Wishing you a blessed and joyous Easter

I wish you all a happy Easter - whether you are a person of faith or not, Easter is a lovely time of year, even if it is just a long holiday.  

For those us us who are Christians it is a reminder that we do not just live a meaningless life and then pass with nothing to look forward to - we have a blessed hope of eternal life through a Saviour Who died for our sins and Who rose again.

I wish you and your family a wonderful time 

over this holiday, however you spend it. I hope you have lots of sweet treats and of course lots of minis!

Ideas for the Sydney Fair please

G'day to the Aussie readers who will be attending the Sydney Show this year. I am trying to decide which of my projects to concentrate on once the Fairfield is completed to display at the Fair and I'd like suggestions please - what would you like to have a closer look at 'in the flesh' so to speak? I know some of you enjoyed seeing the Petite Properties up close and personal in 2011, and I possibly won't be there in 2014 again so if there is something that you really want to see I'll make that the project that I concentrate on, whether it's a Petite Property or another project. Leave your ideas as comments here or else on the Beehive. I won't get the Fairfield completed by Easter as I had hoped because I'm helping Nathan with his toy shop, but will still hopefully have time in April to finish off another project or two....

I'd love to hear whether you are going to the Fair this year, and look forward to seeing you there.

And of course those who aren't going to the Sydney fair, or aren't Aussies - I'd love to hear from you what you'd like to see completed too!  So lots of suggestions, please, my friends!

Working on my 'Fairfield'

Well dear friends, I won't be posting much on this blog for a while.  But I will certainly still be very busy mini-ing.  I have started on my half-scale Fairfield.  If you don't know what this house is like, these are photos from the box:

You can see it's progress by clicking here and I do hope that you'll follow along on my journey.  And - don't faint with shock, but I have made a commitment to myself and to my readers that I will continue on that project and only that project, until the house is constructed, decorated and landscaped.  What have I done!!!  Especially since I have the Luci Hanson Easter Workshop on its way as of yesterday, and have also registered for the Cynthia Howe Patisserie Workshop, both of them in quarter scale.

But as you know, I specialize in UFO's and I am determined that this time I will finally do something from start to finish.  Hopefully I will also have most of the furniture if not all, by the time the construction is completed as well.  If not, I will keep gathering the pieces I need to complete the furnishing afterwards, probably some of them at the Sydney Fair in May. But I do want to finish this house in time to display it at the Fair, plus finish off some of my quarter scale projects to display as well.

So there you have it - a public commitment to my friends here as well!  Please do have a look at the Fairfield blog and encourage me on this adventure!  Help me to keep my resolution strong, and to get this one finished from beginning to end without giving in and going off on a tangent like I always do  :) I look forward to seeing lots of you on my Fairfield blog and to receiving lots of comments from you too!

Double Trouble

Is lots of fun!

Val, a friend I met online through some miniatures groups, flew over from South Australia to stay at my place a couple of  weeks ago.  That’s no small thing for her to do, by the way.  South Australia is halfway across Australia and Sydney is on the east coast.  So I was very excited that she would come to spend time doing minis with me.

We met her at the airport on Monday.  For Val it is a 2 1/2 hour drive to Adelaide airport, so to catch her flight she was up at 5am ready to leave by 7am, only to find when she arrived there that her flight was delayed by 2 hours.  By the time she arrived at Sydney Airport at 5.30pm it had been a very long day indeed. 

Val is great fun, and we had a wonderful time, with just so many laughs.  I don’t know why I tidied the house before she arrived – dragging out all my minis that are works in progress to show her means that the lounge and dining rooms ended up looking a total mess lol!  But it is such fun to share them with someone who loves our hobby as much as I do.  The photo below shows some of the mess!

We  haven’t just spent our time doing ‘show and tell’ either.  I set up a worktable in the middle of the lounge room and we sat at that.  We got busy making flowers, Val in 1/12^th scale and mine in 1.24^th scale.  These are Vals - mine aren't finished.  The birdhouse is and half of the geraniums are but I still have the rest of the geraniums and need to add the ivy to the wire around the birdhouse.

We made some quarter scale armchairs, based on kits I had from Pam Junk.  For these we used balsa wood and toothpicks and they came out really well.

 Val made up a tiny kit for an arbor from Petite Properties.  It surprised her that it went together so easily and that even though it is quarter scale it wasn't at all difficult to do.

 I assembled a lovely little Welsh dresser kit from Templewood Miniatures.  I love this series of kits, the wood is just beautiful and the kits go together like a dream.

