To Each His/Her Own.....

In order to keep the peace, each of the ladies have agreed to be in charge of one of the boxes.

Since I wouldn't let Tessie have the dressing room, she opted for the sewing room.  Although, what she needs another sewing room for, I can't imagine.  She already has the top floor of the milliner's shop and a shopping bag sewing room. 

She informs me, "I won't have to clean nearly as often if I have more....One gets messy, I just move to another.  I can't remember the last time she did any sewing...Maybe they will all stay clean... Just maybe.

This is only the first coat of dark green and it isn't really dry yet. It will look better later...Honest.

Lettice, on the other hand, is leaving me to the decision making, until I ask a question....That certainly is a change.  For the better....

I ran out of small chair rail that I was using for the half timber.  I am going to give a thorough look through the wood bin before I go rushing off to buy more.

About the time I got the ladies settled into their respective boxes, I looked up and saw Spike settling into the Mystery Box...He does love rooms with carpeting...Think of it as one large bed...

I have one piece of furniture in mind for the dressing room.  This is a small table with barley twist legs that I taught classes for years ago.  It is appropriate to the period of the dressing room... Now I have to decide how much bigger I want it to be and  what I am going to do about a chair to go with it.

I hate to say it, but since I settled the territory thing with the two of them, Tessie and Lettice are getting along....Maybe  bit too well.  They have agreed to stick together when there is a question of two against one...

I may have to hire Zar as a carpenter and then work on Spike a bit to even the odds...

I am off to redesign the table now.

See you tomorrow.

Alexander Cooke...

I was hoping that someone would suggest Shakespeare's time and plays...2minimom did just that...


I called in my authority on Elizabethan England this morning.  Lettice informed me that there was one person that really deserved the dressing room

She got to thinking about the "boy players".  They were the young men that played the parts of women in the late fifteen hundreds and early sixteen hundreds.  Women weren't considered equal or intelligent enough to do the task.

I started digging around about the person that she suggested.  It was a guy named Alexander Cooke that is said to have originated a lot of Shakespeare's female characters.  He is the lucky man/lady that I am going to do the dressing room for. 

I don't imagine that he probably had much of a dressing room, but he will have one now.

We are going to give him the dressing room that he deserved and never had.

Lettice informed me that the patterns and furniture in this book would help my quest.

She seems to think that there will be windows...Don't hold your breath, Lettice!

I got as far as the bottom half of some timbering before we had to leave to go over to April's.

When I got back there seemed to be a bit of a tussle going on between Lettice and Tessie...

I may have to lock one, or both, of them out whilst I work on this box.

They just don't seem to agree on anything.  Tessie wants a "real woman's" dressing room...She may be the one to get kicked out.

I can't see myself trying to explain "boy players" to her.....She claims to be 400+ years old.....I guess that's just not quite old enough to remember them.

I am thinking that Lettice will be of more help in this case.  At least she  is willing to have a discussion about what will be in the box and she can tell me what is right and proper.

I am going back to finish the woodwork and dirty up the corners and such.  Oh!  And I will be tossing Tessie....If she comes back, I may threaten to put her back in her glass cage for the time being...

See you tomorrow.

A Little More Information....

OK....To get  more ideas, I am going to have to tell you a little more about where I am going with these boxes.

I have decided to go with three themes from the list.  The first one is going to be a theatre dressing room or a personal dressing room.....But....It will be a period dressing room, not modern.  Stephanie suggested the theatre one.

So far, this is the one that I have the least materials and ideas for. The House of Miniatures kits are just one option for furniture.  Not necessarily the furniture that I will use.

Suggestions for a time period and specific play would help a lot.

The second box will be a Victorian sewing room.  Lucille suggested this one.

I still need colors.  Something that will go with the fancy floor would be good.

I may come back with some fabric swatches to choose from for this one after the general color scheme is chosen..

The Mystery Room has the most done to it.  Mari helped me with the color selection for this one.  She suggested pink or yellow....I decided to use both.

