On to other things....

Tuesday night, Joanne, Lorry and I went over to Tina's to see her new workroom.

After some water damage in her basement, Tina has redone part of her workroom - and it's a real work of art and a thing of beauty. All of us were SO envious!

Wednesday, I took Grahame's birthday present to Coffee Club to show it off. Very well received.

Tonight, I hung Grahame's birthday gift to get it out of the way until it could be delivered.

Now I have to get back to the kitchen project. Need to get it out of the living room, if nothing else. If I could just do the kitchen island, I'm hoping that that will get me going on the rest of the cabinets.

Well, we'll see how things go.....

(Almost) finished!!

Over the last couple days, I re-read (for the umpteenth time) The Far Pavilion by M. M. Kaye. One of my favourite books! Then Joanne and I went to Reel Monday where we saw Belle which sort of tied in. All of which gave me a good excuse to let me delay working on the beach level!

But all your support (for which I thank you) encouraged me to finally finish the beach area.

In order to stand the clock case upright, I set the back on two books and a sheet of wood so it would stand upright as there are two feet on the front of the case.

I mixed sand with glue and spread it on the 'beach' shelf:

Then I added the driftwood to the back of the shelf along with the seagull and the basket of netting. - then seashells in the forefront.

I say "almost finished" because my dear friend, Cheryl in Nova Scotia, read my last blog and has mailed me some very small pieces of sea glass that I'll add later. So now I don't have to bury my big pieces of sea glass to make them more to scale.

So here is the final piece!

And here it is with the clock front in place. (Hope you can ignore the chair back that's in the picture.)

I'm very pleased with how it all turned out.

Figuring out the beach...

This seagull had no wire to place him so I took a the tack from a push pin (heated it with a lighter and pulled it out) and put it in the hole in the body of the seagull then pushed it in an angle in the side wall of the scene and secured it with glue.

Still in the thinking stages:

A pile of driftwood with the basket of net in place on the right hand side. That's pretty much what I have decided on. (The piece of wood in the back of the picture is just to measure the width of what I'm working with.)

The piece of sea glass is something I really want to show because it's something Grahame has discussed with Shirley but we're talking HUGE  so I think I need to have just a tiny corner of it showing through the sand to make it mini.

I have this bag of sand and the incredible bag of tiny shells.

My plan is to mix the sand with glue and cover the floor of the top section with it, then add some seashells on the left hand side, add the seaglass (semi-submerged) then add all the driftwood.

The concern is that the glue might warp the foamcore.

If I can figure this out, it will be finished!

Getting there....

Glued the flags in place.

I drilled a hole in the upper shelf to hang the lantern. When I found the telescope in the Serendipity Shop, I also found a batch of life jackets so took two for this. (I'll try to do a tutorial on them soon.) Think I'll glue the ships wheel above the life jackets. The crab was a gift at Camp Mini Ha Ha years ago and was made by Elizabeth Read of Ontario. It's so perfect that I want to highlight it.

This is still the question mark part of the scene.

Bit more accomplished (or at least figured out)

Although Grahame was originally a Kiwi, I think in the upper right hand corner, I'll put a Canadian flag and a New Zealand flag. The ones I printed out are 1" x 2" and I think I'll have to make them a bit smaller. New Zealand is in the process of choosing a new flag but this is the one he grew up under so I'll go with it.

Here you can see the addition of the third shelf with the basket of netting, the telescope and a brass lantern.

Still puzzling how to do the bottom of this section. I've already put some sand-coloured paper in there and I have some fine railroad sand that Grahame gave me when he took down his miniature railroad. Think maybe some sand with seashells, maybe the sea glass, on the left and a pile of driftwood with a seagull on the right.

Might put the basket of netting on the driftwood and put some of the larger seashells on the shelf, along with the crab - and maybe the ship's wheel.

Have several seagulls that I'm still pondering.

HINT: The molding that I used for the shelves was RL molding and the wood was hard! I tried cutting it with my X-Acto box and saw but that just didn't work. So I got out my jig saw. I propped up the angle with a Lego piece so I had an even surface to cut. I started my cut on the small side of the molding and put a piece of painter's tape along the long side so the wood wouldn't splinter as the blade went through.

Paint Nite

Well this just confirmed that painting is not my forte! But it was a fun evening and we helped raise a good chunk of money for the Friends of the Library.

Think I may try doing it in  miniature.

