Christmas Ornaments

I'm not trying to rush us all to Christmas but as I have a Christmas house I can have a mini Christmas any time I want to play.

I saw these for sale by Susan of Rainbow Miniatures on Facebook and just had to have one - or two and Susan very generously sent me three. I offered one to Oly and she chose the robin on the log. (Ow, I wanted that one) only kidding, I love them all. Susan has a very unique style.
                                                                           
I showed you my Cloth Art dolls a couple of posts back. I went to visit my family in England and took Gertrude to my Mum who is almost 89 but obviously still a child at heart as she loved her new friend.

I ran out of time to see my friend so I wrapped Titania up in tissue and a plastic bag and took her to the post office when my daughter and I went shopping with Henry in the pram. But when we arrived at the post office the package had gone! I know she's a fairy but I didn't think she'd be able to fly away on her own!

This is a close-up of her belt.
We traced our steps home but never found her! It remains a mystery.
And just because I miss him and love him to bits, here's a photo of Henry.

This week I've been in my work room designing and making dollshouse miniatures again! Kaisa asked me if I'd like to do an Advent calender swap with her this Christmas, so I must seriously keep up with my miniature making from now on to ensure I have 25 gifts to swap. Really exciting!
I hope you're having a great weekend!

Anne's House

Reading Genevieve's blog one day I admired some little paper houses she'd made from kits by Anne Hoskins.I just had to buy some but I only kept one for myself as I haven't much space to display them. I gave two to Oly and we had a great 'dollshouse club' day making them. They are so well designed and they make up perfectly. We decorated the garden area with Flower Soft and they look fabulous!
This is the front of mine

And the back

I think you'll agree, they're lovely!
Enjoy the weekend!

Human Again!

Just a message to announce that I am still in the land of the miniaturists - but only just. Lack of sleep and the humidity have done their worst and despite all the preventative medicine I take, I have had a round of nasty migraines. Since last week, today is the first that I've felt human, so I have made nothing for a few days, although I've been thinking about it a lot and been feeling very frustrated that I'm 'doing nothing'!
Last week I emptied a bit more of my cabinet and made room for a lovely 1930s three piece suite by Gill Rome. The wooden furniture all made by my dear friend Bob. But, oops bit of an overlook by the photographer - it's a real mirror!

Room Boxes

Thinking room boxes would be quick and easy projects to do I set out to make a little tribute to each of my off spring. I made and collected together as many of the toys and books they'd had as children, right up to their interests before they left home. I decorated the boxes as their bedrooms had been and filled them with as much as I could remember to capture the personality of each, including our pets and the odd discarded sock on the floor! Finding some of the items was difficult and I came across others I wasn't really looking for but I was wrong about room boxes being quick!
The box shown is for my youngest son who always had fireworks and pumpkins on his birthday as he was born on Halloween. He loved bits of wire, elastic bands and monkeys! His favourite food was spaghetti bolognaise (made by Linsminis) and the babies were made by Carol Illingworth (who sells on ebay as 6689katie).

Never Ending Miniature Projects

I didn't sleep well last night largely due to the planning going on in my head. Now that the visitors have left and a new week has started, I'm free to spend my days mini-making. But what to make? where to start? All the ideas I have and I want to do them all - now!
Never having been one for finishing anything, I have projects everywhere, half started. I had been painting furniture and made the most of our very warm days sitting under the new pergola and actually got a lot finished!
I have said that the ladies shop is ongoing - well, so is the tea shop. I painted a table, shelving and a magazine rack for that, as well as the magazine rack, basket and dress makers dummy for the ladies shop.
You may have just noticed that I mentioned magazine rack twice; that's because I had two of them made for me by my lovely friend Bob who makes me anything I ask, no job too small as it were, or too difficult. He's an absolute marvel. I now owe him breakfast, lunch and tea when we go to the Ali Pali fair in October.
As we're on the subject of fairs I want to show you the fabulous cakes I bought from Karen Kirby of Karen's Miniatures when she was here at the Nerja fair. They are beautiful.

Neither the Ladies Shop or the Tea Shop are yet built. Just two buildings still flat packed but I have emptied a huge shelf in my display cabinet for the ladies shop and half a shelf for the tea shop just so that I can get all my miniatures out of storage boxes and actually look at them!

Birthday Party

Painting miniature tables and baskets didn't go according to plan. I did make a start but since then have been snowed under with real life size tasks largely due to the fact we live in Spain.
Residing in Spain puts us on the top of everyone's holiday list - to visit, well the family's list, that is and I have to admit I love it and enjoy preparing for guests and looking after them. But it does involve extra shopping time, bed making, cleaning - cleaning? What's that? And a drive of an hour and a half each way to the airport to collect and then again to drop off.

This week has been the week of my husband's birthday, so apart from the family guests we've also had a riotous garden party with friends, entwined with noisy football watching, agonisingly childish antics in the pool and far, far too much food and drink - especially drink. My favourite 'fizzy pop' was on special so there was many a bottle of that consumed along with all the other bottles and cans of whatever and the sangria my husband made - I dread to think what was in it but three large jugs were downed.

Today has passed in a flash. Despite the help I had, I wasn't finished getting the house back to anything like normal until 4pm this afternoon when I needed to lie down! All I've done tonight is cook a meal and I'm ready for bed again.

I'll get the tables done tomorrow - and we'll eat out.