No.  I am still not going to tell you what this one will be......yet. It is one of the suggested ones on the list. At some point, if I get stuck, I may need suggestions...Just not yet.

So far this morning, the box has been three different colors...Of course, gesso white...Then a yellow that was too bright.  Now it is Ivory Ceramcoat.

Please keep the suggestions coming.  Help!!!

Thanks in advance.

See you tomorrow.

Three With One Blow.....

OK.  From now on, you only get to see two of the boxes.  They will be a step ahead of the one that you are giving me directions for. 

I have closed the suggestions for type of room or theme...There are more suggestions that I thought that there would be.  I am going to have to choose one today and get started on planning.

I put satin varnish on all three, but you can only see two.

I am not thrilled with the looks of the one with the arched top.  It is not as well made as the others.  I guess that is why I covered the other  one with wallpaper when I did it.

I had plenty of scraps of flooring for the ones that you get to see. 

No fair suggesting that I use the same for the mystery box.

I can see that, on the first one, I need to re glue the front edge where Tessie is standing.

Some of the suggestions were for things that I have already done.  Most of those will be put aside.  That will whittle down the list a bit.  I don't really want to repeat something that I have done before....Especially if I have done it a number of times.

The flooring that I am using in these two boxes is some of the "scraps" that I got from Sue. 

How's this for scraps?  I don't know where she got this, but it is really neat.  It is a chevron pattern with very thin wood strips.  They are glued to a backing and very easy to install.

Now.  For the question of the day...  I need suggestions for flooring and wall treatments....Paint, wallpaper, fabric or other....Along with suggestions for color.  I might just use some of them in the two extra boxes too. 

The fun starts now.

See you tomorrow.

Fast and Furious...Times Three....

This morning we left the house at 6:15AM to go out to Dove Mountain....Walter wanted to show me the golf course there.  We figured that there wouldn't be much traffic...There wasn't.

Why so early?  We wanted to catch a movie in a new theater on that end of town....It takes an hour to get out to the north side where that is.  And we wanted to have breakfast at Cracker Barrel before the 9:00 showing of Fast and Furious Six. 

OK...Now you know.  I have a weakness for movies with good car stunts and lots of action...This one was pretty good as the series goes.

 If you go see it, be sure to watch for the world's longest airport runway!  Towards the end of the movie, the bad guy runs his car up onto a reallllly big transport plane.  The next ten to fifteen minutes is taken up with the plane getting up to speed and trying to get in the air...All while cars are crashing, hooking themselves to the plane with grappling hooks and everyone is shooting at everyone else.  Finally after we were about ten minutes into the scene, Walter leaned over to me and whispered, "Just how long IS this runway?".  I adopted a wait and see attitude....

Anyway, when we got back, I started hunting for a new project.

I found Tessie in the Archeologist's office, chasing snakes.  For her, that's a fun sport.  If she catches them, she just lets them go and starts from the beginning.  At least it keeps her out of other trouble.

That gave me a new direction.

I remembered that I still have three of the four boxes that I bought at the time.  They were raw wood and I bought them at Big Lots, when it was still McFrugel's...It's been a while.

I got out a can of stain and did the other three at once.  Now all I have to do is figure out what to put inside. 

Shall we play a game?  One of the flat topped boxes will be for you to decide on.  First of all, suggestions for what kind of theme it will have. 

The catch is....You will write the suggestion and I will pick one.  Then I will ask for things like wall color or wallpaper.  You will suggest.  I will pick one that I think will work.  Then other things like shelving or something else to go on the inside of the lid.  Keep in mind it will be in the vertical position, like the one behind Tessie. 

I will be working on at least one of the other ones at the same time...To alleviate boredom.  I will show you that.  I will not show you the one with your suggestions until it is finished.

Are you ready?  Today it is suggestions for theme or type of room, please.

If nobody responds on a particular day, I get to choose.  I'm waiting........

See you tomorrow.

Lazy Sunday....

Actually, it wasn't all that lazy.  I spent a couple of hours doing yard work.

Then I came in and gave our bathroom a thorough cleaning....Can you tell that I am feeling better?

