Catching up.....

http://SnippetsOnTheMove.blogspot.com

We've been home for a few days now, arriving on Friday evening.  I had the sermon on Saturday, followed by lunch and the afternoon with my mother.  It is chilly back in Sydney after the warmth of Bundaberg and I've put the doona on the bed, dug out winter clothes and the ugg boots, and am putting the heater on in the house.  Need to go shopping for some decent track suits.  And this afternoon I finally got the last load of washing done - we filled our clothesline three times, between washing clothes, linen from our bed at home and in the caravan, and blankets. Most of it is dry and folded and put away.  The ironing basket is getting full again, so I'll have to spend some time catching up on that soon.


But I've spent some time over the last couple of days starting to catch up in a far more pleasurable way: catching up on the blogs I follow.  It has been a while since I have been able to do so, and what a lovely way to spend one's time! How inspiring too, to see what you are all doing.  I took the time today to read through a couple of blogs detailing the progress of building dollhouses  - if I've overwhelmed you with comments I apologise vbg.  


When I see the quality of work that is being done out there, I am in awe of your talent and patience.  Not to mention the technical skills.  Colour me green.


I have put in several orders over the last couple of days too - for some medieval furniture and tuscan furniture in quarter scale, some lighting but mainly for 1:12th scale items.  I seem to be getting the urge to tackle some of my 1:12th scale projects again.  I had planned to be working on my commissioned house as my Project of the Month for one of my online clubs but I am having difficulty doing so - I am still conflicted about the era I want to set it in and that makes it hard to decide on the furnishing and decorating.


Meanwhile I am catching up on sleep, getting over the fatigue from travelling 1500 kms or so in two days.  Peter was also tired, surprisingly so for him.  And he was waking during the night with pain in his hip.  On the day we left Bundaberg (Wednesday) he had suddenly exclaimed that he was being bitten - painful bites.  He couldn't find anything that was doing so.  But on Saturday morning he showed me his leg - it had several patches of angry, red, blistery areas about 1" across, over half the upper thigh.  By Sunday morning it had spread up his leg and across to the middle of his back.  He went to the doctor on Monday - and he has shingles.  No wonder he has been in pain and is so tired.  For once he is willing to rest - very unusual for him.  But I am insisting despite the fact that he wants to start preparing to build my new studio.  That can wait.  I just want him to get well.


So we will have a quiet time for a while.  Unless I keep him company Peter won't rest.  And he needs to rest and build up his immune system again.  


Hopefully I will also have a chance to catch up with more blogs, with the birthday exchanges I need to send out, and to finish catching up on that sleep lol!  

Welcome Ruth

Hello Ruth, thank you for visiting here and signing up to be a member of our mini community.  I hope you enjoyed your time looking at Snippets and come back often.   Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions - both are welcome.  I do love to interact with the people who are kind enough to spend time here.  

Black and White elegance

It's been such a lovely time here with my great friend Jan.  I have written more about our trip to Bundaberg and about Nathan and Peter's sightseeing on Snippets on the Move - click here to see. Jan has been working on her Tuscany Villa and I have fallen more and more in love with it.  Jan has completed most of the spackling, done the kitchen, done the tiles for the courtyard in Creative PaperClay and has learned how to copy and reduce tiles and make tile sheets and borders.  She has regained her momentum and I expect to see lots of emails (with photos vbg) about the progress made now.  Just a small matter of finally deciding on the colour scheme so she can go forward with decisions about which tiles, which carpets and colour of upholstery etc.  I have really enjoyed seeing this project almost from the beginning and look forward to seeing the finished house - I just know it will be special.


I brought the kit for Candlewick House with me, because it is nice and straightforward being an intermediate kit.  I worked on it on Friday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and I'm really happy with the progress so far.  It's not finished yet: the paperclay on the floor is still drying, and I've also added some to the roof to make it nice and wavy and that's nearly but not quite dry.  


I've papered the first floor, panelled the ground floor and lit it throughout with LEDs.  It is looking very smart indeed in white 'plaster' and black timbering, not worn and distressed this time but crisp and post-card pretty. Elegant in black and white.  I will be adding a little bit of shading to the white though, I can't resist doing just some lol.  Even a newly-painted house in real life doesn't stay pristine for long.


Just a peek at the exterior for now though:

When I get back to Sydney the clay floor will probably be dry and I'll be able to paint it, so I'll show you the interior then.  And I'll show you the lights on when the roof is finished so the full effect can be seen.  After that I will get back to Lavender Cottage.  
For now,

Another Bundy Mini Break

Last year in March, I flew to Bundaberg Queensland, to visit my good friend Jan.  She lives in an idyllic location, right on the water, and her daughter (Sandy) has a house just a few houses from her.  Since Sandy is working interstate she was kind enough to allow me to use her house while I stayed. 


