How do you turn a seagull into a galah?

It’s not too difficult, actually. A bit brutal though – because you have to cut off its beak. A seagull’s beak is straight, and a galah’s beak is a parrot’s beak so it's curved. I wanted to have a bird on the roof of Kate’s Café and I had these seagulls but I wanted an Aussie parrot so I decided on a Pink and Grey Galah. It took a bit of experimenting to get the right pink for the tummy but we got there, and with a couple of our bird books beside me I was able to paint two seagulls. Then, showing no mercy at all, I cut off their beaks and stuck them back on facing downwards. When they were dry I sanded them into a rounded shape – sort of - and painted them white. And there you have it: two seagulls who are now pink and grey galahs!



Kate's Cafe Completed

I have called this building, 6th in the Town Square series, Kate’s Café rather than Coffee Kate’s as it was named in the kit. It is so sweet; I really like it and love the way it has turned out. It’s one of my favourites. Yes, I know I say that about several of them, and that’s because several of them are my favourites!

The kit arrived the afternoon of the 10th November and I did all of the assembly except for the finishing touches – but it has taken until now to do those.

I have become cleverer with experience vbg and now the first thing I do when I start on the buildings is to detach the plastic pieces and spray them with the primer. That doesn’t take all that long to dry so I could do both coats of spray paint on them that night as well. They were still not totally dry after the final coat when I put them into the shop but were okay to handle. I had to wait until next morning to add the green paint on the shutters and door though.

The structure is quick and easy to put together (and I have become familiar with the routine too) and this time the exterior finish is ‘stone’  which is a nice change. All the finishes have been different so far and I like them all. While the glue for the stone was drying I painted the shingles, which I wanted to look like slates. I didn’t snip them irregular lengths for this building. Debbie’s instructions said she mixed an equal amount of a brown and a grey to get the colour for the shutters and door, and she did the roof in a dark brown. I wanted something different, so I thought I would adapt a darker version of the brown/grey for the roof. I tried it against the stone and it looked fine so I went ahead with it. I really liked the effect I achieved on the shingles, with the base colour, some brown streaks, and highlights of a darker grey and two lighter greys.


Once the paint had dried I shingled the roof and tried it out, sitting the roof on the walls of the shop. It didn’t look any good! Too much grey. So I added a lot more brown to the mixture and some black to make it darker, and painted all over my nice effect. The colour suited the stone colours perfectly but I had lost all the highlights. I went over it all and did some but it’s never as effective when it’s done later. Never mind, the overall effect is okay.


In the drying time for the shingles I was able to put a couple of coats of white paint on all the furniture and to wallpaper the interior. I put the flooring in, and tried out the furniture and didn’t like that either! So then I painted all the furniture brown. The chairs are just the ubiquitous brown plastic ones, but I painted them to match the rest of the furniture and left the backs white, which looked nice.


After the roof was attached, the window and door went in, grass and ‘vines’ were added and hey presto it was almost finished! I left it overnight for the paint on the plastic pieces to thoroughly dry and finally went to bed. I hadn’t felt at all tired until then, I was on such a roll but when I was sitting up in bed typing up my Journal and then playing some solitaire it finally hit me in a wave. Not surprising I guess since it was now 2am and I’d been awake since 4am!


Next morning I mixed some sage green and white and made a pretty colour to highlight the door and shutters. I also repainted the backs of the chairs with the same colour. Rummaging through my quarter scale bits and pieces I took out a little vase of pink flowers and a hanging basket that I bought at the Sydney Fair in 2009. I wanted to use this green and pink as highlights, to pick up the colours of the flowers in the pretty wallpaper. I also had a couple of dishes that I hadn’t used in the Sea Shanty, and they look good on the dresser but I needed more crockery to dress the place up and some ornaments as well. And a menu for the table.


And I made a curtain for the window – some silk tulle and lace make a pretty curtain that perfectly suits the place. It’s the first curtain I’ve made in quarter scale, and it was quite easy in the end. First I glued the lace on the bottom of the tulle. When it was dry I doubled the top over so that it was the right length for the window and ran a row of tiny running stitches across the top. After that I trimmed the excess off and gathered the curtain to the correct width.

Some PVA with water added could then be brushed on with a stiff paint brush, and the curtain moulded with my fingers to the shape i wanted. I put it on a piece of polystyrene to dry. Then a line of glue across the top of the window to hold it in place. I was going to add a spot at each lower corner of the window but it isn’t necessary.


