Late Christmas Greetings...

Well, I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas getting together with family and celebrating the season! My Christmas didn't turn out quite like I had planned, but it wasn't horrible or anything.

My computer has not been working for a few weeks now we finally got it fixed so I am glad I can get on  post again... :)

Sorry, back to Christmas.... originally We had planned to go and spend Christmas at my Mothers house which is in the Tennessee mountains. ( her house sits on the very top of their mountain) These photos were taken at a previous Thanksgiving, but it will give you an idea...

This is the front of the house

This is the back of the house, my favorite part is the porch that runs the across the entire back


This is early in the morning looking off the back porch into the valley which is filled with fog.

It is a lovely house with breath-taking views, I always enjoy going to visit it is so relaxing. She only lives about 4 hours away, so it is not a long trip, but the weather was supposed to be bad filled with snow ice, so all week long we watched as the forecast changed daily, then on Thursday they were calling for us to get 2"-4"of snow, which means that her snow totals would be at least twice as much as we got. ( she always gets more) So I decided to be a chicken and stay home. I was worried about being able to get home on Sunday if the roads weren't clear and sliding off the side of the mountain.

So anyway, since we were supposed to go up to Tennessee, I did not do any decorating at home. I had not planned any menus or anything!! So we quickly put up a small tree with only lights the angel, went grocery shopping and had a small family Christmas. It was quiet, but nice. We woke up Christmas morning  there was no snow! So now & I am disappointed that we stayed home. My husband decided to go to his family's house with my daughter (about 2 hours away) since the weather was clear. That left my son  I at home to play with our new toys! It was a very quiet relaxing day. Well, then around noon it started snowing and snowing and snowing. (husband & daughter made it home OK) It did not stop until Sunday morning. When all was said done we got around 8" of snow. It was nice to have a white Christmas. We have not had one in our area in about 40-50 years.

This is looking out my front door, down the street in my apartment complex.

(It is always much prettier in person, but I had to put one up here)

I spoke to my Mom on Monday  she was laughing telling me it was a good thing I was a chicken because they were at 18" of snow and counting. It was still snowing there & they were expecting another 1-2"! I was so glad I did not go get stuck. I would be so nice to get snowed in, but I don't think my employer would appreciate me telling them I would miss a few more days right after Christmas break! I all worked out as it was supposed to! The cool thing is, is now we still can look forward to a weekend at my Mom's when the weather clears up with presents! ;)

This post is getting much longer than I had planned and the kids are getting hungry..., so I am going to go,  I will finish this up tomorrow.

Take Care,

A Quick Note....

I have been having computer issues, and hopefully will get them sorted out this weekend! I have missed posting, but hopefully soon I can be back up and running!!

Look what came in the mail!

I have finally gotten my hat that I ordered from Kat the Hat Lady! Actually it came pretty quickly, but I do not do well with anticipation, so it seemed like forever after she told me she had mailed it.. I had it made for my witch's hutch and I absolutely LOVE it!!! She has plenty more to choose from so go check out her blog here.



Kat also included the 2 little pumpkins which are so cute! The lighting in the photo is not to great, but I am still learning how to use my new camera. Thank you Kat! I can use one of them for my hutch! :)



My second little package today from a giveaway that I won from Cate. One of her many talents are the most adorable mini rugs and she was giving one away for Halloween on her blog, and I was fortunate enough to win! Thank you again Cate. You should stop by & see her blog here.



Of course with all of my new minis, I had to try the out to see what they would look like on my hutch. Obviously, it is nowhere near finished, but it is starting to come together a little bit. I need to add potions along with some other things, but I need to learn how to make them first!

Here is a closer shot with the dragon scroll & wand from my previous post. Along with some other pages I have printed out. Not too bad I think..... I want to add some scrolls but I need to learn how to do those as well.

I have been reading through the question & answer blog Ask Tabitha, and I am going to work on aging paper this weekend & see how it goes. There is a lot of good information there. It is a great resource! If there is anything you want to know or learn how to do, then send her your questions & she will get them answered Here.

Well, thats about it for now,

Take Care!

I really meant to get this posted last week, but as usual, life likes to interfere with my plans. However, this time it was a good thing. Let me give you a little background info...I have always loved photography as one of my hobbies. When I was in college I worked at a camera store and ended up getting a decent SLR camera along with buying several lenses and accessories to do whatever I was inclined to do. One of which was a macro lens to do well... macro photography. I have gotten some really neat shots with that lens. I was a loyal film camera user for years, but as time went on it got to the point where I could not pretend a digital camera would not be more effective for general family events. So I got a small, point & shoot camera, packed up all my film camera gear and moved on. About 3 years ago, I discovered that the new digital SLR cameras would still accommodate my old lenses, so all i needed to buy was the camera body-but it was very expensive. So I just put it to the back of my mind and let it be. Well, fast forward 3 years and last week I got the opportunity to get a used version of the camera body I had been wanting. My boss was going to upgrade his camera & needed to get rid of his current one, so I was more than happy to help him out!! :) So I have been playing with settings, I built a small little box to shoot mini's in, and have really just been having a lot of fun with my new toy. Hopefully, my photos of my minis' will improve, we will just have to see. :)

I finally got a change to buy a few things, so I thought I would share. My first stop was at Dfly Creations Etsy shop Here. I always love looking through her shop and decided I had to have one of the dragon scrolls. It is so tiny...I love it!!

While looking through her shop, I also decided to get a wand, because, well, every witch needs a wand. Other wise what is the point.. :)

My next stop was over at PD Hartmans Etsy store Here. He has got some hand blown glass, so I thought that a few more pieces wouldn't hurt. Below are 3 little bottles. I have no idea what I will use them for, but I got them anyway.

