Two Six Year Olds, Together....

Tessie and I are two of a kind....Usually. Hopping from one project to another one is normal for us.

This morning, as I was eating breakfast, I realized that today is the 28th and I haven't even started copying names down from the comments for the drawing. Procrastination is sometimes my middle name. So.....I went to work. I kept getting off track, looking at your blogs.

I have many more entries than I thought I would have. I realized that, if I want to do this right, it is going to take more time than I thought it would.

Tessie kept herself busy for the first hour with the tatting that she started yesterday. She decided to get serious and work on something that would go with her hair....Orange naturally, I mean the thread not her hair.

When she tired of that, she came in and tried to distract me for a while. When that didn't work, she glared at me and said, "You are NO kind of fun at all! Lots of emphasis on the NO part. She stomped away and Went and found the bargello pillow that we started a couple of days ago. She did about a half a row of lighter pink.

That took up another hour and seven minutes. Then she came back and tried the whinging and whining routine...."I'm bored...There's nothing to do...."

I replied with, "Tessie, I am very busy. See all of these nice comments? I have to read them all and make a list for you to draw from."

She watched from her place atop the dictionary.

Then she asked, "Can't I just close my eyes and pick from the names on the screen?"

"No Tessie. There are well over 100 comments and you can't see them all on the screen at one time."

With that, she disappeared again. After the next hour, I took a break and ate lunch, then I went to see what she was doing.

At least she is consistent....Meaning that every time I saw her she was being her typical six year old self.

This time she found one of the baskets that I "lost" somewhere when I was preparing for the talk on baskets at the museum.....Hmmmmm....Maybe she will finish it. I am still out of basket mode for the present.

As for me, I am not being a six year old, but I don't think that this is going to get finished today. I don't know what I was thinking when I said I would close the drawing one day and have the results the next. It just isn't going to happen.

I thought about extending the deadline for entries, but that wouldn't be fair. I am, however going to give myself a little more time. I just can't have it done by tomorrow.

The results will be up on Thursday morning bright and early. That's a promise. Stay tunedI have to go pull Tessie out of the workroom now. She is looking for something else to do and making a royal mess of it.

Then I am going back to putting names on little slips of paper, between time out for housework, laundry and other mundane happenings. I think that tonight's deadline should stay where it is, but I need more time to finish.

See you tomorrow.

No More Snow....

OK. I finished the rug. It isn't perfect, but then it's the first one I have done on that loom. I may have to dig out my large beading loom. Better tension and more room to play.

Please don't say anything to Tessie about a larger loom. she will want wall to wall carpeting!

I blocked this one with the steam iron and she grabbed it. She refuses to put shoes and socks on, so a rug is just the thing for her cold feet.

She put it under the loom, where her feet are when she's weaving. I made her drag it back out so that you could have a look at it.

At one point this morning, I found her sitting on the bench of the loom with her feet snuggled down in the roving basket. Anything to keep warm.

She slept through the snow and if I hadn't shown her the photos she would not have believed it happened.

After I finished the rug, I went to put things away and found her sitting in the tatting box.

She found my great grandmother's tatting shuttle and wouldn't let it go. It is mother of pearl and she likes the puce in the coloration.

It has been a long time since I did any tatting. Whilst I had the box out, I had to show Tessie how the shuttle worked.

Then the needles. She likes that better.

Her hands are too small to use a shuttle, but the needle version is easy and all of the knot tying is done right on the needle itself.

It is actually a bit faster to do also. If you are interested in seeing someone doing it, there is a YouTube video that shows a woman doing it close up. She is really good at it. There are other realted videos on the same page.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtMR_XtTvTk

The piece that Tessie is holding, she didn't make. I did. She is trying to pass it off as her own.

It took me about half an hour to make it, because I didn't have a pattern. I was just fooling around. I am not sure if it will turn into anything or not. It's just fun to play with. Besides, if I finish it, I would have to clean up and put things away. Even playing with needles is more fun than clean up!

I am going to go play some more now. If anything comes of it, Tessie will be sure to show you and tell you that she made it with her own two little hands. Just humor her.....It's better that way.

See you tomorrow.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!!!

It was a dark and stormy night....When I looked out the window about a quarter to five, it was still dark and strange white stuff was coming down from the sky.

