The numbers are slowly growing.....

Welcome Aurora & Jaz

It is a great pleasure to welcome two more followers: Aurora and Jaz. Jaz, you don't mention a blog and Aurora I tried to follow the link you give in your infomation but it wouldn't connect so there might be an error in it somewhere.

Thank you both for visiting here! I do hope you come back often, grab a cup of coffee and sit and browse through the posts. Please feel free to leave comments - I love having people to 'talk' to about my mini obsession, and to share progress on the different projects with.

.And I love to visit other people's blogs too, to see what you are all up to! This week I spent a whole day then another half a day catching up - and still need to spend more time looking at even more. So many talented people are out there, you often make me feel very inadequate with your exquisite work.

So please don't be strangers! Come visit, leave comments, and join in the fun here in my miniland. That goes for everyone, folks :)

Happy Australia Day

It is 26th January here in Australia, so it's a public holiday. It is meant to be a day of celebration - celebrating what is great abut Australia and being Australia, what we can be proud of, and how we can make Australia an even better place in the future. Most towns and communities have Australia Day celebrations and events. And of course there is always a test cricket match going on :)

The date was chosen because it is the anniversary of the arrival in 1788 of the First Fleet , which consisted of 11 convict ships from Great Britain and the raising of the Union Jack in Sydney Cove by Captain Arthur Phillip.

So - if you are an Aussie, however you celebrate it, Happy Australia Day! Whether you attend a community function, or have a family get-together or just have a quiet day, I hope you take time to pause and reflect on how fortunate we are to live in this wonderful land with the freedom and plenty that we so often take for granted. Let's make it a day when we contemplate the blessings and appreciate them, and show the pride in our land that we are so often too reserved to demonstrate.

I've been remiss.....

I have fully intended for a couple of days now to welcome some new followers: Elayne, Dallydominis - I couldn't see a link for you Elayne, or a personal name for you from Dallydominis but I think I recognise your houses from a group we both belong to :) . Hope you had a chance to get on with your bedding today. Welcome also to Luisa and Tyla. Luisa the nursery you have just completed for your house is a perfect dream - so soft and dainty, with gorgeous details. I love, love, love it! And Tyla, what a talented lady you are, with all the different crafts you do so beautifully.

I appreciate your visits, and sincerely hope you all enjoyed your time here. I hope also that you will return often and leave comments. My family and most of my friends accept that I love my hobby of miniatures but they certainly don't understand it! I truly treasure my interaction with other miniaturists through my own blog and the blogs of others too. I am greatly encouraged by your comments and gain inspiration from looking at your work. The internet is truly amazing!

Not much to show this week

If you've had a look at my Scrappy Snippets blog you'll see why I haven't done much in the way of minis this week. However, I was chatting to my dear friend Jan today, the emails flying back and forth and once I posted off the first birthday card exchange for the year I pulled Pickett Hill out. Not that it had far to bring it out from - it has been sitting beside my arm chair all week :)

I realised that I hadn't put the battens on one of the walls because before now I wasn't able to work out which piece was that wall - it is just a rectangle among other rectangles. Today I worked it out, put the battens on, painted both sides and varnished the floor with another coat of satin varnish to give it a bit nicer finish.

That all dried quickly, so I glued the walls in place - while each one dried I packed up the mess from card making.

So here they are. First of all, the front view. It doesn't look all that great with just one coat of paint on it, but that is just to seal the wood a bit, as I mentioned in the previous post.

Next, here is the left side wall, where the chimney will go. That's why there is a gap in the battens - to allow for the chimney to go there.

Continuing around the house, here is the rear wall, where the French doors will go, leading into the portico. Don't you love the oval window?

The right side wall is totally open.

After those photos I put the front porch and the rear portico in place for the last two photos. Even though they still need more painting I couldn't wait to see the effect. First, the front with the lovely bow window and the porch sitting there.

Then the rear of the house, with the beautiful portico sitting against the wall. The foundation of the house isn't glued on yet, so it isn't sitting properly but isn't it gorgeous? I won't decide whether to paint the floor white or leave it coloured until it is time to glue the structure in place.

Well, it's time to close this off - I've had it sitting open and forgot to publish it! Hopefully next week there will be more to show. No more will be done until after sunset tomorrow night of course, and I will see how that goes. You never know - there could be lots of progress by next update so keep checking! Till then -

Help! Fire!

