Mini Day Out, Potential Fairy/Mouse House

Normally, I give more notice when planning a Mini Day Out in the social room of my condo but friend and MEE member, Corinne is coming up from Calgary to spend a few days with her sister so we're having a Mini Day Out on Saturday, July 2. Between short notice and the fact that it's a holiday weekend, looks like we'll still have a fair turnout. If you're not a MEE member, in the area on Saturday and would like to join us, e-mail me and I'll send you the information. The more, the merrier.

This was in the Put and Take and thought someone might be able to use it as potential fairy or mouse house. It's real bark on a cardboard cylinder. It's 8" tall and 7" in diameter. There are a couple small sections where the bark has come off (in the pictures) but you could put doors there.

Pick up only.

MEE garage sale

Well, last night was the last club meeting until September although we do have one summer social get-together at a member's home.

The highlight of the meeting is a garage sale where members can sell off anything they no longer want. Unfortunately, only a few bring things to it anymore. And I'm as guilty as anyone!

When we went to Driving Miss Dolly in Red Deer, Marilyn A. who is an associate member from Calgary gave us some items that had been donated to the Calgary Doll Club to sell. There wasn't a whole lot of stuff but I did pick up a few things.

Got 14 pieces of strip wood for 25 cents each. Can always use this.

 (Two hours later! We just had a humungous lightning storm. Just had time to shut down the computer before the lightning hit the building and set off the fire alarm. So had to evacuate the building. But all is well and we're all back in.)

Was pleased to get this Realife Miniatures kit containing all the shelving for a country store. Shelving always comes in handy and I'm sure I'll use the counters at some point.

Got all these plastic containers of dessicant from Joanne's stash (she was giving them away).The large ones are 1" tall and the smaller ones are 3/4" tall. Think I'll spray paint them with primer, add some decals and make some canisters for a kitchen. (These are sometimes used in bottles of prescription drugs to absorb moisture.)

Dollarama

Went to the new Dollarama (just down the hill from me as opposed to the old one which is a fair distance from here) and just took my time looking around.Bought some odds and ends of things I think might work for minis (plus, of course, some other things).

The lighting in the condo is not great so I picked up this 7 LED headlight ($2.50) for when I'm working on the couch in the living room. Light is good although colours aren't. But think it will come in handy.

The colour of these foot-less tights ($3.00) really caught my eye. Think the fabric might work for upholstery.

Think I can use the air-drying clay ($1.50) to make the inside of my hot tub. I've had one package forever (and it's still soft) but picked up the second package which hopefully will be enough to do the hot tub....whenever LOL.

Think these wood veneer shapes ($1.50) will work well to enhance wall panelling. Particularly a paneled wall below a chair rail with these added  about 1/2 or 3/4" apart. The bottle beside them is Glossy accents clear dimensional medium from my stash.

Here's one panel with an edging of the dimensional medium.

The dimension could be added about 1/4" in from the edge also. For some reason I think if I were to do this, I would cut the piece to be more rectangular than square. New corners could be cut with a regular paper punch.

And here it is partially stained.

They also had this in oval shapes (in a couple sizes on one sheet). Didn't buy any but thought they might work for picture frames. They could be edged with cording, lace, even miniature sea shells.

Couple other things I saw but didn't buy:

• X-Acto type knife with thick (about 5/8" in diameter) plastic/rubber handle. Think it was $2.00 with a pack of 5 extra #11 blades.
• An incredible selection of rolls of their own brand of Duct Tape in all colours and designs. Some leopard designs that looked to be about 1:12 scale.
• Some nice book size boxes that would be good for a little vignette - particularly a seasonal one that you could close up and put away after the holiday.
• In the wedding section, they had some plastic grooms (no brides) in black suits... about 5 3/4" without the base. Not great but could work in a pinch in some scene where you need a man in a suit.
• A set of two punches that would round off corners: 1/2" and 1".

They did NOT have any more of the Croc pony tail holders. (Nor did the other Dollarama when Joanne and I were there earlier in the week.)

