Online miniature sale, free colouring pages, free books

Like so many others, I'm self-isolating these days. I should be working on minis and maybe getting caught up on my many UFOs, not to mention all the kits I haven't even started yet but for now I'm not doing much of anything except reading.

Love this on FB...

Friend: How are you filling your time?

Me: I’m sewing and crafting.

Friend: What if you run out of supplies?

Me: Laughing uncrontrollably…

Online Show:
Another World Miniatures of Saskatchewan has a table at the online March Miniature Show (https://aminiminiatureshow.weebly.com/) from the 18th to 22nd of March.  Linda Maddaford wanted to let the Edmonton and Spruce Grove ladies know.  If they wish to order anything I can label each order, but send it out in one or two packages to save the cost of postage for everyone, just let me know who wants to receive the parcel and distribute there. 

Free colouring pages:
thesprucecrafts.com has some great free printable colouring pages for adults . Since I have a whole drawer full of coloured pens, pencils and markers, all I would have to do is print out some of these.

They also have a great miniature section run by Leslie Shepherd. Lots of ideas there.

Free Books:
If you're worried about running low on reading material, a great source of free books on line is bookbub. When you sign up, you get to choose your genres. I get an email everyday with a choice of about 10 books of which 1, 2 or 3 are free. Even new releases by well-known authors are pretty reasonably priced although I tend to stick with the free ones.

If I get around tto working on my minis, I will post an update.

For now, stay safe!

Snow

We had a lovely soft snowfall today and as I was out on the balcony, the light caught the snow and it was full of little silver highlights. So I could understand why miniaturists add a light coating of very tiny glitter to their snow.

Unfortunately, none of the pictures I took worked.

Busy but no minis of my own

Our own Tina MacDonald is teaching A Quarter Scale Suffragette’s Bedroom to club members this weekend. I'm not taking the workshop but it's being taught in the social room of my building. Tina is also teaching it at the Ontario Gathering the end of April.

It's a wonderful little room with all kinds of great details.Tina even supplies a protective case for it.

Have had several bits of condo business to look after so that took up some time...

and the rest of the week watching the Brier curling where my grand-nephew (DS Carol's grandson), Matt Dunstone, and his Saskatchewan rink has made it to the semi-final and, hopefully, the final tomorrow. Pretty darn impressive for a 24 year old. And one of the nicest young men you would ever hope to meet.

So between curling, the end of the workshop here and going shopping, probably won't post tomorrow....

Got a few things finished for the attic

After I finished cleaning the workroom, I actually cleaned the rest of the apartment. So I've been trying to keep everything at least presentable since then...and managing pretty well.

But today I knew that the work table had to be cleaned and everything put away before I could do any work.

How on earth did this get so bad so quickly?

The Inuit art was printed on photo paper and "framed" with very thin fingernail art tape. The 1978 map of Disneyland is from our first trip there and is printed on regular paper. Vern's Master Electrician tape was printed on photo paper, framed in MS Word and trimmed. Then the black "frame" was accented with clear dimensional medium. There is a pair of Jillian's glasses done up as sunglasses (Vern was always forgetting his sunglasses). And his softball plaque.

(If you want to give the illusion of a picture under glass, try printing it on photo paper. Much simpler than adding a piece of plastic to it.)

Glasses were trimmed with black marker and the lenses coloured with a grey alcohol-based ink pen.

 Still have to shape my Corelle dishes. A dime is too small and a penny is too big but the end of this marker is just about right. So will get those done soon.

What I really should have is a circle template such as this one as Pat suggested.

I glued two of the 29 crib boards to a scrap of 1/16" basswood.

 Got one roughly cut out. Will use my needle files to trim it down to size later.

So this is what my worktable looks like now.

Have to finish those two pieces.

At our Tuesday meeting, I got three pieces of strip wood from Pat M.

Here you can see the shapes:

I think I might try to turn these into fancy picture frames by gluing lace to the flat portion then using my Krylon gold leafing pen to colour the lace and that wood then maybe staining the outer edge. 

Just a thought....

