Christmas Eaves...

No. I didn't spell it wrong. Tessie and I made evergreen swags for under the eaves on her cottage this morning. I thought that you might want to follow along.

I usually use green chenille stems, but I didn't have any, so I substituted black. They worked fine, but make the whole swag look a bit darker.

I measured the roof line with one of the stems. and used a whole length of stem for each side.

I bent the stems in approximately the shape that I wanted the swag to be when finished. Then I twisted the two together at the center straight up.

I gathered together some of the lycopodium, some very thin wire, glue and scissors.

Starting at one outer edge and working towards the center, I wired the greenery to the stem. I secured the first piece with the points outward. One at a time I laid another bunch in and wired it on. I over lapped each piece by about half its length.

In the photo, Tessie is holding the finished end and I am holding the working end. As you can see, I didn't cut the wire. I worked right off of the spool. This is not great for a beginner. The wire twists and tangles. If you are doing this for the first time, I would suggest that you cut a piece no longer than a yard.

When you reach the center, stop and start at the opposite end, again working towards the peak.

Depending on whether you like a shaggy swag or a smooth one, you can trim it some. I left mine natural. You may have to fill in here and there with smaller branches. If you do, just simply put some glue on the end and stick them in where needed.


A few years ago I found some cheap artificial flowers that had lots of little Styrofoam balls in bunches to represent berries. I cut these apart and used them for balls on the swag. Again, I just glued them wherever they looked right to me.

Getting the swag stuck to the house without it being permanent could have been a problem. I took the easy way out. I used a light duty staple gun and fine staples. Then I went back and covered those with greenery and balls.

This earned Tessie's seal of approval.

We now have the two cottages installed in the living room. I am sure that there will be a few additions here and there. As we go, I will post photos.



Here's the scene so far. I repositioned the luminarias so that the two cottages are connected. It still needs a few trees and other things.

Tessie keeps running back and forth between the two doors. She keeps whining as she goes that her feet are freezing. It actually got down to 26 degrees here last night. That was a record for the date. I guess I am going to have to knit her some socks now.....

See you tomorrow.

Luminous....

Tessie has finally gone off the deep end....I caught her trying to turn the Boa Constrictor into a mouse ladder this morning. It didn't work. All seven times....Even when she showed him what they looked like. He is having none of it.

It seems that she wants the Christmas decorations in place NOW!

I talked her out of the snake spell and agreed to get back to work on the decorations....As soon as the laundry is done and the house is clean enough for the witches to come Wednesday.

She did nag until I did one decorating job.

She wants luminarias in front of the cottages. It is a Mexican tradition to put candles in paper bags with sand in the bottom to weight them. It is to light the path to the door.

Tessie's theory is that it will make it easier for Santa do deliver all those presents that she has on her list.

I used plain old brown paper lunch bags....I did cut them down a little.... 1/12 to be exact. Here's the pattern.

I drew it out on an index card. That makes it easy, because the lines are 1/4" apart. The bags are 7/8" tall, 1/2" wide, and 1/4" deep from front to back.

I cut the pattern out and traced it onto a couple of the big bags, taking advantage of the top edge of their bag for the top edge of mine.

I then cut the bags out, folded them over a metal ruler to get sharp edges and glued each of them together. I punched a hole in the back at the bottom, large enough for the grain of wheat bulbs to fit.

The last bunch of lights that I have in a battery pack is a group of ten on individual wires. They would be hard to use on a tree, but are ideal for the luminarias.

I cut tiny holes in the batting that I am using for snow. The battery pack takes two AA batteries and has a slide switch. I placed that in the center beside where Tessie is standing and fished the lights up through the holes.

I bent the wires at right angles so that the flame would be upright in the sacks. The lights are low temp, so I am not worried about fire.


Tessie is enamoured with the glow and I have the rest of the day to clean house. I may have to change the batteries, but other than that, no problems. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Back to the real world. Laundry is waiting.

