I am going nuts.....

and, believe me, at this point it's a very short trip.

When I finished my Christmas shop last year, I had a LOT of leftovers.

In the last month or so, I decided to do a couple Christmas vignettes...And started to look for the leftover Christmas stuff....with absolutely no luck!

I'd be sitting reading and a possible location would pop into my head and I'd go take a look! One night, I even dreamed I had found them but when I awoke, I couldn't remember where they  had been.

So today when Joanne stopped by for tea, she suggested that perhaps they weren't in the boxes I thought they were in so I found the 'leftover' picture and looked again. Still no luck!

I still have a Christmas bulletin board so I'm not exactly short of things for vignettes but this is really annoying me no end.

Guess I better just put this out of my mind and start working on the vignettes.

Random Act of Kindness...

My GBC binding machine has given up the ghost....just three books from finishing my last project!

So - on Friday I wrote a two page letter (with pictures) to the address I found on the internet for GBC in Edmonton.

This morning I received a phone call from a woman in Edmonton who works for the company now at that address.

She checked out the address on her computer, looked up the phone number and was going to call it to see if she could forward my letter. If not, she will return it to me.

Thank you, lovely lady, for this "above and beyond" effort on my part.

Dollarama buys

Joanne and I went to Dollarama the other day and picked up some things for the MEE Christmas party on December 1. Got the usual glasses, napkins,tablecloths, etc. plus some nice table favours and some gift prizes.

I also picked up a few things for the gift scenes I plan on giving around the building.

These will transform regular Chrysnbon dishware into Christmas pieces.

Couple Christmas trees that I picked up. Hope they will work.

Sherrill Bedu - In Loving Memory

Our dear friend and fellow miniaturist, Sherrill Bedu, lost her long battles with cancer on October 29.

We celebrated her life at our MEE meeting tonight by wearing hats in her memory and bringing in pieces of her work for display.

My bridle, saddle, tie and pocket pouf by Sherrill.

1:48 scale furniture by Sherrill

Jillian's pieces

Joanne's

Early pieces in 1:12 (June)

 Carol K. brought in all the lovely fabric that she bought from Sherrill over the years. I recognize many of the pieces from dolls that Sherrill sold over the years.

 These are two dolls that members brought in to display Sherrill's work.

Sunni closed the meeting by sharing some of her memories of Sherrill over the years. Many of these were from the years before I joined MEE so they were pretty special.

Our sympathy goes to her husband, Mike Banning, who was so supportive of Sherrill during her illness and to her children and grand-children.

The Book 2015/Paris

I had really hoped to finish all copies of "The Book" tonight. But, as you can see below, I have four left to bind. I've delivered four; readied five for mailing tomorrow; seven are ready to go and the remaining four need to be bound.

 This is my GBC binding machine which I love!

 And this is the problem! This began with a plastic handle that gave up the ghost three or four years ago. I wrote GBC several emails at that time with no reply. Since then I've been using my MasterCraft RoboGrip  pliers to open and close the binding coils. But that's getting harder and harder to do. (You can see where some of the metal is wearing off the corners.)

Once I get the last four books done, I'll try contacting GBC again in the hope that they can help me keep this machine working. It would be heart-breaking to have to give up on it when everything but this one piece works perfectly!

PARIS: My thoughts and prayers are with all of those affected by the horrendous bombings last night in Paris.

Remembrance Day

Lest we forget!

Can't find the picture of my maternal great-grandfather who served with the British Army in India, South Africa (Boer War) and WWI.

My grandfather, Charlie Mould, WWI

Newspaper clipping about my grandma Mould: Husband, daughter, three sons and one son-in-law serving during WWII.

My Dad and Uncle Les served on the Connery side of the family as did uncles by marriage on both sides.

We were so blessed that all of them returned.

Few families were that lucky.

At 92, Mom is the only surviving veteran.

Carol collected our poppies and will put them on Dad's grave in Waterhole Cemetery when she returns home from Arizona.

Three of the four daughters and two of the three SILs spent the afternoon with Mom today. Then we had a wonderful evening together at Shirley and Grahame's.

Oh, my aching back! Non-Mini

Spoke with Carol tonight and, fortunately, they won't be here until Wednesday.