Non-electrified Lamp workshop, March 17

To explain our workshop for March 17, she brought in a pile of beads, some fine wooden skewers and a whole lot of possible lamp shades from bottle tops and condiment holders.

I may not be able to make it to that workshop so I want to add my own ideas to hers.

There are some ideas here .

And here I tell you how I cut the ping pong balls.


The bases:

If you can find them, there are large pushpins that are 3/4" tall (without the pin). 

To pull out the pin, you hold the pushpin  in one hand and heat the pin with a lighter, then pull the pin out with a needle nose plier.

The base of this is made from a large pushpin, a regular pushpin and a faceted clear bead for the bulb. The shade is made from half a ping pong ball trimmed with some eyelash trim.

The shade is held in place with a sequin pin through a small bead and a jewellery finding.

Another shade (this one's on a chain)

Another ping pong ball shade painted with black marker. The base is a plumbing washer, the tray is a pill bottle cap. All are on a thin skewer.

This shade was made from half a golf ball ice cube.

This base was painted with glass stain.

Hope this gives you some additional ideas.

People are kind!

During the afternoon of Mini Day Out, I had a call from DS Shirley who had fallen while she was walking her dog, Wylie. It was bad. Here's her story:

"It's snowing like hell here but I thought I'd take Wylie for his walk anyway . . first mistake! That bloody snow hides the ice and I went down so hard, a young fellow walking his dog across the street heard my head hit the ice. The kind soul walked me home - the blow to my head has given me a big goose egg on the back of my head and hurts so much I barely notice the lump and bruise on my arm! 😂Maureen is calling to check on me and I am feeling somewhat better now. What is so amazing though, someone just rang the doorbell and it was the young fellow that helped me. He was just checking to see I was okay and was on his way to work with cupcakes and brought me one. Now if that isn't the most thoughtful and kind person!"

Gifts of Roomboxes and Vignettes Part 3

Mission Hill Village

This is the condo next door where my mother lived until her death last year.

Diane H. is the manager of the building. Q wonderful person who is precious to all of us. We gave her this in thanks.

Anne is the incredible woman who runs a catering service out of MHV. She supplied many of Mom's meals during the last years of her life. We became very fond of her over the years. I made a nursery for her first grandchild. Later we gave her a kitchen. We gave it to her when Mom was still able to be part of the presentation but borrowed it back for the Show and Sale in 2019 when it won for Roombox. At the Show and Sale I bought a range hood to finish it.

Our dear friend and housekeeper at MHV, Mirabel, admired these roomboxes and wanted one of her own so we gave her this one.

For many years, Mom's across-the-hall neighbour was Edith, a wonderful woman who was very religious. For her thoughtful care of Mom, we gave her this.

Mission Hill Grande

After I retired in 2007, I made more things for the people in our building.

I gave my Room-by-room boxes to Marg for her granddaughter and gave a box of furniture and accessories to Mary Anne for her granddaughter.

For Leslie:

For Joan: Christmas roombox (Sorry, no picture)

Pamela: Baking scene, Sewing scene

Thin it was Avis, but not too sure who:Christmas vignette

Potluck Dinner: Each year at our potluck dinner Christmas dinner, I donate a roombox/vignette as a door prize. Didn't record the one for 2019 but here are the links to the previous ones:. 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014.

Fellow Board member, Val, asked me to make a  vignette for her friend who loves all things Christmas.

Mom: After Mom had her stroke, she couldn't/wouldn't have flowers in her room so I gave her miniature flowers/plants. And when she went into rehab, I gave her a countdown calendar (like an Advent calendar) to the day she would leave. After she came home, I gave her more flowers and plants on occasion. There were probably over 100 flowers and plants when she died. I've put them away and hope to make a secret garden and include them in it in her memory.

Mom returned the Happy Birthday vignette I gave her years ago so I still have that.

Leanne: Made her a small "Years of my Life" vignette when she was in her 20s. Have it here and it needs to be updated/enlarged.