See you tomorrow.

Short and Not So Sweet....Broken Computer...

Good afternoon.....This is now our desktop computer...

Our other one either didn't like our loading i tunes on it or it just finally turned its toes up and died. Not sure which just yet.

Walter is going to take it in tomorrow to see if it can be fixed or if we are going to have to start from scratch again....Bah Humbug!

As soon as I explained what was going on to Tessie, she whipped out her favorite wand and started waving it around, all the while trying to convince me that she could fix computers. Her only result was a "Starry, Starry Night" on the screen of the laptop.

Did I mention that I hate typing on this laptop? It is always two steps forward and three steps back. Soooooo.......I am taking the rest of today off.

I cooked a turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and all of the rest of the traditional Thanksgiving treats this morning. It's not that we didn't have anything to eat on Thanksgiving. The problem was no leftovers. That's the best part!

I am going now to take the wand away from Tessie before she turns the lap top into an old fashioned portable typewriter. Remember those? And here I sit, complaining about a laptop keyboard.

I apologise for the lack of minis today, but I need to relax for the rest of the day. And I need to practice typing on this confounded machine!

See you tomorrow, hopefully in a better mood.

Get Away From That i pad!!!

No, that wasn't Tessie yelling at me, but me yelling at her! I am going to have to put a parental lock on this little guy. Tessie figured out quickly that it was easier for her to play on than the computer. The screen keyboard uses a very light touch. In fact, if I try to use it for writing anything, I think that I am going to have to use an external keyboard. The one in the i pad is way to easy to make mistakes on unless I use a one fingered typing approach. The slightest touch and you have a letter, whether you want it or not.

Walter went out this morning and bought one of my favorite assistants for new electronics. There is a series of books called "Teach yourself Visually". I find it easier to read a book as I go along than to flip back and forth between pages on the screen.

As soon as he brought it into the house, Tessie confiscated it and started reading. Somehow, I think that she thinks that the i pad is hers. Isn't everything that comes into the house hers?

At least, since it is still in the box, she can't get at the i pad itself. Maybe that's the solution. Never take it out of the box.....
After I took that away from her, she dragged Zar to the basket shop and started making plans for decorations. After much discussion and trying the largest tree in there she decided that it would be wiser not to have a tree. More room for gift storage without the tree. Sensible.....

She saw the resident mouse on the floor and tried a few times to change it into a reindeer with a wave of her wand. No success there. She forgot that she had zapped that particular mouse several times before and he is wand resistant now. You can only change a mouse into something smaller....He started out as a moose.... You can subtract matter, but you can't add.


She did manage to change one of the baskets into a gift package....Who knows what she will find inside? That's anybody's guess.

After she rearranged the bedroom and was satisfied that it would hold more packages, we went downstairs....No. Wait. There are no stairs in the cottage....I guess technically we could only be zapping from one floor to the other.

Anyway, that was where the most decorating was accomplished.

She called Zar and told him to come over, not without presents.

What she doesn't know is, the gifts that he hauled in are the dummy packages from last year. He will be safe as long as nobody tells her, or as long as she doesn't decide to peek inside.

I will be holding my breath. I hope that Zar is smart enough to keep her away from the fakes or to replace them with real gifts...I wouldn't want to be him when she figures out the hoax.

At least we have a good start on decorating. The two cottages are clean and by tomorrow they will be in a field of snow. It won't be the real thing, but hey, what do you want? This is Arizona!

Back to wrestling with Tessie for ownership of the i pad.

See you tomorrow.

Where Did You Go???

I am not sure how she managed to get out of the house and into the garage, but when we arrived home Tessie was sitting on the door knob, angrily shaking her finger at us. Need I say, she was not happy?

OK, which one of you woke her up and told her we left???

She ranted and raved for a couple of hours, "How could you leave me behind? They had turkey. You ate turkey!!! I didn't get any turkey. You didn't even bring me a cranberry in a take out box!"....On and on....

