I've been a busy bee

Advent Swap

This is one of the reasons I haven’t been keeping the blog up to date. Not the only reason by any means as you will see, but one of them. Recovering from pneumonia was another reason, but mainly I have been putting most of my time and energy into doing the Town Square shops to finish accessorising them and doing the Advent Swap.

Before the sudden and unexpected demise of SaHMC, one of the online groups I belonged to (it has spawned two groups in its place), we had organised an Advent Swap and most of us decided to go ahead with it. So I have been making gifts for this. If you don’t know what an Advent swap is, it is like an Advent Calendar only with gifts for each day. The idea is to wrap up 24 small mini gifts. These can be any scale decided on by you and your swap partner. They can be Christmas items if you want but mainly the sort of things you’d give as Christmas gifts – only mini versions.
 The 25th and final gift, for Christmas day, is a bigger one, in value at least. You post the whole lot to your partner in time for the first one to be opened on 1st December.
 This was great fun to do though I did underestimate the time it would take to do each day’s gift. Each parcel is labelled with a number – the date on which it is to be opened.

Doing these things was not only fun but it was interesting to find things that would be suitable and that I was able to make. Several things I had in mind had to be discarded because of time constraints and other quicker items substituted, or items for which I had the materials, or which worked out more successfully. Being a fully paid-up member of Perfectionists Anonymous of course it took several tries for some of them and I’m not totally satisfied even now. However I very rarely am.


Would you like to see them? I wish I could have a little window to click on to open but I don't so here they are:

What's that?   Well, yes of course they are all wrapped up! I couldn’t show you the gifts all nekkid and unwrapped, could I? Can’t spoil the surprise for Jane lol!


I hadn’t quite finished when I took that photo. But you can see that being me, I also spent a lot of time on the wrapping. I printed out Christmas bags and boxes in different sizes, each gift was wrapped in gold tissue, put into its box or bag of appropriate size and numbered. Then I went crazy with gold gift tie, on most of them at least. I just love curly ribbon!


Then the next step – what to put them in? I had a posting box but didn’t want to just put them straight into that. So I made a box to go inside, covered it with gold giftwrap. The little gifts fitted perfectly in two layers.


I didn’t want all those loops and curls to get too crushed so I made a removable tray with legs the appropriate height to keep the layers apart. A lid over the top and it all fitted snugly into the postage box. Who, me – obsessive? Whatever would make you think that vbg? I just hope that Jane gets as much enjoyment from the gifts as I did in making them.

How lovely!

What a lovely surprise

Well friends I have to apologise – it’s been so long since I’ve updated here. I have sooo much to share with you.

First though, it was such a lovely surprise to come to my much-neglected blog and see seven new friends here.  Very warmest welcomes to Bea (Fiona Broadwood), Alenka, Casey, Marisa, Christine, Vicki and Lainie.  I am taking a quick lunch break at the moment - we are packing our caravan for a week away, so I hope to catch up with all of you while we have our holiday.  Thank you so very much for taking the time to visit my blog. I hope you enjoy sharing my mini adventures and that you will come back regularly. I promise that there’ll be more frequent posts from now on.

I’ve done so much lately that I’ll do a post for each one and catch up over the next few days. But this time I want to show you my new acquisitions – I’ve really gone overboard with these lately.

First there was the Toy Shoppe from Karen Benson. I actually

didn’t mean to order this one LOL. I put in an order from both of Karen’s sites, but one of the sites had really high shipping charges and besides, I wanted both orders to be combined. So I emailed Karen asking whether that could be done. She was so sweet and prompt in responding – in between flights on her holiday no less! She mentioned something about the shop. What shop? I wondered. So I checked my order. Sure enough, I had put the incorrect number on my order. I had a good look at the shop and decided that since I had so many toy kits it would probably be a good idea to leave it – so I did. This is the photo of the Toy Shoppe and no, I haven’t started it yet.  Though I must admit that I have assembled some toy kits and boxes that I didn't use in the Town Square toy shop  that will do nicely for it.  And I also assembled a kit of shop furniture ready for it.....

Then there is Debbie Young’s English Cottage. This is also in quarter scale. I love the shingles she has provided for this kit, and the upstairs wallpaper but will possibly change the downstairs ones. Isn’t it a lovely cottage?

I’m such a sucker for the English Cottage look – consider the types of house I already have: Rose Cottage (Miss Marple’s Cottage renamed); Tearose Cottage and even Storybook Cottage. And of course Honeysuckle Cottage.






But wait, there’s more! Now I just have to show you this quarter scale mansion from Debbie Young. It’s the John F Craig, based on an actual house .This particular acquisition will be a challenge to assemble but what a delightful challenge!

And next is the 1/12th scale Garfield by Greenleaf. I was delighted to discover that Grace Shaw of Virtual Dollhouse not only had this kit for a very much reduced price but that shipping would also be much less than that charged by Greenleaf.

 By the way, do you notice a similar theme with these two houses? Vbg

The Garfield is 1/12th scale and it is a BIG house. There is no possible way I can put it together at the moment or display it when finished either. But I'm not as stupid as that sounds - the plans for my studio in the backyard are drawn up and after lots of nagging - erm, gentle reminding - my husband finally rang the Council the other day to find out the requirements for submitting them, what details they needed for the location of the building on the land etc.  And guess what - because it is less than 4x4 metres (just!) we don't have to submit plans at all!  So we don't have to wait for approval and best of all, don't have to pay the $300 submission fee either.

I have loved this house since I first saw it too, and that love has remained for several years. It has so many rooms, so much gingerbread and it is so beautiful.  It has taken me a long while to save up for it even at this greatly reduced price, but it is a dream come true.

And there is a 1/144th Garfield too, so of course I had to have one of those to go in the big Garfield too.

You know by now that I am a great fan of Petite Properties quarter scale kits.  And as soon as 'Mulberry House' was released my order was in for that.  So that one has arrived as well. 

And I also ordered the shop roombox kit - it arrived in the afternoon and I had completed it by the time I went to bed!  That will be in another post. 

Now I am just waiting for Petite Properties new Yule Tide Shop to be released on 4th Dec!  My son is giving me one for Christmas and I am very excited about that too.

Now I know what you are saying: that's all fine and good, but they are a bunch of UFO's at the moment! What have you been doing apart from spending money?  Well, I have been doing heaps - and will tell you about that too over the next few days, hopefully.  Hubby is getting impatient about my long lunch hour so I'd better go help.  Keep tuned!