Of course, I HAD to get the canisters.. who couldn't use glass canisters?



Since I was taking photos with my new toy, I thought I would show you guys some other glass that I have been collecting over the past year. I have become obsessed with miniature glass! I cannot seem to stop buying it.







I'm not sure if you remember, but a while back we had a member of our mini club pass away and her family donated all of her miniatures to the club. We then took up a collection to donate to NAME, and had an auction of sorts to divide up her things to the members of the club. Below is one of my favorite things that I got that day, it is really amazing! I love the detail... I have to shoot it in the plastic box because it is hanging. So the first photo is to give you an idea of size & the second is the detail of the hummingbird.





I have been doing a lot of searching online to find mini things to put in my witch's hutch, so I am slowly but surely collecting those things. I have almost decided to put the hutch in a dome by itself instead of in a scene. But nothing is written in stone. Other than that I am getting ready to start learning how to make potions and get to use some of my glass items I have been saving up. Now that I have a little bit of free mini time, I can start learning some of the things that I have wanted to do.

Take care!

MIni Club display is over....whew!

First of all I would like to welcome my new followers, I really hope you enjoy!

Well, this past Saturday we had our Mini club display for a local retirement community. As I told you before they let us meet there for free so we do it for them as a Thank-You every other October. This was my first one, & it was pretty fun. It was neat to see what each person would be drawn to & and what kinds of questions they would have. I had planned on taking photos and posting them here, but I had my daughter take photos of each display while I was setting up & helping others set up & all but one of her photos were badly out of focus! So I only have one to share....this one is 1/4" scale and to give you an idea, the base it is sitting on is about 16" x 20". All the displays were really well done, & it is fun to see what projects other do. (You can click on the photo to make it bigger.)

I displayed my 1/4" room box on my previous post, my toy store which is somewhere in my older posts, and I (sort of) finished my State Day project. It is completed, but it is nothing like I want it to be. Originally, I wanted to make this scene a mosaic tiling studio, but did not have time to do what I wanted to do, I decided to make it into a perfume store as a temporary fix. (Since I had committed to have it at the display) I figured it would be quicker to do the perfume bottles. So I spent all week last week making little bottles out of beads. I think they turned out pretty good for my first time, but it took a lot more time than I thought it would!

Here is the outside of my little shop.

This shows the rafters above the store which will eventually have vines running all the way across and down one side of the building. You will notice the blue tack stuff under all the bottles, but actually, everything in the scene is just tacked down because I plan on removing it all & doing my tiling studio.

Here is the inside of the shop

This one is not good lighting, but you can see the "bottles" better.

I also have been recently searching Etsy for items for my spooky hutch, and came across a shop that sells real little bones. I was really surprised to discover that the shop owner lives in the same town as I do. We wrote back & forth a few times and I HAD to invite her to come to the show. Anyone who loves miniatures loves looking at other miniatures, so I knew she would enjoy the display. It was nice to get to meet her and make a new mini friend. My camera would not take the photo of the bones, so if you want to see them, then check out her Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/honeyandbee. She's got some really neat minis there.

Now that the pressure is off, I can play with whichever scene I feel like working on. I am not sure what I want to tackle next... I will have to ponder that for a while!

Take care!

1/4" Room Finally Finished!

I am finally done with my 1/4" scale room! You have no idea how excited I am to be done with this one! I am happy with how it turned out, although it is in no way perfect, I did learn quite a bit along the way.
I forgot to take the photos with the standard penny in it (for scale,) so I had my son take a quick one with me holding it in my hand so you can see how small it is. You can click on any of the photos to make them larger.....



This box is supposed to be or look like a present, so I covered the outside of the box with some very pale pink paper that is iridescent and had little swirls in it. You can't really tell, but it picks up the pink stripe in the wallpaper inside the room.


This is the front porch area


Here is the inside of the room with all of my furniture (even the stupid crooked chair.. it looked to empty without it), my plant, & a few other things I made to put in for accessories.



Here is a better view of the fireplace wall....



The other wall.....


So, there is one more piece ready for the show next weekend. I do have one more that is supposed to get done, the State Day Project, but I have run into a major snag with that one.... I began gathering all of the bits and pieces I had saved to complete that one, and for the life of me I cannot find the shelving that I had already sanded and painted. All that was left to do was install them. If I cannot find them today, there really is no point in trying to complete that one! I know they are all together in a baggie of some sort, I am just not quite sure WHERE that baggie is. It is times like these that I really wish I had my own space to do my minis in. Then it could be permanently organized & not moved around when the need arises.
Well, That is all for now, Take Care!

NAME Day Hutch....

On Oct. 2nd, my local miniature club celebrated NAME Day. (National Association of Miniature Enthusiasts). Miniature clubs from all over pre-ordered these hutches in whichever scale they preferred and got together on Saturday to put their hutches together. Our group met at a members lake house and it was a beautiful day. This is my hutch that I completed. I (of course) wanted to do a spooky hutch, so I stained it with black stain, but rubbed most of it off to give it an aged/worn out look. The flash in the photo kind of washes out the color, but i will try to take a better photo when I get to see the sun again. Now I get the fun of filling it up! I am going to do some potion bottles, scrolls, pumpkins, skulls, and any other spooky things I can find.



These are some spooky trinkets I found at my local craft store today in the scrapbooking section. They are actually brads, but I plan on using the skulls as the drawer & cabinet pulls on the bottom. I thought they were perfect! There are a few more stores I have to scout for Halloween decorations next weekend to see if I can find anything else.


That is really all I have for now, I was trying to do some eyeballs tonight, but so far they are not working too well, but practice makes perfect....:)