V S P

That stands for Very Special Person... Kota said so!

As long as we have had him, he always runs in the closet when someone besides us comes in the house.

He has a new friend.  Gayle walked up to him and started petting him and he didn't even object. He's a good judge of character.

So... I let him model the beautiful necklace that Gayle mad for me. I don't think that he was as crazy about that as the petting part.  He liked that part. He approved of Gayle.

 This is the "Ice Dyed" fabric that she brought me. I am going to have to think of something special to make from it... Tessie has been eyeing it and hinting that she would love something made from it... I don't think so.  This is Mine! All mine. And so is the necklace.  I have a shirt that is almost the same color.

Thank you so much Gayle!  I love them all.  And Kota and Tessie are not going to get any of it!

I found three partial bags of  lichen. Two dark and one medium green.  I am well on my way to replacing the foliage on the outer walls.

It doesn't help that Tessie is trying to supervise where I put it.  I get it glued to the wall and she pops up and yells, "A little more to the left.". It's not helping.

At least she made friends with the momma dragon.  I am not sure how long that is going to last.  She is also crunchy and good with catsup.

Anyway, I am going back now and fill in a few bare spots that I see in the photos with more green stuff.

See you tomorrow.

Great Minds Think Alike...

We had company today. My friend Gayle and her husband Mark met us at our favorite Mexican food place for lunch.  I had not seen Gayle for about two years. 

Gayle and I lived on the same street back in the 70s and early 80s.  We were pretty much best friends when our kids were little.

Then when Mark got out of the Air Force, they moved back to Maine. 

She is the one that got the sewing room that I showed on here a few months ago. One of my very first mini rooms.

I have decided to give Tessie a middle name.  She and Gayle think alike. Gayle reads the blog and encourages Tessie's bad side.  I am not going to call her that, but she is now Tessie Gayle... I may have to call her that when she does something really bad.

Now about the minis... That blob of green that The momma dragon is holding is all of the greenery from the trees around the castle.  She seems to think that it would make a great dragon bed. 

I am not going to argue with a fire breathing dragon... To put it in her words, "You are crunchy and would taste good with catsup..." Nope.  No arguments here. The green stuff will just miraculously disappear overnight.

The cave next door holds Little Red Riding Hood.

Tessie stepped in this afternoon and warned Red that there were wolves in the neighborhood.

I don't think that Red is worried.  She carries a big hatchet under her cape in case of emergencies.

I am going to have to rewire this part. It was on a battery pack and there are glowing eyes around her in the forest.  So far they aren't working.  We will just have to do some trial and error fixing. 

I am going back to work with some greenery that I found in my stash now...

Tomorrow, I will show you what Gayle brought me. She made me a beautiful necklace and ice dyed me some fabric.  Love both.  See you tomorrow  with those in hand. Thank you Gayle. I love all of the goodies!!!

Two Firsts...

I am calling them two firsts, because I can't remember which one came first.

My long time friend, Gayle sent me this first photo yesterday.  She had trouble taking the photo because the glass was glued onto the front of the box... It is very hard to get a good photo through glass.

Anyway, I put both of these photos on  because I think that this was my first room box, but I'm not sure.

It may have been the one below.

They were definitely my first two room boxes.  I'm just not sure of the order. 

I gave Gayle the one of the sewing room because I first met her in one of the embroidery classes that I was teaching here in Tucson.  Then a bit later, she moved into a house about five houses down the street from me. 

We got to be good friends and our kids grew up together for a while.  Then she moved back to Maine.

Anyway, The sewing box is still in her real sewing room.  It wasn't too bad for a first or second try at making room boxes.  I built the table... I had a kit for a Chrysenbon sewing machine and chair. The wallpaper was gift wrap.  If you ever want to try that, be sure to spray it with artist's fixative before you do.  That will make it usable.

I was very proud of the dress on the dress form at the time... Then I learned about scale in fabric as well as scale in miniature... Not so proud after that.  It is mad from very thick velvet.

This kitchen was something that I made for my dad.  We were on a farm, where the kitchen looked a lot like this.  Wood stove and pump at the kitchen sink.

The stove in this one is a Chrysenbon.  The rest of the furniture, I built myself. A lot of the accessories(cat, pumpkin, other food and pitcher on the table wer made from Sculpey and painted. Back then there weren't a lot of things to buy.

We came to Phoenix, AZ when I was four and I was a desert rat from that time forward.  I hated going back to Michigan in the summer.  It was sticky and lots of bugs. And in AZ we had running water and coolers in the summertime. And we got to eat store bought bread most of the time...

Anyway, I enjoyed seeing that Gayle still has one of my first room boxes and I have the other one...

I just thought that you might like to see what started it all... The first two.

Back to work.

See you tomorrow.

Gayle Stopped By...

At one, this afternoon, I got reacquainted with one of my favorite people in the world.  We haven't seen one another for about 30 years!

Gayle came in from Maine earlier this week and she came out to our house this afternoon. 

When April was a little girl, Gayle and her family lived down the block from us and we spent a lot of time together.  I had April and Gayle had Danny and Darrin.  The five of us did a lot of things together back then.

She came bearing gifts... First  neat sock yarn from Maine. Really pretty colors.

Then a couple of granite rocks from the edge of a river.  Tessie and Zar confiscated those quickly!

Great seating!

The third gift was polished rocks.  She tumbled them herself!  I see a lot of jewelry coming from these.  They are to beautiful to put in the yard of a mini house.

Anyway, the best gift was Gayle, herself.  We walked around and looked at minis.  Then we ate blueberry muffins and talked and talked some more!

It was like we still lived a few houses from each other and decided to spend time catching up again. 

Gayle has what I believe is the first actual mini box I ever did... It was a sewing room that I did for her... She still has it!  She has promised to take photos of it and send them to me.  When she does, I will put them on the blog. 

I gave her a couple of pieces of wicker and a basket.  These are bribes to talk her into finishing a room box that she started long ago!  I taught her to dress a bed back then.  She still has it and is determined to finish the room.  I can't wait to see what she does now.  If she sends photos of the room, I will show you that too.

Gayle!  Get to work as soon as you get home!  If you need help, just yell.  Loudly!

See you all tomorrow.