Garden produce

Lunch!

I spent some time in the garden today and brought in our first harvest. I got the garden planted late and we had very hot and wet weather so the first lettuce is a little late. Still yummy, though!

Picnic anyone?

This is what I did with the red and blue basket. The set is now in my etsy shop.
There are two plates with stars, stripes and eagles. One cup has stars and the other has stripes. The napkins with rings match the cloth.

I love these baskets!

I made the smaller brown basket last night and the red and blue one today. The third one took less time so I'm improving. :) I hand cut the weavers on the first two baskets but I got out my little photo cutter for the third. That saved quite a bit of time. One of my favorite Longaberger baskets has two swinging handles similar to the stationary handles on these baskets. I'm thinking about how to make that work. I'll let you know if I figure it out.

A tisket, a tasket, I made a new basket

Thanks to Kris at 1 Inch Minis. I made this beautiful basket from her tutorial. I will be making more of these!

Sail boats by Mercedes of Liberty Biberty; handpainted pillow and shelf by Sandy Copeland; candles by Gaye of My Small Obsession; painting by Joan. Everything else in the photo was made or adapted by me.

I had a lovely surprise!

Yesterday my husband took me out for a wonderful afternoon and evening. He planned the day and only told me how I should dress. We started with a trip to a local winery, Satek. We've been saying we wanted to go for years and now we have. We tried several wines and purchased several bottles. We want to go back on a weekend in the fall for the tour of the vineyard and wine making facility. We shopped a little and then had dinner at The Captain's Cabin, a wonderful restaurant overlooking Clear Lake. Dinner was very good and the desserts were amazing. Mark's been working a lot of hours and has been out of town for the past week so the chance to reconnect and just enjoy each others company was much needed and appreciated.

Wishing all of you a wonderful weekend!

Not much damage here...

This was the only large section of tree that we lost. It's the top of the tree we call "Kristin's tree" because it was an Arbor Day tree that she brought home from school and planted when she was in elementary school. She's now a 3rd year college student. The tree survived but it's about 15 feet shorter now. :( (You can just see Herbert the moose in the middle of the photo. He was trying to help move the branch out of the driveway. :D)
Mostly, we just have small branches like these all over the yard.
This is view down the driveway. It's littered with little branches - I guess God thought our trees needed pruning, LOL.
This is the whole branch that Herbert's trying to move in the first photo. It's the size of a small tree all by itself.

Thankfully, we are all ok and I've not heard of any injuries in the area due to the storms. Today is just a quiet day after being up so late. This weekend we'll have to start cleaning up all of those little branches.

What a crazy day!

Earthquakes in Toronto and tornado warnings in Indiana. I don't know yet if any tornadoes actually touched down but we have trees and power lines down all over the place. We have a generator so I have electricity but the power is out all around us. I don't expect it to get restored right away as the power company employees have a very busy night ahead of them. The storms have passed for tonight so hopefully we can get settled in bed soon.

The little moose in the photo is Herbert. He's a world traveler spending a week with us before moving on to his next stop. He got a little more than he bargained for in our weather, I'm afraid. The radar on the television behind him was after the worst of the storm had hit here.

New and Improved

First of all, Happy Father's Day to all the dads in blogland!

I made this wedding day set several months ago. It was cute but just not my best work.
I took the vanity, stool and screen apart and redid them all. The vanity skirt is more tailored.
I used wide ribbon for the skirt and a woven print ribbon for the bench and screen. The vanity top was faux finished to look like wood. I am so much happier with the finished set now.

Have a great day everyone! I'm waiting on a homemade pound cake to come out of the oven - yum! At least I hope so. :) It's a new recipe.

Another update

I added side panels to the curtains, candle sconces on either side of the window, a plant next to the hutch and a cup of tea on the table.

I just can't ever let a project be finished

I couldn't sleep last night so I was up making a braided rug for under the table instead. ;) These are very easy to make. The braid is very thin nylon cording. That is stuck to adhesive backed paper (or sometimes I use adhesive backed felt.) You can make any shape you want and the cord comes in many colors. I didn't purchase my cord - it was a gift from a friend - but she said that it comes on large spools so you have enough for a lot of rugs. I think she purchased it at a hardware store.

A room with a view

My mom sorted through some more craft supplies and I got several boxes of goodies. In the boxes were a couple of cigar boxes as Mom used to make cigar box purses. I have a beautiful one that she made several years ago and had no need for another so I decided to make a room box to display some recent swaps.
The base is a laminate flooring sample. The beautiful quilt was hand pieced and sewn by my friend Joan. She also made the chair.
Brenda made all of the food on the hutch and finished the hutch itself. Gaye of My Small Obsession made the stew and bread on the table.
I made the quilt rack, table, curtain and the window. The wallpaper is actually scrapbook paper.
This is what the top of the cigar box looks like.

Welcome!

I have four new followers to welcome! It seems such a short time ago that I thought I'd never reach 100 followers and now I have 171. Thank you all so much!

Today I'd like to welcome Minnie Kitchen, Lataina, dlctickner, and Iris. I was not able to find blog information for any of these so if any of you do have a blog or website that you would like me to link to, please let me know. Thank you so much for stopping by!

My latest non-mini project

I've finished my first large knitting project! This is a baby afghan I made for a very dear friend. It's actually knitted strips with crocheted borders stitched together and then I crocheted a border around the whole thing. I started the original afghan several months ago and the longer I knitted the more I hated it. So I finally ripped the whole thing out and started over. Not only do I like the way this looks, it took a very short time to make.
Here's a closeup of the crocheted edging and the knitted stripes - I love yarn that forms itself into stripes. It looks like I worked even harder than I actually did, ;).