I seem to recall from a winters past, long ago, that this must be snow.

The mesquite tree in front of our house has nary a leaf on it, after the cold snap, but now it looks beautiful anyway.

My workroom is the window to the right of the mesquite. If I work in there today I will get to see snow in the front yard.

I realize that, for you that live back in the part of the country that has an actual winter, that this is no big deal. This is the most snow we have had in years. Most years we don't get any. The only snow we usually see is up on Mount Lemon. That is the north border of Tucson and believe it or not, there is an actual ski run up there that opens every winter whenever they get snow.

This is the poor prickly pear by our front driveway. I imagine that he is not terribly happy, having a snowy frosting.

The back yard got it the worst. It is closed in and protected from the winds. If the snow gets in, it can't get back out.



The birds are definitely not happy campers. I saw a dove land and leave exactly 9 little birdy footprints in the snow. Then he flew over to the un-snowy spot below the Hackberry bush at the right of the picture. They aren't giving up though. Most of the snow is off of the top of the bird block now...Not melted. Pecked away to get to the seeds.


Anyway, I just thought that you might like proof that we have winter here in AZ too. I have to go break the ice on the bird's water bowls now.


I will be back later with the regular edition. The rug is almost finished.


See you later!

The Bead Loom Works!

Last night I was working on a # 40 count silk pillow in four way bargello, when Tessie came bouncing into the room. She announced, "You shouldn't be doing that. You promised to try out the beading loom and see if it would work for regular weaving."

Then she proceeded to zap the silk gauze that I was working on right out of my hands. She also managed to take all of the spools of silk sewing thread that I was using. I have no idea where she hid them.

In their place was my smallest beading loom and lots of crewel wool.

I went on strike and refused to start weaving until this morning. After pouting for the rest of the evening, she finally stomped away, defeated. I won a round!

Well, I did until this morning. Then she let me have it with both barrels. "You will not do anything but weave today. I am not giving your bargello back until you finish at least one rug!"

In the early 80s I taught macrame and weaving in a couple of craft stores. I used a table loom quite often. For the classes, I taught people to make a cardboard loom and do a woven pocket or bag. It was fun to do. I haven't done much weaving since that time.

I finally gave my dusty table loom away....I just wasn't using it. Minis got in the way of larger crafts.

It all comes back when you need it though. I strung up the loom with regular sewing thread and started using various crewel wools for the weaving.

I did the starter band of weaving with tatting thread because it is a bit thicker than sewing thread. Then I switched to the crewel.

Tessie tried her hand at it, but she kept getting tangled in the thread and messing things up.

I finally shooed her away and took the needle back. I find that a long tatting needle works great for doing this on the beading loom. It reaches all the way across the loom and you don't have to stop in the middle of a row to pull the thread through.

I remembered why I am not that crazy about weaving, especially with fine thread....It is slow.

Here's what I had after a couple of hours. It goes about the same pace as mini needlepoint. I am out of practice.

It does take a bit of work to keep the edges straight.

I am determined to finish this piece this afternoon so that Tessie will give my bargello back....I guess I had better get back to work now.

Please don't forget to vote. You are hanging in there with me. I appreciate your going back, time after time. So far, so good....

Also, the response to the anniversary drawing has been fantastic! There are right around 100 people entered so far. I am going to have to sort a few out because they commented twice. It will all be straight before Tessie draws the lucky three.

I have to go weave a rug now.

See you tomorrow.

Weaving a New Room.....

I have a ways to go on the weaver's room, but I wanted to show you how it was going so far.

I put in all of the wood trim, the window and the door this morning. I just used plain strip wood, from the mini shop for the rafters and other trim.

Here's a photo of the last rafter, ready for placement. I always use the dot method for long strips of wood. There is much less chance for warping this way.

As soon as I got the loom in place, Tessie zapped in the two pieces of furniture that I found at Dollar Tree last week.

We are only using them to see how much furniture and how big the furniture should be.

I am thinking that it needs a few shelves on the back wall and maybe a settee where the dresser is now.