And  a 1:24^th scale play table with a train set - I've done one of these before in 1:48th scale and I must say it is a whole lot bigger in 1:24th   scale :)  They are heaps of fun to make and decorate, and to decide how you want your little train to be positioned.  I can just imagine it in a little boy's bedroom, can't you?

Val had made a lovely writing bureau in 1:12th scale from a tutorial on 1inch minis by Kris.  This is a great site, with lots of tutorials.   You can find it here   We adapted this tutorial  to 1/24^th scale and made one each.  Val's is on the left and mine is on the right in the photo below.

Before Val left for the airport to return home we posed for a photo with the products of our 'playing' for the week.  Here we are, standing in front of a cabinet that holds some of my quarter scale buildings:

and here is a close-up of what we are holding in our hands (I forgot the Welsh dresser at the time) but you might be able to see the foam in my left hand, with the geraniums constructed so far.  They are a bit hard to see but there are several in there.

Val worked on her FlowerPot Cottage, learning how to do the clay on the walls.And we experimented with the flint finish that some Petite Properties have..

Val also came ready to shop, and her visit included a trip to a model railway shop, a hobby shop, a hardware store and a craft store , looking for materials that aren’t so easily obtained in the little village near where she lives.

We had planned for her to give me a lesson in dry stone wall building – in quarter scale!  Ian, Val’s husband, is a stone worker and builds stone walls and stone houses for a living and Val helps him so I would have been guided by an expert in the field.  But when we were at Bunnings we forgot to get the gravel/stone to make the wall with!  And we ran out of time anyway.  So that will have to wait for 'next time' :)

And she came bearing gifts too, as if coming all the way from South Australia to spend time with me isn't enough by itself.  A beautiful fairy will be a treasured feature of my mini garden

A tiny scarecrow bead will keep watch in my Petite Properties farm - he's only around 3/4" tall, so doesn't look his best when enlarged like this but he's really cute.

Two  teapots make the perfect outline for clocks in the kitchen of the Fairfield and another halfscale house.

Val makes pincushions and gave me these two pretty ones.  Don't you love the little house and garden on the larger one?  Wonder why she thought they'd be appropriate? :)

Also some greenery and dried flowers for my mini gardens, an antique half scale sewing machine and stool, some tiny turnings, leather and upholstery fabric pieces for carpets, beads.  These trumpet-shaped beads suggest interesting possibilities

And a pretty little knitted set of bonnet, booties and panties from Jeanette Fishwick in Tasmania.  I have emailed you Jeanette, but I want to thank you again here - these are just delightful. 

Then at the end of the week we drove Val back to the airport, for her return flight home to her hubby.  I was sad to see her go - life goes back to a household of three males and me now, and I am the only miniaturist.  Nathan is very keen though, and Val has talked him into buying a kit for a halfscale house, so I can see that we'll be busy helping him with that.  

Thank you Val, for a wonderful week, lots of laughs and lots of mini-ing!  We'd all love to have you come again - and bring Ian with you too!

Long time no blog

Hi all!  Another long break! I have heaps to tell you so will spread it out over several posts. I've done some work on my Christmas gifts, 'Somewhere in Thyme' from Suzanne & Andrew and 'The Silver Thimble' from the Betterleys.  And even a little bit of preparation on my halfscale 'Fairfield'.

By the way, I've started a new blog for 'The Fairfield'.  I did some of it before Camp, and am just catching up with posts now.  You can follow the progress as I build, decorate and accessorize this gorgeous little half scale house here - I do hope you'll have a look!

Christmas and New Year was a busy time with family then we went away to Jindabyne  in the Snowy Mountains for 10 days of Church Camp and are not too long back again.  Jindabyne is quite near the snow fields in winter and is one of the resort areas. The Adventist Alpine Village where we were staying is on the side of a mountain, with permanent accommodation in the form of chalets and some flat areas for caravans and tents to be pitched for camps.

Some of the chalets further up the hill

 To get to the dining room we climbed the steep hill each lunchtime (we only bought the main meal of the day, had our own breakfast and a light tea).  At first Nathan found it too steep to walk back down again but by the end of our stay he managed it with help.

This is the main lodge: administration, lounge, dining room (on left) etc.

Interior of middle section of main lodge, showing access to 'quiet area' upstairs

On our arrival we pulled up to the main lodge to register. I looked to my left across to some of the caravans and tents, where we ended up being, and there were 5 female kangaroos browsing just behind all the human activity, ignoring the noise of children running around or riding bikes, tent pegs being driven in, people walking around and so on.  Every morning up to 25 kangaroos would be around the lodge, waiting for a handout and our friend Richard was able to get really close to them.  I took photos with my phone but they are pretty poor, so I decided to use one from the Village publicity site here.  I would have preferred the one of the roos I saw: there was a little joey hopping around and all the females had joeys in their pouches.  One of the joeys had its head sticking out looking around.  So cute!