I put in earplugs and went to bed.

As soon as I got up this morning, it started again. Walter and I left. We went shopping for an i pad for me and an i pod for him. That's what we are getting for Christmas....A little early.

We got the i pad. Walter brought me home and then went looking again for an i pad. He's smart. He left and didn't have to hear anymore of the uproar.

As soon as he did, Tessie started again. I couldn't stand it, so I asked what I could do to make it up to her...

First she insisted that I take her cottage from the top of the bookshelf and put it down in the living room so that she would be close to the tree on Christmas day.


Next, she wanted the basket shop moved down next to it. She explained, "It has a lot of room in it and I can store my gifts in there. Also, I can use the baskets to carry MY gifts from the tree to my cottage and the shop."

Then she wanted both cottages decorated for Christmas. I didn't think that was unreasonable. I didn't tell her that I was going to do that anyway. Let her think that I am making amends.

The basket cottage already has a wreath on the door. Don't tell. I didn't take it down last year....Oops.
Anyway, then I had to move the miniature shop, the porch, and the quilt shop to the top of the bookcase. That was a job and a half. The quilt shop is quite heavy, but I got it done.

I told Tessie that was all I was going to do today.

She glared at me and hissed, "Your workroom needs finishing so that you can find all of the decorations for my house....You can't quit yet!".

I didn't think that it was a good idea to cross a witch holding a broom. I think that particular broom is a combination sweeper and spell binder. I have seen her use it for a wand a few times and I don't think I want her using it on me.

I am now back in the workroom cleaning furiously. Soon I will start decorating for Christmas for real.

"No, Tessie! Put down that broomstick! I'm still cleaning honest! See? I found the floor!"

See you tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I finished another panel of decoration on the Russian cottage this morning. That's about all I will manage to mini today....We are leaving for Phoenix in a couple of hours. We're going up to Seth's parents house for dinner.

I did notice as I was working, that Tessie has taken up residence overnight in the trundle bed.

She announced last night that she was going to bed and did not want to be awakened until her presents were under the fully decorated Christmas Tree......OK. She asked for it.

I was trying to think of a nice way of telling her that she couldn't tag along to Phoenix. Now I don't have to. Ha!

While I was waiting for paint to dry, I looked in on her.

She is bundled up like a burrito in the Christmas quilt that I made last year. She managed to print a large sign and pinned it to the edge. It says,"PLEASE! Do Not Disturb!"

For once, I am not going to try to fight it. I am going to tip toe around quietly until we leave. No fussing and fighting. Yay!

I imagine I will be in for it when I get back, but for now, all is peaceful....Please! Don't tell her where I am if she wakes up! I will face the consequences later.

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you that celebrate today and to the rest of you, have a wonderful day!

See you tomorrow.

The Good Old Days......

When I was little, we used to make a lot of our own Christmas decorations. Lots of construction paper and even newspaper. I remember making paper chains and accordion pleated chains until they were running all over the house. When I first started doing minis, we made paper chains by cutting our own strips. Very slow work, because back then there were no rotary paper cutters and it was all done by scissors.

A few years later, someone introduced me to quilling paper. That made all the difference! Paper chains in mini are still slow work, but at least now we don't have to sit and cut paper strips before beginning.

There is a method of doing it that makes it not quite so hard to make the rings. That is doing it with a 1/8" bamboo skewer or a knitting needle.

Tessie is not a fan of this, so I will show you. She seems to think that they are pretty, but more trouble than they are worth.

Here's the skewer technique. First pull the quilling paper over the edge of your thumbnail or a pair of scissors to give it a bit of curl. Then wrap a strip around the rod and put a bit of glue on top of the tail. Pull the rest of the piece around to overlap over the cut and glued end. Push it in place and hold for a second. Then snip off the long end.

Slide the ring off of the rod. Repeat the curling with a second color and string the end through the first ring. In turn, make another ring, enclosing the first one as you glue it closed. Continue doing this ad infinitium. Or at least until you are satisfied that the chain is long enough.

