And it would pay to read the instructions next time!!!

.....instead of thinking I remembered what to do!  The other night I found I was gluing the geranium leaves on to the hydrangea flower stems.  Last night I 'remembered' that the stems had 2-4 small leaves and 2-4 large leaves on each, so I did the small leaves on a whole lot of stems.  This morning after I finished the geraniums and posted about them, I finished off the hydrangea leaves.  Then I re-read the instructions to find out how many leaves to put on the flower stems.  Oooops!  They should all have gone on the flower stems - there aren't meant to be any leaf stems.  I wonder whether that is why I was running short of leaves vbg?  Take a deep breath, Sandie, now take another one....and start again.....

Sooooo - I removed the leaves from most of the leaf stems and started gluing them on - again.  Only this time to the flower stems.  I decided to keep just a few of the leaf stems.  Then I 'planted' them into some dirt on a piece of baking paper.  i couldn't get to my clay, so I improvised by using glue with the dirt over it.  Here is the result, again against a ruler to show it's size.  And again it is just 2cm wide (less than 1 inch). 

Boy, do I love the macro lens on my new camera!  I cut the stems the length suggested in Susan's instructions, and this is the size it ended up.  I think maybe for the next one I might try a larger shrub by cutting the stems longer, and see how it goes.

Here's a closer view of the bush.  I'm really, really happy with it.

 

And guess what - I am part way through the next kit of the same flower.  I must be bonkers!  If I'm not, I soon will be.

Ta-daaaaah! Drum roll please!

Ladies and gentlemen, miniaturists all, let me present for your viewing pleasure, all the way from Sandie's Studio (well, the lounge chair in her house actually) - geraniums in a hanging basket!

'Where is the ruler?' I hear you ask!  There isn't one.  Have you ever tried to hold a little basket of flowers and a ruler in one hand and a camera in the other?  It isn't possible, take it from me! But that little basket measures just a bit under 3/4" from the edge of the sticking - out flower on the right here to the outside of the extended stem of leaves on the left. Can't find my ruler at the moment to convert that to cm.

Here's a slightly closer view: 

 The wire is still wonky after all my fiddling and fussing to get those stems to stay in the pot last night.  I will straighten them (again!!) later. 

Here is a close-up.  The patch of glue you can see on the side of the pot is where one of the stems kept coming out of the pot and left a residue.  Isn't it interesting the things you see in a photo that you don't notice with the naked eye?  I will clean it off this morning now everything is dry and set.

That's the first of the two pots completed.  I will do the other one after Christmas, probably.

By the way: when you are carrying these little creations, you don't put your clumsy big hands on them, it is better to hold on to the wire part so the flowers don't get disturbed.  Don't ask how I know this.......

The geraniums are done - yaaaaay!

But I have to wait until tomorrow to take a photo - or read the instructions!

And since it is past 1am I'm not going to start doing that at the moment vbg. It was quite hot again today and we had a meeting at Sunnyfield, the sheltered workshop that Nathan goes to 3 days a week.  It was his annual program planning meeting, the first one as an employed person.  People with disabilities have them in one form or another right through from pre-school and into their working lives.  He was asked about what he liked about working, whether he had made friends, and whether he knew who his friends were, if he remembered the things/jobs he had learned while there, which ones he liked best, what he would like to learn, whether they were giving him the support he felt he needed, whether there is anything else they could help him with.  Then his wages (which are minimal, because he receives the disability pension) were reviewed and the manager explained that he would be staying on the same rate because he tended to become distracted easily and start talking.  Then the others around him start talking and of course then the work doesn't get done - which means that the production slows down. 

What - my son, a talker?  Wherever did he get that from? !!!  It wouldn't be from my side of the family, would it? The McNee family could all talk under the ocean buried in a ton of concrete.  Of course, I am different!  Stop choking you!  Show some respect there, please.

Anyway, if the production slows down it is a problem because they have contracts to deliver to produce a certain number of items by a certain time, of course.  I wish them luck in trying to get Nathan to stop talking though lol!

Back to the geraniums - I was determined to get them finished last night.  Then I realised that I was putting the geranium leaves on to the hydrangea flowers.  Ho hum, time to go to bed methinks, but first I had to remove all those carefully attached leaves.  That took almost as long as it had to glue them on in the first place.