We had a mini holiday together.  Jan started work on Tuscan Villa and I worked on the English Cottage.  You can go back and check it out by clicking  here .  This year Jan wasn't able to come down to the Sydney Fair, and since we were 'so close' to Bundy (only 837kms away lol) I persuaded Peter that it would be a good idea to travel up there after Grey Nomads Camp.  That way he and Nathan could explore a bit of the place while Jan and I did some minis again.  And so here we are.  


We are staying in Sandy's house again.  This time it is empty except for a lovely big corner lounge, because she is going to rent it out soon.  I am happy to be able to show Peter the house - it is  light and airy, a lovely place to stay and I enjoyed my time here so much last year.  It is great to be able to share it with Peter this year.  We brought in Nathan's folding bed that we use in the annexe, and our mattress from the van, the television and dvr, our car fridge and a few bits and pieces and we are set.


On Friday Jan and I set up some folding tables and got stuck into our mini projects.  She has brought out Tuscan Villa again, and I have started on Candlewick Cottage, a kit from Petite Properties.  I won't be here very long and I wanted a quick project to start on.


Most of the day for me was taken up with the preliminary painting of pieces so there are no very exciting pictures to show your:


Jan made a kitchen for her Tuscan Villa.  She showed me the beautiful furniture that she has made for some of the rooms.  I love the Villa so much and the furniture so much that I'm becoming convinced that I might just have to get one myself too vbg.  Here's some of the furniture - isn't it lovely?

 


Sorry I don't have any photos of 'Tuscany Villa' - I hope to get some but it hasn't been the right time yet.

Baskets from a Basketcase

If you have a look at Snippets on the Move you can read how Susan and  I went  to visit Lidi at Nambucca Heads.   Lidi makes the most wonderful baskets, using the traditional techniques  used for full-sized basket weaving.  Have a look at her work on Basketcase Miniatures by clicking here.  I just had to choose some to buy of course and Lidi insisted on giving them to me at very attractive prices.  I felt guilty.  Here they are:  

The small birdhouse is sitting on a tree stump that has been cast by Lidi's husband Peter from a real piece of timber.

And here we are, the three of us standing outside Lidi's shop in Nambucca Heads.

Next day was the drive north towards Bundaberg  - check out Snippets on the Move to find out more.

From the lows to the highs.....

It was hard to say goodbye to three sets of dear friends yesterday (see http:SnippetsOnTheMove.blogspot.com for more about this, I will be saying more there later.  One couple in particular are our very dearest friends and they are continuing to travel for the next six months, up through Queensland then across to Darwin and Kakadu.  I will miss them badly. 


But I had something special to look forward to - meeting a friend, just a short distance north from Yarrahapinni where we were at Camp.  We have been internet friends for some time, and now we met in the flesh and she is every bit as delightful as I imagined.  It is Susan, from minicrochetmad and she does the most amazing crochet I have ever seen!  I was bowled over that she gave me this gorgeous set of baby clothes that will actually fit a 1:12th scale baby doll

Showing front of dress

Showing back of dress - the buttons work!

The photo doesn't nearly do justice to the tiny stitches in the garments.  The booties are only 1/4" long, the dress only approx 1 1/2"  and I couldn't begin to estimate the size of the stitches - they are miniscule.


Thank you Susan from the bottom of my heart!  I will treasure these always, and display them with pride in the nursery of a special house.


I am embarrassed that my gift for Susan isn't completed yet - I thought there'd be plenty of time during Camp - and it doesn't measure up at all to the standards of this wonderful crochet!

If you want to see what I'm up to.....

Believe it or not - I have yet another new blog lol! I'm keeping it for our holidays.  Not the long trips like the one around Australia, just ordinary holidays.  And you can find it here - I do hope you will visit and join.


Of course I'll be doing minis on the trip too, and I'll post about those on this blog.  So I'll still be around, on both places, and will stay in touch. 

Welcome Sonja

It gives me extreme pleasure to say "Welcome" to you, Sonja! Thank you for visiting my blog and joining as a follower.  I really hope that you enjoyed your visit here, and that you will come often to share my mini journey and offer your comments.  Share your opinions, offer constructive criticism, give advice - I truly love feedback and appreciate it.

You don't list a blog here, so if you have one I'd love to have the address so that I can visit it.

I really appreciate all of my Followers.  Thank you everyone for taking the time to visit, look and comment.  It means more to me than you can know.