Another one that I remember making in very long strands was the folded chain or accordion chain. It is really easy to do. We did it with large sheets of construction paper and simply glued another strip on when we ran out. I remember doing it with the colored Sunday comics too. Longer strips to work with. They still had to be patched, but not quite so often.

Using quilling paper makes this simple in mini too.

The piece that Tessie is holding has just a few folds in it. We used to cut these off and just hang them on the tree in short lengths. If you made them in red and white, they sort of looked like candy canes.

I took a two foot piece of red and one of green. The first step is to glue an end of each at right angles. Let it dry a bit and then just start folding. Red over green and then green over the red that you just folded. You can glue sections of this together if you want just one long strand for your tree.

They call this accordion folding because once it is done, you can stretch the length of it to show off the two tones of color.

The one that Tessie is holding is one of the two foot lengths.
You can bend and pinch these into garlands if that it what you want to do with them.

Experiment. Play. Have fun! I am thinking paper and lace angels now. I am going to go experiment some more.

See you tomorrow.

Tessie Made Me Do It!

It's all Tessie's fault! I bought a new shirt at Walmart this morning.....We are twins now. How could I resist having a shirt that coordinated with her apron?

Now we match!

We went to see the new Harry Potter movie this morning. It was pretty good, but I hate it when they split a book into two parts. Now we have to wait until June to see the second half. By that time I will probably not remember the first half and need to read the book or see this one again before going. Maybe there is a method to their madness.....

I didn't have much time for minis yesterday, but now I can see the floor of the workroom and I did find a small project for today too.

Tessie dragged out some angel lace, bunka and ribbon. She insisted that the Christmas trees needed some Victorian style ornaments.

These are really simple to make.

You can do them with just about any tiny lace, needle and thread.

I simply took the angel lace and cut it down to half the size that I wanted the round ornament. Gathered one side of a 3" piece into a rosette and tied it off. Then I cut up some unraveled bunka for flowers and leaves. I glued the flowers to the center and popped them on the tree.

The other shape is a fan. Again, I cut down the lace lengthwise to half of the width that I wanted the finished fan. I gathered one side with a running stitch. I glued a small piece of gold paper to the center bottom. Sometimes I use a metal finding here. Then I put a red bow on this one.

There are all kinds of variations for decorating the rosettes and fans. I will make a few more tonight and show you tomorrow.

See you then.

Hiding in the Workroom.....

Walter is off work this week....What does he choose to do on his first day of vacation? Shampoo the carpets.

I am no fool. I help move the furniture, vacuum the place and then I quickly run away and hide! This time, I opted for hiding in the workroom. Walter came as far as the door outside and told me that the carpet cleaner had died quiet death.....He had to go out and either get it fixed or purchase a new one. The old Hoover served us well for many years. I offered to bury it in the back yard and have a grave side service for it....He sensibly decided that it would be better to give it to Goodwill. Maybe they could fix it so that someone else could use it.

I went back to work and emptied two laundry baskets of odds and ends, putting them away in their proper places. There was only one difficulty. Every time that there was something that had to go in another room, there was a traffic jam in the hallway outside my workroom....

Walter pushed the cat tree into the hallway so that he could do the living room rug first. Usually I can at least show you what the room looks like from the hallway....Not today.

Tessie has taken up sentry duty on the tree and keeps shouting, "Halt! Who goes there?". And when I try to get back in, she demands my name rank and serial number. After the fourth time it started to get a little old.

I told her to either help with the cleaning or leave. Some help! She got as far as the door and asked, "Hey! Did you ever let people see the back of the door?" Then she climbed up the side of the storage unit that I have there. This is how I store my larger cans of paint, glue and varnish. I found a clear shoe storage bag with 22 compartments in it at Walmart years ago. It holds 22 pair of shoes, or way more cans of stuff that I use all of the time. Easy to see and I don't have to paw through a drawer or cabinet to get to them. It also holds Tessie when she is so inclined. Kathi just wrote a comment that she couldn't find Tessie in the photo...Oops! Sorry Kathi, I put in the wrong photo. No. Tessie isn't in there.

