The Cleaning Never Ends....

I now have a clean hall closet. I took everything out and sorted through it on the bed.  Kota supervised. 

When he doesn't approve of what I am doing, he turns his back.  All I saw was his tail, most of the morning.

Then I went back to sprucing up minis.  Spike's doghouse is pretty much spotless now...

I think that I showed the pit bull property laws once before.

They are posted on the back of Spike's house.  He takes them very seriously. Beware!!! You might have to poke the photo to read them.

Be sure to memorize them all!

I cleaned out the greenhouse... Now all I have to do is make more plants.  This is where the plants all live until I need them in a scene or room box.

Lastly, I spruced up Hubert's Haberdashery. It is another building that is pretty air tight and doesn't collect a lot of dust.  It does need going over and straightening now and then though.

Anyway, that's all of the cleaning I am going to do for today. 

Back to work. See you tomorrow.

To Be or Not To Be....

I am still trying to come up with some  minis for the back yard...

I found these two mini green houses this morning... They have been sitting outside for a number of years...

I thought that I would bring them in and clean them up with Windex...

Guess what!? That didn't do a whole lot of good!

They are still dirty and now they have a coat of yucky stuff from being outside for so long...

I may try to get the glass out of them and wash it separately... But... I am not sure that is going to help at all! 

It may just be that they have been sitting outside too long and this is just the way that they are going to be.


I am wondering if the glass is just too old and has been outside too long.

Do any of you have any suggestions about bringing glass back to life?

If I can't use the glass, I may just take it out and build something over the structure with wood.

I am not going to scream and tear my hair out, but it would be nice to be able to at least use the framework. Any suggestions?

See you tomorrow.



 

Left Behind...

What's wrong with this photo?

It's simple... There are no leaves in the box.  Not one!!!

I was going to build some trees at the Wednesday Witches meeting today... Couldn't do it.  I got there and there was not even one leaf to be seen!

When I got home, Tessie was all anxious to see the new trees... Nope... Not one.

I also can't seem to find the frame for the opening in the little tower.

I checked and made sure that all of the other components were in the bag.

They seem to be.

 I did find the leaves. They were in a separate bag.  I am not sure that I like them. They seem a bit large to me. I may have to cut some by hand. When I looked around for them, I found some punches too.  I am not sure how these will look until I try them.

I am going to give up for tonight.  See you tomorrow.

 

 

Planted!

I got out some of the landscaping materials this morning.  I am trying to get some of the stuff that I have used up.  That's one way to clear space.

The greenhouse in the computer room needs more plants.  I have used most of them, so it's replacement time.

Since I am in a plant mood, I dragged out some of the kits that Witch Judy gave me.  She used to sell plant kits.  Now that she doesn't she is nice enough to give them to friends.

I started with one of her daisy kits. I made five of the fifteen flowers that it is supposed to make.  Then I was bored and wanted to do something else.  I made some of the ones that I had already to go in my box.

To the left, you see the ones from Judy.  I put them in a pitcher and they went into one of the
Colonial rooms.

Before I could get to the rest, Tessie showed up.

"You are not putting any of the others anyplace but in MY greenhouse.".  With that, she grabbed three other cosmos plants that I just finished and wouldn't let go.

"These are going in the greenhouse to replace some of the plants that you have stolen in the past couple of years. Now get back to work and make more.  There are still a lot of holes to fill!" She is now standing over me with a whip and a chair.  She won't let me do anything else today and I suspect that tomorrow is questionable too. 

The trouble is, between Judy's kits and the leaves and flowers that I have cut out... I could be working on flowers for several months.

How am I going to get out of this one?

See you tomorrow. 

What to Do....???

I went in the workroom and started looking around this morning...

On the top of one of the bookshelves is the weaver's cottage and Zar's Clockwork Cottage...

As I looked at them, I was wondering which to work on first... Then a horrible thought came to mind... When I get them done, where am I going to display them?  I realized that I have no place in the house to put them but back up on this shelf. What a waste!  So much for thinking!  It always gets me into more trouble than it gets me out of...

I then looked at the cute little cage that I made for Tessie.

No Tessie inside!  I am now wondering where she zapped herself and Spike.  I haven't heard a peep out of her all day... I think that she is messing with me.  Trying to find out how long it will take me to find her... I am just going to ignore her for the rest of the day and see if she comes out of hiding.

I then made the mistake of looking high on the shelves on the other side of the room....Bad mistake!

I saw the Russian cottage... I am not going to finish that for a while.  April doesn't have any room for it in the small house that they live in now. I think that it will stay where it is until they find a larger house. 


My biggest mistake was looking a little higher up in the corner...

Yup! A third one of those boxes.  This one even got a roof before I lost interest.

I think that I am just going back to cleaning out.  I need more room.  I have too many books that I haven't opened for years and years.  Too many supplies that I probably won't ever use.  Maybe the witches can take some of them off my hands.

