It has been a while

Well, I have been back from Leakycon for about a month now, and things are just getting back to normal.  I am just now getting caught up on several of my chores that got REALLY behind while I was gone.  The conference was AMAZING!!!  I was sort of like a lost puppy, I had no idea where to go or what I was supposed to do most of the time, but I still had a ball!  There were around 3500 people that attended throughout the 4 days, so it was crowded most of the time.  It was a blast walking through the hotel constantly passing people in their school robes, or uniforms, and the odd looks from people at the hotel who did not know what was going on.  :)  There were a lot of great costumes there as well.  I am planning on doing a day by day breakdown on my other blog with lots of photos, (so I don't crowd this one up), which hopefully I can begin tomorrow, so if your interested or want more details, be sure to check it out.  I will put a few photos in this post just to show some of my favorite places in Hogsmeade....

I just love these jars in Honeydukes....

This is at night going into the Three Broomsticks 

 Every ones favorite Every Flavor Beans

 Going through the main arch into Hogsmeade Village

The Hogs Head Inn

Well, there are a few photos for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Like I said, I will have loads of  photos on my day by day account of our entire trip on my other blog.

As far as what is going on with me & miniatures, that has been hectic as well.  I think I had mentioned previously that i had quit my local miniature club back in April.  Well, since then a few other members of that club also decided to quit & we ended up getting together and forming our own club.  It seems that we all agree on how we all want our club to work & what we want our club to accomplish, so everyone is much happier in this new setting.  So we have been busy getting that set up & making some basic decisions on what we want to work on & focus on as a group.  2 meeting ago, we all got together & made about 80 plates of cookies to donate as State Day Favors for a State Day coming up in September in South Carolina.

These are our cookies, the photo is a little washed out, but they are cute none the less.

These were done in 1" scale.  I was surprised at how simple these were to make!

Well, I guess that is it for now.  Hopefully now that things are settling down, I can get back to my regular routine & catch up on what everyone else is doing on their blogs!!

Take care!

Finished my Mirror (finally)

Just a real quick post to show you guys my mirror. 

Now I just need to make sure it stays in one piece on the trip down to Orlando!  I will have lots of pictures when I get back.

Take care,

Lori

Almost time .....

I cant believe there is less than a week to go before we leave on our trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and the Con!  I am getting so excited but also starting to panic a bit because I really don't feel prepared!  I have done so much planning and thinking about this trip, it just seemed like it would NEVER get here.  Now, with only 6 days left to go, I do not feel ready at all!  All of the big stuff is done.  Now it is the hundreds of tiny details to worry about.

 The Conference is shaping up to be full of activities and things that I just cant miss.  They came out with the schedule a few weeks ago & I have almost sorted out what activities I will attend.  There are several that overlap, but at this point I will just have to wait & see how I am feeling at that time.  A few really cool things that they recently announced is 1.) about the movie & 2.) about the actor signings.  For the movie, they got special permission from Warner Brothers for the con people to see the movie 6 hours before the official midnight release!  For the actor signings, They have all of the new actors that play the children in the epilogue, so Rose, Hugo, Scorpious, Albus Severus, Young Lily Evans, Young James Potter.  Also the actors who play Percy Weasly, Luna Lovegood, & Pansy Parkinson will be there as well. 
At this point, I am not sure how good my chances are of getting autographs, but I will try my best!

Originally I had planned on making 4 mosaic tiles mirrors to donate for their charity auction,  but time and supplies did not allow for that, so I will have one mirror to donate which is almost completed.  I chose to Hufflepuff because I had both of their house colors on hand.  I will try to post a photo on here before I go, but if not, then definately after I get back so you guys can see it.

My offer from March still stands, for anyone who wants a postcard postmarked from Hogsmeade, I will be glad to send you one, I just need to get your address.  My e-mail link should be on my profile now.  I have several people that I am sending them out to, so it would not be a big deal to add a few more to the list.  I have Cates info from Solet Luna Studios, and I could have sworn there was at least one other from blogland that sent me their info, but for the life of me I cannot find it in my e-mail, so please resend it if you would like a post card.

I guess that is all for an update for now,  I need to get back to packing & checking my list!

Take Care.

Not much going on....

I have been doing a lot of planning for the Harry Potter conference that I will be attending in July.  I have been scouring the web for deals & ideas on hotels, tickets, travel & any other thing possibly related to my trip.  We have decided to take the train (it will be cheaper than driving), which really, I am soooo happy about because really, how else SHOULD one travel to Hogwarts if not by train! 

It is also that time of year for State day again, (which has snuck up on me this year) and is actually this weekend.  It should be a lot of fun & I will get some photos posted of that after I get back.  This year we get to make a clock which I am very excited about!

I also have recently decided to NOT renew my membership to my local mini club this year.  I am kind of sad about it, but there was some drama going on & I am getting too old to play games with people.  It was meant to be an enjoyable thing spending time with others who enjoy minis as much as I do, but it turned into something completely different (at least for me).  I have made several good friends there & I am sure we will still get together every once in a while to play & catch up.

Well, kind of a short update & no new photo's but that is all I really have for now.