OK. I am stalling. I guess you should know that I won't be doing any minis for pretty much the rest of the day. I am in cleaning mode.

It is kind of fun though. I found things that I had forgotten about.

Tessie is not impressed with the small shelf unit that I got at a garage sale a while ago. She says it is to cramped to live in. Actually, I bought it with someone about half her size in mind. I thought that it would make a good 5 room, 1/2" house sometime.

The other two on top are more shadow boxes than room boxes. The larger one is about 3" deep and has glass on the front. The smaller one is about 2" deep and has a channel on either side of the front for a 7" by 9" piece of glass. I am going to have to check my extra picture frames and see if I have that size. Fingers crossed.

I also found two pieces of wicker that are essentially finished. All I need to do is find somewhere to use them.

Did you notice that Tessie is no longer wearing the Christmas witchy hat? I waited until she was asleep and snatched it off of her head. I put her old straw hat in it's place. Since she seldom looks in a mirror, I got away with it. Now if she asks, please just tell her that the Christmas hat was all a dream.....Thank goodness there are still a few days left until she really has to get serious about decorating.

Back to the workroom.

See you tomorrow.

I Found My Hat!!!

I am in for it now....Tessie found her witchy Santa hat. As soon as she found it, she proclaimed that Christmas was here! Maybe she will take it off and I can grab it and hide it again.

She insisted that we start decorating one of the trees. Yes, I said trees, plural. I finished fancying up four of them. I did put a string of lights on the first one. I am going to take them back off. Now that I see the photo, I don't like the shape of that one. It looks like a pointed barrel... Not at all what I wanted.

The gold on it is simply a double strand of unraveled bunka.

The two smaller trees on the right have the same tree bare and with branches so that you can see how different they look.

I started making a few simple ornaments with beads. I don't like trying to make tiny hooks and being limited to where a convenient branch is, to hang them...I came up with a simple method to fix that. I make the ornaments on a head pin then just bend the bare end at right angles to the ornament. That way, you can just stick them into the body of the tree wherever you want them.

The two colored ornaments that you see already on the tree are beads, topped with a very tiny flat silver finding that I found at Walmart in the beading section just a couple of weeks ago. They make perfect tops for the ornaments. The butterfly is a crystal bead that I bought to make earrings. I would probably never wear butterfly earrings, so they are going to a good cause instead of laying around in a drawer somewhere.

By this time, it is probably dawning on you that you will have some short stems of lycopodium left after making the trees. Here's one thing that you can do with them. Find yourself some green chenille stems and bend them into scallops or a ring and make wreaths and swags.

The swags at the top of the Christmas Kitchen Island were done at least a dozen years ago....They are still going strong.

Tessie loves it when she has an excuse to climb on places that she shouldn't. I was hoping that she would take the hat off or lose it while climbing....No such luck. She is still singing Jingle bells and making a list for Santa...

I am biding my time....Sooner or later the hat is coming off and when it does, it is going to mysteriously disappear and things will go back to normal.....Well as normal as it gets around here with a tiny witch making up the rules as she goes.

See you tomorrow.

I Found the Trees!!!!!

OK....I didn't find them. Tessie did. She is anxious to start Christmas decorating now that she knows it is coming....The sooner we get the place decorated, the sooner she gets presents....At least that is her latest theory.

She was rummaging around in the workroom this morning. I didn't want to think what she was getting into. It just meant more straightening up for me. She slid onto the kitchen counter,as if trying for a home run and demanded, "Come with me! NOW! I found the trees! NOW! Drop the towel. NOW!" Then she jumped off of the counter and disappeared around the corner, assuming that I would follow.