Tessie is trying out the loom. I am not sure that it is not a bit undersized. Not being familiar with this type of loom, I am wondering if the beam across the frame shouldn't be higher. She is short and she can't sit upright on the bench. It seems to me that it would be uncomfortable after a while. I could be wrong.....

Tessie got her niddy noddy this morning. I carved the ends out of some of the leftover trim wood and used a chair spindle for the cross piece. It works!

She already used it to wrap a ball of yarn. It looks like she has a way to go.....All of the alpaca fleece in the basket still needs to be carded and spun. This could take a while.

I am thinking of doing a bit of weaving to hang on the walls on one of my beading looms. If Tessie can't sit upright under that bar, I know I won't fit! I think that the beading loom might be a good substitute.

I will let you know tomorrow if the beading loom works.

See you then with a full report.

Handy Dandy Workbox....Working!

Yesterday I couldn't think of anything that I wanted to take to Wednesday Witches to work on. So, I grabbed the mini work box that I put together a few months ago. Time to test it.

Here's the box. I have been carrying it in my car, for just such emergencies. You know the feeling. You want to make a mini right now and don't have anything to make it with. I have used it a couple of times for short periods when waiting for a store to open.

This time I got serious. I jumped in and then jumped from one thing to another when the six year old got bored with one thing and needed to do something different.

When I got home, Tessie had two new needlepoint baskets, five books, a new alligator bag(sans clasp) and the start of a corner on a rug.

I am sure that you noticed that I said that Tessie had all of these. Hey! As soon as I walked in the door, she demanded, "What did you make for me?"

Hold on a minute. The birds in the back yard are squawking. Yup. Hudson Hawk is here. He was sitting as nice as you please on the back of one of the lawn chairs. As soon as I grabbed the camera and ran to the kitchen window, he decided to move...Well, at least it is proof that he really was here.

OK. Back to the computer. I did want to say thank you for all of the nice compliments and entries for the drawing. I love hearing your stories about your minis as well as the entries. By the way, a couple of you have the impression that, if you don't have a blog, you can't enter. You can. All you have to do is be a follower on my list.

We still have a long way to go until the end of the Reader's Choice Award from About.com. I really appreciate all of your votes. Please keep it up.

Tessie announced this morning that she was tired of traipsing around the desk with the sign. She proceeded to try to drill a hole in the top of the desk to plant it in.

I managed to talk her out of that, but I am going to have to watch her closely. She is now standing right in front of me trying to hammer it into the desk with her fist. Incorrigible. She's completely incorrigible.

The real world is intruding. I have to go do some real housework and real laundry. Would one of you keep an eye on Tessie whilst I go to work?

See you tomorrow.

It's Here.....!

It is official! I have been doing this every day for three years, as of today. This is post #1,252. And you still seem to be coming back for more! It's amazing!

OK. Down to business. Since it has been three years, Tessie took over and decided that there should be a drawing with a gift for each of the three years. Here's what she came up with. I didn't argue. We all know how that turns out....

It's starting today, and running through the end of the month, 12 midnight. The three winners will be announced on March first.

Rules...1. You must be on my list of followers of the blog when you place the comment. #2. You have to make a comment on this particular entry. This is the only place that you can comment for it to count. #3. This isn't an official rule, but Tessie insists that I put it in. You must be a Tessie fan! Sorry. She made me type that....

The prizes will be custom made for each winner. You can have a choice of either a chair or a bassinet. You will have a choice of natural or white wicker. I will have lots of fabrics to choose from for whichever piece you choose. There may be a couple of extra small surprises to go with the piece that you choose.

Now go ignore me for a bit. I need to paint the walls of the weaver's room and start drilling holes for new wicker pieces.

See you tomorrow.

I Am Floored Again!!!

This morning I got up and plastered all of the walls and ceiling in the weaver's room. I used a bottle of gesso that I purposely left open to thicken it. I pounced it on the surfaces with a very stiff stencil brush. The walls still have to be painted, but I won't be able to do that until tomorrow, when the gesso is thoroughly dry.

So to keep busy, I did the floor. I wanted it to be the same as in the colonial kitchen. That's slate.

I cut a piece of illustration board the exact size of the room interior. Then I painted it on both sides with charcoal Ceramcoat acrylic. I scrubbed it on in every direction and wasn't careful about coverage. As y0u can see, Tessie came up with the brilliant idea of using water bottles down the length of the bowed center. That works better than books, because there is more uncovered surface and it dries much faster that way.