A very lavender update

and it's a lot of lavender!

A bit of a whinge to start with - I really don't like the way Blogger loads photos at the beginning of the post, before the title instead of being able to place them where you want them like you used to be able to do. Though it seems to have solved the problem of the line spacing going to pot when you add photos, so something has improved.   Okay, that's my whinge out of the way.

I've been caught in the 'do a bit and find ten more fiddly bits that need to be done' cycle so the photos don't really show the amount of work that's been put into it. 

First an update on the front wall.  There will be purple flowers added to the vine, and of course there are still the windows to add.  The vine is actually made using leaves from an SDK miniatures clematis kit, and yes, each leaf is added individually to each stem which is also added individually.And yes, there are a lot of leaves and it takes forever.  But I keep doing them lol. The very rustic pots at the front have the beginnings of two lavender plants.  The flowers will be coming soon. There will also be more lavender bushes in the bare areas surrounding the porch.

Then here is the view of the front rooms.  The lounge (living) room on the left will be left just painted, and it needs re-painting.  It's not stuck in yet either.  The coffee table will have to be painted/decorated as well, and I'm envisaging some art work on the walls but I'm not happy with the effect of the white chairs.  What do you think?

So there could be either another two chairs or another lounge (sofa) but covered in another colour - please offer suggestions.  It could be this floral, 

Or this lavender (I've just 'borrowed' the lounge from the breakfast room to demonstrate)

Or something else.  Please, please - ideas.  Norma??? Sharon???anyone????

Dining room, done in floral wallpaper.  Here it is with white furniture, but I think it needs more wood - how about a wooden top to the table or an all-wooden table?  I thought too that a collection of pictures on the wall would be nice, and would also break up the wallpaper.  There is a shelf unit sitting in front of the room - you can see it in the overall photo of the front of the house - that I thought I'd leave in a wood finish, to perhaps go on the wall as well.

The beddroom on the right is done with wallpaper from the Betterleys, the one on left, with wallpaper from Judith Dowden.  The attic needs some bits and pieces in it, but not sure what I'll put there yet.

Rear of house - study on left.  Hallway has been widened, so I can put something there such as a table with a group of photos or objects, flowers etc.  The hall carpet is from Judith Dowden, part of the Dove Point Cottage carpet pack.

Bathroom first floor right, lots of lavender and purple here.  Tiles are printies.

Ground floor rear of house is the kitchen/breakfast room/family room.  The kitchen is kit-bashed from part of a small kitchen and part of a Dove Point kitchen from Judith Dowden plus some wall cabinet kits from elsewhere.  The doors will be added once the cupboards are filled - so far only one has anything in it. The vegetable bin is a kit from BJ Miniatures, the pedal bin and microwave are from Leprechauns' Garden, the cannisters are from Debbie Young (they are resin and I've painted the lids and covered the sides in ribbon) ; there's a coffee maker and toaster too add, which are from a kit of kitchen utensils that I bought but I can't remember where.  I bought the African Violet at the Sydney Fair from Judy Moras. There will be a table and chairs in this room as well, to provide a place for breakfast as well as meal preparation.  That area under the stairs should have a little cupboard in it, but I forgot to put it in there for the photo.  It will probably have a vase of flowers or some collection of items on it if I can find things.

At the other end of the kitchen/family area, the lounge is a Pam Junk sofa that I have kit bashed a little bit to make it look a bit different, the hutch is also a Pam Junk one, the pie cabinet is from BJ Miniatures.  There will be another lounge or chairs in there and I don't know whether the pie cupboard and hutch will both stay, it depends how much room I end up with.  

The little shelves with the tea set on them are left-overs from an extra shop kit I bought in the Debbie Young Town Square series.  They will go on the rear wall, once I have the window frame in position so I know how much room I have left to place them.

So that's where I'm up to so far.  Lots done that doesn't show, as I said, and lots still to do.  We were due to leave on our holidays yesterday, now will be leaving tomorrow instead. I've decided I'll take the cottage with me so perhaps I'll get some done while away.

I'd really appreciate constructive comments please.  

  

I can hardly believe it

I won

What exciting news today - two emails from 'Pretty Made' , one thanking me for commenting on her blog and wishing me luck in the draw.  Then another one saying - guess what, you have won! I visited her blog and she even has a photo of the random number generator.  I was the second-last person to join the draw, I think, and I have never won anything on giveaways.  In fact, I don't win anything on anything! 

So here are more photos of it, and I'm excited to say that soon it will be winging it's way from Finland to Sydney.  How cool is that!