The Greenleaf "Arthur" that was my first dollhouse has seen many incarnations since it was first built. (And how primitive that was!). It sat in our family room for years. I had a cat that lived in it and Sean's friends would move it around and dare me to find it. Then it lived at W. D. Cuts School for a few years in the French language classroom where its contents had translations. When it was returned, two of the students (bless their hearts) had repaired the shingles on the roof.

Years later, I turned it into a Christmas house, complete with the Hallmark fridge and stove. I even put a running train around the Christmas tree! (Leanne had always wanted that!)

Long story short, Leanne had it then returned it to me.So now it is sitting on my dining room table and she says she will pick it up next week.

I love doing miniatures and I guess that I'm really glad that I have had this opportunity to share them.

This started as sort of "count down" (and it worked out to more than 50 in case you're curious) but that was never the point.

I don't know if this makes sense but I am so blessed to have made these things to give pleasure to my friends and family. 

And, Oh my goodness, the memories these posts have brought me - priceless!

Mini Day Out, Saturday, February 27

A quick note: The previous post was written Friday night but there was a problem saving and publishing it. Fortunately, I saw there was a glitch and saved it to a Word document (just in case). But I didn't around to re-writing it until Sunday afternoon.

After days of lovely weather. Saturday dawned with snow and strong winds which unfortunately affected attendance at Mini Day Out.

Nonetheless there were about a dozen of us throughout the day. We had a special treat because Judy Mitchell (Wee Dreams and Cobwebs) and Rosalle Pinske (Needleart Treasures) came with their miniature wares so we got to do some shopping!! Always fun.

BUT didn't take even one picture although I had charged the battery and taken my camera. Pat M. had brought her finished 1:48 cabin in the woods and Barbara W. brought a great scene in a book that she was making more books for.

In any event it was a great day  and we had a lot of fun visiting and sharing tips, etc.

I was gifted with some lovely things.

Barbara W. gave me all these great pens! Lots of gold pens and a white gel pen.

Trineke gave me this lovely folder of valentine cards.

The cards are loose behind the band on the right so they can be removed (bonus).

Judy gave me these great cozy  slippers and a framed picture.

Tina, Fay, Joanne and I are going to the Ontario Miniature Gathering the end of April. (Booked my flight today.) I have an idea for my table gifts but just in case I don't get those done, I bought these from Judy M. I can always use the flowers elsewhere if I don't use them as my gifts.

Unfortunately, I could only get 6 the same but the 7th is close enough.

My major table gift if I don't come up with something else.

Picked up the vanity tray and the nail polish display for my stash.

I've used up all my doilies and afghans in my stash so bought these from Rosalle to have on hand.

Gifts of vignettes and roomboxes part 2

My sisters' gifts:

Shirley: Strangely enough, I've not made one specifically for Shirley but she has four:Mom's memory box; Dad's workshop; and two that I made for Grahame: his birthday gift and the music room that I gave her in his memory.

Carol: The Camping Scene that I mentioned in the last post is certainly my favourite but the quilt shop that I made for her is pretty special too. It was built to recognize her love of quilting.

Marie: Aside from the wall-hung nursery, I made Marie a standing miniature of several rooms in her house. (Once again, a very early example of copying rooms.)  I didn't have a colour printer at the time so anything printed was hand-coloured....

This last Christmas I gave her the miniature jewellery shop. 

When her eldest son married, I made the couple a vignette to represent the wedding reception. More recently, I re-made a very early nursery, put it into a roombox and gave it to David and Laura when their daughter, Elizabeth, was born. After that, I rehabbed a dollhouse for Elizabeth and Christmas of 2019, I gave Elizabeth and her brother Michael a box of furniture. 

One more family-related gift: I found a Harry Potter character at Chapters and made this for DD Leanne  Later, as DGS Jonah became more involved with the Harry Potter stories, I gave it to him. 

Lots more to tell you in this vein....but Saturday is our Mini Day Out. Got prepared for it today and looking forward to spending time together with mini friends.

Hope I will remember to take some pictures......

Lots more to tell you in this vein....but Saturday is our Mini Day Out. Got prepared for it today and looking forward to spending time together with mini friends.

Hope I will remember to take some pictures......