Then I did a big clean-up in the kitchen this morning, got distracted by emails after that until it was time to go to the meeting.  So it wasn't until after tea that I got back to the geraniums.  Finally they were all done, some stems done with leaves and the flower stems with leaves attached too. 

While they were drying I went on with more hydrangea flowers.  Then I 'planted' the geraniums into the hanging basket - and I am delighted with the result!  Took some photos with my dandy new camera, but again the lighting isn't right.  I really will have to do something about that.  Maybe I'll have to read that instruction book after all and find out what setting to put it on to get a nice shot. 

Meanwhile I'll take a photo in the daylight and show you tomorrow - keep tuned, it's the cutest thing! 

Bit of a disaster......And Christmas came early

But first of all, Welcome Natalia!  Thank you for taking the time to visit here.  I hope you enjoy it and will come often to share my mini world.

So what was the disaster?
Flower Pot Man fell apart!
Why did Flower Pot Man fall apart?
It was the water.
What water?
The water from the tap.
Why put him under the tap?
Because he was sticky.
Why was he sticky?
From the coffee.
How did the coffee get on him?
The cup stuck.
What did the cup stick to?
The board.
What board?
The baseboard for the Town Square......

Now do you get the idea?  I put the coffee mug on the painted baseboard on which I have set out the seven Town Square buildings so far received.  Even though I haven't shown you the Garden Centre yet it is finished outside, and so is the Pet Shop.  So I wanted to take a photo of them all sitting on this base board.

It's not the final base board, it's not big enough.  But enough for now..  It is painted just in green craft paint, no grass or paths or landscaping.

The coffee mug stuck to the paint.  I went to lift it off and it splashed - and went all over several things, including the Flower Pot Man and some ivy.  Poor Bill/Ben!  Poor ivy!  Poor flowers!  I dabbed them with a damp cloth but it wasn't enough - they were still sticky.  So I put them very briefly under the tap turned on gently.  They all came through that quite well, and I patted them as dry as I could and put them on a flat surface to dry completely.  To my surprise, the paint didn't come off.  But the glue on the ivy lost it's grip and Flower Pot Man's head did too.

But all is not lost.  Some work with the tweezers 'fluffed up' the ivy around his body, which had become rather flattened in the patting dry process.  Some more glue secured his head back in place and reattached the missing ivy leaves both to his person and to the branch of ivy that had been stripped bare.  And the flowers came through unscathed.

Moral of the story is - don't put the coffee cup near the minis!

The good news is that Christmas came early for me as far as my present from my darling husband goes.  My hardworking Olympus camera has given  faithful serice for a long time now, but it is finally wearing out.  The battery compartment has to be held closed with masking tape because the catch is so worn; when I try to download the photos I keep getting messages that files are corrupted; I can't buy SD cards small enough to fit it any more and the macro function is erratic.  It doesn't owe me a thing - I have used it to death vbg.

So Peter took me shopping for a new camera.  I wavered between a Canon and a Nikon.  the Canon had more megapixels but was far more bulky, the Nikon Coolpix still has 14 megapixels and 10x optical zoom and is really compact.  I chose the Nikon because I have found that the bulkier camera (like my Olympus) has proven to be inconvenient when I've been travelling - and at other times too. 

So last night I took some photos.  The lighting wasn't good - the energy saving bulbs do not give a good light for photos.  But the macro lens worked really well - I can get as close as 1cm from an object which is fabulous for minis.  I was going to take some more photos today but by the time I had installed the software this afternoon then worked out how to download the photos to the computer the light wasn't good anyway.  Of course it all might have gone more quickly if I had read the instruction manual.

Anyway, here are some of the photos - they are of the flowers I did yesterday, not the same ones I did the other day.  I've made another six sunflowers:

And another dozen poppies, so there's a total of 24

Sorry the colours aren't good, but I put these ones on this little surface because it has measurements on it.  They are in inches, and each of those marks is 1/8th inch.  In the foreground are some of the dozen or so gerbera daisies (I've done this batch in a hot pink); some of the daffodils are there - I did another 12 of those; and further behind is a geranium head.  It is red even though it looks pink in this photo - I did say the light wasn't good. As you can see, the leaves haven't been added yet.

