Stalling.........

Did I ever tell you that I HATE shingles. That is I hate installing them. I put some on the mystery house when I first got it. It was an experiment. I used the wood from one of those Japanese scroll calendars that were popular in the 80s. They were pretty but way too fragile to last. Good Old Mookie got to them. He thought that since they were wood they would make a great scratching post. There are a couple of spots that could be repaired but he would probably just do it again. We shall see........

I think I am going to try another experiment. I found two shades of that speckled texture paint in brown. I am thinking that I will spray one side of some textured scrap booking card stock and then cut it into shingles. That will leave all of the edges raw. I will then do the old trick of lining them up on masking tape to paint. That way I can do the right side and the edges. I don't have this all the way thought through yet. That's why I am stalling.

So here is some eye candy to keep you happy until I do the amazing shingle experiment.

This is a bassinet that I made one year when one of the perfume companies put their gift bottles in the frosted swan. It was the perfect size to make a crib. The fabric is silk. Some of the lace is antique French and the base that it sits on is made from shaped ceiling tile.

I bought the gift set. I gave away the insides(not as a gift) and used the packaging. This is typical 6 year old thinking. Give her a gift and she plays with the box....er I mean swan.

Fame? I don't think so...

This morning I woke up to an e mail asking permission to use this photo as part of the background in a music video, or as the writer spelled it a music vidoe......The e mail said if I wanted to do it all I had to do was make them a "friend" on my Flickr photo page. I went to the site where they said that I could listen to their music.


I decided against it and tried to answer with a polite "no". The letter was returned to me. They evidently didn't want that answer. The only way I could answer was with the "add a friend" option.

Did I mention that they said that they would like permission to use any of my other photos as well? I discussed it with friends and was warned that it might be a way of identity theft or even a virus. I ran my anti virus. Nope. From now on if I get something like this it will go in the bin as soon as I see it. I think that they only way that they could have picked it out was putting in the word "bedroom" to search. I just thought that the rest of you(if anybody is actually reading this stuff) should be aware of this kind of thing. Pretty irritating.

If you are still with me, the bedroom photo above is one of a series of 1/4" scale rooms that are done in 1" scale trunks.

The first one I did was an attic in a trunk.......And before you say anything, I know it's supposed to be trunk in an attic. I like it my way better.



The little quarter inch oriental rugs are some that I copied onto muslin from a real rug site on the web. Most of the furniture is the little plastic stuff that comes on cards by the roomful. I found that you can carve it to make it look different. The accessories are just out of my stash or made to fill in. Again, thank goodness for the people that put printies on their websites. The movie posters are cut from magazine ads for dvds. They were just the right size. I will show you more of these later.



Just so you don't get too bored, I am throwing in another 1/4" box. This one is a tea box from Harrod's in London. I bought it with the tearoom in mind when we were there. What better way to remind me of a great trip?

Would you care to join me for a cuppa?


No. I didn't work on the Mystery House today.

See you tomorrow.

Poly Minis

I started playing with polymer clay way back in the 80s. It has always fascinated me because you can do so many different things with it. One of the first things I made with Fimo way back when were dolls. This one was , I think, my third or fourth try. She has gone through several reincarnations. That is I have re dressed her and re wigged her a few times. The poor lady just keeps going and going like the Energizer Bunny. She is slightly cross eyed but I still like her. I somehow managed to make her stand by herself. That was the important part. She doesn't have to lean on anyone or anything. She's a strong lady! I never did get around to giving her a name. She seems to reside happily where ever I choose to put her. Maybe it's because she has seen so many others disappear into the rubbish bin or be sent to live somewhere else. I think she likes it here.

Then there is the food........I have a wonderful time with that. I seldom make a house or a room box that doesn't have something to eat in it. After all, just because you are 5" tall it doesn't mean that you never get hungry or thirsty.

I started teaching our Wednesday Witches mini group some of this a couple of months ago. I had been experimenting with the liquid poly clay. That makes wonderful melted cheese as you can see on this Mexican food platter.

