Selina Rose Gallery - Signing Off

How exciting, I just saw 10,000 click by - since I've had my blog it has had 10,000 views. Another milestone. They seem to be coming all at once - 100 followers, 100 posts, 10,000 views, my first giveaway AND my first finished project since I got back into miniatures. Well, it is not totally finished. Are any of our miniatures totally finished? - there is always the capacity to add just one more thing or come up with one more idea!

The Selina Rose Gallery will be going on a journey tomorrow to its new home with my sister Karen. There are still some things I have in mind, perhaps a window box, some family photos, a mini catalogue of Karen's art and a few touch ups around the windows where there is a bit of a gap between the front and back of the windows, but I feel it is complete enough to make the journey. Karen will also send me a photo of any of her new paintings to scale down for the gallery, so in a way it will be an on-going project.

Below is a final set of photos before I pack it up for its travel. There is not a lot new apart from the front which I have been furiously working on to get finished.

The Front Exterior

The Attic

I've added a rag and paper towels.

The Chill-Out Room

I made up a 'Paper Minis' book kit, A Collection of Still Life Paintings.

The cabinet is full of treasures including a vintage button with a Clydesdale horse on it.

The Upper Gallery

The Lower Gallery

I have added a sign advertising an exhibition by a guest artist, Gail Milne. Gail is another of my sisters (Karen's twin) and is also an artist.

The Whole Gallery

The Inside Door

The Lower Gallery Inside Window

Note the 'Please No Smoking' Sign

Signing Off

I was a good girl and remembered to sign and date the project.

Signing off now and passing the gift of my workmanship to my lovely sister Karen to house miniatures of her wonderful art work.

Celebrating 100 Again

Hi. I am celebrating 100 again. This time it is not my 100th follower but my 100th post.

I was contemplating on doing another surprise giveaway prize but with my husband losing his job I cannot justify the extra postage.

However, I promise to get some tutorials on my blog soon. I have been asked to do tutorials on my rose basket, fire screen and weathervane.

Once I have completed my sister's gallery this weekend I will get onto those for you.

In the meantime I just want to give you a quick update on the Selina Rose Gallery.

I have made a display stand to display a vintage moriage hand painted dragonware plate from Japan with a raised moriage dragon with slipwork decoration (if my research is correct). It is hard to date but my guess is that it is perhaps from about the 1950s. While it is not an item of my sister's art, my sister loves dragons and I thought it might add a bit of interest in the gallery.

Well, that is my 100th post - now back to work on the Selina Rose Gallery.

Selina Rose Gallery Weathervane

I've been working on the roof of the Selina Rose Gallery today. I'm not entirely happy with it, however I am reasonably happy with the weathervane I made to go on it.

The name Selina Rose comes from my maternal grandmother, Selina Rosaline (known as Rose). Granddad was a sailor, hence the sailing ship. He was also a great woodworker. Therefore there is a memory of both of them in this build.

Giveaway - Second Draw Prize

I said that if I reached 100 followers before my giveaway draw date that I would come up with a second prize, so I've been busy this weekend.

Anyone who has entered or enters my giveaway at http://myrtlemanorminiatures.blogspot.co.nz/2014/01/giveaway.html is automatically eligible for this second draw prize. There will be two draws - the first being for the shelf prize - the second being for the firescreen prize shown below.

(NOTE: FIRE PLACE IS NOT INCLUDED)

 The prize is the fire screen, picture, coal bucket and wood holder.

The firescreen with antique wallpaper decoration. You can see more about this wallpaper on my post for the giveaway.

The back of the fire screen.

Coal bucket and wood holder. These are both made of card.. (Please note the wood will not be included or I might get in trouble with customs!)

 

 For the picture I just mounted another scrap of the wallpaper behind this lovely frame. It could easily be removed if you wanted to put another picture in the frame.

 

I've also added a few more of my sisters' scaled down paintings into the Selina Rose Gallery today. All in all a very productive weekend.

Next weekend will be the draw of my giveaway.

Selina Rose Gallery, New Minis and Timeless Toys

First of all a quick update on the Selina Rose Gallery. It now has some art installed on the second floor of the gallery.

I am sure there are more paintings to go in the gallery - art that my sister has done and I do not have a picture of yet and also art that she will do in the future. Luckily there is still some room on the walls of the ground floor.

I was very excited to receive a parcel in the mail yesterday from Spain from Carmen of Mi Pequena Evasion. I recently won some miniature items by answering a puzzle on her blog.  http://pekevasion.blogspot.co.nz/2013/12/jugamos.html


This is what I found inside the parcel:

 The lovely little box and the wonderful mini items I received within it.

 This gorgeous little house will look wonderful in Timeless Toys.

 As will this picture of a mechanical teddy and the alphabet blocks.

And this beautiful bird plate is so lovely and I love anything to do with birds.

Thank you so much Carmen. I am thrilled with the miniatures received from you. They are so lovely to have within my collection.

Talking about my Timeless Toys project, unfortunately I have had to withdraw from the Undersized Urbanite Contest this year. Unexpectedly earlier this week my husband (the main income earner) lost his job. This means for the time being I cannot justify spending money on miniatures so it will be difficult to meet the May deadline. However, I will still be doing the Timeless Toys project by making use of items I already have so keep an eye out for future posts. I'm sure I can make many toys from bits and pieces I have lying around in my craft room.