Next I started at one front corner and cut, at random, pieces of slate paper and glued them down, one piece at a time. I cut as I went and fitted each piece into the ones before.
Here you can see some of the pieces glued in place and the sheet of slate paper that I am cutting from next to it. It takes a while doing it this way, but it is worth the trouble.

Here's the floor all glued down. After I do that I go over all of the grout lines with a ball stylus....In this case, the ball stylus ran away and hid when it heard I was coming, so I used a poor knitting needle instead. Hey! It worked!

When that was finished, I got out the Prismacolor pencils to shade with various colors. I used grey in all of the grout lines and about 10 different colors lightly rubbed over the slate itself.

Unfortunately, it doesn't show up well in the photo, but it is worth the effort. It gives more depth to the stones.

I slid it into the room box to fit and Tessie zapped the loom in place to see how it looked.

We both approve. Now I have to go back to cutting the beams for the ceiling and other trim.

First I will have to pull Tessie out of there. I think that she is excited about this. I haven't heard a word about the townhouse for a couple of days now. She is pretty good at weaving and will love having a workshop.

She is, however, still nagging anybody that will listen to go vote for her. She has completely taken over. I am not going to get in her way. I really don't like getting poked with her sign while I am typing.

I have tried to tell her that people can't see her carrying the sign through the computer. She is bound and determined that they can. Please keep voting. I appreciate every vote that comes our way. You are great! Thanks so much for the support!

See you tomorrow for the blog's third anniversary! 1251 entries and counting........

I Need a Niddy Noddy!!!

Tessie made me do it! Honest! I couldn't stand to see the floor loom just sitting on a bookshelf all by itself. It looked lonely.

When I cleaned out the workroom over the weekend, I found my other Houseworks room box kit like the one that I did for the Colonial Kitchen.

These are really nice because each has a window and door stamped in the walls that you can or cannot use at will. They can also be mirrored by flipping the walls.

I am doing this with a mirror image to the kitchen. The window and door have been shifted to opposite sides. All I have left to do is glue the ceiling in place....That's as far as the raw box goes...I didn't mean that I was done. I don't work that fast.

As you can see, Tessie has already laid claim to it. That's how I got the title for this one.

I dug out my two real life swifts and my yarnwinder for copying.

Tessie immediately climbed onto the Italian swift and excitedly yelled, "Spin it fast! Faster! Faster!!!"

She is using it for a primative merry go round of sorts.

The other swift, that clamps to the table is from Sweden. And yes, I do use them. They are wonderful for turning hanks of yarn into balls. You simply untwist the hank of yarn into a circle and stretch it over the arms of the swift and then from there, you use the ball winder to make the hanks into balls. Much easier than doing it by hand.

I decided to show you how they work with the Swedish one. Since I spoiled her seat for riding, she is now happily spinning on top of the knob in the center of that one....Still screaming, "Make it go faster! I have a need for speed!"

As I finished winding the ball, she fell off and staggered to the edge of the desk. I had to grab the tail on her shawl to keep her from tumbling over.

She looked at me and said sternly, "OK. Enough foolishness! Those things make me dizzy. I need a niddy noddy! Now!"

For those of you that aren't familiar with niddy noddies, they are another form of swift. They are a spindle with a cross bar at each end that are at right angles to one another. They are usually made a certain length so that the user can measure the yarn by the number of wraps on the impliment.

They don't spin or bob up and down or even move if the user doesn't wish them to. I do believe that Tessie is right. She needs a niddy noddy. She will still be a dizzy witch, but it won't be from a merry go round.

If you are curious about niddy noddies please go here for a history lesson. It's fun.http://imlivinghistory.blogspot.com/2009/07/what-is-niddy-noddy-for.html

See you tomorrow.

Another Cold Snap.....

OK. So it's not considered that cold in other places, but here it has been in the high 70s and low 80s for the past week. It is mid day and only 55 degrees and the wind is blowing. Not nice weather for desert rats.

