Mini samplers almost done!

Here are the two 1:12 scale samplers I've been working on: the one of the right is done and the other is almost there!

The one of the left is Nancy Sturgeon's early 18th century Adam and Eve sampler from Annelle Ferguson's great book, Traditional needlework in miniature. The one of the right is from Pamela Warner's excellent Miniature embroidery for the Georgian dolls' house.

I want to get them done so I can block them and frame them, along with the Annelle Ferguson I stitched earlier this year.  It's sampler mania!

And I also want to get on to my next stitching project: the Lucy Iducovich Persian rug from Ferguson's book.

Mini day out with the Miniature Crafters of Nova Scotia

Here's my start ...

Mary-Anne and I drove down from Lunenburg for this special mini making day in Halifax with the women of the Miniature Crafters of Nova Scotia, who usually meet once a month in Dartmouth. The project today was a wooden storage unit with baskets and it was a lot of fun!

As much as the project itself, what I enjoyed was the chance to learn tips and tricks from experienced miniaturists :)  It was also great to catch up with some of the campers from Mini Ha Ha and to meet some new folks!

And here's the finished unit!

Knitwits back at work!

Ruth, Esther and I had a great day at Knitwits today.  We got right back to work on our mini projects after a long summer away from them.

I finished slating the back part of the WAMH's roof -- now I can put the thing together!  Woo hoo!

I also started the landscaping of the crofter's cottage -- I learned these techniques from Adrian at Camp Mini Ha Ha two weeks ago, and they work like a charm.  I laid out my areas of planting and path, and under painted where needed. I carved raised beds with slanting edges out of florist's foam and glued it in place.  I then underpainted the foam at the top where the plants will go, leaving the edges green for the grass. 

I mad a bit of path out of some natural slate Adrian gave us at camp, and filled in with tiny gravel and sand.  I applied glue to the florist's foam and added green railway flocking and dried tea leaves for grass and dirt, respectively.

Now I just have to make a lot of plants!

Ruth got a lot of work done on her cottage.  She stained her chairs with her homemade oak stain and got her shutters ready to install.  They all have their leather hinges on and have been carved and roughened up where needed.

Esther prepared and stained the frames to go around the interior door, and will install them and the door next week.  She also used the Minwax English Oak stain on her new Welsh dresser and made an oaken threshold for the kitchen door.

Next week should be very exciting!

Camp Mini Ha Ha crofter's cottage -- at home

Here are the photos I took this morning of the crofter's cottage project I completed at Camp Mini Ha Ha. There are a few things that need doing (I want to plant a tiny garden outside, the door needs some handles and I want to touch up a few things) but it's mostly done.

Miniaturist Kris Compass is making me another sofa!

Artisan Kris Compass has some lovely pieces of reasonably-priced upholstered 1:12 scale furniture for sale on her CDHM site:  see them here.

They include a beautiful Knole settee upholstered in red and gold, and I mention it because she's going to be making me one to go in the William and Mary House! I ordered it almost a year ago, and it's coming up to the time when it's going to be built for me!

Kris has a great blog where she generously shares many, many building tips and tutorials: 1 inch minis by Kris.  If you don't know it, it's pure gold!

Thanks for taking on my commission, Kris, and I can't wait to see how it turns out!

Final day of Camp Mini Ha Ha -- using LED lights

My last day at Camp was Sunday, as I decided to drive home to my man and cats at the end of the evening's events (most people stayed the night and left in the morning).

The overcast view from the main building over the Annapolis Basin of the Bay of Fundy.

Sunday was my wiring day.  I had worked on my light fixtures earlier in the week, but this was the day to wire everything together.

First of all, I tested each fixture, then I made the necessary holes in the structure with a bamboo skewer and started attaching fixtures: there are four lights on this model: coals, reflector sconce, candlestick and outside lantern.

The LED lights we used have built-in resistors and wiring, making them super easy to use

 We had a wiring kit supplied by Grandpa's Dollhouse, the Canadian distributor for the LED light sets made by Evan Designs.  The kit comes with five wired LED lights, already equipped with resistors, a 9 volt Battery Snap with pre-attached switch, two pieces of shrink tube for covering your connections -- Liz and Wayne of Grandpa's Dollhouse also supplied the 9 volt battery.

For the two fixtures that were placed high on the walls I needed to lengthen the wires to reach the base so I could attach them to the wires coming off the battery.  It's easy enough to do, provided you remember a couple of things:

Unlike 12 volt round wiring (the traditional stuff used in dolls houses) where it doesn't matter which wire you connect to which wire, LEDs have positive and negative wires, so one wires black to black and red to red.  You can extend the length of the wires coming from the bulb/resistor with ordinary white round wire, but you don't want to cross wires.  The easiest way to do this is to separate the length of round wire entirely, so you two lengths of single wire.  I connected one length to the red and one to the black coming from the LED and resistor, and then marked the one coming from the black wire with a bit of black paint at the end.

Ugly gouges on the side wall where I hid the wiring extension needed for my wall sconce.

You can make your connection a number of ways: after twisting the wires together, you can either solder them, shrink tube them or cover them (keeping the wires separate) in electrical tape. The latter is ugly, as you can see above, but I didn't have my soldering iron with me and I was running out of shrink tube!

All the wire gathering on the bottom of the model.  On the right, under the manky masking tape, is the 9 volt battery.