I knew I had a telescope in  miniature for Grahame's vignette. Finally found it in my Serendipity Shop so tomorrow I think I'll add another shelf and fill it.

odds and ends

These tubes were from a set of shelves that I got from the sale at Mom's place a couple years ago. I had used the shelves for awhile then put them in the Put and Take. These 'legs' were left over.

I have a WHOLE LOT of odds and ends of pieces of strip wood...think I need to transfer most into the individual pieces.

I can (hopefully) sort the strip wood into the tubes.

 One of these days....

The piece on the left was one that was in my "nautical" box...but it's not! It will fit perfectly in Joanne's bag lady back alley piece that she is re-doing.

On the right is the shopping bag that Tina gave all the older (in terms of membership) members tonight. The Toy Factory was a shop just off Whyte Avenue that was a miniature shop that most of us remembered.

Oh, my, love this! For several years now, Barb Striethorst has made a birthday gift for each MEE member. This is a ladyslipper in 1:12 scale. Both Barb R. and I received it for our March birthdays.

We all have UFOs (unfinished objects) and PhDs (Projects Half Done). But the new word for the days is:

SABLE (Stuff Accumulated Beyond Life Expectancy).

another busy week

Mini club tonight, a Paint Night tomorrow and condo potluck dinner on Thursday.

The Paint Nite should be interesting. It's a fundraiser for Friends of the Library. Joanne and I are going. I expect my effort will either end up in the garbage or hidden under the bed. LOL!

And even more done....

Well, I got the musical notes glued in.

I have a love/hate relationship with double-sided carpet tape. It's SO sticky (love) but it's SO sticky (hate). You only get one chance to get it right when  you're using it on paper/cardstock.

So I cut a piece of cardstock to fit the back then cut a matching piece from the scrapbooking paper.
First I covered the front of the cardstock entirely with strips of the carpet tape, making sure not to overlap so the protective paper will come off easily. I used a metal edge and utility  knife to cut off any excess.

Starting at the bottom, I pulled off the first strip of protective paper, lined up the scrapbooking paper, attached it then worked my way up one strip of tape at a time until the entire piece of scrapbooking paper was attached.

Then the back of the cardstock was covered with strips of tape. Because this is being attached in such close quarters, I stripped all of the protective covering at once and VERY carefully attached it working from the bottom up. And it worked!

Then the shelves were glued in place and the ships glued to the shelves.

I added a gold beer stein to the shelve with the ship in a bottle.

So far, so good.

Now to make sure all the glue is dried. Tomorrow, I'll tackle the bottom of the upper section that I'll cover with drift wood, etc.

Yippee! Got something done!

Thanks for all the support during my drought!

Friday night I was talking for DS Shirley (Grahame's wife) and she said she had some scrapbooking paper that might work for the clock. But she only had one sheet. She brought it over yesterday and that sort of got me thinking.

There's enough to do one side and the back but the design doesn't lend itself to piecing the reminder to do the second side so I guess I'll just use it for the back.

The plan was to take the whole day today to work on the clock. BUT great-nephew, Matt Dunstone's, rink has been playing in the semi-final and final of the Manitoba provincial curling. And it's not easy to keep an eye on the curling and mini at the same time!

However, I have managed to get something done. BTW, my camera is working properly again!

I found some RL molding that will hold the fridge magnet ship on its own and the ship in a bottle with a ledge added.

The stands look to be a bit better match to the paper in person.

I'm concerned about putting the paper on the back sturdily enough that the shelves can be glued in place and stay properly. Think I might use solid lines of carpet tape to secure the paper to cardstock then carpet tape to attach it to the foamcoare.

I'm also adding a few things to the bottom half of the clock. I have a bag of brass musical instruments and notes in my Christmas stash. I cut the rings off them and have just placed them on the wall for now.

Will glue them in place later.

I have a big stack of driftwood, some RL sea glass, and lots of very tiny shells and a crab I'm planning on putting on the bottom.

Somewhere (?) I have a great laser cut bracket from Liz (Grandpa's Dollhouse) that I need to find to hold a wonderful brass lantern from my stash.

It's coming together!

Had to stop and watch the last end of the curling game. Matt lost on the last rock but he's still going to Denmark for the Junior Men's Curling World Championship. Well played, both teams!

Four whole days and nothing to report!

My mini get up and go has definitely got up and went. I hate days like this!