Those two tasks took a big chunk of the morning.

I then took a break to eat lunch and watch TV.  You don't hear any mention of minis, do you?

About one o'clock, I decided I had better do something, so I worked on the rug for the craft cottage. 

At least now I am not sneezing all over everything in sight.

I worked on both ends....I sure do hope that it meets right when I get to the middle....So far. So good....

You may ask why I brought up the subject of cleaning the bathroom...I know...Everybody has to do it.

We have a family joke in ours.  There is a large mirror over the double sinks.  It was a brand new house when we moved in...I took one look in our bathroom and was very unhappy.

The builders took it upon themselves to take the law literally....I know, from neighbors, that they didn't do it to every house, but in our case, they cut a hole in the bottom center of the mirror...and installed an outlet.  I have no idea what logic they were using. 

It seems to me that it would have been easier to install the mirror a bit higher and ;put the plug beneath.  Nope.  Even though there is a plug just to the left of the mirror, they insisted that, if you have a double sink, you MUST have a plug between the sinks!

Anyway, for the past 15 years, I have spent a lot of time thinking of ways to disguise it. Thus the jokes....What is mom going to cover the outlet with next?

There have been tall potted plants, tall candlesticks, tall jewelry boxes and tall jewelry trees...Do you see a keyword here?

I have always kept minis out of the bathrooms... Moisture is not that good for a lot of mini things..

This morning, while I was cleaning the bathtub and up to my elbows in  bubbles, Tessie solved my problem....I heard some rattling and rumbling.  When I turned around, there was Tessie, astride her favorite dragon....Log and all.

It was meant to be.  Now if I can talk her into leaving him parked there, the problem will be solved once and for all, or until I tire of using dragon's breath to dry my hair.  It makes me dizzy.  I simply stand still and he flies around my head(not to close). 

Tessie assures me that he is well trained and as long as I don't move there will be no singed earlobes or frizzy hair.

See you tomorrow, if the house is still standing and not a big pile of charcoal...

One Step Beyond....

I realized something this morning....See that silly green, greenhouse?  It has nowhere to live.  I am going to have to step back and think about it for a while.  No use working on it if I just have to shove it back in the depths of the closet...

When I looked at my brushes, I decided that the time would be better spent cleaning and conditioning those.

If you have been around for a while, you know that I have a bad habit of leaving brushes to their own devices as far as getting clean...Then I find them still dirty a few weeks later.  Like the two that are standing on their bristles  by the water cup....

I have often given the hint of soaking your bad brushes in alcohol for about 20 minutes and then rinsing them.  It does work...

I was wandering around in Craftgawker http://craftgawker.com/ the other day and found a tip on cleaning and conditioning makeup brushes. 

If it conditions make up brushes, why not paintbrushes?

This is the "One step beyond".  The brushes on the left of the photo were simply rinsed in alcohol.

The ones in the right foreground were taken a step further.  I don't know if you can see it in the photo, but they are decidedly softer and shinier than the ones on the left.

The secret formula was....wait for it.....simply equal parts of dish washing liquid(Joy) and olive oil!  Then rinse in hot water. Weird huh?

Look what it did to my #18/0 liner brush!  It is completely clean and not a hair out of place!

It's another case of "betcha can't clean just one".  Somebody stop me!!! I cleaned them all...I even conditioned the ones that had not yet been used.  OK... I went overboard. 

I am slowly coming to my senses. And besides, I ran out of brushes. 

Tessie is guarding the 18/0 with her life.  If I clean that one anymore, it will be down to three hairs.  And it was one of the ones that didn't need cleaning. 

OK.  On to something else now....Sorry to bore you with brush cleaning....Everything's right in my world.  My brushes are clean....I am off to paint something now. If you have time, do stop by Craftgawker(some of the ideas change into minis easily) and wander around.  There is also a Dwellinggawker(lots of ideas for rooms and houses) , Stylegawker(clothes and jewelry) and Foodgawlker(great recipes) that you can get to from the top or bottom of that page.  I will warn you.  They are addictive.  They change daily.  Except on weekends sometimes. Have Fun!!!

