Rain and rain and too much rain

How lax I've been with both mini-ing and my blog.

After 6 weeks of seriously regretting that I hadn't caught up on my childhood immunisations (anyone in Australia born before 1964 may like to see if they need an update, especially if they have grandchildren) and not achieving much  I 'bit the bullet' and decided that I would finish the inside and outside of my house. First step was to plaster over the wallpaper in my loungeroom. The wallpaper was something I have always been unsure about and while it was sad to see it disappear under the plaster, it was a better decision...or was until I painted the newly plastered walls, not once but 3 times in the hope that I would get the effect I wanted by adding more paint. The more paint that went on, the more plasticky it looked, so next step was to sand all the paint off again. A process made complicated in a room which is 15 inches deep, 7 1/2 inches tall and 9 1/2 inces wide, covered in beams and with a built in chimney breast.  Aaaarrrgghh!

Much sanding took place in the unusually wet weather we had been having and I was pleased to take a break one Monday when after an early lunch Miss 19, Master 14 and I decided to visit the library in the centre of town. Remembering an earlier plan to go the movies the next day (again in the centre of town) we headed off to the uni library instead, Miss 19 on her 'L' plates driving ("Mum, you know I have to get experience driving in rain!) The trip over was uneventful, we were soaked running through the carpark, but rain was still such a novelty in our drought stricken town that it was a laughing matter rather than an irritation. 

Driving home the rain became heavier and the roads deeper in water. Conversation in the car was terse, 'You have to brake a lot earlier in wet weather, Elizabeth...' 'My foot is right down, Mum!'  

Cars around were sliding slightly despite travelling slowly and there was nowhere safe to stop. At one dip in the road the water level was well  past the bottom of the car doors and moving rapidly. A truck screamed past with it's horn blaring at a very major intersection, unable to stop for the cars already in the intersection, also fighting the slippery roads. Miss 19 kept her head, perhaps better than I would have, and continued driving slowly and steadily, marvelling at flowing waters until we were finally safely home . We dried off, laughing with relief and amazement. 

After the water had subsided in our street

Later still but still a steady stream, an hour later our street was dry

Soon after, the Toowoomba flash flooding must have hit the news in other states because we began to get emails and phone calls from worried friends and relatives. Not knowing why it would be so newsworthy (scary yes, but nothing like the flood stricken areas we had been feeling sympathy for) we turned the news on to see what had become of the centre of town and to begin hearing the stories of people who had not been as lucky as us.

Margaret, Dent and Victoria Streets - Library on right *

The 'what ifs' haunt me. 'What if' we had gone down to the library. 'What if' we had separated as we often do, each with our own business to get on with before meeting back. Neo Tokyo, Master 14s favourite store was deep in water. 'What if' we had been in the carpark when it hit- the timing was right, 'what if', 'what if' 'what if'....

For too many people the 'what if's' are a reality. Ordinary people doing normal everyday things and never expecting that life would suddenly end in a flood beginning in a drought stricken town on the top of a mountain with no river.

I know that I have new followers and while it is my custom to introduce you, I will beg your forgiveness and do so in my next, more cheerful, entry.

*Photo from Kris at Tagalongteddies

Happy Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my followers. May today be a day of peace, love and goodwill.

2011 is on it's way.

This is the time of year when I start thinking about New Year's resolutions and reviewing the old year. Some resolutions I will make again, even knowing the same ones made every year are broken within days, but maybe 2011 will be the successful year! 

For the magic of New Year's resolutions to work though, I have to get everything tidy from the current year, so it is a time of pulling out old projects and finishing them - not the dollshouse, much to my husband's disappointment, but some of the unfinished furnishings came from their takeaway containers to be worked on.

With the larder still waiting for materials, the kitchen table was the obvious piece to pull out. It is semi based on our real life kitchen table. I have always loved the square turned legs on it and used to puzzle over how they were made. A needle file and half a dozen emery boards later and I now know. Possibly the real life craftsman 100 years ago used different tools.

 I've always wanted a drawer in our table so could add one here instead and I love the cutlery which were a pack of jewellery charms - a complete set for 50 cents on a sale table! With the rings filed off and the knife handles painted cream, they were just what I wanted. Even though the drawer will generally be kept closed, I like knowing they are there.

Pip, the eldest boy in my dollshouse family, finally got a desk, maybe one day he will have a bedroom to put it in!  After the war materials were in short supply and a 1947 'Hobbies Weekly' magazine recommends using cardboard or black linen (blackout fabric?) to back a tallboy until ply became available. I can't imagine that in our time when materials of all kinds are so readily available. 

With that in mind, I decided a piece of furniture which looked 'repurposed' with a slap of post war brown paint would be perfect. The authenticity was increased when the cat knocked the drying piece off the desk and rather than replace the resulting broken leg, it seemed right to splint and paint it. Maybe it had been a broken washstand stored in the attic from an era when nothing was thrown away? I think when it is finally in place I will give him a crystal radio set to work on and I had to smile after doing the inkstains, when I realised that Pip must be left handed. How often these dolls houses take on their own life and build their own stories!