 Here on the left you can see two of the geranium flower heads and if you look to the left of the 1 inch mark, you will see one of the little red petals.  They are about 1/16th of an inch across.

Aren't the daffodils beautiful?  They are very delicate and yet fresh and bright and perky.  I really think they brighten a garden up. 

So I am very, very fortunate aren't I with my Christmas present?  In case you are wondering, I am allowed to use it to photograph my minis to get used to it.  Our oldest daughter and her two sons are arriving next week for a nice holiday with us and we want me to be used to the camera in time for their arrival so i don't mess up any photographs.

That's my excuse and i'm sticking to it hehehehehe.

Is it Bill or is it Ben?

When my son was young he watched a television show called ‘Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men’.  I don’t know whether this is Bill or whether he is Ben, but I’ve made a flower pot man.  Strictly by trial and error and with a lot of pulling of the hair and gritting of the teeth, let me say.  Then when I visited BJs Miniatures site, I saw that there was one on there for sale – I could have saved all that work lol.  But I do enjoy making things for myself, so perhaps not.  I really liked the way the one on there had ivy growing around him and on the area around his feet, and I added some ivy to my creation too.  He is an ornament to go in my Sunflower GardenCentre.  Here he is: 

Not exactly huge, is he?



He doesn't show to his best in the photo but there are still some things that I can see could be improved.  His head is obscured a bit too much by the ivy, and the stems on the flowers are probably too long.  I've been able to move the ivy down a bit so it looks better.   Unfortunately he used up most of the tiny pots that have come with the flower kits I've bought. I carefully hoard those that remain whole, to use in my mini Greenhouse. But all in all I am quite chuffed with it! 

So now I've shown you several of the items that go in the garden centre.  It's nearly there - I was doing little seed packets yesterday and became totally frustrated with those.  But I am determined to do them, and very soon, because the Town Square Christmas Shop is due to arrive quite soon from Debbie Young.  I hope!

When I got fed up with the seed packets I started on some poinsettia flowers in pots for my Yule Tide Christmas Shop as well as the Town Square Christmas Shop. It took me almost two days to paint and assemble three kits of these, and they are now ready for their new homes.

The stalk-like thing at the rear of the one on the right is a wire stem for one of the partly-made poppies.  Well, I had the red paint out........

I have used cheap plastic pots from Grandt Line, having used the clay pots for my flowerpot man. They are well sanded then painted with Antique Gold craft paint. I considered coating them with gold glitter too but decided against it. Maybe a tiny gold ribbon later on. I’m really happy with them. Are you inspired, Elly?  And yes, I know I still need to complete the geraniums too.

Monday 6th December 2010

More mini gardening.....

The best part of mini gardening is that you can do it any time of day, in any weather, in all seasons.  And you never have to weed.

I've been making up quarter scale flower kits.  See Elly I practise what I preach LOL! First, here are some sunflowers, planted in a little garden.  Sorry it's such a small photo - I have cropped it a lot.  I don't want to show the whole setting just yet, but will very soon.

And here is a pot of daffy's that I planted.  They look really sweet - but again, the photo is even smaller because it is really, really cropped!

Here is a group of flowers I've made up while we've been away at Kiama: daffodils, black-eyed Susan, coneflowers, gerberas, daisies and ivy.  There's also a sunflower left over from the ones I used in the group above, and another one I made has gone walkabout somewhere in the caravan.

They all look a bit windblown because my tweezers were all packed away when I decided to take this photo and every time I added a new flower to the polystyrene others decided to move.  In the end I decided to make the most of a bad situation and just take them as they were vbg.  These flowers will be planted in the garden of 'Storybook Cottage', probably.

.

In the left foreground is a wheelbarrow filled with flowers and ivy.  The pointy white flowers were lily of the valley but I had cut the others so short and planted them, that now the white ones are obviously something else vbg.  The flowering vine is 'Ruby Campbellii' (ie red flowering vine made by me).  It's just a series of leaves I pinched from one of the other kits and flowers I pinched from another one to make a vine. The ivy is fun to make, and you can't really tell from the front but one of the strands goes down and twines around the handle of the wheelbarrow. 