See you tomorrow.

Water, Water. Everywhere....

OK....We have running water.

I antiqued the fountain with washes of burnt umber this morning.  The method is to put on a very sloppy wash and then quickly wipe it off.

Here is has the wash and hasn't been wiped yet.

Next, I found a gold lion's head finding in my stash.

I painted it to match the lighter color and antiqued it too...

Now comes the interesting part....What to do for the water.

First I tried the old twisted clear tape with white glue over it.  I have never liked that.

So.....Mad scientist time ensued. 

I found a satisfactory solution...clear stretch bead string and Beacon Adhesives Fabri-Tac.  It's clear.

I tied a knot in either end of a doubled strand of the string.  It kind of automatically wants to twist if one end is just folded  instead of cut.  The two strands are going in  a different direction that way.

The bottom end I threaded into a piece of clear acetate packaging plastic.  That was pulled down until the top of the string matched up with the lion's mouth....

I have a question.  Why did old school sculptors think that it was cool to have fountains with lions drooling into them?  Just curious....

Anyway, I took the Fabri-Tac and dripped it onto the strands of bead thread and down onto the surface of the pool(acetate,cut to the shape of the top)

My Fabri-Tac was on the elderly side, so I had to do a lot of fiddling with a wooden skewer.  It must have worked out though.  I had to keep pulling Tessie away... She wanted to put her toes in the water....

I finally let her touch it and get stuck to the surface.  After that she wasn't so keen on sticking any part of her body in it.

As soon as it drys some, I will add a few extra splashes and maybe a couple of lotus flowers.

I just heard Tessie trying to convince Zar to try out the new pool....I had better go stop the disaster that is about to happen....

See you tomorrow.

If You Snooze, You Loose!

I glued down the flooring and started painting the fountain this morning.  I only have the first coat on it.  No antiquing or shading yet.

No decisions on whether it will be a fountain or filled with flowers yet.

When I put it in, I kept thinking that the floor looked way too busy...It's already glued down.  What to do?

Remember the macrame outdoor rugs from the 80's?  They were busy, but somehow broke up the floor underneath...Somehow it works.

I have decided to go with the natural colored furniture that I had in my stash....I am not a fan of white wicker.  It collects dirt and grime too easily.  Maybe you haven't noticed.  I only have a few pieces in my personal collection.  I prefer natural or colored pieces.

In the thirties, you wouldn't believe some of the colors that wicker came in.  Most of it has since been painted over with white, black or neutral.

Tessie made the mistake of sleeping in this morning....Thus the title.

Zar moved in and made himself comfortable. 

Tessie is not happy with being on the outside, looking in....Too bad.

She only has about a dozen other outside/greenhouse/gazebo places to retreat to...It will take a while, and I will whisper in her little ear...Tessie, go to your happy place...

Who knew???  I should have guessed.  Revenge is sweet.  The only white wicker that I know of is Zar's.  Tessie is up on the rooftop, eating everything messy that she could find in his refrigerator...No napkins.  No place mats....And I am sure that all of the stuff will be left up there when she decides to vacate the premises.

I wonder if she left anything in the fridge?  My appetite is returning.  I need a snack.

See you tomorrow.

Use It Up....Not Always As Minis...

For those of you that have been reading for a while, this is an often quoted saying..."Use it up.  Wear it out.  Make it do or do without."

I use it a lot...The trouble is, I never seem to use everything up or wear everything out.

I keep finding new things to do with stuff that other people find useless...

First example is magazines.  They are usually thrown out or die a horrible death in some doctor's or dentist's office.

I found a blog from Europe and immediately had to try this technique.  First I made Widget a bed.  He loves it and sleeps in it every day. 

Now I am working on a cat cave.  I have the bottom done and will be working upwards from the circle that you see.  I also started experimenting with a tote bag. 

These are surprisingly strong and probably will last for years.  Fairly quick to make too.