Tessie was whinging and complaining about the coming cold last night. I think that she fears another gas outage. She came in the bedroom with a ball of #8 perle cotton and some 0000 steel knitting needles. She said to me, "I don't want to freeze again! I want to be prepared this time. Make me a wrap."

So, rather than argue, I made her a wrap. I thought of the ones that I have seen in old books that women wore in the 19th century. They were very practical. They crossed in the front and tied in the back so that the tails of the shawl wouldn't get in the way while they worked.

Here are the directions if you ever want to make one.

I took the 0000 needles and cast on three stitches with the #8 perle cotton. Then, simply put, the rest of the shawl is knit the same every row. Knit in the front and back of the first stitch(increase), knit to the end of the row and turn. Keep doing this until you have 65 stitches on the needle. You can make it longer if you want a regular shawl that ties in the front. I stopped at 65 and then cast off.

I then took a piece of perle cotton about two feet long and doubled it. I put the doubled loop end through one corner of the front and chained enough stitches to make the cord about two inches long. I pulled the end through and secured it. then cut off the tail.
After Tessie tied it in the back, she flipped the point down over the tie.

Here she is, ready to go to work....This isn't exactly what I had in mind.

She is determined to wear a rut in the desktop....I thought that I hid the sign. I guess not well enough.

She has taken to shouting, "Rock the
Vote!" every now and then.

Thank you all for voting. I really appreciate it. Please keep doing what you are doing....It is making Tessie much easier to be around.

She only swatted me with the sign twice this morning! That's some kind of record.

See you tomorrow.

Finished and Unfinished...

I am pretty much finished with the room, once again....
I found that most everything that was in the way was big things. Not so messy, just misplaced.

Again, I turned on the iPad and Roswell and went to work. It really was a lot easier than last time, when I had the whole laundry basket full of little stuff to put away.

As you can see, now I can actually walk around the room without tripping over anything. Mind you, I am still tripping, but only over my own big feet.

As I came back from emptying the waste basket, I met this in the door....Yup, Tessie and dragon barring the way.

As I stooped down to see what she was going on about, she zapped a sign into being and held it up.

She announced, "This means YOU!!

Try as I might, she wouldn't let me in again. She said, "You keep making a mess in here and I have to clean it up!"

Who did??? She was sitting on a shelf the whole time watching Roswell.

Anyway, now she won't let me in. There she sits on the dragon and I don't think that she is going to move for the rest of the day.

While I was in there, I found something unfinished to show you. Luckily, I brought it out to take a photo before she took up her post.

This is a wall piece that I started several years ago. I ran across it whilst straightening the bead shelf. I still have a ways to go with it, but it has been long enough that I have a few ideas on how to finish it now....Now if I can just find the box that has the beads I was using....

The coins are real Chinese and the beads are all glass. I added some small shells for interest. When I get done, the ropes of beads will continue off of the linen and hang down on the wall.

I only have a tiny problem....Tessie is definitely sitting between me and the beads!

I am going to have to go see if I can get her to move if I give her part of the Sourdough Jack and the Curly fries that Walter just brought home for lunch.

That just might be the ticket to get me back in the workroom...Wish me luck.

Don't forget to vote.

See you tomorrow.

A Little Make Up Test....

Tessie, with good reason, perched herself on the door handle this morning and refused to enter the workroom. If I could perch on the door handle, I would probably have refused to go past that point either.

Unfortunately, there was no place for me to sit without cleaning up first. So I was elected.

I got the iPad, turned it to "Roswell" on Netflix and went to work.

I got enough stuff put away so that I could walk around and sit down. That was a mistake. I think that I should never clear the chair until the rest of the room is finished.

In my defence, I needed to sit down to pop the rest of the make up out of the big flat boxes that I bought on after Christmas clearance at Walmart. I did that, and as I did, I started thinking of uses for different pieces.

BIG mistake. I should never think while I am working....Just work.

First I thought of a lipstick tube with a mini scene in it that I had seen sometime ago. I wrote about it and then when I got a comment from Eliza about Sue Ann Thwaite of Lady Bug Miniature Fairies, it came back to me where I had seen it. Not in a magazine...At a show. She makes all kinds of lovely tiny fairies and she does some in lipstick tubes. If you would like to see them, go here. http://www.ladybug-fairies.com/ She also sells kits for making them. They are great. I am in no way in competition with her. I just liked the idea.