Take care!

Exciting news, but I wont be posting often for the next several months.

I have decided to go to Leakycon This year.  For those of you who don't know, Leakycon is a Harry Potter Fan Convention that will be held @ Universal Studios In Florida.  I normally don't get to do these types of things (due to budget), and I have never been to any sort of fan convention, but this is something that I CANNOT miss out on.  This is the end of a era for Harry Potter fans, and it IS possible for me to go, so I am going to grab this once in a lifetime opportunity & not think (too much) about how that money could be better spent.  My love for all things Harry Potter runs very deep & I will be able to share this with the most enthusiastic, die hard, dedicated fans from around the world!!!  I am sooo excited, ever since I paid for my registration I cannot get to sleep at night because I cannot stop thinking about it!!!



So, I will be busy planning for this trip for my family & I, which will not leave me much time to blog.  During the con, they will be holding a charity auction of fan art & fan crafted items to raise money for the HPA (Harry Potter Alliance)  & Book-Aid International, so I am trying to come with some ideas of things to donate.  I have an idea for some mosaic tiled mirrors, I just have to see if I can find the right colored tile.  I could also make some cute little potion necklaces which wont raise much, but every little bit helps!  Any ideas or suggestions would be welcome of more stuff I could make in my spare time.
I will take photos of what I'm doing, but I'm not sure when I will get to post them.  I might start a temporary blog just about Leakycon so I can ramble on about it just not on here....

Oh, last thing, I was thinking that since I will be going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, if there are any of my followers out there that would like to get a postcard with the Hogwarts stamp & postmark on it I would LOVE to send you one.  Kat the Hat Lady, I know you are a big fan, & Debbie, I know you are too.  Cate, I know your doing The Burrow right now (the pipes are brilliant by the way) (I haven't had time to comment), so I am guessing you are as well, and Janice, Doing the Leaky Cauldron right now... well enough said!  :)    If I missed anyone, I am sorry, But I am putting this invitation out to anyone who follows my blog, I just need you to send me an address where you want it sent, your favorite character, your favorite house, and your all time favorite scene.  I am not sure what the choices will be for postcards, but with that info, I should be able to find something you would like!  I have added my email address to my profile.

Thanks for reading,
Take care!

Cubbies (finally) all finished & potion jars....

Well, I finally finished building all my drawers for my shelf.  I am really glad that is over!  I am very happy with the way they turned out.  Right now they are functional, but not pretty.  Eventually I might paint them or cover them with pretty paper, but for now they will work.  I have been busy sorting & trying to figure out how I am going to organize all of my mini's.  I keep on finding more containers & bags & boxes that have minis in them.... (sigh)  I might have to open a shop just to get rid of some of this stuff I will never use.  Below is my shelf thing completed....

I went to the craft store & found some small wooden threat spools that I ended up using for the knobs on all the drawers.  They worked out pretty good.  You can kind of see the plastic drawers to the right of my shelf unit, I am using those drawers for the larger things, like furniture, glues, paints, stains, pasta machine, etc...  I am using the temporary stickers to label the drawers until I finalize where everything will actually go, then I plan on printing out some pretty labels & make it look a bit more consistent.

I have also finally gotten a chance to play with my resin stuff to try out filling potion jars.  It is much more fun than I thought it would be.  I have only tried 4 different colors, but I do like them, once I figure out how to finish the tops of them, I think they will look great on my spooky hutch.  Below is a photo of a few of the ones I have done....

My son really like the teal one, it reminded him of kool-aid!  The solid red one is supposed to be blood of some sort, but I think I need to tweak the color of that one a bit more... but that is the fun of experimenting!

That is really all I have for now.  Thanks for reading,

Take Care!

Organizing...

Just a quick post, I know it it has been a few weeks, but I have been busy working on a full size project.  Recently at work they have gotten new office furniture (which has been great by the way) for almost everyone in our office.  They were donating all of the old furniture to local charities (which again, is great), but in the piles & piles of old furniture that were stored out in our warehouse, I spotted this shelf that would be well suited for storing & organizing miniatures.  I asked If I could buy it, but they gave it to me instead!  I was so excited, it is just perfect....



Ok, so this is the shelf.  It is very dusty & the back panel was coming off, so I had to re-nail it, but other than that, it is in good shape.  It is actually an old literature rack so I thought it would be a simple thing to get trays to fit into the slots & that would hold everything I needed it to.  Boy was I wrong!  I did finally find a company that had trays that would actually fit each cubby, but they were 16.95 each & I need 22 of them!  So I decided that I would make them myself out of foam core.  Each cubby is 12" wide x 12" deep x 4" tall.  As you can see in the photo, I have a few of my boxes done ( all the white ones) I was just trying them out to make sure they fit.  I still need to figure out some sort of knobs for the front, but first I need to finish making all the boxes.  Currently I have 10 left to finish.  Hopefully by this weekend I can finish them up.  The really nice thing about making them myself, is that I can add dividers into whichever box I need them in & they should be easy enough to change around.

Well, that is all for now, I need to back to gluing my drawers together....

Take Care!