The kit came with pieces for the shelf for the wall, the table and the hutch. The chairs as I said before are ready made. The doily came with the kit as well. It has made up so nicely and I would love to just pop in there for a nice morning or afternoon tea, wouldn’t you?

Showing sign & hanging basket

The following Sunday, I made a sign for it with green lettering and a little cup and saucer. Not much would fit on the sign because it is so small, but I wanted something. It took ages to find some clipart that I was happy with, and even longer to find a font that I liked but would still come out clearly when printed out in such a small size. Several that I tried were not clear once printed out. The picture and the lettering are done in a darker shade of the green I have used, and there is a border around it in the same green.

Special of the Day

I found another nice clipart that had a teapot, cup and saucer and some cakes and it was mainly pink. I thought that it would look nice and pick up the pink of the flowers in the wallpaper so I reduced that right down and made some menus. One is on the table and there are several on the dresser. I also used the same picture at the bottom of a notice board outside for the special of the day.

And there it sat, until today – just lacking those last couple of things. So I decided that had to change! Hence the seagulls and their transformation into galahs – poor Silver (named after my nephew’s childhood cat) felt pretty silly sitting on that step looking up at nothing. When it came to putting them on the roof it became obvious that it wasn't going to be very easy for Silver to see them, so I put them in the vine at the side instead. They feed on the ground a lot but I didn't want them to be caught by Silver and eaten.  One of those cheeky galahs is peeking around the side of the shop teasing the poor thing - doesn't he know that cats can climb?  And jump?

I have had the plates for the dresser for ages now, but was not keen on the prospect of correcting their  wonky s/hapes from when my darling helpful husband punched them out (which by the way was better than I would have been able to do). But over the last few days I have trimmed and sanded with an emery board until they are reasonably round. No - don’t you dare look too closely vbg. I had them all ready and then upset the tray that I was working on and of course

Interior - right side

some went missing. After a frantic search all were present and correct except for one. So a replacement will have to be made for that. Rather than risk losing any more however, I went ahead and glued them into place. Or tried to – when I went to put the largest ones in, they were too big. So the smaller ones went in for safekeeping and it was back to trimming and filing for the largest ones.

The two decorative plates have been moved to the shelf on the opposite wall, and I also added another vase of flowers. A framed picture is on the wall above it and another one is on the wall between the window and the door.

Interior Left side

 And Kate’s Café is ready for business.

Squabbling Seagulls & Sparkling Sea

Our lovely week away is over :-(  Last night we went to the harbour to buy fish and chips and eat them by the water.  We bought them at a restaurant on the wharf.  It was nearly closing time and they were out of 2 kinds of fish but still had 3 kinds available: basa (which we aren't that keen on); blue trevally (which is a nice fish): and barramundi (which is also really nice if it is ocean caught).  We chose the trevally this time.  While we were waiting for them to be freshly cooked from scratch we 'chose' which of the many boats that were moored on the other side of the harbour we would like, and said 'hello' to Mr Pelican who was sailing majestically around all by himself.
 
Then we sat at a convenient table in a little grassed area right on the edge of the water and enjoyed our dinner.  We were surrounded by many, many seagulls of course, optimistically eyeing us off in the hope of a handout and even Mr Pelican strutted along the edge of the bank like a king surrounded by his courtiers, then went flying off over the water - giving some great aerial shots.

After we had finished eating (and it was delicious!) we gathered the batter that Marilyn and I had removed from our fish, plus the leftover chips and broke it all up into small pieces.  We then amused ourselves by  throwing them one by one into the air for the seagulls.  They performed wonderful acrobatic manouvres and Peter was shooting away with his digital SLR (a Canon EOS   350D) After a while we left it to Richard to throw them because he was able to get the pieces to go higher than Marilyn or I could, and we enjoyed watching the birds.  They are so flexible and Peter got some great photos.

Peter put his camera on timer after we had eaten, and took a couple of shots of the five of us, surrounded by seagulls.

It was so nice sitting there watching the ocean and the antics of the birds, chatting with our friends.  Such a delightful way to spend the evening.

So, you ask, photos?  where are those great photos?  Well, Peter took some really good ones of us as a group, of Mr Pelican, and of the seagulls performing.  Unfortunately his camera played up and they have come out really dark.  I can make out what they are, when I look at them on the computer, but they are too dark to be useful.

However, sneaky man that he is, he took this really unflattering candid one of the rest of us without us knowing.  Marilyn in the pink t-shirt at the front is deep in conversation about poetry with our son Nathan, and Rick and I were talking about cameras.