I am taking the photos and directions down, even though it wasn't a fairy scene. I don't think that it would be right to leave it up.

Instead I quickly took the boy and the tree out of the tube. I found one of the eyeshadow boxes from the same assortment. I have not seen mini scenes in eyeshadow boxes and this one is my own idea, so I feel free to put it up.

Actually, I think that I like this one better. It is more "Tessie sized".

She can put it in the townhouse on a table or shelf.

I think that I have some of these eye shadow boxes around here somewhere with no lettering on them. I may just have to make some more of these. It was a matter of minutes and lots of fun. Start saving tiny boxes and do some room boxes for your dollhouse.

See you tomorrow.

Ready to Go?

OK. I am as ready as I will ever be to do this. Tessie and Zar are going along to weave baskets and give moral support.I will report in after I finish.

Don't forget to vote.

See you later.

Post Script.....I am back. Everything went wonderfully.

I have't stopped running since 4:30AM! I am one pooped petunia, as my dad used to say.

I got there about 11:50. Had lunch with everybody.....I didn't have to talk while everyone ate. Thank goodness! I started talking about 12:20 or so. After I finished talking, with questions from the audience interspersed, people came up to the table and talked some more. They seemed to like it.

If any of the people that were there come here to check out the blog, come on in, feel free to look around and join the party! Thanks for coming!

I didn't get home until about 2:30. For a short day, it was a looong day!

Tessie and I both need a nap now.

See you tomorrow.

Button, Button. Who's Got the Button?

It was one of those mornings. At about 3:15 AM, my eyes popped open and an idea popped in my head....Dumb idea, but it just might work.

For the past few days, some of my online friends have been talking about making button ATCs and the race car guy from England with the last name Button....Don't ask why. It's another one of those strange conversations that are hard to explain to someone that wasn't there...

Anyway, I imagine that was why I thought of using buttons for the bottom of miniature baskets. I have a huge button box and I will never use them all in my lifetime. At least this idea will rid me of a few more of them.

As soon as I finished breakfast, I started playing.

I grabbed a few buttons that were flat edged and a bit thick. One was a regular plastic button and the other two were odd leather ones that didn't match anything.

They are now the bottoms of miniature baskets! I used them just like I would use a Woodsie circle.
First I glued uprights to the edge. Then a band over that. I let it dry and just started twining the basket in the center with waxed linen.

When I got it to the height that I wanted, I put a top band around the outside, a handle in the center and an inner band behind that. It still needs to be trimmed a bit more and then dipped in stain, but I am very happy with the results.

The basket on the left is another one that is just started. The one on the right is upturned so that you can see the button in the bottom....Three more pesky buttons out of the box.

At this rate, I will probably be 103 before I use all of the buttons, but it's a start. Try it. It's fun!

I am still working on the beige basket. I have a few more rows done. Real life gets in the way sometimes. I am still re potting plants on the back patio.

As you can see, I still have a lot of filler cord. In the jar behind is the thread that I am using. A friend picked it up at a garage sale and gave it to me.

I think it was probably the thread from one of those old cross stitch quilt kits from the 70s. There is a great deal of thread there. I am using it double throughout the basket and I haven't made much of a dent in it yet. It may be more than one basket in the end.

Now for the fun portion of the program. I don't think that I have ever shown you my favorite antique Chinese basket. I found this panda in a thrift shop about 30 years ago.

He is woven of minute slivers of bamboo and there is no beginning or end to the weaving. No holes anywhere. He is hollow and all one piece of weaving.

He has glass eyes just like the old teddy bears and the stick in his mouth is a piece of bamboo that originally had leaves on it....It was dried up and pretty much gone when I found him. He has tiny carved claws on all of his feet.

The person that wove him must have been a most talented basket weaver. He is amazing.

Tessie climbed on his back this morning and tried to bring him to life. Evidently her charms don't work on panda baskets.

I am going back to work on the dreaded beige basket now. I may just keep working on it tomorrow as a demo piece. It is much easier to see what I am doing when I am working on a basket that size, than it is when I work on a mini one.

Back to work now.

See you tomorrow.

Baskets and Lunch.....

