Road Trip!!!

A while back, one of our members told us about someone who was selling a huge collection of miniatures on Kijiji. Eight of us went out this morning to see what she had. What a treasure trove!! Hundreds of 1:48 house and furniture kits...that really pleased the others who are currently working in that scale! Everything half the marked price and if it wasn't marked, make an offer. About ten completed 1:12 scale dollhouses, boxes of all sorts of 1:12 miniatures and four boxes filled with probably 300 - 400 rolls of wallpaper.

The only thing I was really looking for was kitchen cabinets for the Bombay house and I had no luck with that but I ended up getting some wonderful pieces.

This beautiful bedroom set was made by a former member of MEE. The detail is amazing!

He also made this shelf unit and blanket box.

This market stall was made by John Greer, another former MEE member. Picked it up just in case we need more pieces for the "Little Fair on the Prairie".

This shelving piece may work in the Christmas shop.

Not wild about the upholstery on this couch but I'll probably do the leather finish on it.

Don't really have a place planned for these but they're so beautiful I couldn't pass them up. LOL

Beautiful little jewellery box with inlaid top:

A Clare-Bell brass rooster weather vane - gorgeous!

My friend Barb had an appointment this morning so couldn't join us so she had asked me to keep an eye open for a room box or maybe a dollhouse kit for her.

Early I found this piece that I thought would make a good roombox with the addition of a plexiglass top and front:

But THEN as I was paying for the first batch of minis I found, Amber said that anyone who purchased could also choose a dollhouse to take home!

So I looked through them and found a nice sized one with big rooms that I thought would work for Barb. As nearly as I can tell from the pictures on the Greenleaf site, it's the Westville. The outside colours are a bit garish but the inside is nicely finished. Called Barb as soon as I got home and think she was pleased with it.

Amber was also holding a garage sale this weekend and when Tina went out to talk to her discovered that she was considering throwing out hundreds of miniature magazines. Oh, the horror of it! But bless her heart, she donated them to our club.

After we had all cashed out, we went to the Stony Plain Multicultural Centre for a delicious lunch. The Homesteader's Kitchen there is known for fresh bread, homemade soup and their many varieties of pies made daily by the staff.
So the day couldn't have been much better: minis, bargains, good friends and good food!

And more of the same tomorrow (well, except for the bargains LOL) as we meet for the club's All Day Workshop and work on our Little Fair on the Prairie display for the show and sale in September.

Agate slices

I have several slices of agate that will become table tops at some point. To this end, I've bought several napkin rings over the years with a view to using them as table bases.

Then this morning I got my May 2012 newsletter from the Mini Time Museum of Miniatures and that lead me to check out the videos on their website. One of the videos is of Madelyn Cook discussing her incredible work "Reflections" which is one of my favourite displays at the museum.

On the video, she mentioned that the base of one table is (are you ready for this?) a pastry blender.

Well, I just happened to have one in my kitchen...so the experiment began!

My first concern was how I was going to cut this but I dug out my trusty tin snips and found they did the trick.

I cut off the working part about 1/2" from each end.

I was concerned about cutting this in half equally.

So I took a piece of cardstock and traced around the curved section.

Cut that out and folded it in half.

Held that up against the curved piece and used a piece of masking tape to mark the centre on each of the pieces.

Then I used my tin snips to cut along the edges of the masking tape and ended up with two pieces.

I've just taped the pieces together for now because I'm not going to actually make a table until I have a place for it.

If I were ready to complete a table I would super glue the agate to the base like this.

I actually prefer the base this way. (The weight of the agate as spread the base out a bit but you get the idea.)

The agate slice lower right in the picture at the beginning of this post is about 4" x 4" and I've thought about making a dining room table with it.

The base as is only makes a table about 2" high so it's not high enough for a dining room table but I think I could sandwich the bottom flat pieces between a pieces of wood with a 1/2" piece on the bottom to give it the height needed for a dining table.

Think the bottom of the base would have to be wider. Or the metal part could be reversed and each side put into a wooden base.

Lots of possibilities...