I hollowed out a place for the 9 volt battery on the bottom of the foam base.  With all the wires coming from the fixtures, I then simply connected all the black wires, covering the connection with a shrink tube and did the same for the red wires.  (Remember to slip that shrink tube onto the main wire first!)

Then, it was time to flick the switch!

That's my favourite moment of all in mini making -- the moment when the lights go on!

Having finished my model as far as it was going to go, I took a moment and snapped some shots of the other projects near me:

The interior of Mary-Anne's Tuscan wine and tea shop, where there has apparently been some kind of rumpus!

The exterior of Gnorbert the Gnome's home by Myra -- best front door ever!

And Gnorbert's cosy room inside.  Love that window!

Trina's beautiful Garden Shop, which manages to combine elegance and whimsy.  Look at the bird feeders on the fence!

And the inside of the shop, in progress :)

Thank you to all the wonderful campers I met and to the great people who organized this event.  I think I'm a lifer now, and I know I'm an Idjit and I intend to return every year!  I returned home with renewed mini-ing zest, and can't wait to get started on the WAMH again.

Saturday at Camp Mini Ha Ha -- work continues, plus sale and AUCTION!

I am over the moon -- so happy and excited! I won the most beautiful things in the auction this evening, and can't wait to tell you all about it ...

My piece is gluing up and I've added the wood trim.  Tomorrow, I landscape!  One of the things I finished today was this rather rough little grate and stove for the crofter's cottage's fireplace -- it's all made from mat board with a Tic Tac bed of coals :)

We all continued work on our projects today -- the pieces continue to astonish and delight me.

Our British camper, Anne, has made a very creative inside/outside scene using a turntable.  Really ingenious.

Nancy is famous for sticking most closely to the prototype project :)  I love the black trim here.

Elizabeth is making a stately wizard's room ... the outside ...

... and the inside!

Love Sherry's wainscotting and trim on this one.

This is Kelly's dark and mysterious house, which she says will be full of trees.  Sounds fabulously fairy-tale like.

Debbie P's version has lots of windows.

This afternoon was the open house, when non-participants are allowed to come in and see what we're up to.  I had a table in the Sales Room from which I sold mini books, book kits, furniture and decorated china.  I actually sold enough to be able to go shopping and participate in the auction in the evening!

Here are some of the lovely things I bought this afternoon: paper flowers, cutting boards (which I'll turn into something special), an LED battery operated table lamp for my Mum's birthday (and her room box), another pussy cat, a Bonnie Lavish tulip kit, a wonderful ham for the William and Mary kitchen and a deer's head for the castle.  I also picked up two pieces of pottery by Joanne Shaw to add to my pottery collection -- like all her work they're dead in scale -- fine, fine work.

And the instant I walked into the Auction room (which helps raise money for Camp Mini Ha Ha's continuing existence) I fell in love with one lot -- a pad of graph paper, a dark green 1:1 scale mug with a mini theme ... and a pair of sterling silver candlesticks by Canadian silversmith Greg Matuskovsky, who is carrying on the work of his late father, Vladamir Matuskovsky.  When I say I fell in love with them, it's not an analogy -- something "pinged" in my heart.  I don't have a lot of money, but I had made enough this weekend, thanks to so many generous campers, and this was the one item I wanted to get.

And I did!

I took this picture with my phone camera which doesn't really have a macro lens, but it'll give you an idea :)  They are about an inch and a half tall,  with exquisite detail and are in my favourite style (square bases with barley twist bodies).  I am ECSTATIC!  Thanks so much to Betty who generously donated it to CMHH's auction and to Debbie P. who let me win it :)

Second day at Camp Mini Ha Ha -- structures!

This is the model project: outside ...

And inside!

Here are some photos of the model project which is itself a group effort.  Samm Brockhurst designed and made the kits of builders foam for the structure and is helping us with windows and doors.  Janet Harvey designed and styled the interior and is teaching us to make the chair and window treatment.  Adrian Cooper has done the exterior finish, foam carving and landscaping, all of which she is teaching us.  And Wayne Dieleman, husband of Liz, the proprietor of Grandpa's Doll House, prepared the lighting kits and taught us the basics of LED lighting.

I may have mentioned that this is a creative group of people. Here are some examples of how supportive the instructors are of individual creative vision and why this is a really special environment.

Walking around the work room on Friday I snapped a few shots of some of the various versions of this scene:

Mary Anne is making a Tuscan wine and tea shop!

Kelly is making an upscale hobbit hole.

Shelley's also making a hobbit hole, with extensive landscaping!

And here's the inside of my cottage so far!

On Friday I worked on light fixtures: an outside lantern, a candlestick and candle and a wooden wallsconce with reflector.  I found the PERFECT bit of stuff for a candle reflector, by the way -- it was on the freebie table of craft supplies and is one of those ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) tags they give you for the day to show you've paid your entrance fee-  Couldn't have been better!

 

Janet taught us a simple method for making curtains that look as if they have weight.

I finished a pair of chair I'd brought along -- the one of the right is just stained and the other was stained and then touched up with acrylic paint.

We also had kit sales and a lovely woman who is making a CBC Radio feature about the strange and wonderful world of miniaturists!  Some very interesting discussions were had late last night about the nature of our hobby/obsession and what it says about us!