Happy Halloween!

Hope you had a great Halloween!
(Click on the photo below to view our costumes!)

Live long and prosper

Mini convention!

This last Saturday was the Good Sam Mini Show. I look forward to it every year. I got some great finds. I finally got my little furry Westie for a good price. I've lovingly named him "Frodo." I also got a cute little ground hog. I named him Harold after a real one who I made friends with. We ended up having to capture him and bring him to a big open field so he wouldn't get hurt by the homeowners of the lawns he was destroying. I miss the real Harold, but now I'll have a reminder of him in my mini lawn.

I got adorable garage accessories. Ive been told that I need to test for my ham radio license, so for those people, I got a mini CB radio for my work bench. I also got an adorable air hose, rusty chain, spilled oil, and a jar of nuts and bolts.

An Egyptian papyrus (just like the life-size ones I have in my room), a water bottle, a pumpkin, a pillow, grass, vines, grapes, purse kit, and a perfect Chinese Checkers board were amongst my other buys. I love playing Chinese Checkers. It was definitely a challenge to glue in all those little marbles (I did each one separately), but I made sure to have the correct number of marbles in places they would normally be 3/4 of the way through the game.

It was a good mini show.


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Shellie's Miniature Party

Shellie's party was so much fun!! We made these cute fireplaces and Christmas scenes. My mother went with me, and we had a nice mother-daughter bonding time.




The ladies making their scenes.







My mom with her fireplace. She did great!!




My scene so far. I won the table on the right, and it fit perfectly with my scene (though, I am moving it to the kitchen.)




The Bespaq clock my mom won.


Today, I was rearranging things in my dollhouse and seeing how my new holiday fireplace looked as a replacement for my usual one. I was getting frustrated, though, at the construction of my house. I built it when I was about 13, and I made some stupid mistakes:

1. The stairs were suppose to be flush to the wall, but I wanted the master bedroom and the living room to be bigger because I assumed that those would be my favorite rooms (actually, the kitchen is my favorite...) Of course, that space between the stairs and wall is WASTED space! It makes the stairs look more fake too.

2. I purposely put in the stairs facing the open side so I could walk dolls up the stairs. That was dumb... It just ended up blocking my pretty furniture.



So, my mom suggested ripping out the stairs. I thought that would be unrealistic, but then again what's realistic about a dollhouse with no internal doors?

So, I ripped out the stairs. It really does give me a lot more room to play with, and I'm not as restricted.







It'll be fun playing with these new rooms!!


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Two new issues!

Hi, all! Well, I recently got two new issues of AM, and I'm in both! See, a couple of months ago (because I do projects 3 months in advance), I started talking with AM about doing my own monthly column. These issues are the beginning. I hope you like the upcoming issues!!



I also recently went to a flea market and found adorable little white frames for scrap-booking. Using decorative magazines as my inspiration, I added art and hung it on one of the walls. I wish I had it in full scale!






See you all soon!

Etsy vs. own shop

Hi, all. So people commonly ask me if I sell my work. I know I've brought up the issue of Etsy before, but I'm a bit torn. Should I sell someplace like Etsy, which is already well-known but does have fees, or should I sell on my own store that I'd be completely in charge of promoting for free?  Have people done well with Etsy/their own store?  I also wonder if people will want to buy my work. In addition to miniatures, I'm also considering selling jewelry possibly.

Here is a photo of a piece I designed and made.











So, what are everyone's opinions???

Thanksgiving in August!

I'm working on my Thanksgiving scene. My theme is an Old Frontier Thanksgiving. I made the cornucopia, the corn, both pies, the bread, and the cranberry sauce. I'm still going to add a few finishing touches, but I'm very happy with how it has turned out so far. (Make sure to read the November issue of American Miniaturist for the how tos! - the pumpkin pie one is bizarre!!!)



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New project: sewing room

Hi, all! Well, I'm working on a new project. These photos were taken with my iPhone. I designed and made both costumes (including the hat and crown and basket). What do you think so far?

Many thanks to Ara Bentley for the wonderful footstool and book!










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GREAT garage sale find!!

The title says it all. I found this wonderful piece at a garage sale. It was really dusty and dirty, so I had to clean it very carefully with a Qtip. What do you think? I'm so excited!






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Little cake!

I found this at the flea market. Cute, huh? I love it!! They had a lot of nice minis, but most were slightly too big for 1" scale, so I settled on this adorable cake. What a treat!


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A Mad Tea Party!!!

Here's a sneak peek at my newest project. I'm not sure what I'm doing for next month, but I have some wacky ideas!





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I made the cover!!!