The first couple of days were freezing even though it is summer here, then we had several days that were really hot.  Thankfully though it didn't snow lol!

Heavy snowfall in winter

 Mt Kosciuszko, Australia's highest mountain, is not very far from Jindabyne and it still had snow in shaded areas up towards the top.  Some of the men went for their annual long hike, up to the top of the mountain then down and through several valleys.  While they were up the top they were throwing snowballs, recapturing their boyhood.  A lot of the campers visit the mountain each year - either hiking up to the top or just visiting as far as they can by car.

It was a time of great spiritual blessing and renewal, and it was wonderful.  There was a morning walk at 6.30 (no, I was lazy and didn't go on that); morning worship at 7.30; Family worship at 8.30; morning meeting at 11; afternoon meeting at 3 and evening meeting at 7.30.  They offered free head and neck massages at 10.30 and 1.30, by workers from our Cedar Vale Health Centre.  The meals were wonderful, done by a chef hired full-time by the Village.  His vegetarian meals are creative and so tasty.

We were with our best friends Marilyn and Richard.  Our caravans were beside each other.  We also met many new people.  And met a lot of new people that Nathan had become friends with, and who came up to say what a delightful young man he is.  He would disappear from the caravan (which was quite near the large tent in which all the adult meetings were held) and wander off to the meetings by himself.   Or he'd hear the musicians and singers practising and go off to listen to them so he became quite friendly with them too. We soon became known as 'Nathan's parents' lol.

Our friend Richard walked up the hillside behind us most days, and took some fabulous photos at sunrise.  I would never have believed that such beauty could cover that area which from our vantage point seemed just dry grass.  If I ask him nicely he might allow me to post one of his photos here.

Since I've been home I've been busy with swap items for the Half Scale group.  They have taken lots longer than I expected.  I wanted to start them sooner but things kept delaying that, so now I had to make a huge effort to get them done and posted off.  Of course I can't show you what they are yet!  Hope they are liked by the recipients.  I'm still having trouble getting my 'scale sense' for 1:24th.

Happy Australia Day

Today is the day when we celebrate  being Australian.  All the different waves of immigration over the years, making up today's society have brought many changes to the Aussie culture, and we can all benefit from taking the best of what each has brought with them.

Today is a day to appreciate the blessings we enjoy in this wonderful - and sometimes challenging - country of ours.

Happy New Year! - and apologies

It's been hectic here for the last couple of weeks, and I didn't even get on to wish you all a Happy Christmas - so belated hopes that it was indeed a happy time for all of you, my friends.  And I wish you all a healthy, happy 2013, full of wonderful blessings and many miniature delights.

I did indeed complete the Christmas roombox in time for Christmas, apart from the window, which has since arrived.  So I will paint and insert the window and post a photo of it soon, I promise.  My older grandson Cameron really loved it while they were staying here, sleeping in the living room.  The lights on the Christmas tree were turned off at night but he loved having the lights in the roombox left on all night (and all day).  He found it fascinating.

I was also very fortunate as far as miniatures go for Christmas, receiving the Betterley's quilt shop 'The Silver Thimble' and the interior kits, the Flower shop and the ladies' shop along with the interior kits, from Suzanne and Andrew, as gifts from my family.  And yes, I must confess that I have started the quilt shop already - in fact it is virtually completed except that my satin varnish has disappeared so I can't use it for the 'dirty varnish' effect I want.  And of course it is out of stock in the craft stores at the moment.

Now an apology to Chris P and  Ana.  In the big cleanup before Kylie and the boys arrived, the gifts for the giveaway were inadvertently packed away and I won't be able to really get into the room where everything has been stuffed until after my other daughter and her four come to stay on Sunday.  I hope I can find them before we go away on 10th until 20th.  But as soon as I do find them they will be posted off to you both.

All lit up now

It's not quite finished but at least I know that the lights are all working - whoo hooo!  At first, as instructed, I joined the fireplace, table lamp and hidden light together.  But because the fireplace light flickers, so did the other lights.  So I used one of the coin battery holders from my stash for the fireplace and made it a separate control.  I could have added the light to the strip lighting wiring but this has the added advantage that now I can turn on the lamp and the light hidden behind the false wall, without turning on the strip lighting on the ceiling if I want to.  This is what it looks like when I do that.

And this is with all the lights on and the fireplace flickering.

