1/4 Inch scale room

Well, as I told you in my last post, I have several projects that I need to get finished up soon, one of which I am really not inclined to finish at all. I have had so much trouble getting inspired to work on this one. So I decided to get that one finished first & out of the way. I have been working on getting my 1/4" scale roombox done. I had ordered the furniture kits earlier this seek & received them on Saturday. So I stained them & them put them together. Below are the finished pieces of furniture.
(you can click on any photo to make it larger)

This is the mission style chair which I am not really happy about, it did not come out as straight as I wanted it to, but it was my first kit that I had done. I havent decideed if I will actually use it in the room or not.

This is the coffee tabel that goes with the set. It turned out ok, although I did not think the legs would be angled. Oh well.

This is the rocking chair which I got to put on the front porch.

This is the couch in mission style like the others. This one came out the best I think.

Here is the roombox itself. It has a front porch wtih grass on it, but i did not take any photos of it. I Still have a bit of the finish work to do, but the inside is basically done. Then all I have to do is add the furniture.

Here is the fireplace. That was fun to put together! The little logs inside are so small, they fit inside my fingernail.

A friend of mine wants to make the cushions for the furniture, so hopefully that will add a littel bit more to the room. I also found a tutorial for doing some 1/4" scale plants using painted fake eyelashes for the greenery. I will try to work on those this week. When I get them done I will post some pictures.

Well, that is all I have for now. Take care!

Busy-Busy....

Well, it seems that life is really just trying to kick my butt right now, so I rarely have time to post anything here, but I will keep trying. It may just be random for a while until things settle down here. Both my kids have started new schools, my son starting middle school & my daughter starting high school, so we are just now starting to get into a routine with their new schedules & activities and such. I have also started a new chores routine which we are ALL getting used to, but hopefully that will get easier with time. Work .... is just crazy right now, but as always with business, it is good to be busy! SO, between all of my real life stuff going on, i really am having trouble finding time for miniatures.
I do have several things I am slowly working on at the moment. In our miniature club, we do a show every two years for the residence of the place where we meet. (an assisted living facility) So I am trying to come up with some items to show there. I have my toy store that is done, but we have been working on this 1/4" scale room that they (the club) wants to show as a group, so I am trying to make sure those get done by mid October. I really don't like working in 1/4" scale, but this is my first time so it is slow going. I would also like to finish up our project that we started at state day to display at the show as well, but we will see how that goes.....I had already decided what I wanted to do with my scene, but I don't have time to do that, so i may rough finish it for the show & then redo it later to do what I really wanted to do. I will try to get some photo's this weekend and get them posted. Until then.... take care!

Wow!

I never thought that a week would turn into 3 months!! Summer has been crazy for me. I will be changing the design this weekend when I have more time, but for now I had to add SOMETHING because it was just blank!! My mother will be coming on Sunday to take both kids for a week ( whoopeee!!) so hopefully next week, i can get back on, redesign get updated on what I have been up to!

I just wanted to leave a little note that I will not be posting at least until late next week. I am in the middle of planning & organizing a 3 day camping trip for my Girl Scouts that will be this up-coming weekend. A few years ago I gave complete control of the troop to them since they were old enough. So they make ALL the decisions. Which, I must say, is torture trying to watch a group of 13 & 14 year old girls decide on anything!!! Anyway, they have done their part, so now it is my turn to make sure all the details are covered.
We are also in the process of getting new cars (new to us anyway), so we have gotten the new cars, but still have the old cars, and trying make sure all the paperwork stays straight, I just have to make sure that nothing gets forgotten.

Anyway, I see I have some new followers which I will welcome properly, once all of this chaos has settled down, but until then... WELCOME.

My Very first Glass Containers

I know for most, this is not that exciting, but for me, it was. Ever since I started getting back into miniatures and discovered blogging and found people who liked the same type of miniatures that I wanted to do I have been wanting some little glass jars for my scenes. It all started when I accidentally came across Nikki's blog ( http://nikkinikkinikki72.blogspot.com/ ) "Witch and Wizards Miniatures" and I saw all of her amazing potion bottles and various glass jars that she uses to hold all of her magical body parts. From there it did not take long to discover several other blogs with an astonishing amount of wizard type miniatures that I never knew existed. It was very exciting to know I was not the only other Harry Potter freak (in a good way) who also wanted to recreate some of that world in miniature. I also quickly discovered that most of the people that I love their work are professional artists and making these wonderful miniatures are their full time job. This, for me, is a double edged sword. These artisans do such beautiful work that sadly I cannot afford. Not that it isn't worth every penny, its just not in my budget if my children want to eat. So after a few days of my very own pity party that I was not the millionaire that I ought to be (hee hee) I decided that I would just have to learn how do some of these things myself. They may not come out as good as theirs, but I would give it my best shot. Now come the glass bottles. I have fallen in love with all of the mini apothecary themed scenes that I have seen, so I have decided to do my own. Now, as you know, to do an apothecary, you need glass jars. Lots & lots of glass jars. All different shapes, sizes & colors! So, I have now begun my quest of finding all of these glass jars that I will need. I ordered my first 2 jars from E-Bay from a company in England about 2 weeks ago. It has been killing me waiting for them to arrive! (I do not do well with anticipation! Christmas is pure torture for me! :)) They have finally arrived and all in one piece! I used the photos from their site because I could not take one as well as they did.

