Halloweeny Treats

Spooky Trick or Treat Tags




Witchy Broom Hilda Tags

Recently added to the Etsy shop!

What's Blooming

Paris Etsy Treasury

Haven't made an Etsy Treasury in a little while, and it took me most of yesterday just to snag a spot! It's called
quiet paris afternoon and I couldn't help sneaking in a pretty Blythe doll.


How exciting, it made the Front Page of Etsy about 5:00 a.m. EST on July 4th

Thanks Etsy and congratulations to all of the artists!

Mini Tips

Simple, but ingenius. This is a little tip shared by Ladybug Sue Thwaite. I was privileged to take her Baby House class when we were living in England. She was over there for Miniatura . The class was 1/90th and involved lots of tiny tinies that had to be glued, painted, and otherwise manipulated so she provided us with sticks and blue tack. Very useful, and you can just rework the sticky tack when it gets too messy or painted. Just flip it over and re-use. Sue has a million great ideas.

Another tip for getting around little edges and corners is to use small emery boards. Even better when you cut the boards in half or thirds to get right in there. These were on display near the checkout of our old "chemist" and it occured to me, while waiting for a prescription, that these would be a little bit better than using just a folded piece of sandpaper. Somewhat easier on the hands if you've got a lot of work area, because the card backing provides structure.

The Great American Dollhouse Museum

The Great American Dollhouse Museum is now open and is located at 344 Swope Avenue in Danville, Kentucky 40422

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday 11:00-5:00
Closed Sunday and Monday

Admission: $7.00 adults; $5.00 children 2-12

6,000 sq. ft. of artisan quality miniatures, sounds like an amazing place to visit. Hundreds of historically accurate houses, educational classrooms, a hands-on playroom for the little ones, and a gift shop for all budgets make this an inviting family trip. (Not to mention the fact that it is blessedly air-conditioned.) Sure makes me want to load up the car and head over there.

Also, check out "Get Involved" section for dollhouse builder and seamstress volunteering.

Follow Lori on Twitter: http://twitter.com/DollhouseMuseum

Halloween Spooky Witch Dresser

Yes, it's still June. It's probably the nature of miniatures to think ahead in terms of holidays and I've got Halloween on the brain for the last couple of weeks. I had great plans for Halloween miniatures last year in the run up to Autumn & Christmas. We had just gotten a hard-won Dolls & Miniatures category at Etsy and all systems were go. But best laid plans and all that. I ended up on bedrest for little Olly and made very little for either holiday. I'm going to make all that great stuff for this year instead.

In the meantime, this 1/12 Spooky Witch Dresser (sold on ebay) was a real hoot to make back in 2006. There were all sorts of goodies crammed in every which way on shelves and behind doors. Witchy poo's stripey socks have been washed and hung up to dry, and she's got a permanent lager tap in one of her cupboards. Burp! Her multi-colored spellmaking candles line the shelves and she's baked a cake full of eye of newt. There is a skeletal hand holding a poisoned apple, jam jars filled with all manner of things you shouldn't be preserving, and behind one of those cupboard doors is actually the mummified remains of a postman skeleton still dressed in all his finery and clutching his little leather bag. We never did find out what he did to make her so cross. Enjoy! :O)

Lazy Sunday

Artful Penpals - Reviving the Lost Art of Letter Writing

I just signed up to Artful Penpals - Reviving the Lost Art of Letter Writing

Shelagh from Alice in Paris has organized this International one-time event for people that miss the bygone days of receiving a personal, handwritten letter and sending one in return. If it proves popular, she'll make it ongoing. Forty seven people have signed up so far. All you have to do is send a handwritten letter that you would be happy to receive; pretty stationery, drawings in the margins, quirky stories, whatever floats your boat. I think it's a great idea. I haven't had a penpal since the 6th grade when I got one out of the back of a Dynamite! magazine.

Hurry sign up ends June 14th at midnight (letters to be mailed by June 28th)!

Flea Market Finds

Score! Don't you love finding bargains. We wandered into Goodwill last Saturday and I saw this shelf and had to have it. I think it's handmade, some of the joins look to be. $4.99 each for the shelf and the large tin of tulips. And the two smaller wall pockets were $1.99, I thought they would be cute to hold blooms from the garden. I want to decoupage the shelf front with Simply Shabby tissue paper in pink with tiny roses and leave the rest white, but now I'm debating whether to leave it as it is in those vintage colors... Anybody have any thoughts?

**ALSO**
Sorry about the comments moderation thing. If you've commented and it never showed up here's why. I got some strange ones on the Oprah post and deleted them and then went to moderation. And nothing happened, no emails about comments. So just today I was poking around here trying to organize the posts into subjects and saw there were like 10 comments to approve. Clearly I'm a blogging genius lol Anyway, thanks for the comments they should all be up now and I'm not moderating any more I'll just delete the weirdos.

Coming up momentarily, the peonies have bloomed! Oh, yes. Happy days:

Flowers Just Listed

1/12 Terra Cotta flower pot with three tulips & 1/12 Pink Roses in a Tin Can (sold and relisted, thanks Deb!)

Oprah. Everybody Gets a Car.