She was right. As you know, I have been searching high and low for the trees. Evidently I didn't search quite low enough.

She was jumping up and down on the floor, in front of a chest of drawers in the workroom.

She wailed, "They're in there and I can't get them out!"

She was pointing to a box under the drawers. It was a Christmas box that I bought last year, thinking that I would get around to re doing the Christmas room with Santa....Didn't happen.... At least it was a good hiding place for all of the stuff that was in the tree last year, including the vignettes that I was missing.

"Tessie, why didn't you just zap the box?" I asked.

"Because I lifted the lid to peek in and then it wouldn't come out. Now get it out and stop asking inane questions!" Then she said....in a very small voice...."Please?"

I knew it was serious. She never says please unless it is really important.

She was right. The box was really wedged in and toward the back to boot. I finally got it out by twisting it and pressing down on the top. Sure enough. There was the tip of a tree sticking out under one side of the lid.

It took only a couple of seconds to whip out the box of lycopodium and we were on our way to tree making....

The box of lycopodium that you see here is the purchase that I made from http://miniatures.com/ months ago, with the intention of doing a new tree. It looks like there is enough greenery for a whole forest, but you would be surprised at how much of this stuff it takes for one.

OK....Here comes the tutorial.

All you need is a bottle brush tree of whatever size you want your finished tree to be, less about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch.(We will get to the reason for that in a minute.)

I had to cut all of the white ends off of this one(fake snow)because I didn't have a plain one the right height.

Tree, lycopodium, white glue,tweezers, and sharp scissors are the only supplies that you need.

You will be starting at the bottom and working up. Don't worry about trimming until you are at the top.

Glue the first course of longish branches to the bottom side of the bottle brush tree in a circle. They should stick out 1/2" to 3/4" past the bottle brush.

Cut more of the lycopodium into little branches. The bottom two or three rows can be 4 or 5 arms to a bunch. As you go towards the top, you will want less in a branch and shorter if you can find any. I usually cut only for the section that I am working on.

This is a messy job, so I advise working on a paper plate, on top of a tray or something else to catch the excess branches.

Put a puddle of glue on the plate. Start dipping branches into the glue

Here you see Tessie working on the first section. She is still working with the branches with the most arms.

Remember that the tree is going to get a haircut at the end, so try not to make them too long. What you cut off will be used to fill in spots that you missed the first time around.

While she was doing that, i took a piece of stem about an inch and a half long and glued it to the top so that about half stuck up above the tree. This is to put the topper on when you are decorating.

It needs to be put on early so that it will be mostly dry by the time that you get to the top. I did that with Aleene's Fast Grab. Make sure that it stays straight. Nobody likes a lopsided topper.

Don't expect to get this done fast. For a good looking, full tree, it takes at least a couple of hours.

As you go towards the top, start angling your branches upwards. That's how most trees grow. No wilted trees here. When you reach the top, your branches should be short and pointing up.


When you are satisfied with the fullness of your tree, keep turning it around and searching. You will find holes. Just poke some more branches in, with glue.

Now starting a little at a time, at the bottom, trim....You know the drill. Take off any branches that don't look like a Christmas tree. This will also take a little time. Remember, you can cut them off, but you can't put them back.

The ideal tree is triangular. Snip little ends off that aren't in line with the rest. Take your time.

After you have trimmed it, check again for holes. Tessie is good at this. She is down there close where she can see them. She plugs them up and I trim.

Here's the finished tree. Tessie is now whining and whinging about ornaments and lights. I am whining and whinging right back at her.....Enough for one day. Ornaments and lights will come tomorrow.

See you then.

In Another Direction....

I am taking the lazy way out....Ignore yesterday's post.

I found some really pretty Christmas bags this morning at Walmart. They were very inexpensive, so I decided rather than doing the vignettes, I would do bags.

I brought them home and measured one. They are all the same size, so if I get one right, the rest will follow.

I am going to give you general directions for now. Your bags may be a different shape and size.