What a relief! As it is 1:20 a.m. Tuesday and I still have all these pages left to collate....

Not to mention binding!

Will try to get them finished tomorrow.

Have a STARFest  "Thank you" scheduled for tonight (Tuesday) and a Board meeting on Wednesday at 4:00 p.m..

Will be in touch...

WHEW!

It's been a looonnng day!

DS Carol and DBIL Fred are coming out tomorrow so I had to get cracking on The Book that I do for family and friends for Christmas. (For those of you who are new to my blog, each year I print a book of email forwards, cartoons, poems and sayings as Christmas gifts.)

It has expanded over the years and is about 230 pages this year - which is one heck of a lot of printing! And I'm doing 20 copies this year!

Still have above 35 documents lined up at the printer. Then have to collate and bind them.

Will end up using about 9 packs of paper

The large stacks to be collated.

Beginnings of the 20 books.

Hopefully I'll get them all printed and collated tonight...and at least one copy bound for Carol when I see her tomorrow.

Some neat Trash to Treasure ideas

I absolutely love this idea for fridge door shelves! Or they would even work well for a shower shelf for shampoo, etc. It's something that I think makes a fridge more realistic! These are made from the caps of disposable razors!

The problem is finding the right disposable razor that has the right cap. Most of them these days are slide from the side caps (which definitely don't work). These particular ones are from the Laser Easy 3 razors shown below that I bought at Dollarama. Of an entire display, these were the only ones which would work.

AND THIS ONE:

This is not a new idea but I had forgotten about it until Marianne Coljin from the Netherlands posted it on Facebook.

Bought 12 of these for $1.00 at Dollarama. These particular ones are 7/8" in diameter so just under an foot in RL. On the right you can see where I have just twisted the hook off two of them.

And here I have used a push pin into the bottom of the suction cup to hold it while I painted it.

Here with red nail polish

and here with Delta Ceramcoat with sparkle glaze. Looks white here

And here is how it looks when the glaze has dried.

What great possibilities! Fill it with fruit for a great fruit bowl! Fill one with Christmas ornaments for a table centrepiece. Or, as Marianne did, put a fat candle in the centre and surround it with other decorations.

Or, I suppose, you could even use one painted to match your china for a serving dish for mashed potatoes made of spackle!

Love this!

for Janet - Music room

A couple years ago at the Bowmanville Show, I fell in love with this chair and loveseat by Janet Harvey: Didn't have a place to put it so wavered (a lot) then bought it at the very last minute! (Literally, running out the door!)

Then suddenly, it came together in my music room....

Just have to show you the view through the bay window...

Bowmanville Show

Last week I flew to Toronto where my son, Sean, picked me up and took me to Peterborough where I spent a week with him, my DDIL, Julie, and my two grandchildren, Jonah and Holly. It was a wonderful visit.

Friday night we had dinner with Julie's parents, Lorne and Wava. Great time! Loveliest people!

Hallowe'en night we had a wonderful dinner at a family friend's,  Jill's, then went 'trick or treating' in her neighbourhood.

On Sunday, Julie drove me over to Bowmanville to the Show and Sale. And what an incredibly wonderful time I had visiting with miniature friends!

First off, I saw Liz from Grandpa's Dollhouse! And finally met her DH Wayne who made all the kits for our club project this year! Talked with Janet Harvey  who does incredible furniture, draperies and bedding. Admired Greg Matusovsky's silver work (which seems to get more beautiful and delicate each time I see it.).

Said Hello to Liz West, then had a great visit with Samm Brockhurst, Samm was ill last year so didn't see her then so had a lot of catching up to do. Then saw Kelly Pinheiro and Patricia Stenhouse (friends from Camp Mini Ha Ha) so had to go visit with them and Dale Bylsma.

By then, Julie, Jonah and Holly had arrived so I took them on a quick tour of the show. And Julie won a door prize!

Aren't they wonderful?

Which she immediately gifted to me! She was totally flabbergasted when I told her that each carpet had roughly 6,000 stitches in it!

I felt really badly that I didn't get to do any serious shopping! Too busy visiting with friends. The only things I bought were these Christmas trees for our club Christmas party.