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Sunday, April 20, 2008

Just a Little.

I am taking a break from the Colonial Kitchen today. I spent the morning reading my friend Gina's blog. This is the link. http://moreminis.blogspot.com/ I went back to the start and worked my way forward. I am nowhere near being finished.

Gina's blog is great if you are just starting to work on minis or if you have a lot of years under your belt. She starts with a house kit and ends up with a beautiful house. She has a great deal of valuable information on her blog and also on her Newbies blog that you can get to from that same site.

I think I got up to June of 2007 this morning. It is great fun watching her houses grow. It will take a while to get through it all. Therefore I don't have much time for minis today......Good excuse?


So I am going to show you what you can do if you only have a little time to do minis. These are shadowbox vignettes that I have scattered around my house.
This one and the next one are both key cupboards that I got on sale at Wal Mart for 2.00 each. All I did to them was take out the four cup hooks that were at the back to hang your keys on. I painted the inside and stuck some things that I already had inside.
The quilt in this one was a cross stitch pattern in the old Mc Call's craft magazine years ago. The tulips were some that I made and just had hanging around without a home other than the greenhouse.
The second one has a cross stitch rug that I designed and made hanging on the back.




I kind of wish that they had had more of these. The front opens with a magnetic catch and they are about 2" deep. It doesn't take long to fill them. I had these sitting on a table to take the photo. They normally hang on the wall.
The cat is one that I got at Pic 'n Save years ago. He is another one that moves around. I think he finally found a home here.
The third one is a shadow box that I also got at Wal Mart. I think that these were about 4.00 a piece. I got several. They weren't meant for miniatures, but they are about 8" square and 2" deep so they are ideal.
This one contains a George Becker harpsichord. He was a pretty famous miniaturist back in the 80s and someone talked him into doing some of his furniture in limited editions. It even has strings inside. This one is #173. I'm not sure how many were made. I am thinking that it was 200.
I got it at a mini garage sale for 25.00! That is a fraction of the original price. I was lucky. The painting on the wall is a watercolor that a friend did.
The only bad thing about these shadowboxes is that they open from the back. The insides slide out that way and sometimes it is a nuisance when something falls over to take them apart. I have a few more of these that I will show you later. They are great if you have a collection of something that you want to show off without a whole room.
Now go over to Gina's and read for a while. You will learn a lot about dollhouse building!
See you tomorrow.

1 comment:

Caitlin said...

Re: Gina's blog...as you know by now, every move is photgraphed and blogged, and it is pretty amazing to see her blow by blow descriptions.
As for your keybox vignette boxes(and all your other roombox projects) it just goes to show you that you don't have to have a dollhouse to experience the fun of minis.