Checking in

I was looking through my post list and realized that I have 2 different posts saved as a draft because I could not for the life of me get blogger to upload my photos, so I gave up and then got busy again - sigh- and so it seems to go.   I still have quite a few things I wanted to post, but I am not sure it will happen at this point.   But in the past year we have rescued a stray kitten (who is now 8 months old) and a gotten a Bearded Dragon so here they are....

Alice when we first rescued her.

Alice tonight.

Draco when we first got him ( I could not get one tonight, he is napping)

Then my miniature club has been preparing to host our NC State Day event, so that has kept me rather busy.  Besides the normal working full time, taking care of the house and 2 teens.  So at the end of the day I do not have the right frame of mind to post ANYTHING!  But I am looking forward to a little break after State Day is over.  Our group is meeting the weekend for an all day work session to start getting our kits together, so it should be a fun day!

Now hopefully, some time this year, I will get a chance to get all of the convention photos uploaded somewhere so I can add the link.  But for now I have a few of this things that I got while I was there.

A set of different tweezers, a mini glue bottle with holder,
a small and large gluing jig to get perfectly square corners.

These were all of the table gifts from my table mates.  Some are 1" scale
and some are 1/4" scale, but I cant wait to use them all!

Another table gift, the set of 3 bins (storing some of the things from above)

This was a class I took on how to make 1/4" flowers and plants.
I learned a lot and now have plenty of supplies to make more.

More flowers and plants.

 

Well, that is all for now, time to start the getting ready for bed portion of the evening.

Take care,

The Merry Mini Makers of the Triad: NC State Day Raffle Opportunity

I know I have been a bad blogger, and one day I might actually explain why, but for now I have other tihngs to focus on.  I do still get to miniatures a little, but it is mostly club stuff right now.  so, I just thought I would share a post from our Mini Club blog about an upcoming event....  Feel free to go check it out....


The Merry Mini Makers of the Triad: NC State Day Raffle Opportunity: Well, we are hard at work getting the details of State Day taken care of and some of the raffle items are starting to come in so I thought I...

My Swaps & Table Favors

I decided to participate in the swaps at the NAME convention.  You could choose whichever scale you wanted to.  I decided to do the 1" scale swap  and  the 1/4" scale swap.  For this swap, we had to make 20 like items for each scale.  For my 1" scale swaps, I chose to do pizza's our of Fimo clay.  I had never done it before but I found a few different tutorials on You Tube - watched them all - and then dove right in.

All of my naked pizzas.  The tiny ones all got squished together, they were just not working out.

At this stage I have used pastel chalk dust to get the crusts looking baked.

All Done!  They are a little bigger than a quarter, but I think they turned out pretty good for my first time.

For the 1/4" scale swap, I ended up making 20 of the eyelash flowers that posted about back here.  At the time I could not find my camera, so I used my daughters camera to get some photos to show you guys.  However, she deleted them thinking I had already saved them on the computer.  So I have no photos of those, but you can see the first one I made HERE.


We were also to make 9  - 1/4" table favors to share with our table mates at one of our meals.  I did a floor lamp out of beads.  Again, I found the tutorial online & played around with my stock of random beads until I found something that worked.  The black post is a toothpick cut to length.  Very easy to do this project.  I am fairly new to working with 1/4 scale items, but I just need more practice to get comfortable with it.

My lamps

I am also working on getting a blog for our Mini Club up and running.  if you want to take a peek, it is here.  Feel free to follow as well, it is meant to be shared.    I guess that is all for now.  Hopefully soon I can get all the convention photos posted.

Take Care,

NAME Convention

Well I am back from the NAME Convention in Charlotte.  I have  a lot of photos to share, but I am still sorting through everything, but I will get them posted soon.  I just wanted to post a few pictures to share form the exhibit room.  Enjoy!



This is all I have time to upload right now.

Take Care,

One more thing

Just a quick post to show you guys something else that I had gotten several months ago & I could not find my camera.  I just got around to taking pictures of it last weekend.  I was shopping at a local store and came across the perfect thing for yet another Harry Potter scene.  This is a small CD or DVD Cabinet that is about 2 1/2 feet tall. 

Not the greatest photos, but when I saw this, I immediately thought of the visitors entrance to the Ministry of Magic.  By the time I had it loaded in my buggy, I had already decided that I will do three separate scenes from the ministry.  One on each shelf.  There are several good one to choose from, so I get to plan that out as well.