Harpo Studios! (If you click the pictures they open full size, they are the front-right side-and back of the studios.) Oprah wasn't there, she went on hiatus last week for the summer. We had to be in the city this morning so the baby could see an eye specialist at the University of Illinois (Olly has a weird little spot on his eye that we have to keep checking on, it was his fourth appointment with specialists, this one went really well). So when I was Mapquesting last night it turns out Oprah is only 1.6 miles away from Univ of Illinois. I tried to get tickets a couple of times this year but it's always busy, so this will do. Maybe in the Fall I'll have better luck. I stopped into a 7-Eleven for batteries for the camera and had to get one of these Obama sodas. Or as they call it here "pop"

Coming Up Roses!

1/12 Scale Dollhouse Miniature shabby cottage style roses just added to
my shop!

What's Blooming

Just took a walk around the garden to see the flowers and managed to snap a few pictures just before the rain started. This basket used to hold socks in little one's closet, but then he started using it to haul toys around and broke the bottom. So I lined it with a plastic Target bag and filled it with Miracle Gro soil with nutrients. He brought home a spiky tall yellow plant that was a seed project at school (you can just see it peeking out from the center), and then I filled in the rest with red geranium, white and purple alyssum, orange zinnia, and bright blue lobelia. This sits on a step to the back porch.

I'm also working on some miniature flowers for my Etsy shop too - so this week is all about gardening.

Chives are planted by the steps to the back porch. Love the smell and those pretty purple flowers are always a sign that summer is on the way.

This red patch of Dianthus (Sweet William) was planted by the gardener that used to own this house and it seems to get bigger and bigger every year.
My Mother's Day present from last year, the lilac has been blooming for a couple of weeks now. Not too tall, only 4 feet or so, but it's getting there! This one is growing next to the chicken barn.

The peonies! My favorites...well technically my favorites are daisies and lavender, but I have a huge soft spot for peonies. This one blooms in a bright pink fuschia color and it looks so pretty in front of this weathered old picket fence section. There's an herb farm and flower shop just down the road from us that a lady started out of her old barn. She has a ton of these fence sections leaning up against the wall for $5 each and I had to have one. Her husband was standing by to load it into the trunk for me (I think hubs and little one were making friends with a turkey they had in a pen) and when I selected this particular one because it was so chippy he said "A fine choice!" which struck me as really funny.
This year it's multi colored Impatiens in the window boxes. There are two big ones on the front and two of these smaller ones on the side of the house. Shade dominates the front so Impatiens are about all that will grow. Last year I researched shade plants and wasted about $90 on various gorgeous flowers and they all died. And you couldn't really see them anyway, too shady. So this year I'm keeping it simple and spent just $20 on two flats of these guys and had enough left over to plant two hanging baskets for the front porch.

What's going on in your garden?

Beautiful disaster; last year's window boxes:

TGIF

Friday already! Well, this week went by rather quickly. I've been meaning to take some pictures around the garden and post what's up and what's about to bloom, but the days got away from me. Also, it mostly rained this week so there was that as well. First sunny day, I'll do it.

My favorite time of year is peony time. Our house was home to a serious gardener before we bought it (I still get her seed catalogs in the post) and some deliciously gorgeous flowers come up for us every year. Currently, in the side garden there is a fuschia pink peony bush that is heavily in bud so any day now we're going to get massive flowers. Can't wait! I never knew about peonies until we bought our first house roundabout 1999 and that came with three giant peony bushes too. Peonies are lovely and the blooms last forever. They are kind of like giant cottage roses.

Last weekend was relaxing, by the way. I forgot to grab the camera for the entire thing but we had all weekend of sunshine and 80 degree heat. We got all the yardwork done, cleaned the gutters, then the fun part. We went to a local carnival that sets up every year for Memorial Day and drank fresh lemonade, ate soft pretzels, and sampled yummy homemade Italian ice (I chose mango). Little one rode the rides, we sat and listened to live bands, and the two bigger boys ate their weight in rainbow cotton candy. I gave little one enough tickets to play three of those games of skill. He won two inflatable guns from the duck pond and on his last turn at the water gun races, he won the grand prize. Free choice. You should have seen his face, I'm pretty sure it made his entire year. He chose a bright blue toothy shark that is a little bit bigger than he is. He named him "Jawsy"

The rest of the weekend we set the pool up (one of those 14 ft blue above ground deals - still saving the pennies for the inground) and then just before the rain on Sunday we went out to Volcano Falls which is a local children's tiny amusement park for some go karting, video games, and Lazer Tag. I got to do my favorite penny game and some Skee Ball. Home to some more barbecuing and then the week began again. I never did get some ice cream but maybe this weekend :O)

Have some fun everybody!

Happy Memorial Day!

Have a great weekend! I'm not sure what we're doing this weekend besides barbecuing, planting the vegetable garden, and visiting the local Veteran's Field for it's annual fundraising carnival & fireworks. But, whatever it is, I hope that it's relaxing. And that there is ice cream.

Some patriotic Etsy finds:


Set of 6 blank cards for $8.50 from
patrioticpapers



Handmade wooden yard luminary by SperryLaserWorks



Lake Cottages gorgeous print by
catherineholman



swanmountainsoaps