These cute little resin bears are waiting to be housed in the Toy Shop. I managed to pick them up second hand recently. Aren't they cute. They are only 2cm high.

Just a reminder about my giveaway. It closes on Saturday 1 February.
http://myrtlemanorminiatures.blogspot.co.nz/2014/01/giveaway.html

I said that if I reached 100 followers before closing date I will come up with a second prize. I now have 95 followers so that is looking very likely. I will have to put my thinking cap on.

Have a great weekend.

Update on Selina Rose Gallery

I am waiting for paint to dry... on one of the items for the pending giveaway that I will be announcing on Sunday.

While waiting I thought I would do a quick post on progress with the Selina Rose Gallery.

In my last update on the Gallery I was uncertain how I would treat the exterior of the building. Daydreamer commented on my post suggesting: "... make it a bit like her home? or your childhood home?".

My sister has a wonderful white Art Deco styled home and our childhood home was white stucco with a green corrugated iron roof.

The Selina Rose Gallery now has a white stucco exterior with a green roof (albeit wooden and not corrugated iron).

I have also installed a flickering fire and lights (LED battery lights) and have added a few extra accessories.

(Sorry for the quality of the photos. It is a bit dark to be taking good photos but I wanted to get this post done.)

The attic studio now has a flickering fire, a few extra paintings scattered around, some art pads and a container of pencils. I will be adding some more art supplies.

 

I scaled down an 'Artists' magazine to go in the chill-out room. My sister loves her books and magazines so I had to have at least one in the Gallery. I will probably make some more magazines and one or two art books.

 I've also added one of Karen's paintings in a gold frame in the chill-out room.

 

 The desk now has some fan mail from art admirers and an order book. I still need to add some flowers in the vase.

 

 I have installed these green frosted lights in the bottom two floors being the gallery space.

 

 There is a much simpler light installed in the chill-out room.

 

The exterior. The door is not yet attached it is just sitting there. I still have a few touch-ups to make to the stucco and I need to decide what I am going to do with the windows and door.

 

 Like the door, the roof panel is just sitting there and not yet attached. I think I may need to add another coat of paint to the roof pieces.

A close-up of the stucco. There are a few places around the windows and doors where I haven't taken the stucco in far enough and there are little gaps I need to fill.

 

Now I just need to decide how to treat the windows and door. There are always decisions to be made!

Selina Rose Gallery

In my last post I said I was going to do a post about the items I made for the Christmas Chain Swap 2013 but unfortunately Francesca (Italy) still has not received her gift from me. I am hoping it has just got caught up in the Christmas mail and has not in fact gone missing in the post. If it doesn't turn up soon I will make something else for Francesca.

In the meantime I thought I would do a post on my progress with the Selina Rose Gallery. My sister Karen will be pleased to see this post having waited so long for her Gallery.

In the last few days the Gallery has been given ceilings, wallpaper and flooring and I have been playing around with furnishing it. I am using items of furniture my sister already had, along with some pieces I have made and an old washstand that I am going to use as the artist's work table. This will have some paints, brushes etc on it and a rag hanging off it. I will also make some 1:12 scale art books for this room.

I have two hanging green frosted lights coming for the bottom two floors (the gallery) and a flickering fire coming for the attic fireplace (all LED battery lights). I still need to get a light for the room under the attic. The floor lamp in that room is a non-working light.

In my mind the Selina Rose Gallery has recently been purchased and the new owners are slowly renovating it giving it a neutral décor. They have not yet got around to renovating the attic. The owner/artist sometimes does some painting in the attic but her main studio is at her home.

 The attic where the artist sometimes works. I made the large easel and the little easel on top of the fireplace was made by our Dad in the 1990s. All the paintings are scaled down copies of Karen's art.

 

 The next room down is the chill-out room where the artist can have a quick lunch and a cuppa. I have (very reluctantly) parted with one of the lovely cushions Manu gave me in the Christmas in July swap. Manu made some cushions using images of my sister's art. I have recovered an existing lamp and made the tray, cake and sandwiches.

 

 The next floor down is a bit bare at the moment but will largely be gallery space. I made the little bench seat so gallery visitors can sit and study the paintings.

 

 The bottom floor is the entrance to the gallery. I made the counter, the bench seat, the (very tall) umbrella stand and the easel and sign. While Karen has decided this will be a modern gallery she had this old fashioned doll in her items so I have stood her behind the counter for now. Perhaps she is dressed up for the town's centennial or something! I will make a stand to display the old dragon plate.

 

You may have noticed something is missing from the two gallery rooms, i.e. paintings. Here are some of the scaled down copies of Karen's paintings waiting to be hung in the gallery. I was trying to come up with ideas so I didn't have to stick the paintings to the walls and mark the wallpaper but I haven't been happy with anything I have come up with. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best. The paintings look best just stuck on the walls. I will just stick them up with tacky wax. There are a few other paintings that need to be scaled down and there will be room to keep adding paintings as Karen keep creating.

 

The house in its entirety.

 

Tonight I am going to work on scaling down a few other photos of Karen's paintings that I have so I can work out just how many paintings I have so far and work out how to best display them over the two gallery floors. I also still want to make a few other things for inside the house while I am on my Christmas break.

 

However the biggest job I have to do to complete the Gallery is the exterior front door. I'm still a bit undecided on how to complete this. I have just received a window I ordered replacing a broken one and can now get to work on creating the exterior. Hmmm, what to do!