MEE All Day Workshop Saturday April 26

Sorry I didn't get this done sooner. Sunday was sort of a lazy day and today DS Shirley and I did our taxes on the computer then Joanne and I went for dinner then attended "Reel Monday", the St. Albert Public Library fundraiser movie night. Tonight's movie was "August: Osage County:.

Saturday was an all day workshop for members to work on their trailers for the September Show and Sale display "A-Camping MEE will go". Tina MacD. led those members who were interested through building cabinets/kitchens in 1:12 scale.

As with all our workshops, we hope that those members who aren't doing that particular item or scale will still come and take advantage of the camaraderie and learning experience of the day.

Lorry and Sunni were finishing up their small scale trailers (from Betterley plans in, I think, Miniature Collector).

Lorry's

Sunni's (she built an LED light in the ceiling of hers)

I thought I had had more pictures of Tina's (totally kit-bashed) Greenleaf trailer. She has done such an incredible job on this that I kept wishing I had replicated our trailer from the 70s also. But I had decided earlier that I had been there, done that (although from a different angle) and had the pictures to show for it.

 Sunni brought in these two wonderful fun foam pieces she had bought at Michael's that fit with our Camping theme

This is the start of Barb S.'s kitchen base cupboard. The area on the left hand side of the counter will be the stove top.

 This is Sandra's trailer. She has beautiful wood panelled walls and has just started her kitchen counter.

 Carol K. went off on her own and built this wonderful little trailer in 1:12 but more in the size of a Boler trailer. The outside trim will be incredible (saw it) and the bed is SO perfect! I am SO anxious to see the completed trailer as Carol does the most meticulous and innovative work. Plus I know that she has some really WOW! things planned for it!

Trineke does meticulous work and I'm anxious to see how this all comes together!

Lucille was working on another project and one of her completed pieces was a 1:48 pie safe (with the pierced tin). I have enough trouble getting that detail in 1:12...so admire her work in 1:48!

Marg is working on this beautiful Gypsy Wagon. (Love the colours!)

 

This is the lovely 'crazy quilt' she was making on Saturday. The silk pieces were set in place then she used stretched Bunka to outline the pieces. When we spoke, she thought she would use the Bunka to further divide the pieces of silk. A beautiful quilt!

Inger's trailer is coming along well. 

Somehow I didn't get pictures of Joanne's Bookmobile trailer...which is a shame since the outside is papered with shelves of books! When it comes together, it will be great!

All I accomplished during the day was making 11 of my "City of St. Albert" books (gave one to Trineke) to take along on my upcoming trip to Ontario and Nova Scotia.

Former club member, Liliana, came to sell more of her stash due to health/vision problems. It's such a shame as in the past Liliana did the most incredible fine painting of small models. (The Father Christmas in the counter of my Christmas Shop is one of her pieces.)

What incredible bargains! Jam-packed ziploc bags of items for $2 each and some other individual pieces at great prices! I bought three $2 bags, the ship for $1, the flower basket for $3 and four bags of the gold/silver stretchy garland for 50 cents each.

Bought this for $1 for DBIL Grahame. He's a sailor and has a collection of ships!

Paid $3 for this little basket.

Bought 4 bags of these stretchy metallic wire pieces for 50 cents each....great Christmas garlands!

Then on to the contents of my three $2.00 bags: 

this wonderful corner cabinet!

two RL brass Christmas ornaments that I'll give to Jonah and Holly

two decorated plates, plate and pitcher, two vases (actually drawer pulls that need flattening and/or bases, 10 glass plates

cake on stand, gold cup, brass ornament, white sneakers, football, patinated Buddha, (?), scissors, plumbing wrench, clothes hook

(first three) miniature glue gun with coloured glue sticks; perfume vial; onions; cookie sheet with gingerbread cutters; water taps (better than any I have in my stash!)

 This bag contained about a cup of very interesting/varied polymer canes. It will be divided up and passed on .

The perfume vial from one of the bags turned out to be sterling silver! Here it is partially cleaned.

I expect it will go in the Reutter shop front.

Several of us who bought the bags from Liliana knew we would not use some of the pieces so we 'passed them on' at the time or plan to do so later.

I passed these pieces on on Saturday and almost all of them were picked up.

Good day all around!

Totally blown away!!!! Picture of my Dad! (to come)

Had a totally great day together mini-wise that I'll tell you about tomorrow.........

But tonight I spoke to DS Carol and she told me this story that still has me in tears because I never thought it would happen.

For years, I have known about about a picture that was published in the Star Weekly of my Dad before he was shipped overseas in WWII. It was taken in Banff and showed him shaving in the mirror of his motorcycle.

Off and on, I have Googled for that picture with no success. (And still couldn't find it tonight with all the information that I now have!)

It's been awhile since Carol and I caught up on family matters so after we had spoken at some length (close to an hour), she mentioned that someone who collects motorcycle memorabilia/pictures had contacted her through an old family friend to tell her he had the actual page with the picture of Dad (Star Weekly Toronto October 18/41: L/Cpl Connery)...and he sent it to her!

She is going to copy it and send it to me and I will post it here when I get it.

I never thought I would get to see this picture!

The blessings continue!

Seeing with a mini eye...

Tuesday night after the day with Megan and Carter, I posted how blessed I was. My week is incredibly busy and the blessings continue.

First I want to comment on a personal thing: Yesterday the condo board had requested some resident help with an upkeep issue. We were totally blown away with the number of people who showed up to volunteer. A job that we thought could take most of the evening was finished in an hour and a half with everyone's help. Made my day!