Next there had to be pizza. Our mini people were really hungry. That was the most fun. We made all of the toppings to go on the pizza like black olives, mushrooms, green pepper rings and pepperoni. We baked those first. We used liquid poly, tinted with red, for the pizza sauce. We covered that with all of the toppings and then more of the liquid poly tinted with yellow for the cheese. We dusted the edges of the crusts with brown chalk. Then I went and found a website that had printable of mini pizza boxes on the net.

The liquid poly opens up a whole new dimension to the food. You can reproduce beverages like hot chocolate and coffee without the trouble of resin mixing. Also what is turkey without gravy?

Saving the best for last.........Of course our little people MUST have chocolate chip cookies!

The sugar and flour bags were also from a mini printies website. Some of the mini people are really generous with their time and web space. Thank you to the mini friends that do this sort of thing so that the rest of us can use them in our scenes and enjoy them!

That's all for today. I need to go get a couple of chocolate chip cookies. I made myself hungry writing this one!

Fixer Upper

When I got the $9.00 dollhouse it was a mystery to me. I knew it was a Duracraft and suspected that It was a Linfield but when I looked on the net, all I could find were prebuilt Linfields that didn't have a balcony over the front door like this one did. I started calling it the "Mystery House" and the name stuck. My friends on the Greenleaf Forum helped out with identifying it. It was indeed a Linfield. Evidently, somewhere along the line, Duracraft put out two different styles. One was with a balcony and one was without. I am so happy to have the one with the balcony.

I am rambling again. Sorry. The subject at hand is the fixer upper aspect of this house. It was all put together. I ripped off all of the porch and balcony railings and replaced them with some from Houseworks. The only addition that was savable was the hardwood floor on the main story. It was beautifully done with the exception the two slots that they had made to install a center wall.

When I decided not to use that, I either had to patch the floor or cover it. It seemed ashamed to lose the hardwood so I opted for a long rug in that area. It is coming along pretty well.

You can see one of the slots directly under Mookie's tummy. The other is closer to the camera.

Incidentally, permit me to introduce Mookie. This is the cat that eats miniatures. He also hides miniatures and he takes great delight in batting them across the room and under furniture. The bad part is he can also open closed doors. If he wants to get into my workroom all he does is jump up, pull down on the lever type handle and put his weight against the door. This can be a problem at times. My smaller minis seem to walk away by themselves......... I have taken to hanging something bulky from the door handle so that he can't do that so often.

One more photo. This one is my biggest problem still unfixed. The hole that you see at the left is there because whoever put the roof on didn't line up the wall and the roof right. Rather than tear off the roof, I am opting to patch. It is hard to see but there is a piece of scrap ply running along the edge of the roof line. I still need to fix the hole where the rain gets in.....

I am thinking that maybe a small piece or plywood or even some DAS might work. The hole is about 1/2" by 3/4". Wish me luck. Photos will follow when I finish.

I also still have to re install the loft over the bed. That will be a sewing area. It was another Mookie mishap. I will save that one for another day. See you tomorrow.

Sidetracked.....

I didn't get anything done on the 9$ house today. More important things to do. I had to meet my daughter for coffee and go shopping at the antique mall.

It used to be she wasn't particularly interested in antiques. Now that she is a serious grownup, she had changed. Now we haggle over who gets what. It is much more fun this way. When she was younger it was "Oh mom......Do we have to look at this?". Now It is "Oh Mom!!! Look at this!!!!". Yup. Definitely more fun.

Anyway, I will just fill in with a bit of eye candy for you to look at. This is a closet that I built a couple of years ago.

I built it while my daughter was working as the librarian at a design college here. They are heavy into fashion design and she had the job of choosing all of the new books for the library. I have a background in fashion from college days and loved all of the books that she was finding. I started making mini clothes on hangers. I had done a lot of purses and shoes before so I had plenty of those to put in it. The hatboxes were from a site on the net. The rest of it is all my own work. Oh! Except for the beat up doc martins on the floor. They are from England.

