What, No Minis?



Debbie Young's Trinity Circle Cottage

 Other than swap items for various groups, I haven't really made anything since the flower cart in the last post.  Getting ready for, having, and recovering from surgery on May 2 has taken entirely too much time.  In addition, we started a home remodeling project, at first just planning, but now life altering.

I still have to come up with something for the NAME Day online swap and make 10 of whatever I decide to do.  But other than that and a 1/144" (to the foot) house for my brother, I won't be making much until October.

In October, I've signed up to take a two-day workshop as part of the Good Sam Miniatures Show in the south Bay area.  I'm excited about taking the Trinity Circle class with Debbie Young, whom I've heard a lot about.  Since I'm usually a little slow at building minis in a group setting, I'm hoping I can keep up and

Just under the Wire

The January challenge on the Yahoo! Quarter Connection group was to start and finish a kit or project that hadn't been started before.  I chose Sue Herber's Petal's Garden which in her version looks like the picture on the right.

To accept the challenge, I first had to upload a picture of the kit in its unfinished form which I did.  You can see all the nice pieces laid out in the picture to the left.

Then the fun began.  I first had to decide if I was going to go with Sue's color scheme or find one of my own.  To decide that, I picked out some paints that I liked and put samples on a scrap piece of wood.  Then because the directions said that I'd be adding a wash on top of the paint, I made two washes and put them over the colors.

I finally decided to go with a butter cream primary color and a Lumiere turquoise for the accent color.  Now it was time to paint.

I hate painting since I'm uncomfortable with it.  So the painting took much longer than it should have.  I also decided to wallpaper the inside even though it doesn't show very much.  I'd gotten a Xyron Creative Station for Christmas and really wanted to try it out on something.  But I didn't have any paper (which might surprise some people who think I have too much paper) that I thought was suitable. 

Doing something else one weekend, we parked in front of Art Ellis which has an incredible paper supply.  There I found the perfect paper.

Slowly I was getting supplies together as I painted the base coat of butter cream on the sides, top, bottom, wheel spokes, wheelbarrow body, and step pieces.  I was also painting the turquoise on the outer wheels, top railing, shelves, axles (even though they didn't need to be painted), wheelbarrow wheel, and hand rails.

Having painted everything, I made two more decisions, to use Flower Soft instead of the landscaping material Sue had included in the kit and to make a new sign for my cart instead of using the one in the kit.  I have the Spring and Summer mixtures as well as the light green, and I've been wanting to try them to see how well they work.

After I got everything painted and glued together, I thought the cart looked a little bare without some landscaping, so I took a small piece of thick matting and created a road and fields to either side.  I made the road out of Golden's Clear Granular Gel, but in retrospect, I think I would have been happier with using Coarse or Extra Coarse Pumice Gel.  I also added three HO railroad size dogs to the scene that I bought at Bruce's Train Shop years ago.

All in all, I'm pleased with my flower cart and am now ready to finish the potting shed with Flower Soft which is absolutely wonderful to work with.

A Good Time Was Had by All!

The Quarter Connection online convention is over.  I won absolutely nothing--no doorprizes, no daily drawings, no centerpieces--but had a wonderful time anyway.

My table, Table 7, was a great group of people:  Hosted by the friendly JoAnn Jacot (rugs and dishes), the table included besides me:

• Gayle Ballargeon (fireplace)
• Jennifer Elliott (tea boxes)
• Helen Johnson (chairs, cups and saucers)
• Ginger Landon-Siegel (teapot, cups, saucers)
• Sally Lonn (roses)
• Carol Pittman (hutch and side table)
• Fern Rouleau (plate of cookies)
• Jackie Williams (tables and tray)

Veggies Made Mini

I got a kick out of the picture at the left after spending my weekend working on my miniature tea shop and after opening my 50 tote bag gifts from the Quarter Connection online convention.

I'll be posting more pictures of the tote gifts and the contents of The Box later today or tomorrow as well as finishing my tea shop and taking pictures of it.

Then I'm cleaning up everything and making the miniature workshop into a bedroom for my daughter and her husband.  No more playing with minis until after the first of the year.  In January I really dig into the UFO (unfinished objects) pile and get the UFOs beat into shape.

Mini Rag Rugs

Here are two of the finished mini rag rugs that I made for a couple of swaps now.  They're time-consuming, but then what miniature isn't?  They're made out of braided varigated embroidery floss.  After the tedious braiding, I even more tediously sew them together using a single strand of floss.  These two rugs are one inch wide which in quarter inch terms makes them four feet wide in real life.  They're large enough to put a small table or chair on.

Miniature Headaches

I've spent the last few weeks making items for swaps.  I'm part of Table 7 at the Quarter Connection online convention in November.  Table 7 is a swap table, meaning that the ten participants at the table will swap items fitting our theme, Formal Tea Party.  My job was to make everyone tea sandwiches and a tea cake. 

Then we were each to make one thing as a general table gift.  Lazy me, I decided to meld that with the five convention door prizes that I needed to make and came up with the tea table and dessert tray that's in the picture.  So five tables and trays went to the convention at large, and one table went to the table hostess JoAnn Jacot for Table 7.

Since this is my first convention, I'm still waiting to see what's next.  It's been fun so far emailing back and forth with my table mates about the table's theme and mascot.  Table 7 is a little intimidating to me since I don't seem to have the minature making background the others do.  So I'm paddling as fast as I can in this uphill stream!

What? No New Miniatures?

True, it looks like I haven't been making miniatures lately.  But that's not true!  I've signed up for a number of swaps and have joined a gung-ho table of miniaturists for the Quarter Connection online convention.  Consequently, I'm up to my elbows (okay, ankles!) in making miniatures for the swaps and table exchange.





The least of the miniatures I'm making is four dining tables for an online swap.  In the picture is the nearly finished table (minus shellac) and the other three table tops as well as the fancy toothpick legs that haven't been cut, stained or glued yet.  I'm hoping to get the tables done this afternoon and mailed tomorrow morning.

I'm also back in the rag rug making business.  The swap is with 12 people, so I'm making 24 rugs--one oval 1" rug (which translates to a 4-foot rug in quarter inch terms) and one circular rug 1 1/2" in length.  The green braid is ready to be sewn into the rug shapes while the yellow-orange and yellow-green floss are still being braided.  I'm hoping to have these finished by next week.

So while it looks like I'm not making miniatures, I really am!