Here comes the bride...

Well, her gown anyway. This was yesterday's project. I made the dress form and the wedding gown. I've made a lot of mini wedding gowns but this one is by far my favorite. It's a beautiful cream satin with vintage embroidered lace appliques on the skirt. The bodice is cream lace over satin.
There's a chapel length train.
A touch of blue at the back waistband is a pretty finishing touch. The gown is permanently fastened to the mannequin. I used a combination of sewing and glueing to make it. All of the appliques were cut from the lace and handstitched in place. I'll be listing this in my etsy shop later today...just in time for all of those mini summer weddings. :)

Happy Monday everyone!

Backyard BBQ anyone?

This was a fun project. The island is the bottom half of a Michael's hutch with an added counter covered in a black granite pattern. I made new door handles with beads and pins.
Most of the food was made with polymer clay. The vegetable tray started life as a toothpaste cap - I think Sensodyne. I just sliced a section off to the right height. The "jello" dessert is a clear button painted with glass paint and topped with matte white fabric paint "whipped cream" and glass bead blueberries. The amber glass paint iced tea is in a pitcher made from a bullet shell. I added a handle made from a strip of copper sheeting.

Well I thought it was finished

I rearranged the living room so that the dresser could have a reason (other than lack of space) for being in the room. Now it's also a television stand for the flat screen TV.
I added a clock face to the button thingy on the wall and now it's a cool retro clock. Also, since the wine crate used to make the apartment is a Sutter Home Wines one, hubby said the bottle on the counter should be Sutter Home. That is now the case. I am so thankful for the internet!
The bedroom got a tiny acrylic nightstand with books and an alarm clock. There's also a laptop on the bed. The resident must give herself lazy mornings in bed occasionally with her computer like I do. (Like I'm doing this morning. :-) )

I think each of the rooms now look lived in. Now I just have to find a home for the project...

Thank you, Kathi!

Kathi at Beautiful Mini Blessings made a loft bed for her beach house this weekend. I love how it turned out and it inspired me to make a loft bedroom for my New York City apartment. I spent some time googling loft apartments today and some of them had lofted bedroom areas. Before I added the bedroom area the apartment owner was sleeping on the short little sofa so she's very happy to have a real bed. :-)
It's a tiny little sleeping area but it works and it makes use of the extra high loft ceilings.
The lack of clothing storage was also bugging me so I made the mirrored dresser. It doesn't really open. It was very simple to make. It's made from one of those clear plastic boxes with a black lid. The lid is the back of the dresser and the clear part was covered with mirrored tape. I covered cardboard scraps with the tape to look like drawers and glued bead handles to them. The dresser feet are clear pony beads. Oh, and I also stained the window trim and the "bamboo" blind.

The beautiful calla lilies were made by my friend Gaye of My Small Obsession and the tray on top of the wall cabinets was made by Brenda.

A few more details...

I made everything on the counter. The veggies are made from polymer clay, the lettuce is artificial snow dyed with glass paint. The colander was made from some scraps of sheet copper and the plates and bowls are made from milk carton seals. The pattern for the dinnerware is a real plate pattern featuring a map of New York City. I found the pattern online. The knife and forks were cut from pieces cut from a paper fastener.

The rest of the paper fasteners were used to create the towel hooks and toilet paper holder.

The little details make the apartment look like someone actually lives there. It's mostly complete but I'll probably add little things like perfume bottles on the back of the toilet and more dishes for the kitchen cabinets.

Apartment update

Still not finished but making progress. Window, blinds, overhead light, art and pillows
Another print in the kitchen. It's also of New York City.
I finished the sink and toilet, made and hung the shower curtain and added art over the toilet. I still need towels, toilet paper, etc.

The promised photos

I'm making a New York City loft style apartment in an old wine crate. The exterior apartment walls are an aged brick and the one interior "added wall" has a cool silver metallic wallpaper. All of the kitchen appliances and cupboards are made from bashed Michael's hutches. The kitchen and bath floors and the tile backsplash are made from bits of real peel and stick tiles. The carpet is a piece of fabric.
The couch and chair were made from bits of cardboard.
The shower was made completely from scratch and the sink and toilet are beat up Renwal pieces that I am making taller. I have to add faucets and a toilet seat plus all of the accessories in both rooms.
I'm really proud of how the kitchen turned out. I need to fill the upper cabinets and put stuff on the counters to make the house looked lived in.

The aliens have landed!

The etsy team Miniatures in Dollhouse Scale (MIDS) is having an alien team challenge. Please stop by the blog, http://teammidscompetitions.blogspot.com/ , and vote for your favorite of the 12 aliens. They are all great so good luck choosing your favorite! ;-)

PS I've started a new project. Pictures will be coming soon!

Welcome!

Please help me welcome Klara of Klara's Blog and Lainie of Lainie's Little Things. Klara is interested in dollhouses, miniatures and scrapbooking and this is just one of her blogs. Lainie is a new blogger and is currently building a Greenleaf Arthur kit. Please stop by and say hello!

Hi Everyone!

I'm still here. I just haven't had much time to work on minis while my daughter recuperates. Her foot is healing well but she still is not allowed to put any weight on it. She's graduated to a removable boot/cast. The best news is that she may be finished with the boot completely by the time we go on vacation in August. Yay!

We've had a Harry Potter movie marathon over the past two days and I was able to spend some time on some minis for a swap while watching Harry and friends. Unfortunately, I can't share the photos yet.

Even though I'm not posting much I am still able to visit all of you. I'm getting a lot of inspiration for future projects so thank you!