At first I thought I might do all the ivy as the variagated type, but sanity prevailed in the end and I left it plain green.  Considering that I have three sheets of ivy leaves and all this ivy hasn't even used up one complete sheet, I have a good supply.  Which is great, because I want to cover a wall of one of my Petite Properties cottages (yes, Elly - probably Flowerpot Cottage) with ivy and it will take a lot. 

The little wheelbarrow was made very narrow and a certain length in order to fit a particular spot, but when it was finished and put in place I decided it was too much and that I'd use it elsewhere.  I have something else to put there in its place.

A kit for geraniums in a hanging basket is half completed.  Now they are a real test for the eyes.  Teeny tiny little petals to be cupped and glued all around a tiny bead.  The result is a flower head just 2-3mm across.  I have two kits of these (so far) to make up, plus a few kits for hydrangeas, made the same way.  And some kits of gardenias as well, which have petals cupped inside each other.

Okay Elly - I've shown you mine.  Now I'm waiting to see yours LOL! 

Thursday, 17th June 2010

How does your garden grow?

With flower kits and dried flowers and bits of railway landscaping of course vbg.  Actually it's taking less to fill it than I expected and it's getting there quite well.  Still some to go but lookin' good I reckon. I worried whether the dried flowers would mix successfully with the flower kits but it seems to work.  The yellow of the daffodils certainly gives it the 'lift' I was wanting, and some more white will help too.  I've made some 'shrubs' by the front steps by first stretching then rounding  the stretchy vine into a pleasing shape and will try different coloured flowers on them.  And I did the same method for the daisy bush in the right front corner but added daisy flowers I had made up from kits - just put PVA glue on the stems and stuck them through the foliage.  At first I tried it behind the garden bench but it didn't show to advantage so I moved it over

to the right hand side and it looks good there even though you can't see it all that well in the photo.  I like the garden to look good from every angle.

I used a bit more of the dried flower stuff to put more colour at the front of the house on the right side under the window too.  And I made up my daffodil kits.  I was really happy with the results, and when I put the flowers and leaves together I put a blob of glue on some baking paper that I'd taped to a flat surface so it wouldn't move. Then I sprinkled 'soil' over the little blobs of glue, so that patches of white wouldn't show between stems and leaves.  I then poked holes into this mixture and glued stems then leaves into each one.  When all had set and dried I 'planted' some of them in the garden.  I have heaps of them left over, happily, so will be able to use them in another cottage too.  Here are some of the daffs made up ready. 

This next photo shows the first two lots I 'planted'.  They must be the tallest daffs in the world - or perhaps it is a raised garden bed lol!  Anyway, they are very sweet and I am happy that I can buy kits to make up these sweet little flowers.

You can also see the garden seat in the corner.  This was a kit I had and it made up really well.  It's only about an inch or even less in length and it fits perfectly in the space I left for it. 

And Ginger Meggs has taken up residence in the house already.  He is the lovely hand-painted ginger cat I bought from Grace Shaw, and I just love him - he's so well done. Here he is.  He looked right at home just as soon as I put him on the front step.  He's not glued in place yet, because the Welcome mat has to go down first and he hasn't made up his mind where he wants to sit to bask in the sun.  Wonder what he'll make of the naughty squirrels I've also bought from Grace and will also add to the garden?

The pansies also were put together the same way as the daffodils, on small areas of 'dirt' but I had learned my lesson and made the areas much smaller and flatter for them. I have lots of pansies left over too, which is excellent.

Here they are ready to 'plant' but I only needed a very few of them.  I've put them either side of the path - and putting them in I realised that I hadn't allowed any access over the garden to the garden bench lol!  So more stepping stones are in order tomorrow or after we come back from our weekend away to prevent muddy feet I think!

And to finish for now, here is a bird's eye view of the garden so far.  Still more to go, of course, but it's so addictive doing it.  Each step makes such a difference and makes me want to see how it looks when the next thing is added.  But that's how it all goes, isn't it, whether it is a piece of needlework, construction, or decoration?  So satisfying.  And such fun.  And I guess I'll probably have to leave it at this now until Monday.  But we'll see....