Camp Mini HaHa

September 24th - 29th Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, Canada

Camp Mini Ha Ha is an annual miniaturist retreat, held since 2001. The camp is a cooperative event, bringing together miniaturists at every level of experience, from beginner to expert to teacher, and is designed to promote sharing while learning and having a whole lot of fun. Our teachers come from near and far, and campers from all over the world are welcome. Plus no cooking and cleaning!

This year’s project is a lamp designed by Wayne Dieleman. The lamp kit will include the wiring and the plexi-glass and a removable insert.  The project is the lamp with a Mardi Gras insert. Teachers will be Wayne Dieleman, Iris Sutherland and Judith Blondell.

Two major problems with this project

The first problem is only in terms of photography and the blog. This is a case from Michael's that was part of my retirement gift from Sir George Simpson School. It's great and a pretty good size BUT the things that make it a wonderful mini shop are also the things that make it almost impossible to photograph. It has a framed top case with glass on the top and three sides and a mirrored back wall that fits into a wooden base. Everything is visible from all angles and it doesn't need lighting.

The mirrored back makes photography very difficult. Sometimes I'm able to cover the mirror and take pictures without that reflection but that's not always possible.

The other problem is in design. The glass walls are centred in wood that is 9/16 inches square that fits into the wooden base.

So any furniture has to be inset from the wall. And precisely placed so the lid can be put in place. I saw a scene done in this case at Camp Mini Ha Ha so I had seen the problems that could ensue.

Trying to overcome this problem was one of the reasons I have taken so long to get working on this project.

It finally occurred to me that the way to deal with this was to build the shelves I want into the cover itself so that is coming together in my head - along with thinking that perhaps the lower shelves should be on an angle so items on them will be more visible.

That would be on one side of the room.

I have some absolutely wonderful pieces of Christmas furniture. But if I put them on the 'floor', they don't show up through the windows...So I'm thinking of putting a raised furniture display section on the right hand side of the room.

Just letting you know where I'm coming from....

Cash register, plate rail

Well, this is where we left the cash register...

TIP: When making up a printie, I usually glue some coins/washers (pennies are good since they're not used in Canada anymore) inside to give it some weight.

TIP: Above you can see the black lines where the folds are. You can generally get rid of these by lightly sanding along the line with a fine emery board.

It worked reasonably well here then I got the bright idea to varnish the body of the cash register to give it a nicer, more realistic finish. BIG mistake. I've done this sucessfully many times in the past but this time I ended up with a weird finish AND it warped the portion on the lower left of the top.

Since it was already ruined, I experimented on the keys with clear dimensional embellishment to give them some dimension. First I tried the pen versions (which come in colours). Wasn't too pleased with that so experimented with the bottled version.

So started over with (again) one cardstock and one paper copy of the printie. This time I got smart and cut the cash register slip from the paper copy first , cut a slit in the cardstock copy and glued the paper copy in place before assembling the cardstock printie. Lightly sanded the edges to minimize the black fold lines. Then I used the Glossy Accents to give the monitor screen and cash register keys dimension. I really think these touches bring the printie up a notch. (It looks SO good in person.)

So I put the completed piece on the counter and it fits perfectly on the 'glass' portion of the counter BUT it's too low and the cash drawer won't open. SHEESH! This was supposed to be a really quick item to make.

Fortunately, it's a quick fix! Check my scrap wood drawer and find a scrap that only requires one cut to fit perfectly on the base of the cash register. Paint it grey and glue it to the bottom of the cash register.

NOW the cash drawer will open!

Plate Rail: I had a small piece of dentil molding left over from a very old project so I took it and added a square strip of wood to the top of it to make a plate rail.

Glued, then painted white. Sanded with a piece of brown paper.

Checked with This to That to see what I should use to glue the molding to the mirror on the back wall and discovered that the second choice would be Weldbond which was convenient as it's my glue of choice for most things. I measured down from the top of the back of the room and used a strip of masking tape to mark where the plate rail needed to go.

The tape has been removed so I'm trying a couple item placements.

I don't have room for even 1/10th of the stuff I've collected for this project.......

