Framed........

When you're bored, play with trash.

 

Coffee stirrers and buttons.

Cheap thrills :))

Royal Wedding Fever....!

Heheh, when I saw these plates I just had to have a souvenir of the Royal Wedding!

From

Carolyn

My fuzzy photo doesn't do them justice, they are really really lovely and made me smile.

Another smile :)

A parcel arrived in the mail yesterday unexpectedly from a dear friend.

Don't you love surprises!!

I was gobsmacked when I opened it to reveal a whole box full of beautiful wicker that she'd made.

This chest is just one piece!

Adelaide claimed it immediately and dressed it up with her favourite things.

I just love it!!

And I love all the other bits which will turn up in photos soon!

Happy Easter

Easter Greetings,

hoping for peace and family time for everyone.

These are my miniature Easter makings for 2011.

The basket is an old one with a shabby facelift,

the birdie-on-a-stick is new,

the nest is new,

as are the Easter Eggs and the pull-along-bunny.

Mr. 9 year old grandson helped make the polyclay eggs.

Inspiration is back!

Some Self Indulgence

I'm feeling like a bus today. 

You wait and wait for a bus that never comes then two arrive together!

Just thought I'd share what I've been up to,

indulging the passion while unable to make miniatures myself.

From

Blue Kitty Miniatures

The ducks reminded me of my grandparents home and made me smile.

Being unhandy with miniature plants I couldn't resist these gorgeous succulents.  The photos don't do justice to these polyclay creations, they are absolutely wonderful!

From

MostlyArt

I adore this little Froggy flower frog in this lovely bowl!

Once again the photo doesn't show the perfection of the handwork.

The bunny and african violet were surprise gifts that made my day :)

Here they are all together with a spike I made 

inspired by Mercedes RL size spike.

The spike is my first play with miniature making in quite a while.

All of these goodies reside in my conservatory which is getting nicely filled.

Adelaide's Clothes

No More Zen Knitting

It feels good to be back to miniature crochet after 3 months of real life poking its ugly nose into my fun.

Adelaide has been naked for far too long. 

An Angel Suit for a little angel!

Adelaide came from Alicia

Long Absence...

Not much time to post of late but keeping up with

all your beautiful blogs

during spare moments keeps me almost on the level ;)  

Do I suffer from insanity?  No, I enjoy it! 

Also enjoying cooking.

Croissants, brandy custard and prunes - upmarket bread and butter pudding - a fave with family!

 And making soap - perfume and additive free.  No photo, it's still maturing.

And knitting RL size dish cloths when my hands are shaking too much for miniatures.

Knitting dish cloths is addictive. 

 Zen knitting my friend Bev calls it,

automatic movements that let your mind roam free.

There have been some moments for miniatures.

Pink for my kitchen. 

Enamel mugs for no.2 grandsons stable.

Egg carton pavers for the stable.

Grandson made a planter box and I had help building a Feed Bin.

  

Pet dishes made by no.3 grandson for his kitchen while he was off school with Chickenpox. 

That lad is good with poly clay!

And a cat bed made by me.

 Second set of dishes made by me for the stable because no.2 grandson didn't have chickenpox

......and had to go to school!

Yellow for grandsons kitchen.

Just small projects for my butterfly mind.

Shabby What? - Shabby Grubby....

Grunge-ing (my own word) a nice miniature is not an easy thing for my clean, neat and tidy brain come to terms with; much as I love the work of real shabby miniature artists who seem to know exactly how much is enough, the process doesn't come naturally to me. 

I can't say I like what I've done.

 

I think I went a bit too far, my husband wants to put it on the kerbside for the metal recyclers.........hmmmm, is that a compliment or a criticism?

At least the banged up cream coloured jug does look more used now, not so 'brand new with artfully applied chips added'.  I don't like the other two jugs much, they were better without the grunge.

I used thin washes of two paint colours, an amber sort of one for the rusted marks and and a dirty brownish black for plain old dirt stains.  Dotted the wash on and spread and dabbed with my fingers.  When there was too much I wiped it a bit with an almost dry cloth, that left a hint of colour in the depths of the brush strokes in the white paint and looked more natural.

Five Minutes of Fun

Table made from card, wire and beads.

Needs some shabbying but I'm nervous about messing up.

Paint effects are not my area!!

A Nice Cuppa.....

Breathe a sigh, Christmas and New Year are over.  Time to take stock and make plans with a nice cup of tea.

Can't do the cuppa without the kettle, matching our toasters of course. 

We wanted our kettles to be real so we took our measurements from my

RL Sunbeam Kettle.

Brushed stainless steel for grandson,

green for my modern kitchen.

What we made them from.

I'm so sorry I forgot to take photos for a tutorial as I went along with these kettles, they've been a work in progress for over a month as I worked out how to achieve each step, in between christmas shopping, christmas baking, christmas decorating, christmas parcel wrapping..........you get the picture!!  I wasn't altogether sure my idea would work till after I got the wire ring to stay stuck round the bottom of the main body to represent the ridge where the top part is joined to the element part of the lift off kettle.  After that hurdle the rest went easily.  Look at your own kettle or a photo of one that you like the shape of and you'll see it is just a sandwich of pieces stuck together.