We had just realised that the photos had all come out dark on Peter's camera and he had gone off to take a photo of the anchor outside the restaurant

and to see whether Mr Pelican was still around.   We didn't catch sight of Mr Pelican again, but at least we did get a shot of the statue.

This morning saw the dawn of another glorious day and I was determined to have that swim I've been promising myself.  When we walked along the beach yesterday the water had something floating on the surface.  It was foamy and we couldn't see what it was but I wasn't going to risk it.

Today the ocean looked just wonderful.  The waves weren't all that big if you wanted to surf but big enough for us, with a very strong outflow.  There were also lots of little bluebottles washing up with the waves - what a disappointment!

We stood in the shallows and the water felt so good.  And yes, sure enough I did get stung there at the edge of the waves when a bluebottle washed in to land beside my feet.  I moved away not realising that the tentacles were across my foot, and as I walked off the tentacle brushed across my ankle.  But it wasn't very painful, so I was fortunate. 

After a while though they seemed to stop coming in and we decided to risk going further into the water.  I promptly got bowled over by a wave so I splashed Marilyn and Peter as well and soon we were all good and wet.  And I did deliberately get some up my nose, so I hope it does some good in those pesky sinuses!

We didn't spend more than half an hour in the water because sadly we had to pack up ready to leave.  But what a lovely way to end our holiday at the beach!

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! 

Welcome, Elisabete; and we're on a short holiday

Popped in this morning and saw that Elisabete has joined - welcome, Elisabete and I hope you enjoy your visits to my miniworld. 

I am presently on a week's holiday at the beach, just two hours south of Sydney at a place called Kiama.  We are in our caravan and a couple who are very dear friends of nearly 40 years are in theirs next to us.  It is so good just to get away from everyday things at home.  The weather isn't wonderful, it has been raining a lot but the temperature is quite warm, in the 20degC and with warm nights too so we don't mind.

Hoping to go for a swim today, the water is a reasonable temperature.  I haven't made the walk to the lighthouse up on the headland yet  (1 1/2 hour walk return) - I'm lazy!  But every time our friends go they get caught in the rain lol.  Well, not every time, yesterday was fine and so is today so far.

 I'm off to look at the beach again, but here are a couple of photos I took yesterday - it was very misty even though it was warm (I have been wearing shorts and t-shirt). The caravan park is right on a lovely little beach with a small grassed area between.  It is such a nice place, even better than the usual spot we have stayed at several times before.

So while the summer hasn't started on a great note for many of us Aussies weatherwise being very wet, I personally don't mind one little bit - I dislike humidity with high temperatures, don't mind rain at all and we are very comfortable in our caravan and the temperatures just where they are.

Quarter Scale Shop Roombox

Petite Properties Shop

Petite Properties have released a shop roombox in quarter scale that just requires painting and glueing.  A couple of weeks after mine arrived I couldn’t leave it any longer and gave myself a treat by assembling it. It would have been my Dad’s birthday and so I felt I deserved a little spoiling.

The brickwork on the front pieces is pre-cut and it came up beautifully when sponged with terra cotta paint. I also went over it with some dark brown and a bit of lighter brown and the results were excellent.

Front walls and side walls of entry

Bea’s instructions then said to put the precut card pieces over the brickwork and paint them later. I didn’t trust my fine motor skills sufficiently to think I could do that around the brickwork without getting paint onto it, so I pre-painted the edges of the card. When the various layers were put together and painted a cream colour I decided I didn’t like that colour after all. So all my pre-painting was in vain because I re-painted it in bisque with some cream in it anyway. And yes, I did get some on the brickwork and it was a right pain to remove it.

Pieces painted cream, door made

I did the inside with a cream paint as well at first, and papered the floor. Then when I decided that I didn’t like the cream I had used I repainted the interior as well – and of course had trouble with that as well because I had already papered the floor!


Wanting a bit of interest on the exterior walls, I mixed talcum powder with the paint to give it some texture and painted that on then dabbed it with the points of a stiff bristle paintbrush. After that it had a nice finish. The roof is flat and I just painted it the same colour.

Exterior walls textured,exterior and  interior walls cream, floor painted.

I mixed a bit of cream with the colour I did the outside and used that to highlight the trim pieces, then ‘aged’ the whole exterior, just by using a bit of dark brown on a sponge – making sure that I wiped most of the paint off the sponge first, so that it was almost dry.

