Our Weekend Efforts and a New Resident

First of all I am going to show you what my 11 year old daughter Jamie and I achieved in the weekend after setting each other challenges to do with miniatures.

We both did some undercoating. I did my sister's gallery and Jamie did what will be her Harry Potter themed general store, pictured below. It is an old house I had tucked away for a rainy day but as Jamie is expressing an interest in miniatures I have given it to her for her Harry Potter project. After the undercoating I was the one splattered with paint, although I suspect as much of it came of her brush as it did from mine.

Jamie achieved all of her challenges being dragons eggs, a witches hat and a sign for her store.

Didn't she do well! She has decided to call her shop Wacky Wenny after the wannabe wizard that runs the store. She made up a fabulous story about him.

I only (partly) achieved one of my challenges being a shop counter for the Selina Rose Gallery:

I think I will add a varnished wood counter top.

To complete my challenges set by Jamie I still need to make accessories for the shop counter, make some picture frames and turn a little wood planter box into a miniature of some sort (see previous post).

I don't think Jamie quite appreciates yet the time it can take to make miniatures and, in my defence, I was guiding her with making her items! I will have to work on the other challenges over the next few days.

But what is really exciting is we have a new resident.

Marlon has successfully made his way from Germany to New Zealand to live in my craft room. He is so gorgeous and is a real character. He made himself right at home the minute he walked in the door. To know a bit more about Marlon you might like to read about him on his creator's blog:
http://pippibaerenbande.blogspot.co.nz/2013/10/marlon-hat-ein-date-marlon-has-date_16.html
Melli of Der Pippibaren-Blog makes the most gorgeous little characters. You should see the wonderful little elves she is making at the moment for a Christmas scene. Just gorgeous.

Anyway, I first took Marlon to meet Edward Elf in Edward's Christmas box. Edward was also made by Melli and had taken the long journey from Germany to New Zealand. See my post:
http://myrtlemanorminiatures.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/thinking-of-christmas-meet-edward.html
Edward was kind enough to offer for Marlon to stay with him in his Christmas box but Marlon declined as he thought Edward would have to be up too late each night making Christmas decorations for Santa, however he said he would love to visit Edward often.

I said to Marlon that I had brought him over from Germany to reside in the Timeless Toys toy shop where he could help me keep all the toys in order, but he didn't think he wanted to live in a noisy toy shop either.

After a while I heard a little voice declaring he had found his perfect residence. Marlon had clambered up one of my display shelves and was standing in the upper level of my Bodo Hennig house that houses my vintage German dolls house furniture. He said it had the perfect table and chairs with a bottle of wine and goblets for entertaining. I can see I am going to have to find Marlon a nice lady bear! He even brought some roses with him all the way from Germany ready to give to a special lady bear.

 

 

I don't think it will work with Marlon living in the upper level of the Bodo Hennig but I have promised him he can have the table and chairs and I will find him another little residence all of his own.

Another project on my to-do list.

Thinking of Christmas... Meet Edward

First of all I must report in on my weekend to-do list. If you recall I had four items on my list:

1. To wallpaper a room in my vintage house The Laurels - achieved. See previous post.

2. To play with fimo.
I did have a play with fimo trying to make some candles but I wasn't satisfied enough with the end result to bake them or show them on my blog. We will just say that working with fimo is a work in progress.

 3. To get better organised by keeping a record of my projects, things I buy, ideas etc.
This will go on my next to do list! I just plain ran out of time last weekend.

4. To create 'tags' on my blog linking blog entries that relate - achieved. I worked out how to do this and started linking blog entries. Now hopefully if you click on e.g. Selina Rose Gallery on the label sidebar of my blog it will bring up all the entries relating to that label.

Three out of four isn't too bad.

Anyway on to more exciting news. I want you to meet Edward Elf who has travelled all the way from Germany to New Zealand. I recently saw a picture of some of the lovely mice Melanie Frank creates and thought I'd have a look on her Etsy site - and there he was. I just couldn't resist. He was lovingly packaged by his creator and arrived safely on my doorstep earlier today. He was waiting for me when I came home from work for my lunch break.

Malanie's blog is http://pippibaerenbande.blogspot.de

At the moment Edward is temporarily sitting on a cotton reel.

Edward is going to reside in a  Christmas project I will work on throughout the year to be housed in a lovely Christmas box I bought last Christmas that just begged me to buy it and turn it into a miniature project.

The box is so lovely I don't want to cover too much of it but my vision is that Edward is appointed by Santa as the Master Creator of Decorations who spends his year creating beautiful Christmas decorations to decorate the tree in the Christmas Village come December. I will probably also create a decorated tree to sit in front of the box when it is on display at Christmas.

The box has lovely images of decorations on it and I intend to highlight these by adding diamantes etc and making a feature of them. I envisage just having a few shelves on the back wall with some of Edward's creations. I have put a paper chain and small wreath in Edwards hands which I have made.

Enjoy the following images of Edward and his Christmas box: