Booked for the Day....

The dreaded workroom was calling when I got up this morning....It has been calling for a week, but I refused to answer until I couldn't navigate through it. It is about half clean after a half day of cleaning.....

I kept getting interrupted by certain people. One in particular was unpleasantly persistent.

"What's this? Where did this come from? Why do you have one of these? Can I have that? Can you make that in miniature?" Those were five of Tessie's favorite questions and one of them was asked for just about every piece that I attempted to stow away. She had to have the last question for the big pieces.

When I got to this particular piece, I thought that you might like to see it. I am thinking that it would indeed make a neat mini.

It is a book made from one sheet of rice paper. Of course the last page isn't finished and there is no cover. Hey! It's only about five years since I ran out of steam. Maybe the six year old needs to revisit that project.

Basically, the page is folded into 16 rectangles. Then it is cut down the center line on three blocks, from there, it is cut one block in either direction and then lastly you turn around the block and cut down the other side of two blocks on either side. Then you start at one end and do an accordion fold. If you do it right, some of the pages will be vertical and some horizontal. I did that part first and then I drew a vine that grows from page to page from beginning to end. The right center square is the start and I left that one blank for the beginning. That would be glued to one cover and the center one on the left, that is unfinished will be glued to the other cover. They are free of the spine and the book is turned this way and that to read or view.

The second photo shows one of the horizontal views. In this one I did a different kind of animal or bug on each page.

Tessie wants a smaller version of this. I am going to have to try it. It will have to be done with lightweight paper.

Next, while I was going through boxes and baskets where I had stuffed things to hide over Thanksgiving, she hit the jackpot!

There's a tuffet with a spider embroidered on the top and the carved fireplace surround that I decided not to use in Zar's bedroom. She started piling up things that she wanted to take away.

I don't know where she is going to put them. The storage place in the computer room wall is stuffed to the gills.

She found a Daguerreotype of a lady in a gold frame from about 1860 that she claims is her niece....I am not going to ask questions about that one. I know that Tessie is older than she looks, but I don't think that I want to know the exact age.

Then there are the two blue chairs that you see beside her. She was really irritated when she found them. She says that I have been holding out on her. "They will be perfect for Spiderwort Manor if you just change the upholstery. Blue! Yuck!"

About the time she gave up on me, Balthazar took over.

It's not my day! He found the cigar box that I have been keeping watch parts in. I made the mistake of putting a label on the front this morning.

He got it open and has been Oh-ing and Ah-ing over various parts. Between the Oh-ing and the Ah-ing, he turns around and gives me a dirty look and says things like, "You've been holding out on me! These are all mine and I want them in the cottage now! I need to get to work!"

He started gathering up as much as he could carry. Beau trotted after him with a watch face in his teeth.

It took six trips. All of that mess is now in the secret workroom. As he left with the last of it, I heard him exclaim...."Those two witches will not win! As soon as the time machine is finished, I'm out of here!"

I think it's safe to say that he will be here for a while longer. I happened to see Tessie hiding one of the vital parts under her mattress yesterday.

See you tomorrow. P.S. I just did one of the little books in mini. I will show you how to do it tomorrow. Don't try the usual way of folding. It won't work. I suspect that the person that thought this one up had some origami background.

I Was Framed!

Or maybe we should call this particular entry "Picture Framing 101". I have heard people complain about the difficulty of picture framing. I am going to attempt to make it at least somewhat easier.

A few months ago, my friend Val from England sent me this beautiful little watercolor that she painted. It is of a Scottish beach.

Somehow I don't put Scotland and beaches together, but I guess that it is logical that they do have some. I think of Scotland as all cliffs and craggy mountains.

Anyway, she painted this for me of a beach scene. It special because Walter went there on a business trip a couple of years ago and loved it.

I am ashamed that I hadn't framed it sooner and hung it somewhere. I decided that it would look great in the living room of the Clockwork Cottage, over the new bachelor's chest that Tessie rejected.

Whilst framing it, I thought that you could come along for the ride.

In the first photo, you can see that I have marked off with a T-square the area that I want to use. I decided not to mat it because the painting itself measures 2 3/4 X 2 inches.

I selected regular miniature picture framing stock. You can tell it from other molding because it is routed on both sides. The front is fancy and the back has just a recess on one edge.

When I first started out, I had a terrible time understanding why, when I cut my miters, my frames kept coming out too large. It was because the true corner should be marked atop the edge of the recess and not on the edge of the inner frame. In this photo you can see that I have penciled a mark on the recess where I want the corner of the picture to lay.

I do the same thing on both ends of all four pieces, making sure that the opposites match in length. On this photo you can see that the watercolor is laying on the lip with the corner exactly at the edge of the back piece. In other words, the piece you see continues under the watercolor by about 1/16".

After I finished cutting the pieces, I did the usual stain, dry, glue and put in the jig routine. I let that dry and then I set the watercolor in the recess behind the frame.

As soon as I had it finished, Tessie showed up and tried to claim it for Spiderwort Manor. Darn! I thought she had forgotten about that. No such luck!

After a small struggle, she let go and made me promise to go back to work on the tea shop. She seems to think that I should do at least as much work on her projects as I do on Zar's and do hers first!

She announced "Anytime you want to quit on the tea shop and work on Spiderwort Manor, you can. You just can't keep sneaking off to work on Clockwork Cottage!"

"Wanna bet?"( I said that to myself, very quietly.) She can't stay awake 24 hours a day. When she sleeps, my time is my own!

I wonder if she has any of that sleeping draught left over from the time she put Zar to sleep for three days...... I am going to go look now.

See you tomorrow.

The Bachelor's Chest Isn't So Impressive.....

That was Tessie's only comment this morning after I stained the chest. After all of that work, I am afraid that I have to agree with her. With her standing beside it, it doesn't look too bad.

However, after she moved back so that I could take a look, it seemed to shrink. It is just too small for the space.

I am thinking that bachelor Zar is going to have a new chest for his bedroom. I think that I know just the place for it. I still have to put the finish on it and add the hardware, but that should take very little effort.

I think that Widget is pretty much OK now. We let him out of the bedroom this morning. I probably should mention that he decided that he was OK at 3:15 AM. And he let me know it! I finally gave up about 4:15 AM and got up.

I figured that, since I was up, I might as well go out and do some early morning shopping. I found some presents for the kids at a garage sale....No. I am not telling what they are. April and Seth both read this to find out what I don't want them to know.

Now about the other find.....Here in Tucson, miniature magazines are few and far between on the news stands and in book stores. We used to be able to get Miniature Collector at Borders and Michael's. Now I can't even find them there.

As a last resort, I went to an old Fry's grocery store where I used to shop when we first moved to this side of Tucson. I remembered that they used to carry it. Low and Behold! I went in and the latest issue was at the front of the rack, in full view! And what is more, the latest issue has this on the cover.

Notice at the bottom, where Tessie is pointing,
it says Mini Time Machine in bold letters! Tessie got so excited when she saw that that she started jumping up and down and yelling "I have been there! I've been there!!" Then she poked and prodded at me until I opened it to the article. It is a great 4 page spread on the new museum.

If any of you would like to get a preview of what the Mini Time Machine is like, find the latest MC! It is a great article.

The rest of the magazine has lots of great stuff too.

I am running out of steam now.... I am going to go read the MC. Then I am going to lock the cat out of the bedroom and take a nice long nap.

See you tomorrow.

Welcome!

I am a very bad blogger! I haven't welcomed any of the new followers to the party for a couple of weeks now. My only excuses are Thanksgiving and a ailing cat.

Anyway, here goes!

First there are Margriet and Brujita. I have no info on these two.

Next is Kiva of Kiva Miniatures. http://kivasminiatures.blogspot.com/ Lots of wonderful food to look at!

Then there is a special guest. Shana Moffett-Heyder is one of my daughter's best friends. She lives in Germany now, but keeps in touch with us still. Her son Gavin is one of Tessie's biggest fans. He heard his mother talking about me on the way to visit us and was a bit apprehensive about visiting a witch(me). When he got here, he decided that I was a good witch and it was ok to like me. I wrote about him and his visit in an earlier blog.

Next is Kindergarten Girl of Life's Adventures. http://unusualadventures.blogspot.com/ She has an interesting blog about life in general....

Then there is The Lone Dollier. Her blog is Dolls, Etc. http://dollsetc.blogspot.com/ Lots of interesting things to see.

There is Vanesa of El Mini Mundo De Vane http://www.elminimundodevane.com/ Many minis!

We have Marleen of Marleen's Miniaturen http://marleensminiaturen.blogspot.com/

She has some very nice minis and some tutorials.

Next is Mercedes of Liberty Biberty http://libertybiberty.blogspot.com/ I have been a fan of hers for quite a while. I am honoured that she is now one of my followers. Great minis from New Zealand.

Niki of In Truer Ink is here. http://nikiturner.blogspot.com/ Hers is a general blog that is interesting to read.

Are you still with me? This is a long list. I must stop procrastinating.

Next is Minimaker of My Small Obsession. http://mysmallobsessionminiatures.blogspot.com/ Lots of nice minis and tutorials.

Last but not least, is Patricia Cabrera. She has several blogs. I will send you to Woolytales Miniatures. http://woolytalesminiatures.blogspot.com/ The animals here are incredible. Be sure to go see the other blogs. She is an artist in several different areas.

Welcome to all of you! Please come in and wander around or sit a spell and have some coffee and a cupcake.

Regular blog follows shortly....

"That Batchelor Has a Really Great Chest!!"

Tessie's first words this morning. Her second words? "I want it!"

No. It wasn't a cute guy without a shirt. It was another one of the House of Miniature kits. The name on the box was Bachelor's Chest, so Tessie wasn't being forward. Well, maybe she was, but it wasn't about a man. It was about me building another piece of furniture.

She dumped all of the pieces out of the box onto the table and said, "Get Building! Now!"

I sometimes follow her orders when it is about building minis. The more of these kits I put together, the more will be out of the boxes and into actual mini rooms.

Anyway, I built. I found that she lost one piece, but it wasn't terribly important. It was the back of a drawer and easy to replace.

I am beginning to wonder about these kits. They are still cellophane wrapped from the company and two of the ones that I have built so far had pieces missing. Fortunately, both were easily replaceable.

I finished putting it together. Now all we have to do is decide what kind of finish to put on it.

She says that it will make a nice counter in the tea shop. It has a desk slide at the top, to make for counter space.

She has been harassing me for the past twenty minutes to start making table linens to fill the drawers.

I am very good at ignoring her sometimes.

For those of you following the Widget saga, he went to the vet this morning and had the staples taken out. He is still in for more antibiotics and anti-inflammatory stuff.

Unfortunately, we are still on kitty watch for a few more days. He does everything that Walter tells him to do. Me? He just looks at me and keeps doing whatever it is I am telling him not to do. I will be a happy camper when he is back to his normal self.

Back to work now.

See you tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tessie just finished roasting the turkey. It only took a few minutes with her method! She stuck it in front of her dragon and let him breath on it! You're all invited to the feast!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2009!

See you tomorrow.

Quick! Do It Again!!!

"Look what I found in the bag!" That was Tessie this morning. Yes. She found another one of the chair kits like the one that I built yesterday and on top of that, literally, she found more of the material from the Valentino tie.

She didn't really "find" it. She was sitting right there watching when I took the kits out yesterday and she knew that there was another chair kit in the bag.

"You have to make another one for me." she said. "If you don't, I am keeping Zar's chair.".

What could I do? I was cat sitting and they are a good project.

I will kind of take you along for the ride this time. The House Of Miniature kits are pretty easy to put together. They are precisely cut and unless you mess with them(like I sometimes do) they are easily assembled.

These particular chairs are pretty easy if you can read directions and follow them to the letter. In this photo I have started making the components. They come with wood shapes for the arms seat and back. There are also some tag board pieces that have to be covered with fabric for finishing edges and wings. They even have diagrams for how wide to cut the overhangs on all of the pieces.

If you look to the left of this photo you will see an arm/wing with glue on the edge. Next to it is a piece of the tag board that is glued to a piece of the fabric. The next step is to glue the tag board to the arm/wing and then clip and glue the edges of the fabric to it. You can see one that I have already gotten that far to the right of it. I have already done the seat assembly. Only the front of the base was covered and glued. The seat had a layer of batting glued to it and then the fabric was wrapped around it somewhat like a present is gift wrapped. Once you get the arms, back and seat finished as separate units, you simply glue them together and then glue the leg assembly under that. Voila! Finished chair.

Mind you, all of the silk was used on the bias in this case, because I wanted the circles in straight lines up and down each piece. That actually made it easier to do because of the stretch of the bias.

Here, Tessie is holding the back piece. It consists of a wooden form and glued to that is one of the tag board shapes with a layer of batting then the silk. I should mention that I discarded the foam that comes with the kits for cushions. I don't trust the foam forms. I have had some things made of foam crumble and disintegrate over time. It is not pleasant to pick up a piece of furniture, poke it expecting bounce back, and then discover powder inside the cushions.

You can see that I have one of the wings finished. The sides are covered with the fabric covered, oak tag pieces. From left to right. One of the pieces with the fabric glued to it but not yet wrapped around. Atop that is a wooden form ready for the outer pieces to be glued in place. Laying on that is the outer cover, ready to be glued in place. Last is the finished wing.

Once again there is peace in the world....For the time being. I did hear some rumblings from Zar, saying that he thought that he should have both of the matching chairs for his living room. I wisely ignored him.

All I have to say is "Don't hold your breath, Zar."

Tessie and Zar managed to drag all of the kits out of the bag while I was cleaning up. They are now divvying up the remaining kits.

They were using the "rock, paper, scissors" method. That could have come to a messy and somewhat bloody conclusion. It's not pleasant when they decide to use real rocks and throw them!

I stopped that and had them draw straws to see who went first and then let them choose, one at a time.

I do believe that Tessie, once again, rigged the draw. She got first choice. At least that was only for the first piece.

They are both happily discussing which pieces are going where in their prospective houses. I think it was a mistake. Tessie is now back on the Spiderwort Manor kick. I wonder how long it is going to take her to talk Zar out of his share of the kits?

I have to go back to cat sitting now.

See you tomorrow.

Taken Away.......

Early this morning Zar showed up in the bedroom where I am sequestered with Widget. He had a large box under his arm. At least it was large for him....

It was one of the House of Miniature chair kits. In his other hand, he carried the infamous Steampunk water pistol.

He told me that I had not been doing enough for his cottage and demanded that I start right away on the chair. He even brought a fancy silk tie from Valentino of Italy.

Since I liked the fabric and I wasn't in the mood for tea shop work, I humored him. I pretended to be petrified of the pistol and the guard dog and went to work.

I was thankful that he brought the tie. I really don't like the colonial blue that comes with the chair kits.

I had used part of the Valentino tie for some pillows before, so I knew that it took to glue well.

I worked for a couple of hours since I was more or less confined anyway. It turned out as well as can be expected for one of those kits. I think that the fabric will give me a direction for the living room of the Clockwork cottage. That's the only one that I don't have a color scheme for yet.

About the time I finished it and Zar settled into it to try it out, Tessie showed up. Zar had made the mistake of laying the water pistol aside when he sat down. Tessie had it in her right hand and she demanded to know why I was working on Zar's chair instead of something for her teashop.

For once Zar played the hero and jumped in to save the day. He said, "Casey was only following my orders. She was afraid I was going to shoot her!"

Tessie started laughing hysterically. She exclaimed, "You silly man! Do you really think that a quarter teaspoon of water frightened her? She was just trying to get out of working for me."

I can see where there are going to be some problems between the two of them and I am stuck in the middle!

Tessie ordered Zar out of the chair and then Tessie, Spike and the chair all disappeared in a flash. I knew instantly where to look for them.

The tearoom now has a too large wing chair sitting in the center of its floor. In the center of the wing chair is Tessie and on her lap is Spike.

It may take a couple of hours for Balthazar to break loose of the paralyzing juice that Tessie shot at him. Did he really think that she would just load the pistol with plain old water, out of the tap? No way.

Before Tessie has a chance to do something dastardly to me, I had better get back to the tea room and look like I am doing something important!

See you tomorrow.

Cats and Rocks.....

I will be cat sitting all day today and Tuesday. I can only work on something that I can take room to room. I have Widget confined inside our bedroom. I have Mookie outside the door yelling for me to come out. It is an interesting, if not schizophrenic, atmosphere in the house. I have to be in three places at once. Mookie's place, Widget's place and I have to sneak to the places that I really want to be.

I started painting the rocks on the foundation and porch of the teashop this morning. In the photo, the right side is with one coat of Trail Tan Ceramcoat. On the other side, I have just started stippling the other colors on top.

I am using a rather stiff acrylic brush. I tend to mix the colors right on the brush without cleaning between colors. That seems to make the rocks more blended and not so spotty from one color to the next. I still need to do some more work on knocking the edges down too.

My pallet consists of all Ceramcoat colors. There is forest green, parchment, hippo gray, burnt umber and metallic copper. By the time I get done, it will be a muddy mess.
Tessie stepped in to see what I was doing. She wouldn't let me publish her photo. She said that her hair was a mess and she had no make up on.....Isn't her hair always that way and, she wears make up??? I didn't say it out loud, but I did think it.

Anyway, between placating the cats and shooing Tessie away I got quite a bit done. Here you see what I finished so far.

If I can talk both cats into their afternoon naps, I will try to finish it later today. If not, I will be reading bedtime stories to them to try to get them to take said naps. Wish me luck.

See you tomorrow.

Cats Come First!

I am taking a break from minis today because of Widget. Our cats are out to bankrupt us. They only get ill when no vets, with the exception of emergency ones are open.

I am not going to tell you all of the gory details, but it was a ruptured scent sac. The unusual thing is this isn't catching and we went through it with Mookie about 6 months ago. The vet said, and I quote, "The coincidence is jaw dropping." No.....We are just good a picking out unrelated cats with the same problems.

I thought that you might like to see a photo of the phantom cat. No one believes we have two cats. This one always runs and hides under the bed when anyone but family is in the house.

This is Widget the last time he decided that we needed to spend money on him. That time it was his own fault. He tried to get to the top of a bookshelf in the workroom one night. He fell and as luck would have it, he landed on a drinking glass. It broke and cut three tendons in his back left foot. He was in a kind of cast for about two months and to keep him from licking the cast I designed and hand knitted him a cat sock. Actually, I think I did three. He wore out two of them. He actually liked them! Now I am wondering if I could design a pair of pants to keep him from licking the new wound.....Just kidding. That would make me one of those crazy cat ladies that you read about...

That episode was really fun(NOT). He had to be confined and we had to do our best to keep him from jumping up on furniture. Yeah, Sure. Have you ever tried to convince a cat that scales seven foot bookcases that he should stay on the floor for a couple of months?

We even went so far as to take the bed off of it's frame so that he could get on it easily. Our bed is realllllly high. This time I stuffed various and sundry objects(pillows, mattress pad, dollhouse kits and under the bed drawers) under there to keep him out and built steps at the end so that he could get up without jumping and tearing out the two staples that they put in. So what does he do? He circumvents the hand built stairs, goes to the side of the bed and leaps. I give up!

I had to include a photo of Mookie and Tessie or they would feel left out. This is an old one too.

Sorry about the lapse in minis. I will be back to it tomorrow.

See you then.

Ho! Ho! Ho!!!

I usually don't start decorating for Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving. I avoid the Black Friday shopping mania like the plague. It is probably a good thing to do this year with all of the flu germs floating around.

Anyway, this year I made a small exception....Pardon the pun....Tessie has been begging me to do another holiday on the porch. Since I am not decorating for Thanksgiving this year and also not cooking, I decided that we would just skip turkeys made from gourds and the falling leaves. I know that Tessie won't help rake the leaves afterwards and she would just chase and harass the turkeys. Christmas was the next logical choice.

I went to work this morning and dug out a string of thirty six chasing lights that I purchased a couple of years ago at K mart. They were for one of those plaster villages that are popular. I never got into those, but they do have a lot of useful accessories. As soon as I got the lights up around the eaves, Tessie "helped" unravel the tinsel. Then, living dangerously and walking a tightrope(porch railing), she helped me string it along to cover the cords of the lights.

It's too bad you can't see them too well in the photo. They even have a control for how fast you want them to chase. Really cool.

By this time, Tessie was really getting into the spirit of the season and decided that the cushions on the wicker shouldn't look so summery. I found her on the floor with the cushions for the chair. She had already finished the settee. She wrapped the cushions like little packages and secured them on the back with masking tape. Not to neat, but no one will see the bottom and it will hold for the month that it needs to be there.

Red and green. That's the ticket. Nice and traditional. None of the chartreuse and hot pink that I have been seeing everywhere this year. Shades of the sixties!

After she finished those and got them back where they belong, we hung a wreath on the door and curtains to match the pillows in the windows.

She put a sled beside the front steps, just in case....Yeah. Right. It's going to snow on Christmas Day in Tucson. As long as I have lived here it has only snowed once on Christmas. Sometimes it's even been known to be hot enough to wear shorts and a tee shirt. Then there was the year that it snowed on Easter, but that's another story. Oh well. Let her dream.

She even put out a plate of cookies and a cup of hot chocolate for Santa before she went back to her place to clean up. Then she had the nerve to accuse me of eating them!

Tessie has high hopes of being on Santa's "nice" list.....Maybe we should take a vote on that one. Naughty or nice? Hmmmmmm........Let's see. On one hand, how many times has she gotten the better of Zar with trickery this year? On the other hand, she is very, very kind to the animals around here. But then on the third hand.....No. Let's not go there.....

Let's just say "You had better watch out, Tessie! Santa is watching......There are 33 days till the 9(counting Rudolph)tiny reindeer start tap dancing on the roof."

See you tomorrow. P.S. Sorry this is so late! We just spent 4 hours at the vet. Widget is OK but needs some work done.

Well....I finally got back to the rocks. I laid the rest of the porch this afternoon.

OK. So I have been dawdling. I had coupons to spend. What can I say? I went to Michaels and bought an unfinished shelf. I saved 6.00 on that one. Then I had to go get the new Steven King book at Borders....40% off. And there is no way you can go to Borders without looking at the craft section. I had a 30% off coupon for one book. I got a book on making copper wire jewelry. Altogether, there I saved over 27.00. That can't be all bad.....

Back to the front porch. I got about half way across with the rocks. Tessie was watching. She made herself comfortable on one of the ruffly dish washy thingies in the doorway. As I got closer and closer to where she was setting, I could tell that she was getting antsy...."You are going to fix the door sill so that I don't trip every time I go in and out. Aren't you?".

I think maybe she is just a wee bit prone to exaggeration. Most of the time, when she is going in and out, she doesn't even use the door. She zaps.

I am more worried about her customers. I know that, if someone sues her, I will be blamed for the accident. So I did a double thickness on half of the underside of the door sill so that it slants towards the outside. It worked pretty well.

As soon as I had it in place,before I had laid the rest of the stone, she had to try it out. "Well, I guess that will do. Now about the rest of the floor....Get to it and do it!"

I promptly left the room and took a short nap. I will show her! I did, eventually, get the rest of the stones laid. With her hanging out the window and directing me where to place things, it was finished in a hurry. I just wanted to get away from the boss.....

She is complaining now that the sidewalk has writing on it. "I don't want people to trip over all of those letters."

"Tessie, they can't possibly trip on printed letters." I said.

"They will get distracted and fall over their own big feet whilst reading. And besides, who wants to read about eggs anyway? What kind of rocks have egg messages on them?"

Does anybody want to answer this question for her? No. On second thought, don't try. I have the feeling that if we try to explain, she will insist that I tear it all up and use real rocks......

All I have to do now is take a ball stylus to all of the grout lines, patch the edge cracks and paint it. I have to hurry and get that part done before she figures out the it's egg cartons and not real rocks. Gotta go!

See you tomorrow.

Sidetracked Twice.....

Remember the mess that Tessie and friend made in the workroom yesterday? I have been attempting to clean it up and put things in their place without much success.

I did get the Clockwork cottage returned to the family room, so at least I can walk around in the workroom without leaping over it. That thing is pretty high and I was getting fatigued doing the cleaning that way.

Anyway, every time I made any progress, something seemed to pop up in front of me that lured me away.

The first one, I do believe, Tessie zapped onto the floor under the worktable so that I would be tempted to start doing the foundation of the teashop. Yes!!! I found more egg cartons. There was enough hiding under there to do it. I could have sworn that I used them all. That's why I think that it was Tessie's doing. She really wants the work done on the teashop.

I finished doing the gluing and then went back to work. That lasted less than 30 minutes.

Then I found the wire whisks that I bought to rework as Christmas gifts. I found some that I could alter and make them fancy on top. Hey! They make Altered Trading Cards. Why not altered whisks?

I did a small one of these for April to stir with when she is making cosmetics. Seth liked it and wanted a "real" one for cooking. Seth, if you are reading this, don't look at the photos!

That took me over an hour to finish. The wire on those are reallllly tough to bend.

Did I mention that required taking out tools and a couple of boxes of beads.....One step forward in the cleaning and another one backwards. At least I didn't have to jump over a house to put the beads back....Yes. I did put the bead boxes back where they belonged.

I went back to the kitchen to see if the rock work was dry and ready for painting....Yes it was. Unfortunately, before I can paint the rock work, I have to rescue the whisk.

Tessie was sitting on her favorite tape dispenser, hugging the whisk. She was whispering "Pretty. Sparkly. I wonder if I can make it fly?"

Seth, if you are reading this. You are on your own. If you want the whisk, you are going to have to fight Tessie for it. The last I saw of it, it was floating around the room with Tessie on the handle! They are both gone now. I have no idea how she did it or where she is going with it.

I need to go work on the room some more now and see what other trouble I can get into.

See you tomorrow.

Reading All the Signs.....

Tessie pulled all of the Fimo from her locks and stomped off. For a while it was very quiet except for a bump, thump and a squeak now and then.

I went back to work. I finished doing all of the Fimo rope building.

As far as I know, I created this idea with the sticker out of my own little head. Most people go through a whole lot of trouble doing liquid clay transfers. I don't, if I can do it an easier way. After everything is in place, I paint a coat of liquid poly clay over the whole thing, making sure that all of the nooks and crannies are filled.

Then I stuffed it in the oven right on the tile and baked it at 275 degrees for 15 minutes. The liquid goes clear and the sticker is sealed. I have done it with regular paper also. I have no idea why no one is doing this. Maybe they think that it won't last or maybe change color or something. So far I have had no problems with the process.

I put Fast grab in two spots high on the back of the sign and propped it up on the side of the building. Tessie came to see and approve.

I went back to clean up the mess and found that Tessie was trying on shoes. She couldn't resist all of the clay scraps and made herself a pair of flip flops.

This is probably the only time you will ever see her in shoes. They lasted as long as it took me to snap the photo. Then they were torn off and wadded into a ball. Nope. No baking no shoes for her! Her only word to describe shoe wearing is "ICKY!". Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

Did I mention that she was not happy about the unfortunate Fimo-Silly-String incident of yesterday? Remember at the top of this blog I said I heard bumps, thumps and squeaks? Those were a sign of things to come.....I should have listened more closely and I should have gone to see what was happening....I didn't.

After I finished cleaning up the mess, I noticed that Tessie had disappeared once more. When she disappears without saying a word, that is a very bad sign.... Usually she at least says good bye unless she is up to something.

I grabbed the camera and was about to put it back into the computer room where it belongs when I heard a whoosh and another thump. I detoured to the workroom, following a flash of red hair and an orange pinafore....

The revenge of Tessie the Terrible is complete. This is what I found. Tessie and George had their heads together(upper left). Both were grinning and will you look at the mess on the floor? Between the two of them they managed to dump half of the contents of the shelves on the floor!

Tessie looked me in the eye and said, "Repeat after me. I will NOT mess with Tessie!"

I looked right back at her and said, "Tessie! You put everything back right this instant or I will encase you in Fimo and bake you!".

Her reply? "You gotta catch me first!". Then she vanished and left George holding the bag, so to speak.

I don't blame George. I know who is responsible.

Anyway, I am having Wednesday Witches minis here today. It looks like I have my work cut out for me after they leave. Tessie is nowhere to be found. I suspect that she is hiding in plain sight so that she can watch and laugh as I clean. Back to business.

See you tomorrow.

It's Not Nice to Annoy the Worker Bees......

Tessie is home. She couldn't wait to see what I had done to the teashop....Not a lot....Needless to say, Tessie was not happy.

She immediately started hassling me about the lack of progress. She also insisted that I start the sign for the exterior so that everybody would know that it was hers.

So I whipped out a planning pad and started drawing up a sign. This is what I came up with. If you want to try it and don't do lettering, you could find a simple font and do the design part on your computer. Just remember that you have to have the width of the ropes of clay as the letters and at least that between the letters.

It has to be fairly simple, what with the technique that she wanted me to use on it. I stuck one of the extra teapots on and sketched it out. She insisted that teas had to have the "e" on the end. I kept erasing it. She kept putting it back. Finally we came to a compromise. An extra loop on the end of the "s" satisfied her. I look at it as a flourish. She looks at it as correct spelling.
I rolled out a piece of white clay at the next to thinnest number on my pasta machine and cut it to size.

Then I took my infernal extruding machine and squeezed out long ropes of black Fimo in about the same thickness as the handle of the teapot.

When you are using this technique you have to do all of the details first and then surround them with the contrasting colored ropes.

First I did the "Tessie's Teas(e). Can't forget the "e".

Then I stuck on the teapot and a couple of flowers that match. Here you can see the three layers of the sticker. The ropes are even with the second layer. The third sticks up above it.

The next step was squeezing bunches of white to do the background. That infernal machine literally squawks in protest when you are extruding the ropes. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard, so I do it in steps. I can only stand the sound for so long. I know it's not just me. My friend Maureen has one and it is equally as irritating.