Repainted bisque, with bisque mixed with cream to highlight

And there it is! Just a bit under 4” wide and even less deep, so it won’t hold a great deal even in quarter scale.

And again, with the front removed.

And finally, just to give you even more of an idea of its size, here it is with a paint container and a fine-tipped glue bottle for comparison.

t took me a while to try and decide what type of shop I would make it but something on the television yesterday morning made me decide that perhaps a chocolatier would be a good idea. It’s worth considering anyway.....

Town Square Toy Shop Finished Too

Village Toys

On 5th August I wrote about doing Village Toys, and just to remind you, here are photos of the shop as it was then:







As part of my push to finish of some of my UFOs,  in October I did most of the things for the shop, then on 5th November I did the last couple of items and it is finished - yaaaaaay!  It is unusual for me to do those last few things for a project so I am very pleased with myself. I usually seem to get to just those final little details and not quite get around to them.  But on that day I made a jack-in-the-box for the remaining space on the lower shelf on the right. It is all of 2.5mm square vbg. Well, it is quarter scale after all! It is hard to see in the photo but you can see it in RL. Just. After it took me over an hour to make. And I used a couple of 'picture books' I had made and not used in the bookstore on the shelf as well. So here it is now, overall:

And here is a close up of each side:

The clown on the lower shelf was a gift from Judith Dowden when she sent the kit. Below the shelf is a tricycle that I bought ages ago ready painted

And I also bought the teddy bear on the counter ready painted. He is quite special and I wish I could remember where I bought him - I must look through my inventory to see. The teepee and the pram are white metal miniatures that I painted. The dollshouses are one of several I have of Pam Junks 'Row of Houses' and the shelf that came for them to sit on is on the other side of the shop, with toy boxes (printies) on it. More printies for toy boxes are in the attic.

 Under the counter Pickwick the cat is sleeping, securely away from boisterous children that come into the shop. It was hard to photograph him but you can see him in real life.

You can also see the lovely little rocking horse out the front, made from a kit by Karen Benson. It invites lots of kiddies to come and sit on it and to be enticed by the goodies inside the shop too.

This shop is delightful and I really had lots of fun making things for it.  In fact I enjoyed it so much and have several things made up that I couldn't fit in there that it was a large factor in my decision to buy Karen Benson's Toy Shoppe.

Here are some of the other toy kits I  made up and couldn't fit in:

The individual cars in this racing track are only 1.5mm long - if that!  There are two of each car and they need to be glued together. The wheels are painted on by putting a black dot on with a toothpick.  

I also have a train track (with train and landscaping) on a table but haven't made it up yet.   

The ride-on airplane was going to go under the shelf where the tricycle is, and the tricyle was going to go outside.  But the airplane was a bit large, so it is ready for the Toy Shoppe as well.

In contrast, this little elephant (a kit from Suzanne & Andrews) is so tiny that it is hard to photograph without it coming out blurry.  There was actually plenty of room for it to go into the shop, but after spending an entire afternoon making it and it being such a lovely little thing, I didn't want it to be in a position where it wouldn't be seen to its best advantage.  So I made the jack-in-the-box instead and this will go into the Karen Benson Toy Shoppe, in a position where it will be more visible.



And of course every toy shop or collection has to have a little red wagon!

There are more kits that I haven't made up, and even more to come.  Once I decided to order the larger Toy Shoppe, I needed to fill it, after all vbg!  So that was the perfect excuse to get those kits that I had looked at and liked but resisted.  Hmmmmm - wonder what the real reason for ordering the shop was: the desire to have those kits, or the 'accidental' ordering of it? LOL. 

Another Town Square shop finished

Antiques With Class



21st November, 2010

‘The old schoolhouse at the end of town has been replaced by a modern building, but no one could bear to tear down the old one. Luckily, in miniature, we are able to be historic preservationists with very little effort. This abandoned schoolhouse is .....(now ) .... an antique store, another symbol that we appreciate and enjoy old things, not get rid of them.’ This is the delightful introduction to Antiques With Class, the fifth in the Town Square series from Debbie Young.

I was somewhat disappointed with this kit in some respects, mainly because it came with absolutely no extras. This is the first one that came without any counter, till or shelves. It could have done with some shelves at least, and perhaps a chair to put outside as in the illustration. However once the extras are put in and around it, the shop will look delightful.

This is what it looked like when I had completed the shop as it came in the kit:

Can't help but love the shape of this shop!

Ready to fill - nice atmospheric wallpaper too.