Last was Pip's toy chest, from an old blind slat and my first attempt at 'joining'. It is pretty rough (it was a very hard blind slat!), but I like the effect and as I imagine it as a chest used to bring treasures back from Istanbul/Constantinople where his father was on a dig before the war, it doesn't need to be a craftsman piece ...fortunately!

Pip's mat was done a while ago and was so much easier than the plaited methods I had been playing with. Crochet a chain of variegated thick wool and start winding into an oval. As you go, either ladder stitch it into shape across the bumps on the back or glue it to a piece of card, then press with a hot steamy iron and liberal amounts of spray starch until it is flattened.

A couple more bits to finish and I can start concentrating on Christmas!

Welcome to my new followers. As always it is lovely to see new faces and I hope you enjoy visiting.

From my last post is Patrisan and of course I remembered her after visiting another blog, as she has the most wonderful giveaway of teeny shoes! These are incredible! I don't often go in giveaways, but my name was down in Patrisan's post as soon as I saw her gorgeous offer. I have used the google translate link, so I hope it works, but if you visit her before the 18th, look for her giveaway post which she will be closing on that date. (if it doesn't work...that's more chances for me to win, hehehe) Congratulations Patrisan on your tiny new niece as well.

Drora Hed, Lady Jane and Beth Laverty aren't showing up with blogs, so please DO contact me if you have one we can share.

Edit - Lady Jane  left a comment on my last blog post, so I was able to track down her two blogs from there. I haven't had a chance for a full read yet, but have enjoyed what I have seen so far - another talented and creative homemaker.

Mandy  is another who wasn't showing up with a blog when I posted, then it clicked and I realised she is DHE friend. She is reasonably new to mini ing (I think) but has a wealth of talent from various crafts she has mastered,  before mini life, to draw upon.  

I noticed Lucky Little Fringer is following Mandy as well, still apparently blogless. As they were one of my first followers as well, I was intrigued. If you ever want to come from your quiet following corner, please let us know.

Another follower from my 'no picture' list is the Karen and Kevin team. I'm sorry I didn't notice you hidden away there. Karen and Kevin are building the most amazing Tudor dollshouse. I have to be careful when I call by and visit in case I come back full of discontent. The detail is amazing and it is truly a grand house, and enormous, even at 1:12 scale.

I'll see you all next time, stay safe and calm over this time.

Needlefelting - my new love

This week has been one of those frustrating weeks you know has to come around occasionally to remind you how good life normally is. Nearly every project I have wanted to do has needed something I have to buy online (or have lost and know that as soon as I buy another it will appear - aaarrrgghh) my laptop has lost yet another faculty and wont recognise USB sticks or SD cards, I have been confined to the house with a revolting 'childhood' illness and the only ones loving me at the moment are the cats...and I suspect their love is because with a temperature I am so cosy to cuddle up to in this wet weather we have been having. Oh woe is me!

So with nothing going right, it was a thrill to have some felting needles I had bought on ebay arrive and with some  rovings I had from a craft find at the local op shop, I only needed the tutorial in the December Dolls House Magazine to get started. Needless to say the magazine was not to be found ...definitely one of those weeks!

3 cm Teddy

 Determined to keep going I figured a dollshouse scale teddy bear with its round basic shapes couldn't be too hard, and if it was a disaster...well, it could be a well loved teddy.

Nowhere I had read how therapeutic sitting and continuously stabbing at a piece of wool is, giving the evil eye to anyone who came near. I am surprised all those witchy types blogging away had never mentioned it, but maybe that is a witches secret. Some of my family were convinced they were being voodooed and all of a sudden I had offers of tea and icecream and a bit of much needed spoiling.

Teddy needed a friend and  I wanted a dolly of the old fashioned stuffed toy variety but only had  teddy brown, so attacked some ancient wool/polyester crepe yarn (left over from a jumper knitted 17 years ago - never throw anything away!) with a 'nit' comb and it was even easier to felt than the proper materials!

Dolls house scaling failed so she was given to Dolly for her own little dolly.

.

Dolly and dolly

 

Several Christmassy projects followed along with a broken needle (don't try to manipulate the wool and poke at the same time) and some pricked fingers  (it is better to felt against the foam, not while holding the piece) and morale was much restored with a new craft learned, albeit at a very basic level.

2cm Nativity

 

to my new followers:

Linda with such a variety of houses from shabby chic to witchy (an entire community)! All so wonderfully realistic, and well...perfect! Her twin Beacon Hills deserve their own blog and have it so call by there as well because these mansions are worth studying.