Tessie and I are in the same boat. When she was working on a basket this morning, she looked down to see a friend chomping on a sandwich. If you poke the photo, you can see Malcolm...Yup, a mouse.

I am not comparing people to mice, but I found out just a couple of weeks ago that the lecture that I am doing at the miniature museum is to be done while the audience is eating box lunches from Beyond Bread. This should be interesting. I have never lectured during lunch....After lunch, yes....During, no.

I have visions of it going something like....Me, "Baskets have been found in 4,00o year old Mesopotamian tombs." Them, "Could somebody please pass the mustard?"

I am just kidding about that part, but having never done this before while people are eating, does make me a bit nervous. Wish me luck....

Since it's only a couple of days hence, both Tessie and I are basket making full speed.

Her full speed is..... Work a row. Wander off and play with the cats for twenty minutes. Work a row. Go find Zar and torment him for twenty two minutes. Work half a row. Go raid the refrigerator. Forget about working....Go lie down and moan, "I am soooo exhausted...." She does it well.

I must confess that I am not much better. Remember the larger basket that I was working on last week? Don't tell anybody, but I just picked it up again this morning. I have three more rows done since you last saw it.


Here it is with Tessie gloating over the one that she claims to have finished....It's really one that I made last year. She thinks that I am really forgetful....Sometimes I am, but not when it comes to something that I put that much work into.

I am going back to work on the one that she is sitting in now. All I have to do is get her to go relax somewhere else while I work.

You are doing great on the voting. Keep up the good work. I appreciate it.

See you tomorrow.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is one day of the year when Zar and Tessie agree not to disagree. For some reason, there is a truce every February 14th.

Mind you, I am not complaining. It just tends to make me nervous to see the two of them with their heads together....

They crowded into the Valentine's Day bag that I made years and years ago. Zar's drinking out of my cup and Tessie has Walter's. They don't care what the mug says on the outside. It's what's inside that counts.

Zar actually sprung for a box of chocolates for Tessie....So what did Tessie do? She squeezed every one of them flat!

I told her that it wasn't polite to squeeze the chocolates to see what flavor they were.

She replied, "Who cares what flavor they are? I just wanted to see if any of them had jewelry inside!"

Then, "Nope. Balthazar, you are still a cheapskate!"

OK....End of truce. I will probably spend the rest of the day mediating their latest quarrel. I now need to go separate the two of them and send them to opposite corners of the house.

So much for Happy Valentine's Day.... I hope that yours is happy! Mini hugs and kisses to all of you!

Thank you so much for the votes. I appreciate every one! Please keep going back to the top of the page and poking the buttons.

See you tomorrow.

From a Sow's Ear....

OK so it's not exactly a silk purse. Maybe closer to a polyester purse...

This morning I was wandering around town and stopped into our Dollar Tree store. I happened on six pieces of dollhouse furniture on cards. I only bought two and a package of 36 emery boards of various sizes at $1.00.

This is the usual made in China furniture, but it was actually straight for a change. I thought that these two pieces had possibilities. The rest were all different, but nothing that I had any use for.

They don't open, but for my purpose, it doesn't matter. I am planning on using the little table in the front hall of Tessie's townhouse. It really won't be seen except from the side.

The chest is just for speculation. I don't know where I will use it. I figure, if nothing else, I can use it somewhere as a filler piece.

I feel free to use these pieces as fillers in nice rooms when they won't be the focal point. After all, if Eugene Kupjack can do it, so can I. He was the man that built the Thorne rooms for Narcissa Thorne.

When I was working for Pat Arnell, restoring miniature antique houses and rooms, I had the honor of working on one of his rooms. It was a dining room and at one end there were two doors. You could see into them, just barely. They were meant to represent. a hallway. The furniture was something like this....Almost just blocks of wood, representing furniture. The furniture in the dining room itself was incredible.

As I said, if he can do it, so can I!
I thought at first that I might do some carving on the pieces. I sanded down the glossy finish. Then I decided to see how they looked with a coat of charcoal gray paint on them.....Not too shabby.

The shapes are almost classical Shaker.

I went and got my pallet of rub on metallics and used antique gold on the knobs.