Here's my surprise project -
but I haven't forgotten the POM

And I will show what I have done for it once I post the photos on Miniature Haven later in the month.
But I haven't stopped quarter scale either.  Sunday night I decided I was going to finally make a start on: ta-da - Pickett Hill!!  I haven’t forgotten about Carrington Villa, it will still be done as the POM, and maybe I will squeeze in a second POM for the quarter scale kits that need the same items done too.

But  I had the kit, materials and space to start on PH on Sunday night and since our daughters and grandchildren left to go home that afternoon I felt I needed something to spoil myself. 

 

However the gloss finish I need for the first step of Pickett Hill was around at the caravan, and Peter had gone off to do a night duty shift so I pulled out the furniture kits and started on the Artist’s Storage Unit.  I realised that I had glued the wrong sides together and popped it into  the microwave as I so often do, to soften the glue and take it apart again when – whoosh! Flames, smoke and fire!!  It was such a shock.  It took me about three goes to press the ‘open’ button properly to remove the little cabinet.  Result: charred edges on one of the backs. 

So some remedial surgery had to take place.  I painted the whole unit with its first coat of ivory paint, and put paper over the exterior back to cover the gaps, then filled any spaces at the edges inside with glue.  It looks okay now it's had another coat of paint on it.  I will show a photo when I have added the artwork.

And that’s what comes from insisting on going ahead and mini-ing when you are far too tired!
 
On Monday I started on the house itself, doing the arched windows, moveable doors and the ceilings and each day I have done a bit more on different parts. Here is what is done now (Friday).

Now for some more detail.  Here below are some of the windows and moveable doors.  They either need to be painted or need their last coat of paint:

And here are some of the features that I fell in love with when I first saw Pickett Hill: the portico, the front porch, the bow window and again the arched windows.  I should have included the oval window in this shot because it was another feature I loved, as were the French Doors to the portico.  You will see that I have already done a couple of coats of paint on the walls.  That wasn't in the instructions - they say to put the wallpaper on to the bare wood inside, but I just simply cannot bring myself to put wallpaper on without sealing wood first. 

 Of course you do the house first, before you add the trim, right?  Not me!  I couldn't resist going ahead and doing all of the portico!  The instructions tell you to paint the floor white, I have painted mine almost the same as I did the flooring in the house.  I haven't glued the structure to the floor yet, so it will be easy to change if I don't like the look when I put the house together. Again, the portico needs another coat of paint.

 And a side view of the portico just because I love it so much!

 And I love the front porch too!

 Here's another view of the walls, the porch and the bow window.  More painting needed of course.

So there it is - Pickett Hill in progress at long last!  It's quite different from the Petite Properties cottages I have been doing, and I love each of them in their own way.  I wouldn't like to do all my projects  the sweet and sugary type like PH but love this one to bits.  I wonder whether it will be done for the Sydney Fair?  I'm not even going to set that as a goal - I have too many other things I want to finish off for that.  But I will keep pottering along with it.  Keep in touch!

Hello Babette & Margarita

Wow! 150 now

Welcome Margarita and Babette to my mini world.  I am delighted to see two more followers added and I hope you enjoyed your visit here.  Please come back often and feel free to leave comments - it is wonderful to experience the sharing that is a feature of blogland.  Otherwise it is all just talking to myself :-).

I am seriously awed by your magnificent house Babette. I do not aspire to anything nearly so grand - I have started off on that path but ended up with something much more pedestrian.  Maybe one day I'll be able to achieve it.  I hope so.  Meanwhile I dream......

Margarita, I also had a look at the link to your books on Picassa.  My particular favourite is the fold-out dollhouse book - what a treasure that is.  If you have that one you are fortunate indeed.

I have a surprise to share with you very soon .....maybe tomorrow I hope.  So keep tuned, friends.  I think you will really like this one.............
Till then

Project of the Month

Yes, I actually still do 1:12th scale...

One of my online clubs, Miniature Haven, is continuing our Project of the Month this year, with a slight change of format.  Last year we did items for a flea market stall, and the members who participated took turns each month choosing the type of object we made: eg, something from paper, something for the garden, something to do with sewing etc.  This year the variation is that we are each working on our own project,  so each participant decides in advance what project she (or he) will work on and wants to make an item for each month. This can be a flea market or a room box we want to finish or maybe even a house or shop we are planning to build. Scale is whatever we would like to build in. 

Again though, we have monthly assignments as a club, chosen in turn by members who are participating in the project, to make a room of the house the theme of the month.  This month's assignment is to make something for a (the) bathroom, whether it is accessories for a bathroom, furniture, tiles or structural details.

My nice house, Carrington Villa (pictured below, the lion is courtesy of Luke, our then youngest grandson) has been sitting there in our lounge room since 2006, only partly decorated and furnished. 