I cut part of the bead off for the main body then cut two circles from the tongue depressor the same size as the cut off base of the bead.  Then sanded a slight bevel on the cut edge of the bead and the same on the edge of one of the wood circles and glued the two pieces together so the bevel edges made a slight depression for wire to sit in.  I used 5 minute epoxy glue for the wire and there's no way to get it to stay except to hold it in position till that glue sets!  Next I drilled a hole in the piece of dowel down the shaft for the spout of the kettle and cut that tiny piece away from the dowel on an angle so it would tilt upward when glued on to the bead.  The hole in the top of the bead was filled with a plaster type filler and a tiny hole drilled to insert the pin for the knob of the lid.  The 'lid' position was marked by placing the bead upright on the table and placing a pencil on a book or something horizontally positioned so the bead can be turned round against the pencil and make an even mark all round the top where the edge of the lid would show, then a slight depression was filed using the pencil mark as a guide.  Two holes were drilled into the bead and a wire handle was bent and glued in, once again using epoxy glue. 

For the electric base, drill a hole in the centre of the other wood circle and use that as a guide to drill a matching hole in the bottom wood circle of the kettle so when the top is put on the base the two circles will match one another.  Glue a short length of toothpick into the hole in the base for the 'electric plug' bit that goes into the kettle.  Next, round off the top edge of the base and the bottom edge of the kettle.  Turn the base over and add 3 tiny slices of toothpick for feet, sand so it will sit firmly.  Black thread and card make the electric cord.  Then paint in your chosen colour scheme.

What did you do on Boxing Day?

I first counted my blessings.....miniature and otherwise.........

This blessing is a gift every Christmas, it belonged to my Pop who passed away in 1970, was cared for by Nanna till 1995 when it came into my care.  It must be well over 50 years old, I recall it being around when I was young.  I love the rich colour of the abundant blooms and treasure the memories they bring.



Then some miniature christmas goodies.

Meet Imogen Iris.

A special gift from my other 'arf, dressed in cream and old christmas red. 

She joins her older sister Isabelle Ivy, 

(sitting down)

in the Christmas Shop with Ambrose,

(the dog with the face only a mother could love but he is a precious memento of a dear departed friend) - where both girls dream of

Christmas Presents. 

Please don't look at the naked christmas tree, I promise I'm trying to make decorations..........

From a very dear friend who has a very new blog. 

I collect Depression Glass, now I have some in miniature!   How cool is that? 

The phone is a symbol of our legendary chat-a-thons ;)

That tatted doiley, handmade, gossamer fine.  Isn't it gorgeous?

It deserves a photo on its own to show off the awesome detail.

The bridle kit is again from 'imself and the totally grogeous silver trophy is from another lovely friend.  It looks like I'd better build my own stable soon!

After counting blessings I thought, since Grumpy is off his oats and on paddock rest, it would be appropriate to make hay while the sun shines............

OK, end of horsey puns, and the sun hasn't shone here for a week. 

Nevertheless, a large part of the day was spent making up that bridle kit.

I rarely have that much time to play all in one day, it was like christmas mk.2!

Shadow looks pleased with his new 'clothes' :)  Here he is visiting my grandsons horse who is as yet unnamed.  If I was a trifle younger, and a trifle smaller, I'd hop right on that saddle and take a wonderful ride but since I'm neither of those things I'll have to do the grandmotherly thing instead and spend some time with grandson making up his christmas bridle kit for his horse very soon.

A Furry Happy Christmas

Decorate the Christmas Tree with cute ornaments.

George.

What's the fuss?

Blonde Bomber.

Watching from a safe distance.

Freddy Frog and the Whinnying White Ninny.

Give me a break, I'm too old to get excited!

Jelly.

Bah Humbug!  I'll hide under a pillow till the fuss is over.

Flossie Flannel Drawers.

Happy Christmas to all who share the season and to their furry loved ones from me and my beloved fuzzbutts.

A Fun Pattern Review

The inhabitants of the toybox heard a whisper that there were some new toys on their way to join them so they all got together to share the gossip and form a welcoming comittee.  The bears were excited because they'd heard there were to be some more bears and little Gulliver, the smallest pink elephant, heard there was someone just the right size for him to play with.

Here they are whispering among themselves.

Dermot the Frog was disappointed the newcomers weren't green but he got over it when he found there was a blue bear - his second favourite colour!

Gulliver was thrilled to meet his new tiny playmate and Microdot jumped for joy to meet another pink bear.  Heffalump, the big pink elephant found a soulmate in the white bear and they can often be found whispering together.  The floor of the nursery is busy with toys!

I often feel sad that I can't make enough crocheted things to share with everyone so it's been on my mind to buy some patterns and do a review so you can try to crochet some things too. 