Take Care,

My Lucky Day....

This past Saturday 3 ladies from my miniature club and myself went on a mini adventure. One of the few miniatures stores left on our side of the state was having a miniture garage sale.  They do this event once a year to let local miniaturists get together & get rid of things they no longer want.  So we all decided we HAD to go.  We all met up bright & early and took the 1 1/2 hour road trip to the store.  This is not a huge event by any means, but it is always fun to search for our new treasures.

Now to fully understand why the treasure I found means so much to me, I need to fill you in... This store also does and event on the first Saturday in December which is a day full of Christmas make-it - take -its, raffles, and just a fun time all around.  Some club members and I had gone to that event & while we were there, I fell in love with this partially finished house that someone had decided they wanted to sell.  Well, the owner of the store was not there at the time, but one of the long time helpers was there and gave me a price for it.  It was more than I wanted to pay, but I really did want this house, and I knew it was just perfect for me.  So after a few tortured hours of debating this in my head & discussing pro's & con's with my buddies, I decided I was going to get it.  I went & told the helper, that I would take it.  However, the store owner was there and after finding out the selling price said that no, he wanted almost double that the original price.  Which in all honesty, would be a fair price for this house, but it was way out of my range.  I was dissapointed to say the least, but it simply was not meant to be.  It haunted me - I had dreams about that house after this happened, & it would make me a little blue, but that is how it had to be.  The helper person had joined our mini club after that, and I would always joke with her whenever I saw her and would ask her how "my" house was doing?  Has he sold it yet?   (I had no bad feelings towards her, she was a s surprised as I was when it happened).
Anyway, fast forward 6 months to the garage sale event - and during this, the helper person came up to me and said that she had actually taken the same class for this house & she did want to sell hers as well, but I had to commit to it now, because she had someone else there that was interested as well, but she wanted to give me the first shot at it.  She was selling hers for the original price she had given for the other one (which by the way is still in the store), and gave me 10 minutes to decide.  I immediately got one of my mini friends who knows the whole situation to discuss.  Knowing how I felt about this house, it was really a no brainer, but when doing these things, I do like to have a second opinion to be sure it was not too impulsive.  So, I am now beyond happy to report that I am the proud owner of a Rik Pierce kit.  From what I can tell, this was a class he had done in 2009 or 2010.  I do not know which class my house was done at, but I can find out.   I ended up finding a link to a blog (over at Debbies link blog HERE) that does a chronicle of her taking the class & doing this house.  Her blog- The Witches Cotttage for the house is really well done & it will be a great reference for me.  My chimmney is a little different, but it looks like the same house otherwise.  Some of the photos are washed out a little, it was 102 degrees F. & the sun was just brutal, but I had to get the before pictures done so I could play!

The front of the house

The inside

The side and the swamp area

I just love this chimney!

Closeup of the fireplace.

As you can see, there is a minor repair to be done on the front awning, but it looks fairly simple.  Other than that, the only thing is the roof.  It is complete, it just needs to be painted and aged.  All of the electricity is done & it looks great!  I have a horrible photo of it, but it will show you what it is like when it is dark....

all lit up - (very poor photo!)

I think I have decided where most of my dragons are going to live!  This would be a great house for my collection... :)

It will be a while before I can actually get to working on this, I have to get ready for the National Convention in 3 weeks, but I did want to share before it got too hectic.

Take care,

Sorting today

I am spending a little time today sorting through my miniatures.  I am trying to get ready for the National Convention in Charlotte NC, and need to find a few tools that I want to bring.  I know I have them somewhere, but sometimes they get misplaced.  Which in turn launches a full scale investigation of every box/drawer/container that I have my minis stored in.  It is getting better, because each time this happens, I vow to make sure it doesn't happen again!  So I get more and more thing that belong together - together.  During this process I often get distracted when I come across some of my favorites.  Earlier I found one of my very favorite things to collect.  Dragons.  Over the past few years, I have been collecting dragons from Nicky over at nickycc.com, you can also find her on facebook here.  She has the most amazing dragons!  I just love the expressions she is able to create.  If you have a little time, she has all of her galleries of past work on her site & it is really fun to look through.
Anyway, I also realised that I have never taken any pictures of them all together, so I wanted to post one here to share with you.

The lighting is not ideal, but we have no sun today, it is very overcast.  Regardless, they are still the cutest things and they always bring a smile to my face.  I better get back to my sorting and find the rest of my tools!

Take Care!