I am going to live with them for a few days and see if I still like them....And more importantly, if Tessie likes them.

Meanwhile, I am off to do some planting. I don't think that I told you. I lost most of my succulents and cacti on the back patio when the great winter storm of 2011 came through.

This morning I went out and started replacing some of the ones that I lost. I couldn't replace some of the larger ones that were upwards of 20 years old without spending big bucks, so here we go again.

I had one like the tall euphorbia on the left that was almost as tall as I am....OK so that's not saying much, but I raised him from a little guy like this. I also lost a jade plant that was about 2 cubic feet square.

It may take a while for these to reach the size of the originals. I can wait. It's fun watching them grow.

I am going to go pot them now, with Tessie's help.....?

See you tomorrow.

Close Ups in the Southwest...

First of all, I added a way for you to get to the voting booth every day. It is at the top, just under the heading. Just press ***About.com/miniatures***. I asked for help and received it, but I am just too computer illiterate to make it work. So.....If you are in the mood to vote for somebody, this will work.

Thanks to all of you that have voted so far. Please keep voting.

Now onto more important matters. I was cleaning Eskiaga's Southwestern room box this morning and decided to go into a bit more detail about it.

Tessie has been following me around and pestering me all morning, so I let her into a couple of the photos. It should have been Eskiaga, but he is preoccupied with Cordelia in the living room. Essentially, he told me to buzz off and go play with Tessie.

This first photo is of the wrought iron chandelier in the living room. It is simply a lot of jewelry findings toggled together with E-6000 and painted black.

To light it, I ran a single wire down into the main barrel of the lamp and attached the six wires from the lights to it in the center. It looks somewhat like a flower on the inside. The stem is the lead wire and the petals are the wires from the bulbs. Their wires are split and half are attached to each side of the lead wire.

I got it all together and made sure that it worked before I painted the whole thing black and strung it up.

The painting above the fireplace is one that I painted on silk with acrylics. The mountain that is in the background is a stylized version of my favorite mountain, north of Tucson. Someone, in their infinite wisdom, named it Picacho Peak....If you translate the first word, the name is Peak Peak....?

Wiring can be fun, sometimes. Since this and the fireplace were the only lights in the whole thing, it was pretty simple to do.

All of the woodwork in the place is done with an Exacto knife. If you look closely, the door itself is all one slab. I copied the design from a book on Mexican interiors. Then I did a straight up and down cut on the line and an angular cut slanting towards the inside of each panel.

The door molding and all of the baseboards and ceiling beams are simply commercial molding with little Xs carved in the center section. I just drew the lines and then cut the Xs slanting towards the center line. There is a lot that you can do to make commercial mini moldings look very different just with a few cuts.

I caught Tessie sneaking around in the bedroom very early this morning. I had to reprimand her for trying on the heshi bead necklaces without permission.

The cross stitch design on the bed is from a book of Transylvanian cross stitch patterns. The pattern on the pillow is repeated all around the bed. I thought it looked very similar to a thunder bird pattern. It fits in quite well with the southwest motifs. And no, there are no vampires involved in the making of this room box.

Someone asked, around the time that we went to the gem show, if I had made any tables out of rock slabs. The answer is yes. This particular one was a bit difficult. The wood is native Arizona Iron Wood....It is literally like iron. It's almost impossible to cut.

I have another one in the Burglar Room box. I will have to take a photo of that one also. It is much larger.

Behind it, you can see another version of the baseboard. This was on molding that had a bead down the center, so the crosses don't actually meet in the center.

The bowl on the table is a real Native American thrown pottery piece.

A little while ago, I found Tessie in the other side of the loft.

Now she wants the hand painted cabinet. I copied this piece from a 1930s or 40s Artes De Mexico furniture catalog. It has different primitive scenes painted on each panel.

The chair is from the same catalog. The catalog very nicely gave measurements for all of it's furniture.

The last thing that I will mention is the wrought iron railing along the balcony edge. That was a piece of an ugly green plastic basket. I cut it to size, glued cocktail picks with fancy ends on the front and painted the whole thing black.

OK. I have to go pull Tessie out of there before she zaps out everything she can get her hands on. You would think that she was poor as a church mouse. Poor, poor Tessie.....

See you tomorrow.