I still cant resist a bargain at garage sales.  I do like making all kinds of baskets, especially coiled.

I picked all of this wire up at a garage sale.  I have made several small baskets and will probably make a lot more. I can also use it for jewelry. This amount of wire, if I bought it new would cost a lot of money.  Most of it is copper. I got it for a couple  of bucks. I am sure that it would have ended up in a dumpster if I hadn't rescued it.  My good deed for the day....And money saving  besides.

Yesterday, I really was not feeling like moving much.  So I whipped out my ball of sisal and some scrap pearl cotton.

This is one of my favorite techniques.  Coiled baskets aren't as fast as some of the others, but they can be made in so many shapes and sizes and whatever color you want to make them.

I am using three strands of thread held together, so it uses three times as much thread, in a third of the time....Did that sentence make sense?

I did take the time to dig through a couple of other drawers, in search of more thread.

I found this forgotten bag that I started a couple of years ago....Guess what I am going to work on today?

If all else fails, I grab a crochet hook and make storage bags.

I don't bother with patterns for these.  I just go round and round.  Then I stop when I think it's done...

There are free patterns on websites like Crochet Pattern Central http://www.crochetpatterncentral.com/ if you don't want to wing it.

Again, these are done with more than one strand of crochet cotton held together.

When I run out of one color I just add in something that I think will look OK with the rest of the thread.

The pink one was done with some open work and then strips of fabric were run through the holes.

At one point, about 15 years ago, I though that tassels would use up a lot of thread....I found them too work intensive and when they were finished, they were pretty, but not really useful.

That experiment went by the wayside....Back to bags.

Anyway, since I am sitting around coughing and blowing my nose a lot, I have given up on minis for the couple of  days.  I really am making progress.  I need to go find my #F crochet hook. 


See you tomorrow.

You Can't Hold a Good Witch Down!

As soon as the mail arrived yesterday, Tessie was out of the workroom in a flash.

I made the mistake of saying aloud that there was something for Tessie in the box.

This witch is still down, but making progress.  That witch is off and running again.

This is what was in the package.  Tessie's very own terrarium.  We have to fill it with plants, but the bubble part was in the package.

I had to temporarily fill it to show you.

This one, I just put some of the rain deer moss inside and stuck the bottom in a gold jewelry finding that I had in my stash....It is, by no means, permanent.

I bought two.  The second one was for me.  Just for fun.  Probably a one time wearing to witches and then it will also become Tessie's.

It is a very large ring.  I don't know who, in their right mind, would really wear it.

I got both from another Etsy shop.  I couldn't resist.  I got a gift card for mother's day and had to do something with it.  I love those as a present.  There are so many different kinds of shops on Etsy and you are bound to find something that you like in one of them.

Anyway, back to the Tessie sized terrariums.  I happened to have some woodsies just the exact size to fit in the ring base.  I took one of those and covered it with sand.  Then I glued some dried and live scraps of plant materials and a few tiny rocks to the base.  Pretty cute.

While I was doing that, Tessie tried hers out in her bedroom....Yes.  In the townhouse.  I am so confused.  I am never sure where she is living at any given moment.

She had the audacity to pull the plant that I made a few days ago and stick it under the dome.  Actually, it looks better than what I did.  And the extra added advantage is, it will come out and be replaced at a moment's notice.

For those of you that want to see the shop where I got these, it's called "Ingredients for Lovely".  This is the first time I have ordered from there.  Seems like a good place to go.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/ingredientsforlovely?ga_search_query=jewelry&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_ship_to=US&ga_vintage_rewrite=jewelry+supplies&ga_original_query=2&ga_page=4&ga_search_type=supplies&ga_facet=suppliesjewelry&page=1

I am going to go do other things now....I am behind on cleaning and laundry....One day at a time.

See you tomorrow.

8:41AM and Done for the Day.....

I got out of bed at 4:00AM. this morning.  By five, I was outside re potting plants on the patio.  By seven I was back to work on the green house.

I got the other side of the roof shingled.  You will have to take my word for it.

At that point, I started slowing down.  So I sat down...  Big mistake.