One thing our Dollarama has not had for ages is the set of three colours of furniture retouching markers. Sure wish they'd bring them back.

I'm sure there were other things I've forgotten or just didn't note because I've 'been there, done that'. But my impression is that there are just not as many things as there were at Dollarama four or five years ago.

Wallpapered the wall of the lamp insert

I had these three packs of handmade paper in  my stash. Decided the red would work best.

Draped it over the back of the insert with the unfinished chair in front.

I planned on using spray adhesive for the wallpaper so first I had to cover the floor with scrap paper

 and wrapped it around the sides and taped it in place.

Then I took it outside to the balcony and sprayed the adhesive on. First coating didn't work at all but tried a second time and it had enough sticky to attach the paper. Weighed it down with a book and left it for awhile.

 Put glue on the back

 and wrapped the excess paper around

Thank heaven the glue will dry clear because I made quite a mess of it.

Then I added a strip of wood for a baseboard.

For now, I've put in a Bespaq cabinet. The bottom shelf is filled with faux books from Barbara Brear.

Some trash to treasure

Just can't seem to get my mini mojo working. Hope it comes back soon. Can't even get enthusiastic about going back and trying to work on some of my older UFOs.

In either Chicago or Phoenix,  I bought some laser cut hinges and locks from Dragonfly. Was positive I knew exactly where I had put them but they've disappeared on  me. ;-(

Last week, I scavenged two wine cork cages. They'll make a couple nice vanity stools or patio chairs when I get them done.

the cages themselves

With the wires removed.

The wires can be shaped into a back for a chair.

 Yippee! These are back at Dollarama. It's been four or five years at least since the last time I saw them. And actually, I didn't find them. Joanne picked up two sets for me.

The first five ready to use. On the right is one with the back still on.

 I thought I would have to use the hair dryer to remove the backs but I was able to just pull the elastic and metal piece off with a pair of pliers then the glue itself just peeled off.

So now I have ten pair of Crocs to add to scenes. I used my last pair from my previous stock in the living room on the cake plate.

I like these colours and think they will work most anywhere I want them but if I wanted different colours, I would use nail polish. (Great variety of colours available at Dollarama.)

When you have worn out a foam paint brush, you can pull off the foam and use the plastic piece under it as a glue spreader - particularly good in corners and smaller spaces. (top)

One of the tools that Barb S. asked us to bring to the roses workshop was a needle tool. I didn't have one so took a foam paint brush, drilled a hole in the end of the handle and glued a needle in eye first. (bottom)

Driving Miss Dolly, Red Deer

Some months ago, a few members of the Calgary Doll Club, the Edmonton Doll Club and the Edmonton Barbie Club decided to sponsor a get-together of those clubs and the Miniature Enthusiasts of Edmonton in Red Deer (which is half way between the two cities).

So today we did just that! What an incredibly wonderful day!

Joanne, Sunni, Lilliana(former member) and I came from the Miniature Enthusiasts of Edmonton.

This was our table for the luncheon. The table was decorated by Marilyn A. (founder of the St. Albert Miniature Club - now not a separate entity from the Edmonton Club) with beautiful doilies on the table and the backs of the chairs. We all received lovely gifts of water, candies, pens and memo pads PLUS beautiful miniature hats with hair clips on the backs.

About one o'clock, we all sat down and someone spoke on behalf of the four clubs then we went around all the tables and each person spoke telling about her/himself and most described a "show and tell" they had brought.

There was a lot of cross-over. The president of the Barbie club in Edmonton was the original founder of the Edmonton miniature club. Sunni, Joanne and Lilliana have also made cloth dolls over the years. And because we have also exchanged meetings and spent time at each others' shows, it was like "old home" week.

After lunch, we all posed for a group picture which will be on Facebook under Edmonton Doll Club and Calgary Doll Club.

Then we toured the tables, checked out other show and tell pieces, and did some serious shopping!

Joanne's displays on the right and her sales items on the left.

Lilliana's African Queen and her Mermaid.

Great pieces from Sunni's collection.

Pictures taken during the luncheon:

Our table.

