Hats

Joanne and I are off this morning to Sunni's for a hat-making session. Haven't made any for a couple years so looking forward to it.

Here are some previous efforts:

 Fun fur hat and muff, White lace over red

 Front views above, back views below

I remembered a wonderful tutorial by Joann Swanson for 25 hats  in an old Dollhouse Miniatures magazine (before Ashdown) so went to the NAME website and looked up hats in the project database. (If you've not used this before, I highly recommend it. Select your category and project: in this case, Clothing and Hats and you'll get a list of published tutorials - magazine, date and page.) There were 45 projects listed - and the one I was looking for was in the March 2002 edition of DHM. Also pulled some of my NN that had hat tutorials.

Now I just have to pull together my supplies and I'm set for some fun.

more agate slices

These larger agate slices are from the souvenir shop at Peggy's Cove, NS. The piece on the top right is about 4" x 4 1'4" and the bottom piece is about 6" long.

If I had had the bottom piece when I made the bar for the penthouse, think I would have used it for the top of the bar. The long pieces might work with two pedestals.

These need heavier pedestals. Years ago when I was working at W. D. Cuts School, we cleaned out the trophy cabinets and I got a lot of neat pieces of 'stuff' for my stash from the trophies that were being thrown out. Lots of pieces of brass that I shared at the time on Small Stuff, some great pieces of wood that I gave to the woodworkers in my Mom's building, and other odds and ends that I still have.

Here are two of them used as table pedestals.

These two pedestals are napkin rings. The wooden one was on clearance at a store in Kelowna and the silver one was from the Salvation Army thrift store there.

Here are some more possible pedestals: 

- clear cylinder (could even be filled with seashells or coloured sand for extra interest)

- a couple more pieces from trophies

- a cholla cactus rib that could be sliced and used for pedestals

Display table

Every once in awhile I succumb to temptation and treat myself to a McDonald's Smarties McFlurry. I try to tell myself it's all in the interest of miniatures but we all know that's just an excuse. LOL

However, the McFlurry spoons are great for making pedestals for tables.

from the end

Here I've cut a slice of the spoon handle and added a matboard top to make a small display table.

 This was a happy accident. My intention was to give the entire table a couple of coats of black nail polish for a solid black gloss finish but a single coat gave me a great marble look so I left it like that.

My daughter brought me these agate slices which will make nice little display tables with a single McFlurry pedestal.

The lower green piece is about 1 1/2" x 2 1/2".

Fun with the grandkids

Our grandchildren live in Ontario so I don't get many chances to play with them but for those of you lucky enough to have yours (or your children or even neighbourhood children) nearby, Miniature Collector has a wonderful page "Kid's Corner" with great ideas for simple projects. Although aimed at children, the projects are often little accessories you may want to add to one of your own scenes.

Scott Publications, the publishers of Miniature Collector, has these projects online starting with the November, 2006, column. There might even be some ideas that could work  for club workshops.

Bar stools 2

I think I want to put plain wood barrel backs on the stools. I have a package of single ply maple business cards from Lee Valley that should work for this.

These two paint bottles are the same size as the stool seats. They've been taped together to make a form for the seat backs.

I put one of the business cards in a pan of water and boiled it for about 10 minutes, formed it around the paint bottles and wrapped it in place with some stretch and hold bandage. Probably could have taped it but I want to stain the wood later and didn't want to have to deal with any residual adhesive from tape.

It has dried overnight and is ready to be stained and cut.

I Googled and found a picture that gives me the general shape I want but I'm not quite ready to tackle that yet.

The remaining two stools have been stained.

Still have to cover the seats then tackle the backs...maybe later today.

Bar stools 2

As you can see, the seat of the bar stool pops out. With it out, I've stained the bottom piece with dark brown Furniture Touch Up marker from Dollarama (similar to this). 

I had some fabric left from covering the booth backs and seats so after washing a piece to remove the sizing I cut a circular piece to cover the stool seat.

Tip: When I need a certain sized shape such as this, I open a new document in Word Office and go to Insert and choose Shape. From the drop down menu I choose the shape I need - in this case a circle. I click on the plus sign that comes up and the shape appears in my document. The default size for the circle is 1" so I go to size at the end of the new toolbar and choose 1.5 for both height and width. This gives me a 1 1/2" circle that I print and use as a pattern for cutting my fabric.

 While the circle of fabric was still slightly damp from washing it, I spread a thin  layer of glue over the back of the entire piece and glued it to the seat. (If you spread the glue on the fabric rather than the seat, the fabric adheres to itself when you fold it around the bottom of the seat.)

Having said that, it's a bit difficult to do without getting some glue on the outside of the fabric so I think with the next two stools, I'll spread the glue on the top of the seat and attach the fabric leaving the edges unglued for this stage. When that glue has dried, I'll then spread the glue on the fabric that turns under the seat and glue it in place.

Then simply pop the seat back in place.

I probably want backs on these stools and think I have that figured out. Check with me  tomorrow and see if my idea works.

Bar stools

You'll recall that I got stalled on the neighbourhood bar when it came time to build the actual bar - which still isn't coming together in my head :-(

I had some Dollar store stools that were really too short for bar stools but thought I might be able to work with them if I had to.

But as it turns out, I don't have to. A while back, Pat Morrison (ebay seller id taffy671) had some bar stools available and I won them. They arrived today and are perfect! 2 1/2" high and the seats even swivel a bit.

As you can see, I'm so excited I haven't even unwrapped all of them.

And even more timely, Pat has three more of them up on e-bay this week.So if you've been looking for bar stools, this may be your big opportunity to pick some up at a good price.