Monday Witches...

 I am cleaning kitchen cupboards today, so I decided to let some of my witchy friends entertain you.

These are some of my witches that reside in the Mini Time Machine Museum. http://www.theminitimemachine.org/

The first one is a cousin of Tessie's.  Don't mention her name around Tessie.  She is very jealous.  This one was in Nutshell News, way back when she first started riding around on her pink bike.  She is a biker witch in all ways.

You can't see it, but she even has a black widow spider tattooed on her right hand.  Scary chick!

This one resides in one of the upstairs bedrooms of Pat's Witches Mansion... She holds a bottle of beauty potion in one hand and a magic mirror in the other.  Obviously, she needs the magic mirror, complete with a beautiful face....Because the expiration date on the potion passed a couple of decades ago...

There are lots of witches and other strange characters living there.

Some of them aren't too smart.  Some are forgetful. Thus the sign.  The bookcase actually lifts up when you pull on a rope that is behind the witch.

This is one of the out buildings on the grounds of them mansion.  It used to be a dance and exercise studio.  It is now a Decorator's shop.  The owner is the Beast from the old TV show, Beauty and the Beast.

The lady that is waiting has a spider web attached to the brim of her hat and it hooks over her nose to hold it on.  Very practical. A spider hangs down in front of her eyes.

This is a direct copy of one of  Malcolm Byrd's witches, from the "Witches Handbook".  Real book.  Very funny.

This is the lady downstairs.  She used to run the dance studio...Thus the workout clothes.

She is also from the "Witches Handbook".

At one point, the Wednesday Witches decided that we needed the book and every one of us ordered it.  There is a lot of handy information in there.  Spells for every purpose. Design ideas for your home... Even recipes.

This is where they all live.  I am not sure of the exact measurements of the case, but I think it is probably somewhere about 10 feet long.

Pat did this one all by herself.  When I was working there, she was on one side of a large worktable working on this some of the time and I was on the other, restoring.  I don't know who was having more fun.  Best job I ever had!

Anyway, it is time to go back to cupboard cleaning... Worst job I have ever had...

See you tomorrow.

The Witches Are Coming!

 I am sure that the centerpiece will have their approval. 

See?  The cacti are flourishing in the dish garden.  I don't think that the guy leaning against the cactus is doing to well though.

Notice, I put it on a turntable....Witches all want the front view.  This way there will not be a lot of fighting over whom has the best view...

I won't be getting much mini-ing done today.  When I was out this morning, I found a couple of things at Walmart.

Have I mentioned that one of my weaknesses is new notebooks/paper? 

For some reason a lot of companies are coming out with five squares to the inch graph paper.  I decided to see how it would work for drawing plans for minis.  The Graph Composition book was only 1.17.  It might be interesting to see if it is usable.  Just a different way of dividing the inch.

The little composition books came three in a package.  They are college ruled(1/4") lines.

They will be handy to carry in my bag for when I want to design something on the go.  They were 1.27 for all three.  Your choice of cover style.

 I had a bit of difficulty photographing this, but here's the tip of the day...

If you have 1/4" lined paper, you can make your own graph paper in a pinch.

Simply take one of the pages out and lay it sideways under the sheet that you want to draw on...

There you have it.  Do it yourself graph paper!

It shows up a lot better in real life than it does on here.  If you have difficulty seeing it, you can always darken the lines on the bottom paper with a black fine line pen.

Anyway, I will be back to the Mystery Box and friends tomorrow.

See you then.

What Is Christmas Without a Tree?

Never leave the house to go shopping for a couple of hours, if you don't want things to change whilst you are out! That's the lesson I learned for today.

Last night I thought that I heard the usual banging around in the family room. This morning, when I arose, It didn't look like they had even removed the cover from the party house. Not a good sign.

I didn't ask questions. I just went on my merry way to do some late Christmas shopping. The real mistake was not starting the shopping months earlier.....You know the feeling.

I found a few things and also got sore feet.

I knew something was amiss when I came home, entered the back door and not a sound was to be heard....Then I strolled into the living room and saw this!

The party has started. At least the decorating part has.

I confronted Tessie(and Zar) with, "What did you do? How could you?"

Tessie stood up to her full five and a quarter inches, looked me straight in the eye(she was standing on the third level) and said..."Well the cats seldom use this monstrosity. We decided that we want our usual Christmas Tree Party and this is the only tree in the place! We've got dibs!"

Zar was a big help. His comment was, "Yeah. What she said!" All the while fidgeting and pointing at Tessie.


I looked up and on the very top, Santa was perched between two trees. Nobody seemed to notice. He was checking his list....There were a great many checks on the "Naughty" side....

Below him and to the left is our one and only wrapped present for the year. It's something that I got for Walter. I can't tell you what it is. He reads this.

The next step down, Esmerelda, Spike and Buffy were settled in with beer and cookies. I question their taste in party food.

Yes, there are real lights around the edge of this layer and the next one down. I went and looked in the drawer where I keep the batteries....All gone.

Going down.

The spinning sister seems to be happiest when left alone. With drink in one hand and three pizzas to keep her company, can you blame her? She is putting up with the tiger cub, Theo, kind of. He had best draw back that paw from the deluxe pizza box though. She is Tessie's older sister and a witch to boot.

Inside, Tessie has the best room in the house(as usual).She moved in some of the mid century modern furniture and she has the tree from last year. This is the only room with actual lights. The fireplace is flickering. She stuck one of those little battery operated tea lights behind the screen. They also managed to get one of the LED lights stuck to the ceiling...I am going to have to investigate that....Bubble gum or Velcro?

After I got over the shock, I decided it wasn't so bad. I did tell them that it was up to them to keep the cats out of their party if they insist upon staying in the tree....It IS Mookie and Widget's tree. Not theirs.

As everything stands now, it looks like interest has been lost in the party house.

Maybe if one of the cats tries to take a bite out of one of them, they will change their minds.

Either they will go back to the party house or I am going to have to clean up the mess that they started. Wish me luck!

See you tomorrow.

Continuing Witches

You seemed to enjoy seeing some of the other witches I have done. So I decided to do one more day of "Old Witches"

This is Gertie. The poor woman has been hanging from the broom landing at the Witches Warehouse ever since it was built. Nobody seems to want to come to her rescue for fear of a retaliation spell.... She has reason to be irritated! Her broken broom is beneath her on the ground. She is Tessie's aunt.

You have all met Esmirelda before. I just never bothered with a close up. She is Tessie's sister and part owner of the warehouse. She solved the problem of keeping the hair out of her eyes by hiring a spider to weave hairnets around her, daily.

Unfortunately, the witches are not tidy. At one time we actually had some baby spiders (for real) living in the store. They spun the most perfect tiny webs. I had to release them to the wild after they grew a bit. The webs kind of disappeared after that.

Oops! Guess who just stormed into the computer room, demanding equal time. I knew that the quiet spell was not going to last. Yup. I have a few spells of my own.

She just bounced up onto the Webster's Universal College Dictionary. That's her favorite place for commanding my attention when I am writing. Eye level....

She had a jug of something questionable in her hand and she was glowering at me. I waited for the axe to fall.....She very quietly said, "I insist that you put me in this entry. After all, it's about witches and about my family." Then she hissed...."Or else....."

I didn't ask, "Or else what?" I am smarter than that. I grabbed the camera and snapped. She is now back to her normal(?) happy self, asking me sweetly to make her something new.... As for me, I am going to go make her something new to appease her now. I value my life......

See you tomorrow.