I did put a finishing touch on the front window openings.

They now have fancy brass iron work in the top corners.  I thought about painting them black for wrought iron, but decided that I liked the brass.

They are corner findings that I got from Montage Supply on Etsy 
http://www.etsy.com/shop/montagesupply?ref=ss_profile

I like this shop.  It has jewelry findings that I use for both jewelry making and miniatures.  Good service too.

These brass corners are 10 for 2.99.  I still have 4 to use somewhere else.  They would be pretty on the front of a notebook too.

About the time I got them glued on, Tessie showed up.  Did you know that mini witches can't catch real people bugs.  She announced, "I am as healthy as a very large horse and intend to stay that way!.....Now go away and let me see if I am going to like my new greenhouse....Did you have to be so literal?  Come on!...A green, greenhouse?....I think that the cold is messing up your mind!"  She was still chattering away as I left the general area.

That was when I decided that I had worked long enough.  I tuned her out and left altogether.....Closing(and locking) the door behind me.  Let's see how she gets out of this one....I am going to go take another nap...

See you tomorrow.

Still Greenish....

I had  to show you what I discovered after I finished the blog about the desert dish.  There is a strange optical illusion there.  When you look at it from the side, it looks like this little piece of desert is floating...Very strange, but kind of fun.

OK....I just finished putting on a third coat of Folkart  Italian Sage inside and out on the green house....Not a spot of white left anywhere.

I am going to have to sand down a couple of shingles where I smeared green.  It is really hard to get the brush in all of the nooks and crannies, without smearing it.

Anyway, that part s done.

On to plants.  First, the easiest plant in the mini universe.  Foam inside the pot.  Glue on top of that.  Stick in some reindeer moss and glue on a few tiny flowers.  Instant plant.

For those of you that aren't familiar with methods for paper flowers, I used a tiny flower punch for the above flowers.

Then I put them on this mat of leather with the rough side up.  The paper stays in place best on this side.  I use a ball stylus, pressing down in the center of each tiny flower to cup it.

I do the same with the leaves, with a larger ball stylus, in a round and round motion.

This one is done with the above leaves.  I put some of my nandina stems in a pot, let the glue dry and stuck the leaves, two or three to each end of stem.

The flowers on this are seed ;pods from one of the plants in the back yard.  I will have to see if I I  can find the name for it.

I simply snipped them off after they were dry and painted them...Perfect daisies.

Health report.  I am now in the sneezy, runny nose stage.  I am going to have to stop making plants.  there are petals and leaves all over the bedroom.  You know.....Cup a leaf.  Sneeze.  Pick up leaf.  Cup another leaf.  Sneeze.  Pick up two leaves....They are multiplying.  Soon I will be doing way more picking up than cupping.

Back to the tissue box.  See you tomorrow.

It's Not Easy Being Green....

The green house and I are both singing that this morning.  I won't go into details, but I am still not in the pink...Sorry.  I couldn't resist that.

The green house is going to need several coats to look good.

I am trying to decide if I want to paint the inside of the greenhouse green too...

The problem is, the acrylic sheets were glued in with some kind of glue that shows.  They are all the size of the side of the building...Not for each window.  I may have to cut them down and do individual windows....That's a LOT more work.

I also have to scrape the glue off of the insides.  This is turning out to not be a fast project.

I took duplicate fountain out of one of the birdcages and put it in here to see what it was going to look like.  I am definitely thinking darker stone.

Then I have to decide if I want to plant flowers or try for water....I am thinking that flowers would brighten it up a lot more.

In looking for this birdcage, I got into a lot of other "garden rooms".

I discovered that the real greenhouse needs to be replenished once more.  Every once in a while, I sit down and make plants to fill that one.  Then I use the plants in other settings as they are needed.

It works out well until I find that, once again, I am running out of plants.

I am going back to hack and cough again for a while....Maybe I should just sit and make plants for the rest of the day....Or maybe not....Sneezing doesn't go well with hundreds of little leaves that like to fly.

See you tomorrow.