Evidently I don't work fast enough. Tessie started helping.....It was fine but she kept sticking her toes in the edge of the sign and wiggling them around. She said,"This feels just like walking around in spaghetti!".

No. I didn't ask how she knows that. I don't want to know the circumstances that found her taking a walk in pasta. I know she had a wild weekend, but I still don't want to know.

I was getting most annoyed at her. I fixed the corner three times and then I lost it. I made her get up and move away from the signage.....She kept inching closer.....It's not nice to annoy Casey when she's working.....

I ran out of white, so I grabbed the infernal machine once more and started twisting the handle.....That will teach her!

See you tomorrow.

Missing In Action.....

I knew that I shouldn't let Tessie wander off by herself. She is still not back..... I was starting to worry until her dragon flew in and dropped a rock, with a note attached, onto my head about fifteen minutes ago. It says, and I quote, "I am having too much fun with the rest of the witches. I am not leaving until about midnight. Don't worry. I should be home by the time that you get up in the morning. I expect the teashop to be in order when I get back. You are working on it, aren't you?" And it was signed,"Tessie The Terrible!".

I showed her! I haven't done a lick of work on the tea shop all day. I did some yard work and then I started deep cleaning the kitchen. I found stuff in the back of cupboards that I suspect Tessie bought and stored away. I certainly don't remember buying pickled bat ears! It was a very tiny can, so it had to be hers.

Anyway, since I don't have any work to show you, I will do the best I can with a couple of photos of old work and several websites to keep you busy.

First the photos. This is a 1/4" scale adobe house that I scaled down from a half inch pattern in Nutshell News years ago. The whole building is about 5 1/2" square(including the front patio) and 2 1/2" high.

It is constructed from 3/8" foam core and the beams are very thin barbecue skewers. The windows are made of plastic canvas painted black.

I made all of the furniture and accessories inside.



This last photo is of the wicker chair that sits on the front porch. It is made of sewing thread and #32 jeweler's wire. It is between 1/2" and 3/4" high. Sorry about the fuzzy photo. I didn't have time to drag out the tripod.

Now about the websites....

http://www.frillsandfancyezine.com/ This one is a wonderful doll magazine with all kinds of useful information in the back issues. A lot of them are either for mini dolls or can be adapted.

http://home.mindspring.com/~byrachelle/id9.html This one is a tutorial on how do do a nightgown that looks like it is smocked.

http://mishellyszoo.homestead.com/diyprojects.html Miss Shelly has been around for years, but her project page should be checked out every once in a while. She does put new things on and they are always fun to play with.

I am now going to go ignore the teashop and do some more kitchen cupboard cleaning.

See you tomorrow. Hopefully Tessie will have returned..... Oops! I mean Tessie The Terrible!

While Tessie's Away......

Casey starts to play...... I was having such a good time. I crocheted another one of the washy thingies. Then I moved on to potholders to match.....Then Zar showed up.

Darn! I thought I was free until Tessie's return on Monday. Nope. You might know that she would do something to mess things up.

Zar came in carrying the mesmerizer. He said that Tessie paid him big bucks to keep an eye on me and to make sure that I kept working on the tea shop. Mercenary that he is, he didn't even mention his cottage and the fact that I wasn't working on it.

He told me that Tessie said that he should stand over me with the mesmerizer and keep me working. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the silly little gadget doesn't work on humans.

It didn't matter much. He was waving it around with one hand whilst trying to teach Beau to bark for a biscuit with the other hand.

I decided to go along with it for a while and went and printed off a page of tea and coffee boxes. I sat there for an hour and a half mindlessly cutting and folding as I watched a version of "The Time Machine" that I hadn't seen before. It was from a couple of years ago. Not the best version I have seen. Kind of weird in places. It felt like they made it up as they went along.

It did what I wanted it to do though. After about 10 minutes, Zar was totally involved in what was going on. It didn't matter that the time machine was only in it for about three minutes in the whole movie. He was enchanted.

I finished all but a few of the boxes that I printed. The only problem was....The movie ended before I ran out of boxes.

The spell was broken. I looked up to see that Zar was determined to have me finish the boxes. He was standing there with Tessie's Steampunk water pistol in his fist. He squirted me twice and threatened to empty it on me if I didn't get back to work.....He who has the weapon is the boss. I have to go finish the boxes now or I will be drenched with about a quarter teaspoon of water. Oh NO!!! I might melt!

Alas, Tessie will be back tomorrow with wild tales to tell....See you then.