Odds and ends

You may remember seeing this bottle of ketchup on my picnic table. It was made by Susan P. in Fredricton, NB, as a tidbit at Camp Mini Ha Ha a couple years ago.  Susan said at the time it was made from an artificial tears eye drop individual container.

So a week or so ago, walking home from WalMart, I spotted this on the sidewalk. It's by Bion Tears and it looks to me like the container Susan used. Haven't decided just what I'll make with it but it certainly has mini possibilities.

 With the cap removed.

I was over at Mom's a while back and we stopped in at an estate garage sale a couple doors down from her. It was the second day and I had really missed some beautiful things but these little pieces were free - my favourite price. LOL

The bevelled mirror base is 1 1/2" in diameter and the pineapple is 3/4" tall.

These Dutch klompen are just under 1 1/2" long. Might use them as planters for some tulips.

Pat in our club found these wonderful little bottles at a dollar store. They told her she could order more so she took orders and got them for several club members. The contents were different in many of them. The contents of mine will make wonderful aquarium gravel and the bottles will be great for canning jars in a kitchen.

Received this great carpet in the mail this morning from Barb K. as my prize for having taken part in her Trash to Treasure challenge on Canada Minis. Thanks, Barb.

Edmonton Miniatures Show and Sale September 16, 2012

Oh, my goodness, I just looked back and this was a draft blog from May 8 that somehow never got sent...

MINIATURE ENTHUSIASTS OF EDMONTON CLUB

 invites you to take part in their

16^th ANNUAL FALL SHOW & SALE

Sunday, September 16, 2012

10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Executive Royal Inn

10010 – 178 Street

Edmonton, Alberta

T5S 1T3

Invitations to dealers went out last night. If you would like to receive the dealer information or even just general information about the show and sale, please e-mail me at mheucher@shaw.ca 

Update on "I wish I had made this"

I've passed on all the compliments to Laurie and she's most appreciative.

Although I don't have new pictures, Laurie tells me that the men's room now has a plugged toilet and is closed for cleaning and the ladies' has a woman sitting on the toilet.

It just gets better and better!!!

I wish I had made this...

Thursday night I went out to Laurie H.'s to see the washroom trailer she had completed for the fair display at our show and sale on September 16.

WOW!!! With the exception of the tires (scrounged from a child's toy) and the toilets (bought from Liz at Grandpa's Dollhouse, absolutely everything is made from scratch! It's absolutely incredible and SO detailed.

From the front with the roof on. The roof is removeable.

 The rear of the trailer...even with the covered spare tire.

 She even included the power and water hook-ups!

 Trailer hitch and jacks!

The women's side has two cubicles. (These doors actually work!)

 

This cubicle even has the baby changing table.

Sinks, mirrors, paper towels, hand sanitizer, soap dispenser, wastebasket on women's side.

Men's side with supply cabinet and urinal.

Toilet cubicle and sinks on men's side.

I'm just totally blown away by Laurie's work on this project!

Displaying minis

One of the members of the Canada Minis online group asked about displaying minis so I thought I'd show you how I display my minis in the condo.

There is an 8' alcove on the right hand side of our dining room. I installed cabinets in it and covered the counter top with a piece of variegated green cotton. That's my Costco house on the left, then the greenhouse, various patio sets, bbq and picnic table, tree and floral piece then the Bombay house.

On one side of the living room is a table that belonged to Vern's parents. The Victorian style parlour is on it. Next to it are two bookshelves that display several roomboxes and vignettes with mini magazines on the bottom two shelves.

Next to those two bookshelves is the entertainment centre. My penthouse roombox is on top of that. You can't see it in this picture but on the shelf below the picture of our grandchildren is a Russian breadbox that will eventually become the home of the Three Bears.

This corner cabinet holds many vignettes.

An end table with the 1/24 scale hotel lobby and mezzanine boutique by Adrian Cooper and Elizabeth Read (auction win at Camp Mini HaHa). And another bookshelf containing roomboxes and vignettes.

Some of my individual pieces are displayed in a wall cabinet in the dining room. It's a beautiful piece that DS Shirley gave me. (I think it was originally a case for displaying thimbles.)