DS Marie and DBIL Rob are in town for a couple days and came for breakfast this morning with DS Shirley and my Mom.

Marie brought me all these beautiful donations to my stash:

two small boxes of Lite Brite pegs in orange and red (This truly is a Pass It On thing! Marie told someone that I was looking for pegs and she picked them up and passed them on to Marie for me.)

ear-ring backs in silver and gold - two uses: Christmas bells  - or salt and pepper shakers 

Rob was really curious (to put it politely) when Marie insisted on bringing this no longer working tire gauge to me. (I'm not sure, but I suspect his words were something like "What the heck are you thinking?"

One thing I know I will be able to use from that is the convex plastic cover which will make beautiful 'glass' for an old family portrait.

This beautiful old pocket watch is probably too small for and thin for a miniature scene but I'm sure I can find something to do with it (if only for parts for a friend who does Steampunk!).

This piece is absolutely gorgeous! It's a clay vase 2  1/4" tall and about 1 1/2" in diameter at the widest. From a distance, it looks like it's covered with fabric. If I were doing a Southwestern room, I could see this as a table base with a glass top.

Then Mom brought out this big Ziploc bag of costume jewellery that  she had picked up for me: (I was getting breakfast ready while they looked through it originally but I looked through it after breakfast.) Some GREAT mini possibilities!

The largest link in this necklace is 1 1/2" x 3/4". 75% of them will make wonderful picture frames!

These leaf shapes are 7/8" x 1/2". I can visualize doing a bedroom suite with these as furniture accents. Picture a dresser drawer front with that leaf shape between the drawer pulls and a bed headboard/footboard with those fanned out and glued. Then painted so it looks like a carved accent.

The large starfish would make a wonderful sign advertising a Seashell Shop. The beads are about half the size of seed beads so they're great for minis.

The amber colour beads would make great lamp bases. The two round beads (picture is poor) would make great seats for bar-height stools.

The silver-coloured bell cap beads on either end would make wonderful shades for desk lamps.

The spacer beads have a lot of perfume bottle base/tops possibilities. The long spacers could be used as knife rests.

The drop itself is 11/16" long. This will go as a picture on the wall in the Lady's bedroom.

Some nice beads here but don't really need them. HOWEVER! That beautiful little heart will make a wonderful little padlock on a box somewhere.

Some lovely beads and spacers here but don't see any mini possibilities!

 Non-Mini....

This is hilarious! While I was getting breakfast on the table, Mom, Shirley and Marie had voted this the ugliest piece of jewelry they had ever seen! After breakfast when I was finally going through all the pieces myself, I spotted it and said "if it was red, I would take it in a New York minute!"
I wear a lot of v-neck tops and I've been looking for a necklace like this.....Not thrilled about the colour but love the shape/style!

It was such a pleasure to show Marie and Rob the Christmas Shop...and all the other great pieces they hadn't seen before...and get their positive reactions...

An Absolutely GREAT Day!

Megan (almost 11) and Carter (almost 9) joined me today for one of my most enjoyable days of miniatures!

I had one setting from Dollarama in my stash and Joanne, bless her heart, gave me another for the children to work with:

 We started about 9:30 and they each made the "Our Trip to Paris" book.

Then we started the scissors.

Had two wonderful floral display kits by Connie Stitt in my stash from (mumblemumble) years ago that they put together.

Carter's arrangement

Megan's arrangement

Megan's arrangement on the table

 When those were finished, they finished the scissors then they made the occasional tables from the pizza props.  Then they put paper doilies on the pizza prop tables and added the floral arrangements.

Before we stopped to go to lunch upstairs at Jeanne's, they stained the Dollarama chairs, added fun foam cushions to those, and Carter started staining a Michael's hutch/bookcase. I started making a kitchen table for Megan, she stained the pieces and I started gluing everything together...

then we went up to Jeanne and Orest's for a wonderful lunch break of homemade borscht and/or chicken barley soup and buns, cheese, ham, fish and sausage. Dessert was matrimonial cake and the most incredible lemon squares!

After lunch, Carter filled his hutch with books from Dick Tabor. Megan made cupcakes from wood plugs covered with puff paint and decorated with teensy fingernail art. Both of them punched cookies from fun foam, iced them with puff paint and decorated them with fingernail art.  (They were pleased to learn the trick of licking the end of a piece of spaghetti to pick up and place the tiny pieces of  fingernail art on the 'icing'. We also took one of the Dick Tabor books and added a new cover "Megan's Recipes".

Carter had a "dinosaur" cookie jar that was in one of my "Amazing Deals" from Liz! He enjoyed filling it with foam cookies iced with puff paint.

Megan mixed spackle and dark brown paint for a chocolate cookie batter in a bowl; stuck the end of a tooled toothpick in for the end of a wooden spoon; made a cookie bake sheet from a piece of aluminum pan; put the unbaked 'cookies' on it. (The pie is also from Liz.)

Megan made a stove from printminis.com so she could bake all of her cookies...

YEESH! I cannot get this picture turned!

Carter had some great ideas here: He wanted the small TV on the middle shelf (had that in my stash); we worked together on the TV remote control but the I-Pod to the left of the TV was totally his idea and work! 

We acknowledged their Baba (great-grandmother) who passed away on April 5 at the age of 96 with her picture in the scene.

Such an INCREDIBLE day thanks to Megan and Carter. I'm SO much looking forward to spending the day with them again sometime in the summer!

We're already planning our next day together during the summer holidays.

Such a wonderful day -

I am truly blessed:
At the end of the day, Carter and Megan brought me this beautiful bouquet of flowers! It's in the Pinwheel crystal vase that my parents gave me on my 40th birthday.