waste in terms of minis.

Even if I hadn't ended up with a hat, the day certainly would not have been wasted. We had such a wonderful time visiting and laughing...and eating as Sunni made us a wonderful lunch...and Joanne had provided a delicious fruit salad.

Sunni had mentioned that Dollarama at Westmount had a huge supply of dollhouse furniture so we HAD to stop there on the way home. There were two styles of wardrobes, a dresser, vanity, dining table (legs too short), chairs (in scale size-wise but kind of bulky), sofa table, and bed (closer in size to 1:24 than 1:12). Not bad for a dollar.

I don't really need any more furniture but did pick up one sofa table.

We took another quick look around and found some more great items for Jonah and Holly's Tickle Trunk. (This was in addition to some things we found on a local Dollarama run the other day.) What fun we're having putting this together for the grandkids.

Today Joanne and I are working on her gentleman's study. Hope to get it electrified so I better get off the computer and get ready to go over there.

Hats

Joanne and I are off this morning to Sunni's for a hat-making session. Haven't made any for a couple years so looking forward to it.

Here are some previous efforts:

 Fun fur hat and muff, White lace over red

 Front views above, back views below

I remembered a wonderful tutorial by Joann Swanson for 25 hats  in an old Dollhouse Miniatures magazine (before Ashdown) so went to the NAME website and looked up hats in the project database. (If you've not used this before, I highly recommend it. Select your category and project: in this case, Clothing and Hats and you'll get a list of published tutorials - magazine, date and page.) There were 45 projects listed - and the one I was looking for was in the March 2002 edition of DHM. Also pulled some of my NN that had hat tutorials.

Now I just have to pull together my supplies and I'm set for some fun.

more agate slices

These larger agate slices are from the souvenir shop at Peggy's Cove, NS. The piece on the top right is about 4" x 4 1'4" and the bottom piece is about 6" long.

If I had had the bottom piece when I made the bar for the penthouse, think I would have used it for the top of the bar. The long pieces might work with two pedestals.

These need heavier pedestals. Years ago when I was working at W. D. Cuts School, we cleaned out the trophy cabinets and I got a lot of neat pieces of 'stuff' for my stash from the trophies that were being thrown out. Lots of pieces of brass that I shared at the time on Small Stuff, some great pieces of wood that I gave to the woodworkers in my Mom's building, and other odds and ends that I still have.

Here are two of them used as table pedestals.

These two pedestals are napkin rings. The wooden one was on clearance at a store in Kelowna and the silver one was from the Salvation Army thrift store there.

Here are some more possible pedestals: 

- clear cylinder (could even be filled with seashells or coloured sand for extra interest)

- a couple more pieces from trophies

- a cholla cactus rib that could be sliced and used for pedestals

Display table

Every once in awhile I succumb to temptation and treat myself to a McDonald's Smarties McFlurry. I try to tell myself it's all in the interest of miniatures but we all know that's just an excuse. LOL

However, the McFlurry spoons are great for making pedestals for tables.

from the end

Here I've cut a slice of the spoon handle and added a matboard top to make a small display table.

 This was a happy accident. My intention was to give the entire table a couple of coats of black nail polish for a solid black gloss finish but a single coat gave me a great marble look so I left it like that.

My daughter brought me these agate slices which will make nice little display tables with a single McFlurry pedestal.

The lower green piece is about 1 1/2" x 2 1/2".

Fun with the grandkids

Our grandchildren live in Ontario so I don't get many chances to play with them but for those of you lucky enough to have yours (or your children or even neighbourhood children) nearby, Miniature Collector has a wonderful page "Kid's Corner" with great ideas for simple projects. Although aimed at children, the projects are often little accessories you may want to add to one of your own scenes.

Scott Publications, the publishers of Miniature Collector, has these projects online starting with the November, 2006, column. There might even be some ideas that could work  for club workshops.

Bar stools 2

I think I want to put plain wood barrel backs on the stools. I have a package of single ply maple business cards from Lee Valley that should work for this.

These two paint bottles are the same size as the stool seats. They've been taped together to make a form for the seat backs.

I put one of the business cards in a pan of water and boiled it for about 10 minutes, formed it around the paint bottles and wrapped it in place with some stretch and hold bandage. Probably could have taped it but I want to stain the wood later and didn't want to have to deal with any residual adhesive from tape.

It has dried overnight and is ready to be stained and cut.

I Googled and found a picture that gives me the general shape I want but I'm not quite ready to tackle that yet.

The remaining two stools have been stained.

Still have to cover the seats then tackle the backs...maybe later today.

Bar stools 2

As you can see, the seat of the bar stool pops out. With it out, I've stained the bottom piece with dark brown Furniture Touch Up marker from Dollarama (similar to this). 

I had some fabric left from covering the booth backs and seats so after washing a piece to remove the sizing I cut a circular piece to cover the stool seat.

Tip: When I need a certain sized shape such as this, I open a new document in Word Office and go to Insert and choose Shape. From the drop down menu I choose the shape I need - in this case a circle. I click on the plus sign that comes up and the shape appears in my document. The default size for the circle is 1" so I go to size at the end of the new toolbar and choose 1.5 for both height and width. This gives me a 1 1/2" circle that I print and use as a pattern for cutting my fabric.

 While the circle of fabric was still slightly damp from washing it, I spread a thin  layer of glue over the back of the entire piece and glued it to the seat. (If you spread the glue on the fabric rather than the seat, the fabric adheres to itself when you fold it around the bottom of the seat.)

Having said that, it's a bit difficult to do without getting some glue on the outside of the fabric so I think with the next two stools, I'll spread the glue on the top of the seat and attach the fabric leaving the edges unglued for this stage. When that glue has dried, I'll then spread the glue on the fabric that turns under the seat and glue it in place.

Then simply pop the seat back in place.

I probably want backs on these stools and think I have that figured out. Check with me  tomorrow and see if my idea works.

Bar stools

You'll recall that I got stalled on the neighbourhood bar when it came time to build the actual bar - which still isn't coming together in my head :-(

I had some Dollar store stools that were really too short for bar stools but thought I might be able to work with them if I had to.

But as it turns out, I don't have to. A while back, Pat Morrison (ebay seller id taffy671) had some bar stools available and I won them. They arrived today and are perfect! 2 1/2" high and the seats even swivel a bit.

As you can see, I'm so excited I haven't even unwrapped all of them.

And even more timely, Pat has three more of them up on e-bay this week.So if you've been looking for bar stools, this may be your big opportunity to pick some up at a good price.