So my American Miniaturist magazine came yesterday, and my project was on the cover!! I couldn't believe it!!! I kept thinking that it must have been someone else's project! I still say it's due to James' awesome photo because it didn't matter how good my project was if the photo wasn't good. He says it's due to my project because it wouldn't have mattered how good his photos were if my project wasn't good. He's sweet.

This issue is really neat. There's an absolutely gorgeous corset (I love corsets!) and a perfect farmhouse scene. I can't wait to read those articles!!!






Americanminiaturist.com

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Hutch change

Two posts in one day? I'm on a role! So I had one of those hutches from Michael's, but I had previously changed it up a bit. Today, I found a microwave oven. I happened to notice that if the doors weren't there, the microwave oven would fit perfectly! Well, I couldn't pass that up. Here are the results!

Before:



After:


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Mini lights!

I've wanted electricity in my house for a long time, but it's so pricey! Then, while working on my phantom project, I worked on a much cheaper way (instructions in the September '09 issue of American Miniaturist). So, when I found electrical lights at a mini flea market for 75 cents each, I bought the whole lot! I'm now slowly starting to install them. The problem is that each light is attached to a massive battery pack. More on that to come. Here's the first room with the light fully installed and a pic of the bathroom's light that's in the works. What do you think?







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Catalog!!

I'm so excited! I love catalogs, but I was THRILLED when I received a miniature catalog from miniatures.com. I definitely have my eye on a few products! I remember seeing pieces in other people's scenes that I always wondered where they had gotten them from - now I know! From this catalog. I'm especially thrilled by the fuzzy westie dog. I've been looking for one for a long time! Can't wait to make some purchases!

New bedding!

So my master bed never looked very real, and plus it was too boring. So I redid it today!

Old bedding:




New bedding:





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Garage Sale!

Hi, everyone!  It looks like that time lapse video was a big hit!  It was my first attempt at one.  James does them a lot since he's a pro photographer (he took the photos below!).  You can tell this was my first attempt because the camera keeps falling over, and I accidentally shot it vertically - ooops!

Anyway, I've been building this garage as fast as I can.  I heard about an AM deadline which the garage would fit in perfectly for, so I tried really hard to get it in on time.  So, in about a week and a half, I built the garage, painted it, and decorated it.  It doesn't seem that hard to do, but I only had at most two hours a day to work on it due to my day job.

I had fun working on the garage, though I wouldn't have minded more time. :-)  It took a long while to hunt down a VW Bug for the garage (James has a bug), and the one I finally did get is a bit too small, but it doesn't look that bad I hope.

Anyway, enjoy the photos!  Many thanks to James Hannibal for taking these awesome photos and making me look far more talented than I actually am!  You can see more of his great photography at ShootAnyAngle.com (you'll see some of me in there too).

My new project

Apple pie!!

I attempted apple pie once before and quickly decided a berry pie would come out better. I just couldn't figure out how to do the apples inside. Then, thanks to my good friend, Liquid Sculpey, I got some ideas. Tonight was the first time in a long time that I was able to work on minis. I used this time to test out my new apple pie ideas, and here's the result! I think it looks yummy. :)

Thoughts?

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Valentine desserts

Sorry that I haven't posted in a long while. I just got a new 8-5 job, and I haven't figured out how to keep up with my crafts. Anywho, I made these a couple of weeks back. I just got Liquid Sculpey, so these were my first experiments with it. I LOVE it!! I can truly make frosting now. The cupcakes were my first attempt at that type of dessert. I like them, but I have ideas for improvements. As for the cake, I've actually never had red velvet cake before, but it looks good, so I decided to create it in mini form. I'm really starting to like creating mini baked goods. I hope I get more chances to practice!

Like them?





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Attempt at a new project

Wow, I haven't written in far too long.  I'm only now starting to recover from the holidays.  Anyways, while I was up in Idaho awhile back, I found something on the ground that instantly screamed "project" to me.  It's a mini ammo box or so I've been told.  It was all cracked and dirty, and I barely noticed it since it was halfway buried in the snow.  Still, I knew what I wanted to do.  I cleaned it, cut off the top, glued the crack shut, painted the bottom half blue and presto!  I had a mini ice chest!  It even looks loved just like a well-used ice chest should look!  I need to make a camping scene now...

Another project I attempted was my first "baking in progress" scene.  I made a chocolate chip cookie dough mixture in a metal bowl, the dough on the cookie sheets ready to bake, the baked cookies, and a canister of flour (I used a chapstick cap).  It's kind of hard to tell, but there really are tons of mini chocolate chips in the dough.  They just didn't stand out very much.  I'm thinking that the baked cookies are not that great, so I may change them.  What do you think?  Is it realistic for my first attempt?