Of course I couldn't resist turning off all my RL living room lights and taking a photo of it like that.

As I said, it isn't quite finished yet.  I have ordered another window from the UK, because I can't source one here in Sydney.  I am not happy with the Christmas tree, and it will receive further attention. The red sparkly dots don't show up at all well and the gold pieces disappear into the greenery.  I don't really like the gold bunka either. Ideas for decoration would be welcome please.  I thought that perhaps I'd try some gold embroidery thread; what do you think?  I'd like to have 'snow' on it but am nervous about adding paint in case I wreck the tree totally - any tips?

Also my nice red Christmas tree skirt has disappeared - goodness knows how or where!  Luci provided an alternative one, a green version but I prefer the red one so I'm hoping it will turn up before I have to stick it all down. 

Here is another view with all the lights on, this time from the rounded end of the roombox.

As I said, I'd really welcome suggestions on improving that poor Christmas tree!  

G'day Wanda!

It's a great pleasure to welcome you here Wanda.  I hope you have had a look around and found some things that interest you, and that you will visit often and leave some comments.   I really love having feedback from readers, to get a feel of how what you enjoy and think.

You will find out that I love minis in all scales but my current favourite is 1:48 scale, and I really love the detail you can get in such a tiny space with this scale.  I also love finding extra things to add every so often to a setting.  You will also soon see that I specialize in UFOs!  Not by design  but it just seems to happen.  I optimistically say each year that this will be the year that I turn some of those UFOs into FFOs - and I am hoping that 2012 will be the year that this actually eventuates, so you will possibly see some of my many projects finally in their finished state :)

So do keep an eye on the blog, and I hope you will enjoy what is to come.  

A LITTLE bit of Christmas charm......

Quite little in fact - but packed full of elegance and Christmas charm! It's a quarter scale Christmas living room from Luci Hanson.  My kit arrived on Friday, just as Peter was ready to leave to come out to the country town where I had been for the last two weeks or so.  He brought it out with him knowing that I had been anxiously waiting its arrival.

This is what came in the kit:

Every single thing that is required for the finished roombox is included, except the batteries for the lighting.  The box has hidden strip lighting across the top front and the interior is removable.  

It's beautifully made.

And this is what it will look like once it is completed

Don't you love the half-round roombox?  Each is handmade by Luci's husband, and they are available from their website, Cascade Miniatures (click  here). 

We all returned home from our daughter's house on Monday afternoon, getting back around 7pm so were very very tired - I was too tired to even open the box again.  It was a 7-hour trip, not too many roadworks which was good.  I only drove for 1 1/2 hours this time, and almost completed a beaut little caddy pincushion for our daughter on the way - I love hand piecing. It would have been finished except I didn't have any stuffing for it. Pictures later.  Yesterday I attended the Christmas party with my mother at the nursing home where she is a resident.  I stayed with her for the rest of the afternoon so last night it was time to start catching up on the washing and today is the first chance I've had to get into the box of goodies again. 

There was an email from Luci this morning to say that some people hadn't received their page of illustrations to match the instructions.  I checked and sure enough, I was one of them.  So is my friend Jan in Bundy who is also doing the same project.  Our kits also have a plain square window instead of the one pictured in the model, and we don't like that nearly as much so we are going to replace the window.  That will possibly hold things up a bit for us, but I am trying to source the windows locally.  But there are things we can do without them

I decided I'd start with the fireplace - I'm still a bit too tired to tackle the armchairs and make a good job of them.  I started by painting the firebox inside brown then daubing black over the lower part.  I decided I wanted a brown surround like in the model, and did some brown on the bottom too.  It still needs more coats of paint, the flickering globe and the logs added, but here it is so far

I also painted the inside of the removable part of the roombox with a couple of coats of white craft paint.  Here it is with the window cut out of the false wall, and the Santa graphic adhered to the rear wall.

I cut the window opening out of the false wall and added the spacer pieces to the back of it.  

The spacer that goes under the window has greenery added on top of it, with white paint added for 'snow'.

It makes such a difference with the wallpaper added and the flooring paper added, doesn't it? The fireplace is just sitting there for now - there is a piece of furniture beside it, so I have to make sure that there is room for that before I glue it in.   once I have added the flickering globe and the rest of the flames and timber bits, I will run the wires through the false wall and out the rear wall and glue the fireplace permanently in beside the little table that goes there.  

I've cut out the rug and put it in place but I haven't stuck it down.  I'll wait to do that until I have done the furniture.  I just wanted to see it on the floor.

Not bad for one afternoon and evening's work!  How do you like it so far?