 All the wonderful display and sales tables.

It's just great that we were all able to get together, visit and get to know each other better. Hope we'll be able to do this again next year.

Thanks so very much to the organizers of this event.

Roses workshop

FINALLY....

I kept trying to upload these pictures and just kept getting coding. Then I realized at some point I had clicked on HTML so switched it back to Compose and now it's working. Very frustrating!

Anyway, MEE member Barb S. taught a roses workshop at club last night. We're lucky to have Barb as she generally teaches one workshop a year, makes our birthday gifts, and is also a dealer at our Show and Sale where she sells flower kits, assembled flowers, landscape supplies, German laser cuts and food items.

She had this demonstration of each step of the process plus great illustrated instructions.

Here's her final product for this class. (She actually offered it in other colours too.)

I'm not much on making flowers. In fact, when a vendor at  our Show and Sale had her 8 year old grand-daughter demonstrating making her kits and I couldn't do as well as she, I decided that buying was the way to go. LOL.

But, being a sucker for punishment, I signed up for this workshop and although I still haven't finished making all six roses, I'm rather pleased with the result. Barb's an excellent instructor!

Everyone hard at work.

the matboard/International Children's Festival/tomorrow

You'll recall that at our last MEE meeting, I got a great supply of matboard from Joanne's work friend. But I was at Leanne's at the time so Joanne kept it in her car for me.

Joanne is on the committee that runs the International Children's Festival in St. Albert.  She has been working her buns off for the past five days with that so our only contacts have been a few phone calls to tell me how much fun she is having (and how tired she is and how much her feet hurt LOL).

Tonight (Saturday), I was incredibly pleased to have been Joanne's guest at the closing ceremony of the Children's Festival. Wonderful experience!

Anyway, when she dropped me off at home, I took up all my wonderful matboard.

The ruler in the pictures is 24" so you can see what wonderful sizes these pieces are.

Don't know yet how I'll use them but am thrilled to have them.

My sister Carol is going to be here on Sunday to visit with Mom and me, then DD Leanne will pick her up so she can spend the night with Leanne who will take her to the airport Monday morning so she can go home to the Peace River Country.

The floor

About ten years ago, Doreen Robertson, a friend who lived in our building and was the former owner of the Pet and Hobby Shop in St. Albert, gave me a tube of 24" x 1/4" cherry veneer. I haven't counted them but I think there are at least 200 pieces in the tube. (Until last week, I hadn't looked at the price on the end of the tube - $55.00?!?)

Until a couple weeks ago, I hadn't used it.

I started with a cardstock template of the floor of the lamp roombox. I knew I wanted an outer edge of plain cherry with a second row of black. So I cut the four mitred pieces of each for the outer edge then four more pieces that I stained black with my trusty black permanent marker.

 I then glued them in place then started to fill in the rest of the floor in a brick pattern.

Now I had to figure out how to cut all the inner pieces properly with all the correct angles. I cut the 24" pieces of veneer in half , taped 11 of them together at one end, than placed them in the gluing jig I got from Samm Brockhurst.

From one end, measured them with the ruler (1 1/4")

then clamped the ruler in place and cut the strips to 1 1/4" length.

 Kept doing this until I had all the pieces cut.

Then, starting from the middle of the template, I started gluing all the pieces in place.  The first (middle row) was the 1 1/4" pieces, then on either side I cut the 1 1/4" piece in half to start then went with the 1 1/4" pieces again.

Here it's coming together.

And the left side completed...

Now the right side...

Shoot! Now I have to fill in all those holes at the top. Measure them off...

Cut them...

Then put them in place.

I can't find the picture here to transition from the flooring to the floor. But I put four strips of Duck indoor/outdoor carpet tape across the floor then dropped the flooring in place.

Couple things I would have done differently:

I would have coloured the cardstock to match the wood so the very tiny pieces where I didn't quite get pieces of wood together wouldn't have mattered.

Not so sure if I would have done this one - although it certainly would have been easier. Instead of filling in those teeny pieces at the end, I maybe could have cut that piece to fit.