I used 1/4" foam core and cut side pieces the same size as the measurement, less 3/4", to allow for space at the top.

Then I cut a front and back piece the same height as the sides and 1/2" less in width to allow for the sides. I cut a window in the front piece, in this case, I did it 1/2" on all sides. The hole can be any size and shape that you prefer, just keep in mind that the best view into the box is if it repeats the shape of the bag but 1/2" to 3/4" in width on all sides.

The bottom is cut 1/4" smaller than the base of the bag all around, so that it fits down inside of the walls.

I slid all of the pieces inside and drew around the opening inside the bag. I then cut an X in the bag where I wanted the opening to be. I trimmed it to about 3/4" so that it could be folded over the edges and glued inside. This piece will be glued right to the bag.

I then papered the rest of the pieces with wallpaper and flooring. Then I glued them together to form the shell of the room. When it was dry, I slid the box down into the bag.

I haven't decided what will go inside. This one is a bit smaller than I thought it was going to be when finished. I think that it will work though.

I still need to decorate the outside and top.

I also bought some of the ones that are fancy paper lunch bags. They are taller. We shall see how those work too.

Anyway, I am still experimenting.

Once you learn the technique, you can do it on any kind of gift bag.

Tessie insisted on showing you the Valentine bag that I did about 25 years ago. It is still in pretty good shape, considering it has been through that many Valentine's Days.

In that one, I put a roof on top and filled it with flowers and tissue. It has coffee mugs inside with Walter's and my names on them.

Be sure to poke the photos.

The last one I will show you is a shopping bag that I got in London at an oriental shop in Covent Garden. What else would I turn it into? Of course it's an oriental shop.

None of these bags are the same size, but if you follow the above directions, you can successfully turn any bag into a mini room.

Have fun! I have to go now. I am still searching high and low for the infamous bottle brush trees.

I went out this morning looking for them in stores....The only ones that I found had white stuff on the ends of the branches that is supposed to look like snow....They were at Michael's.....Twenty dollars a bag!!!! No way!!!

Oh well. Back to searching here in the house.

See you tomorrow.

Only Thirty Six Days Left!!!!!

I am in so much trouble! I vowed to make some vignettes to put in the Christmas tree this year that all matched. Here we go again!

I figure that, if I do the outsides, I can fill them at my leisure. As Santa would say...."HO! HO! HO!"

I decided that the easiest way to do them would be similar to the screens that I did a week or so ago, as backdrops. The only differences are, these have a floor and are permanently in one position. Don't forget to poke the photos.

I gathered together foam core, spray glue, white glue, Christmas themed paper and some gold sticker thingies that I got at the mini show this year.

With a little bit of help from my friends, I drew up a prototype. If you want to make something similar, the measurements that I used for this one are right on the foam core in the photo. If you want the arch on the top, find a can or glass that is the diameter that you want your arch to be. I set mine in 1/2" on either side of the center section.

The two side pieces are glued to the edges of the back piece. Then the floor is glued in place between those three pieces at the bottom.

I used Aleene's Fast Grab, so there was no need for clamps or pins to hold it together until the glue dried.

Here's a quick tip. When you want your foam core to stay in one place whilst you cut it, you ask a 14 pound cat with glassy green eyes to sit on it. Believe me. It won't budge.

Here you see the pieces glued together. I was waiting for the glue to dry. After it did, I wrapped the outside by using spray glue on the flat surfaces. I clipped the edges and wrapped them to the inside.

Then I cut pieces of Christmas patterned card stock to fit the floor and the three walls inside. That covered the edges of the outside wrapping paper.

My last step was to use some fancy gold lace tape on the edges all around.

As usual Tessie had something to say about the process....The piece of paper that you see her holding is the only wrapping paper that I had for the outside.

She has been ranting about it. "It looks like a clown suit! Your Christmas tree is going to look so silly!"