But now that I have them, I almost feel bad putting eyeballs or brains in them! They are too pretty!! I am sure I will get over that soon enough, but for now, I just look at them and smile.

Wow, I really did not mean to ramble that much, but I really wanted to explain why I am so excited about 2 silly little jars! Today I have ordered 11 more from a different company. Hopefully they wont take as long to get here. We will see.

Thanks for reading!

The Last of the Goodies

Well, this is the last of my State Day stuff. First is the last of my clearance bin finds. It is a small glass & wire container that (to me anyway) looks like the perfect beginning to a greenhouse. The inside dimensions are 6" x 8". It is a little smaller than I would like, but it a great one to practice with. I would like to paint it white & then age it a bit, add an aged brick floor and figure out something for the roof. The sides have plexi-glass panels that can be taken out (easier for painting), but the top is all mesh. I would like a glass roof, but I have to ponder that one for a while.




Next we have our raffle winnings. My daughter and I both put some raffle tickets in and we both were really lucky and won. Hanna (dd) won this very bright, festive outdoor scene which she absolutely adores. She wants to add a few more things to it, then we need to find a case for it.

As for me, I won this lamp. (I know this may be really cheesy, but I have wanted one of these since the early 90's when I was doing miniatures before children.) The base of it is a small room box. You can light just the lamp, just the inside of the room box, or both. The lamps total height is only about 24" tall, so it is not too big. The room box inside is 5" squared. It has 2 windows to peek through, and a door.

This is with the back off, right now it is decorated like an entryway, but I plan on changing that.
This is the one I thought would make a cute little apothecary.

The whole back wall (where the dresser & painting are) would be floor to ceiling shelves filled with all sorts of potions and such. There is not much room on the other two walls, but I might be able to hang some random witchy things up there. I would also like to see if I can somehow make the light fixture inside MUCH smaller so it is not so intrusive. I would also like to see if I can fix the door so it will open. Right now it is just decorative.

Anyway that is it for State Day this year. I have plenty of projects to work on & now I have to find some place to find some glass potion jars that won't cost an arm & a leg. I have actually ordered 2 glass apothecary jars that I won on E-Bay, but they are coming from England & it is killing me waiting for them to arrive. Today is the 8th day, so hopefully it won't be much longer. I know when I went to boarding school in England, that packages from home used to take at least 2 weeks, but that was a loooong time ago & the boxes were bigger. :)

All My Goodies

Today I am going to post all of my goodies that I got at State Day. The first couple of photos are all of the things that came in the tote bag favors. For those of you unfamiliar with tote bag favors, these are all small little items that people attending the event made or bought 100 of their items to share with every participant there. generally people try to make items that could possibly be used in the project you are there to work on, but not always.


Items as listed: a ribbon windsock, a wooden screen, some magazines, 2 planters, 1 plant, lays potato chips, rubber bands, office folders, office paper, pencil, cat food, clock, coffee creamer& sugar packet, journal, hinges for the door, stamps, mailbox with mail.


A small wooden bench for outside, a flower box, an apron, a small wooden sign with hardware to hang outside of your store. (with room for you to personalize it)


Next are table favors which are ones that you only exchange with the people you have at your lunch table. I gave out my mushrooms to my lunch table people.


Random groceries with grocery bag, a lady bug (on the yellow piece of paper), a small tray for mixing paint, some children's building blocks, a cube with a clip on it, a craft knife that goes around your finger ( I am curios to try this one) in the Altoids tin is a desk set with a desk calender, a notepad, a to do list pad, some post it notes, & a pencil cup with 3 pencils inside, a chair that has been primed to be painted to put into your scene, The last item is in photo below...


This was a gift from the host club for everyone to use, a cup of coffee & plate of doughnuts, the plate says "My Little Corner" across the top & 2010 across the bottom. Very cute.


Next are some items that I purchased. A few of the vendors (there were only 7 or 8) had clearance boxes so of course I hit those first! I got the rocking chair for $3.00 & the set of 4 chairs for $4.00. The 4 chairs are going in the Weasley kitchen. Of course I have to re-paint them & age them quite a bit, maybe break a couple of spokes on the backs, I haven't decided yet. The rocking chair I plan on putting in Molly & Authors bedroom. I really think Molly deserves a rocking chair. One that I am sure she rocked all of her babies in. I also found year two Hogwarts school books which of course you know Had Gilderoy Lockharts books which (again) you know, Molly would own all of them since she fancies him. :)

That is all for now. I really didn't get to purchase much, my budget really wont allow it, but I figure if I get a little bit at a time, eventually (possibly when the house is built) I will have most of what I need.

I have 3 more things to show you tomorrow & that will end my adventure at NC State Day.

Thanks for reading!