More Christmas shop ideas, Tonight's club workshop

This afternoon I started work on some shopping baskets for the shop but will leave telling you about them until I get a sample finished and can post a tutorial.

One of the things I have planned for the Christmas shop is a plate rail on the upper back wall to hold all my Christmas plates.

The plates on the left are made from pop cap liners. Thought I had posted this tutorial before but can't find it on the blog so if you'd like to see it, let me know and I can add it. The ones on the right are porcelain.

Club member, Barb Striethorst, taught a workshop on bulrushes/cattails, water lilies and dandelions tonight. Barb is an incredible teacher who not only supplies wonderfully complete kits but also writes some of the absolutely BEST instructions I have ever seen!

1:48 scale water lilies

1:48 scale dandelions, 1:12 scale dandelions, 1:12 scale cattails and 1:48 scale cattails

Hard at work...

Jillian (right) with her friend who isn't a miniaturist, per se, but who is into miniature gardening, inspired by Janit Calvo, author of Gardening in Miniature.

On the left is Cheryl H., club member from Nova Scotia and owner of the Yahoo Group Canada Minis.

I didn't take part in the workshop (although I did buy the cattail and dandelion kits). Instead I took the printie for the modern cash register from Small Stuff (formerly Jim Collins') printable site. As you can see, my folds are not as crisp as they should be. I`m going to try to clean that up and make it more realistic looking. One thing I did do was print it on plain paper as well as cardstock and cut a slit where the cash register receipt comes out and insert the plain paper cut out of the receipt in the slit to give it another dimension.

It`s too late and I`m too tired to work on this now but tomorrow I`m going to try a few things to make this look better and more lifelike.

Brass ornaments, other ornaments, tree, candy

Aside from all my boxed ornaments and the ornaments on pegboard, I have a HUGE collection brass ornaments and others. Here I've sorted out about 2/3 of them.

 WOW! Cannot believe I have almost 150 brass ornaments. The ones in the upper left-hand corner are all music themed so I'm thinking I may make a black lacquer coffee table for the music room and cover it with music themed brass pieces.

This Lemax tree is 9" tall and has flashing lights. I'm thinking I'll remove the garland but leave the balls on it then finish decorating it entirely with brass ornaments.

Don't know yet what I'll do with all these ornaments.

I bought a bunch of Christmas candies from Belara Beach and transferred them into these bottles that held nail ornaments (from Dollarama).

The Christmas Shop

Oh, my goodness, the ideas are coming fast and furiously! Am so excited about beginning work to complete this.

I've taken out everything that I collected for this project and set it out on the table in the living room.

I thought I would use that Lemax lighted tree in the upper right corner as a highlight....centered at the back of the room ....decorated with all the tiny brass ornaments in my stash!

Oh, my, I think I have enough to fill four rooms this size...

Thought I had everything  on the table then took a look at my Christmas bulletin board and found some more things....

Have to finish sorting through all ideas and visions then start work...

Joanne and I are going to see the Harry Potter exhibit tomorrow. Maybe the day away will let me see something else that will work in this shop.

Catch up

Oh, my goodness....hadn't realized that it had been SO long since I posted.

I've been up to my eyeballs in things around the condo...not as a Board member...but the things I do as as volunteer.

There were several boxes of books donated to the library so those had to be shelved and I had to add some shelves and shift books around to make it all work.

The Board had given me permission to turn one of our amenity rooms into a "movie" room and that entailed moving all the VCR/DVDs out of the library .... long story...

I had to clean out my laundry/storage area to allow for some plumbing repairs.

We finished the trial run of the "Put and Take" so that had to be packed up and the untaken items donated to Goodwill. Couple great things I got from the Put and Take:

Wonderful lamp!

Got this great carriage clock. Inner measurements are 3 3/8" x 4 3/4" so I originally picked it up as I thought it would make a nice setting for a smaller scale scene. But then I replaced the battery and it works! So for now it will be a handy clock....but who knows what the future holds.

This 12" x 12" piece of MDF was an access cover to some plumbing in my storage room. It has a bevelled edge so I'm thinking it will make a nice base for a future mini.

When all that was taken care of, I did a major clean of the condo (all done except for the workroom) and now feel free to start work on the Christmas shop.