I commissioned it in 2005 as a retirement gift for myself, but when we took delivery I found that it had been painted throughout with white gloss paint. It is fully constructed naturally and all the timber in it is 100 year-old cedar which the maker (a retired engineer) cut to size himself, so I am a bit daunted by trying to paint over that white gloss, and I want to set it in the modern era so don't really want to wallpaper all of it.  So as usual when I come across something that has me a bit flummoxed I just stopped and went on with something else.  In this case I did buy most of the fittings and accessories for the bathroom, furniture for the living room, and also bought and made up kits and accessories for the kitchen.  But nothing is permanently fitted because I haven't painted it yet.  So this POM (Project of the Month) might just help me get going on it again.

Nice aspects of this house are that not only does it open with two doors at the front, but there is a side door and a rear door as well.  Here is the side door, showing the bathroom upstairs and the kitchen downstairs.

And here is a closer view of the bathroom, in its naked state ready to be painted and fitted with the things I have bought for it as well as some etra accessories.  You can see through the doorway into the upper hallway foyer, which contains a built-in linen room - a lovely touch that was a complete surprise. 

And here is the collection of furnishings and accessories I have so far for the bathroom:

I also have some packaging that I might use to make a shower, but I am looking for the shower fittings to go with it.  If I manage to do so that might be the object I make for the bathroom this month.  apart from that, I need to paint the small area of the walls that remains untiled, maybe do a clothes hamper, a mat for the floor and a blind for the window.  That will be a good effort for January - and one room basically finished.  And now I have told you about it my friends, I hope it means that I am committed.

New Year - New Blog

We'll have to see how it goes....

I don't know whether it is a good idea or not.  I've opened a new blog for my scrapbooking and cardmaking.  It is http://ScrappySnippets.blogspot.com and it is still under construction - I have ordered a header banner from Plumrose Lane, and a personalised signature as well.  there's only one post published as yet, but I'd really love your feedback on it. 

Also please let me know whether this blog page is behaving itself now!

Hope you had a  lovely New Year.  We did.  Quiet but nice.  We watched the fireworks on the harbour, and they were spectacular as usual.  Because the harbour is so big, they extend for a long way, and from some positions you can look for miles right down the waterways to the bridge and take in the different points where the display complements the main one.  This year the theme was 'Time to Dream' and it was about dreaming for the future in an optimistic way after a really bad year.  My particular favourite part is always the cascade from the bridge itself and I tried to find a photo of it but couldn't so I've made do with this one, which shows the never-ending rainbow in the centre of the bridge.

Then yesterday as our wall clock chimed 11am, we watched live as Big Ben chimed midnight and saw the fireworks in London, which were also gorgeous.  Straight after that 'Songs of Praise' was on tele, and it was based in Edinburgh, which welcomes the new year in with real style.

We visited my mother, taking some Scottish Oatcakes made to a traditional recipe - both Mum and I love them.  My Auntie Jennie used to make them for me every year.

My cough has been getting bad again, and I've been feeling quite unwell; and Peter has a cough too so today we went to the doctor.  She checked me thoroughly and I had quite a temperature but she said my chest sounded clear.  We are both on antibiotics and if I don't improve in 24 hours she wants me to have a chest x-ray in case I have pneumonia.  I don't think I do, but will do as I am told just for a change :)

It has been really warm today which is just as well because I want to shampoo the carpet in our lounge room today and we are fast running out of time.  I get the distinct impression that Peter isn't keen on the idea lol!  But I want to freshen it up before the family arrives tomorrow and with this heat it should dry okay.

And if I possibly can I want to start a petitpoint piece.  It is a carpet chart by Sue Bakker, called Forever Aubusson.  She has charted it for 22count or 30 count but I am doing it on 48 count, just to be different.  Which means of course that instead of using 2 strands of DMC I will only use 1.  But I don't have any choice - it is the only piece of silk gauze I have that is large enough.  My 30ct is just 2" too small all around.  I did put an order in to Bobbie Schoonmaker in October but unfortunately she was really ill and passed away.  I am very sad about that, and pleased that her business will continue with a new owner later this month.  Meanwhile I will make do with the gauze I have.

This is what the chart for the carpet looks like:

I wonder how long it will take me to do?  Petitpointers have a progress day on the 10th of each month, when members post photos of projects they have done in the last month, or the progress they have made on a larger project.  I will aim to have something to show them (and you) for then.

Bye for now, and please check out Scrappy Snippets and let me know what you think: is it a good idea or not?