Too many things are just standing in the way of progress.

I did get a bit of cleaning done before I sat down and wrote this. 

I have to look at these two buildings every day as I blog...

The dust was about a foot deep on the shingles of  Hubert's Haberdashery. The greenhouse was just about as bad. 

I am making more room as fast as I can.  I hope that you will stick with me until I get things all cleaned out. I am making progress.  Honest, I am. I keep getting another idea on how to make things better and redoing areas that I have already done... That doesn't help.

In case you can't tell, I am enjoying the process and I will enjoy it even more when I am finally satisfied with the finished project.  Back to work.

See you tomorrow. 

Not a Lot of Minis...

I didn't do a lot of minis today... Maybe I should say I didn't do any minis today...

So when I looked above my head, sitting at the desk, I decided to put up some photos of what I see when I sit here...

On my left is my greenhouse.

This was a life sized terrarium from way back in the early 90s. 

It is more or less a storage unit for plants that will go in other buildings.  Every once in a while, when it starts looking bare... I sit myself down and do a bunch of plants to restock... It is getting that way now.  I may just have to do some more plants... One of these days.  Meanwhile, Tessie and Zar inhabit it and drink tea from time to time... Plants or no plants...

To the right is Hubert's Haberdashery.  I think that you all watched this go together, early on.

If you go look in the labels, under haberdashery, you will get all kinds of information on it and how it was made if you are interested.

You had better do a search quickly.  Tessie moved in and is trying to talk me into to changing it to a ladies' dress shop... Never mind that she already owns a hat shop with a dressmaker's workroom upstairs... She wants to own everything in site.

I do believe that Zar will keep her in line.  He needs a place to buy his fancy ties.

I wondered where that rug was.  I put things in place and then forget they are there... Am I the only one that does that with minis?  I hope not.

Anyway, I will try to get back in the mood and make up for the lack of mini-making tomorrow.

See you then.

"We Were Robbed!!!"

I took a look above my head this morning...Big mistake!

The greenhouse sits atop the roll top desk.  Said greenhouse has not been cleaned for a while.  Here in AZ dust piles up fast, but that is a LOT of dust!

I took it down and used some Windex on the outside.

It looked a bit better when I put it back in place, but...Some of the windows still looked a little streaked and foggy. The inside still needs doing.

Then the trouble started.  Tessie showed up and looked inside, rather than just at the outer surface.

She turned to me and whispered, "We were robbed! Someone took almost all of the plants!"

I calmed her down and told her that the plants had simply been moved to other scenes.

She went into a tizzy and demanded that I replace all of them immediately.

I tried to explain that it is the purpose of the greenhouse to furnish all of the other scenes with plants as needed.  That's the whole point of a greenhouse.

She looked down her nose at me and hissed, "The plants should all be replaced when you do that.  You have not been doing your job!"

I hate to admit it, but she's right.  I have not made any replacement plants in a couple of years now.

I guess that would be a good idea.  After all, who knows when we will need a spiderwart or a petunia.

So...Back down comes the greenhouse and out come the flower making materials and tools.

That will keep me busy and out of mischief for a couple of days.  I am putting Tessie in charge of the glue syringe and here's hoping that she glues herself to a chair somewhere.  Maybe the workroom would be a good place for it, since I plan to work in the bedroom... I can only hope...

See you tomorrow.

No More Furniture...

Another one of my early heroes in miniature has retired.

Some of you may have heard of Jack Chasteen.  He is a furniture maker in mini. 

He and his wife did lots of shows on the west coast...I am not sure about elsewhere.  They had done the show here in Tucson as long as I have been in minis.

They live in Prescott.  Northern part of AZ.  My friend Barb used to live up there and just went back last week.

She came to Wednesday  group yesterday.  The Chasteens are not going to be doing minis. 

At the same time, she brought a lot of his samples of wood.  He used woods from all over the world.

The ones on the string were samples that he used to carry to shows.  The other ones were just spares. 

I took them thinking, lots of small table tops...Some of the larger ones would be OK, but the smaller ones weren't even big enough for candle stands.  What to do?

Last night I got the idea of turning them into jewelry...I don't know if it will work, but I am going to try.  The wood is too beautiful to hid away in a drawer somewhere.

Meanwhile, Tessie found out that I had basket making supplies that I took to the Witches meeting...
Unhappy witch?  You bet!

Zar wouldn't let her throw the baskets out.  He threw her out instead...Now we know where Tessie stands on Zar's list of useful items...

She is hanging on by the skin of her teeth ...

I also started another one.  Of course, that didn't set well with her either.

Here is a close up of the basket that I finished at the meeting.  The stones on it are real turquoise.

It is a Tennessee Spinner gourd base, with two strands of over dyed floss. 

In the close up it looks coarse.  In real life, it is fine.  Sorry about that.

I am going now to rescue Tessie.  Maybe she will mind her manners the rest of the day.

See you tomorrow.

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.

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.