I hate to say it, but I agree. Just don't tell her that I said that. This is, after all, only a prototype. I like the inside paper, but the outside is a little loud.

I guess I am going on a paper hunt tomorrow.

I think that this size will work out for some of the vignettes. I am thinking that I may make a few that are a bit wider so that I can put a piece of furniture in them.

If you would like to see the ones from last year, go here and scroll down. There are several entries on the various mini vignettes in our tree. http://caseymini.blogspot.com/search/label/Christmas

Thirty six days.......Hmmmmm........Let me be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas!!!

See you tomorrow.

Playing With Clay....

I didn't feel like working on the Russian cottage this morning, so Tessie suggested we play with clay instead.

The only reason that I didn't have to start from scratch and clean out the box of canes is......neither Tessie or I have been in the mood to mess with poly lately.

She immediately started picking out canes that she liked...A lot of black, white and orange seemed to be the theme.

I went for the extruder and some of the scraps that need to be used up.

I am fairly pleased with what I came up with. This is the sliding top of a small tin. I wanted it to look organic and like something that I just dug out of the ground.

I haven't baked it yet, so there is still time to add and subtract from it.

I simply took a lot of scraps and mixed them together loosely and threw them into the clay extruder with a "spaghetti" type of point on it. The extruder blends the colors together as they come out. The only actual canes I used were the checkerboard and a feather one. The feathers are in the upper right corner and one in the middle.

While I was doing that, I watched as Tessie stomped on a piece of a Tampex tube.

Then she proceeded to thinly slice a mirror bead and covered the tube with that.....I sometimes think that her brain doesn't work like anybody else's.

She rolled out some very thin black, and cut a flap and strap. Hers is finished, all but a clasp. We need to add that before we bake so that it will be embedded.

Not too bad for a tampon tube and some scraps of clay.

She is in the findings box, looking for the clasp now. I imagine she is throwing things willy-nilly and I will be sorting findings tomorrow....

See you then with the finished projects.

Emergency!!!

No. Zar is not playing "This little piggy". Nor is he proposing to Tessie....

This morning Tessie tripped over a loose floorboard and broke her leg again. I was going to take her to the emergency room, but Zar saw what was happening and announced, "Please! I am a physician when I am not inventing time machines and such. I can fix this!....Hmmmmmm...Now where did I put my bag?"

After a quick search, I volunteered to whip him up a new one...Time was wasting.

I grabbed a piece of thin black leather, a small oblong of foam core board, some glue and scissors and went to work.

The foam core was 1/2" by 1 1/4". I cut a piece of leather at 1 1/2" tall and a length that would fit around the foam core, with just a bit of an overlap.

I beveled the foam core. Then I ran a line of glue around the outer edge and stuck on the leather a quarter inch from the bottom, starting in the center of one of the long sides.

Next I mitered the bottom corners to eliminate bulk and glued the flaps to the bottom of the foam core.

I overlapped the seam and glued it. Then I cut an extra piece of leather to cover the bottom and glued it in place.

At each end of the top, I folded in a triangular area to form a pleat. I put glue on the inside of the bag to hold it in place.

Then I folded over and glued one long edge of a piece of leather, then trimmed it to about 1/16" for the handles.
I edged the top of the bag with more leather, but it isn't totally necessary. Then I cut a flap to close the bag and glued it with the flat end on the back where the seam is and flipped it through the handles and glued the pointed end to the front.

I put a piece of gold paper on the tip to indicate a fastener. That's it. Almost instant doctor's bag.

You can line these bags and leave them open at the top if you wish to put something inside.

Anyway, disaster was averted. Zar got a new bag and Tessie's leg is like new. She has been bouncing all over the place. If she keeps it up, Zar is going to have to re-set it!

She keeps singing, "I'm alright....Don't nobody worry 'bout me!". I don't think that is the result of the new leg......She watched "Caddyshack" last night.....Twice....Now she has me singing right along with Kenny Loggins.

See you tomorrow.