Mariella 

kindly agreed to allow me to make a post about her patterns.

These are the ones I chose.  They are so cute!

 Bear

Gingerbreadman

Not wanting to add yet more thread to my already impressive thread stash I decided to go with what I had on hand.  That meant I had to use different hook sizes to the ones mentioned in the pattern but when you are making toys it isn't important to have exactly the same thread as long as the hook size suits your thread.  I used a 0.6mm hook for the bears and for the gingerbreadman a 0.4mm hook.  I'm a self taught crocheter and often have trouble understanding patterns but Mariella's patterns were very easy to understand.  As with all miniatures, it's the finishing touches that make all the difference.  By changing the position of the ears and muzzle the bears each have slightly different faces.  My gingerbreadman is precisely 12mm tall and the bears are 18mm.

Thanks Mariella, I had fun with your patterns!

Another surprise and other things

I don't believe it, the postman delivered another surprise early this week!  I can't begin to tell you how amazed I was!!   There was a gorgeous shabby chic tray, a darling decorated coat hanger and a shabby style flower bucket.  My eyes popped out and my face smiled all day.  Surprises warm the soul.  Thankyou so much dear Carmen  Your gift was a much appreciated surprise and I absolutely love everything.

Right after sending a thankyou note to Carmen our internet dropped out so I couldn't post a photo to my blog to share my pleasure.  The 'Grumpy' old bloke came home a little later and said he'd seen a very large truck bring down the phone lines just around the corner from our street......no internet, no phone.  It felt like I'd had a lobotomy, cut off from blogs and all my friends who live in my computer! :))

Now I'm feeling all virtuous because I used the time to actually try to make something to display with those beautiful gifts from Carmen. 

Well, I tried..........

Carmens heart shaped shabby chic tray needed pretty ladies things on it so I made perfume bottles.  That pretty coathanger is perfect for a baby romper.  The lovely flower bucket needed flowers.  I'm not great at making miniature flowers but I thought lavender might be easy enought for me to try and it would suit the colour of the bucket so I searched my files for a tutorial - to no avail.  No internet, unable to search!  Ok then, I'll have to try to make lavender from memory.  I'm sorry my poor lavender doesn't do justice to this lovely bucket :(

Thankyou Carmen, your gifts are beautiful and you made me try to make something I never did before.

The second day, still no internet.  What to do?  Practise making lavender and see if I can do any better.  No, I'm afraid my second effort isn't any better than the first attempt :((  Well, I won't throw it out so, what to do with it?  There are some of those ugly little wooden pots in my stash but if I paint them they will still be ugly and look like painted wood because I'm not that great at paint effects either.  Hmmm, they're a bit on the small side too.  If I cover them with paper clay they'll look bigger so, out came the paper clay.  Just cheap stuff.  Glue and paperclay up to the elbows, paint in my hair, I forgot to make lunch but having a lovely time and in the end I like that little wooden flower pot now :))  And it's all thanks to Carmen for giving me the impetus to do something else besides crochet!

If anyone can help me learn to make nice lavender I'd be grateful!

Now I'm off to catch up with all the blogposts I've missed.

Trashy Treasure

Sometimes it's good to be forced into inactivity.  I can vouch that painting is good therapy and finishing up a small project is even better therapy.

 

These shelves were finished a long time ago but getting around to painting them was another matter.  They're made from icy pole sticks, tongue depressors and some oddments of scrap wood.  I tried to match the colour of the kitchen set, didn't quite manage that but who cares?  It's all about the fun!

I'm under orders to make a cabinet to fit the back corner on the right.  The 9 year old owner of this roombox also has a long list pinned to the fridge, of many more details to be made - curtains, pet dishes, dog basket, cat litter tray, plant, pictures for the walls etc.

Still taking a break ;)

Pet treat jars.
Simple trash to treasure, made from buttons, beads and card.



Just a little Something

I'm still unable to post or read much.  Here is a little something that has been 34 years in the making.  From the original concept when fine thread, fine hooks and fine linen were simply unavailable in the Antipodes, the idea remained in the back of my mind and occasionally surfaced for contemplation.  Recent enforced inactivity brought forth a linen doiley with silk crocheted edging, shown here with Pei Li's peonies.

More in the pipeline, as yet not photographed.

The Phantom Stable Update

Stable Mk2.  I guess this stable seems like a phantom, heard but not seen so here is proof it exists. 

 No.1 was discarded due to the effects of vinegar and steel wool bug juice warping the timber and the acidity levels remaining may have had an effect on the contents, particularly the horse. 

This project is slow going with real life interfering with available time.

With the acrylic front and roof in place.  Roof needs a skylight insert.

Overview.

Loose box.  Twisted wire forms the hinges on the gate.

Tack and feed room.  Inner walls are pegged for strength.

Feed trough.

Made and painted by the 13year old owner.  The only help he had was with inserting the wire in the rim which bends into hooks for hanging.

Tool boxes and crate made and painted by 13year old.  He had a tiny bit of help with the metal tin of nails.