And here is the outside once I had added some bits and pieces to it:

It has no window so looks rather bland outside, but fortunately I had a spare brown plastic chair and have painted it with a slightly distressed finish. The rug that is rolled up over it is a printie, and I have painted the back of the rug with a light tan so that it looks like the backing of a rug rather than just white paper.

Moving inside - after all, the outside is only a taste, isn't is? - and here is an overview of the interior

Overview of interior



I had a Captain's Desk that I made up from a kit from Karen Cary, planning to use it in the Sea Shanty but there wasn't room so I was pleased to be able to find a spot for it here. There is another attractive rolled up. 'rug' (also a printie with the back painted) leaning against the wall near the desk. A white metal clock painted up beautifully, white metal picture frames look good with pictures behind them to complete the right side.  And here is a better view of just the right side:

Close-up right side

On the left hand side I made a shelf for the wall, and filled it with books. Under that is a small table (made of balsa wood and a part of a toothpick). The chair that is there at the moment might be replaced by one the same but upholstered in a different fabric. I bought two of these kits and upholstered this one for Honeysuckle Cottage, but the second kit keeps going walkabout on me. I find it then it disappears again. Cheeky little thing it is! When I do catch it, I want to upholster it in a darker colour - either a darker blue or burgundy or something that looks nice. I have ordered some more kits, so Honeysuckle Cottage won't be lacking in chairs. The quilt is a yet another printie, and the 'hanger' is part of a toothpick painted gold. On the table is a box that I just made freehand from card, painted and 'aged'. Then I cut out some plates that I had printed off and glued to photo paper (it makes excellent light-weight card) and rounded the centres a bit with a stylus. They have moved themselves a bit too closely against each other but since I sat them in a bed of glue there wasn't much I could do about that.

And of course I have a cat - that's mandatory. This one is called Patch (yes, I know, not very imaginative - perhaps it is worrying me that Patch the dog is still missing vbg) and is a white metal cat painted by Grace Shaw of Virtual Dollhouses.

Isn't the quilt a pretty design?

What do you think - will I change the colour of the chair or not?  I've rather grown to like the lighter blue as time has gone on.

 I would have loved to have had room to put in a dresser as well, that would have been just perfect but there was no way I could squeeze it in unless I left out the desk or the chair.  And when I did that, it looked more like a room than an antique shop.  So I reluctantly left it out.
And that has finished off the Antiques shop rather nicely. I think it’s come out quite well, and of course every Town Square needs an Antique Shop!

Completing the Town Square Shops

Dickens' Books

At around the 25th of each month another of these these darling little shops arrives.  It doesn’t take long to make them up. Then comes the fun part of filling them with goodies.  

While I was visiting my darling daughter and grandsons in Queensland (turned out to be a 5 week visit, which was great to spend so long with them) I did the Dickens Book shop,  which arrived the day I left. This is one of my very most favourite shops, with its timbered front and aged look. Here is what it looked like when it was done ( I wrote about it in September):

Front view - shop completed in September

Interior view in September, ready to fill with goodies

As you can see I did the furniture that came with the kit as well. The bookcases and counter came as kits, the desk and chair are the ubiquitious brown plastic furniture just sanded, painted and aged. I decided that one cat would be on the chair up in the office, and a naughty one on the bookshelves downstairs. Here’s the interior with the furniture just sitting in place – not glued in so the bookshelf downstairs isn’t sitting straight.

I also made a whole lot of little books to fill the shelves. Once I arrived home I couldn’t find most of them! So I made a whole lot more. These are mainly covers folded around layers of paper or around card of different thickness, and cut to size. I ended up with far too many books so I am well supplied for other projects vbg. I had even made two piles of books glued together but didn’t use them. Snowy is upstairs on the office chair keeping it warm while Mr Dickens steps ououtside for a moment, and Tiger is up to his usual tricks, climbing the bookcase downstairs and knocking books down onto the floor. Mr Dickens won't be happy at all!  Here it is, completed:
 

View of interior overall, finished

Interior finished showing left side - and that naughty Tiger!

View of right side interior - Snowy looks comfy.

And somehow Patch has gone walkabout from the front. If you see him, please send him home. Mr Dickens has put a ‘lost dog’ sign outside, in the hope that he will turn up again. It was made in a text box in an Office doc so I can’t import it here, but it has a picture of Patch and says “Lost. Brown and white spaniel. Reward for information leading to his return.’ .Tiger and Snowy are really missing Patch too. Perhaps that's where Mr Dickens is, out looking for that wandering pooch?  I do hope he finds him!

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!