And I hate my inability to get anything done! If I just buckled down and finished painting the cabinets, I would almost have the basic kitchen done....but I just can't seem to get to it.

Part of it is, I think, the weather. The forecast was for high single and low double digits for the next week but things changed with a nasty day of colder weather and blowing snow today.

RL has been busy though. Lots of condo business to take care of this week. Today, Joanne and I spent the day at DD Leanne's Head Start classroom revamping their library. Then Leanne treated us to dinner at the Ling Nan. Great chinese food and wonderful visit.

Hope I get my act together soon.

Oh, I am frustrated!

Finally got some work done on the bottom portion of Grahame's clock case. Papered the walls with red cardstock (using double-faced carpet tape to attach it to the foamcore) then built a foamcore stand for the drum kit. Couldn't find the black velvet I thought I had but did come across another piece of black fabric that worked. Glued the drum kit in place.

Don't know what the heck is going on with my camera! Usually, I connect it to my computer and the pictures show up on my screen, I import them and crop them and that's that...they're available for use.

I did manage to import this one but had to jump through hoops to import it and couldn't crop it at all. Surprised I could even load it here.

Hope I can figure out what the problem is and  fix it soon.

Rob and Leanne are treating me (with Leanne) to a trip to Peterborough to see Sean, Julie and the grandchildren! I'll rent a car for Leanne to drive us to Peterborough on Easter Sunday (my birthday) and we'll be there for Julie's birthday on the 31st. We'll be spending a special day with Jonah and Holly and Leanne is thinking about going to Ottawa for a day as she's never been there. Then we fly home EARLY on April 1st to meet my DS Marie and BIL Robert who will stay in the condo guest suite for the weekend for James and Aaryn's wedding on Saturday with the reception in the condo social room. Then on  Sunday, DBIL Grahame's sister and BIL arrive from New Zealand for Grahame's 80th birthday. Busy time but great to see family both in Ontario then here.

Oh, my, my calendar is filling up so much!

Nothing new miniwise...

Did some thinking about the red for the bottom room of Grahame's piece but other than that just did a whole lot of cleaning up of paperwork in the office/workroom...

I have a bad habit of leaving paperwork until it piles up then when people come over as they did for Mini Day Out, shoving everything into a box so my workroom looks tidy...then at some point I have to clean out that box and file and/or shred everything.

So that's how I spent the day....cleaning up

Grahame's birthday box

Did get a small start on the clock case today. I had previously removed all the inner workings so this was just a matter of lining it with two "rooms" of foamcore. First, I took of the front door than I cut two pieces of foamcore for the side pieces and glued them in place. The glue tends to warp the foam core so I put it in place, put a stainless steel ruler over that then clamped both in place. The ruler keeps the clamp from digging into the foamcore.

Cut and glued in the back, then did the cross pieces. The middle piece is 1/2" foamcore from an old project.

I've set the door in place so I can see what it will look like.

I bought this wonderful drum kit from a street vendor in New York City the last time Leanne and I were there. I plan on putting it on a (maybe black velvet covered) stand so it's centered in the gold decoration on the mirror. Maybe do the walls in red to highlight the drums?

I bought this with Grahame in mind but knew I wanted to use it in a scene of some sort. When there wasn't room for it in the Music Room, just set it aside. Since drums are a major part of Grahame's life, it seems appropriate to highlight them here.

Have these two ships for the upper section. Think I may break the ship out of the bottle and use it on its own. The lower ship is a fridge magnet! Haven't decided what else I'll use. I have lots of driftwood, sea glass and shells. Have no idea at this point how it will come together but I'm looking forward to it.

wardrobe, fireplace

My work is SO scattered. Sometimes, like today, there is a reason for it.

This morning, I dropped by Barb R.'s to pick up something and we got talking about Liz's January deals and I mentioned something I had bought. Bless her heart, she gave me a Michael's cabinet that will work for my three room piece as a wardrobe.

Need to take out the shelf and put in a clothing rod.

Door is SO warped - need to figure out how to replace it.

Tina taught a wonderful fireplace workshop tonight at M.E.E. club.

Sorry, couldn't get this looking right!

A glance around the table, looking at how people were painting their fireplaces.

We had a new member with us tonight that did an incredible job of painting the cobblestone fireplace. I thought I had a picture but for whatever reason I don't. In any event, well done Andrea.