After I had some of the clothes in it, but before it was finished, she claimed it. No arguing. She got it when it was done.

Here is a closeup of a few of the things inside.

The hangers are plastic coated paperclips.The beige pantsuit is an actual pattern from Mc Calls or Simplicity. The turquoise sweater is made from a sock.

Theoretically, they could all be put on mini dolls. They probably never will be tho. The closet will stay neat and tidy, unlike my own, forever and ever.

I am going to try to put a new entry on here every day. Sometimes old. S ometimes new. We shall see how long that lasts........

Please drop by and check things out. Comments are always welcome.

See You Tomorrow.

The Spiral Staircase

I had to redo the spiral staircase. Mookie(one of my cats) tried to eat it. That was while the house was in hiding on top of a 7 foot bookcase in the family room. He can climb anything.

Anyway, I have been working on it for the past couple of days. I am just dry fitting it at present to see how it looks. It will be one of the last things I glue in. Otherwise it will be in the way of working on the rest of the ground floor.

I did it with wood, spindles and various fabric braids and trims. The center pole is a thin dowel with alternating wooden step pieces and melon shaped beads. The spindles were then added to each step. Then a triangular piece was added under each step and a piece of rope cording was strung on the tops. After adding some more pieces of braids and trims, I painted the whole assembly antique white to match the rest of the woodwork.

The rug that you see behind the couch is one that I am making up as I go along. I needed a rug there to cover the holes that the former owner had cut in the floor and flooring for the wall slots. Shhhhhh! Don't tell anyone that I was too lazy to patch the holes!

All of the furniture and accessories are just placed to give an idea as to what will fit. This is not necessarily their new home yet.

The rug in the living room area is a Pamela Warner design from one of her books. I did it a while ago with this room in mind. It is done on # 24 congress cloth.

I made the couch and the tall cupboard with this house in mind. The wicker chair is one that I made a few years ago. I used to provide Pam Throop of "Historic Homes in Miniature" with wicker. I am sorry to say that she has since passed away. She was a good friend.

The afghan on the couch is one that I just finished a couple of days ago. The pattern was a full sized baby afghan pattern from the net. It was done with mercerized cotton sewing thread and a # 14 hook. The dog is just there to hold it down. It hasn't been blocked to drape over the furniture yet.

You can see clearly in this shot that the leading in the windows is white. I am thinking that I might cover it with golf leading tape to make the windows look more real.

OK. Enough stalling! Back to the grindstone.....

Here I Go Again!

I started this a couple of days ago and I think I am finally getting the hang of it. Thanks to Gina!

I had a blog elsewhere that kept getting clogged up with comments about things other than miniatures. It was just a nuisance. I am hoping that this one will be different.

Anyway, here I go again! Back to the minis. I have been doing a lot of other things besides miniatures for about a year. I need to get serious about it again. Hopefully writing a blog about what I am doing will keep me going.

I am working on a house that I bought at a garage sale for 9.00. The woman wanted 12.00 for it. I bargained with her......I got her down to 9.00 on the condition that I would take the paint that went with it. They were not my colors! The house was painted white with pink, baby blue, turquoise and lime green trim! How could I resist?

This is what it looks like now.

I still have a long way to go. I want to change the shingles and then the outside will be done.

I am thinking of doing something to the silk screened window panes too. That can wait a while tho.
I started the renovation 4 or 5 years ago when I first bought the house. Then I put it up on a shelf and went on to other things. At Christmas time I decided that it was time to finish it. Hopefully this time I will get it done.

I tell people that I have the attention span of a 6 year old. Everything gets done eventually. I just lose interest and have many projects going at once. That way I never stop working. It is just on all kinds of projects at the same time.

Here's the foundation of the house. I finished this last week. It is made of DAS air drying clay. I painted it with washes of about 6 different colors to make the stone look.

The landscaping will come at the end of the remodel.

I am working on the spiral staircase for the inside now.

Look for photos of progress soon.