Chelle who is an online dollshouse friend but currently occupied with her daughter's approaching wedding. Her dollshouse work is gorgeous and I can imagine her daughters wedding will be wonderful given Chelles crafty abilities. (I did enjoy seeing her messy craft room before pic- hehehe)

There is another follower I can't access at the moment - the computer has already turned itself off once this session - thank goodness for autosave! I'll look forward to catching up next post and also with some of the mystery followers I was puzzling about, which Susan so nicely solved for me.

I hope you enjoy following and I am already enjoying the blogs you have to share.

Food Glorious Food!

I couldn't blog about an Enid Blyton styled cottage without mentioning food. Her books are full of mouthwatering descriptions of food, which is always fresh from the farm and plentiful, even ordinary tinned foods are made to sound exotic and adventurous. Sardines at a midnight feast! Dick's eyes gleam when they raid Aunt Fanny's store cupboard in Five Run Away Together "Soup -tins of meat - tins of fruit - tinned milk - sardines - tinned butter - biscuits - tinned vegetables! There's everything we want here!" 

In between meals there are icecreams, lemonade, ginger beer and macaroons to be eaten on the beach or in teashops as well as bars of chocolate in back pockets with bags of sweets. Truly a child's heaven.

poke me for more detail

So with all these things in mind I knew that food would be plentiful in Hollyhock Cottage... until I began to research and learned about strict war time rationing. Before the war 70% of Britain's food was imported, mostly by shipping which immediately made it vulnerable to attack. Labour was down as men went to fight for their country and soldiers had to be fed so rationing was introduced to ensure that all would have food. This continued for years becoming stricter after the war with foods such as bread and potatoes being added to the rationed list. Publishing was down too, due to paper restrictions, yet, like the food in her stories, Enid Blyton seemed unaffected, publishing nearly 100 books during the war years. 

 

My main goal was to get some more building done this week, but alas, to go further I have to finish the larder which will be impossible to reach once the walls go up, so with food in mind I pulled out the Sculpey and set to. Fortunately I had made a number of items such as carrots, potatoes and honey pot a while ago plus tinned goods from some of the free printable sites found online and jars using the resin and pencil eraser method. Sorry, I didn't know to save links then. 

Even more fortunately given my limited Sculpey skills, a lot of my food won't be very visible, but I like to know it is there. 

There are always sausages in the stories, the dog usually under suspicion when they disappear, so they were a must. A meat pie and a tart were necessary too as well as the jug of creamy cold milk. As I haven't been able to source liquid Sculpey I had to improvise, so waterbased varnish mixed with paint made nice gravy and cherries were once sago, coloured with food colouring and soaked in cochineal tinted varnish. I loved the chalk artists pastels for colouring and they made the 6 Sculpey colours I have - green, translucent, white, yellow, black and red  more flexible, although my swedes have a definite peach look about them. My first 2 loaves of bread would have fed the 5000 with no problem so these were the second attempt - I have to keep scale in mind! Actually bread is a problem with me - my very first loaves using the flour/salt recipe were casualties of my 'flood' and my breadbin, made using the same method as my bucket, ran when I applied the nail varnish - obviously permanent marker isn't nail polish proof!

I have cannisters and odds and ends waiting to go onto the shelves when they are installed and think a ham hanging from a ceiling hook might be nice too...and maybe a pudding in a bowl... 

We'll see!

 In time for the feasting are my 2 new followers!

Carey at Chicory Nits who is preparing for Christmas (in pink!) both in her real house and in mini - scroll back to admire her gorgeous little Christmas house.

and Dee who I can't find a blog for yet, so please contact me Dee with a link.

Every now and then the numbers go up but no new pictures are added, so I sometimes wonder if people are following privately and would prefer not to be introduced to the rest of the gathering?  I love seeing you here and love visiting in return. It is amazing how much talent and imagination is out there!

Once again, thank you all for calling by.

Giveaway Draw

Thank you to all who entered my first giveaway. It was lovely to see old faces who have been with me from the beginning as well as newer faces and so many of my favourite people.

So with help from 2 of my sewing room dollies here we go!

All the names: folded, mixed and inspected ...

...and the winner is...

...Janice!

 If you can contact me with your address Janice, I will be thrilled to send the Phoenix farm set to you and I hope that you will be pleased with it.

Thank you again to all who entered. 

*******

Welcome to my newest follower, Sandra, a fellow Australian! Sandra has 2 blogs Snippets from my studio where she is working on a gorgeous small scale village - the most recent building being a half-timbered Dickensian bookshop. She manages to build these houses and keep up with other crafts while touring Australia in a caravan. (Sandra from Sydney)

PS did anyone notice that I cleaned my desk up from several posts ago! That was worth a photo shoot in itself because it may not happen again for a while...

Meccano

Sometimes when I am writing a blog post, especially about toys and dollshouses, it seems as if I went around as a child envying every other child their toys! While there would have been the occasional pang, generally it was accepted that they had that and I had this (in my case books) and I think most people my age and definitely those older would remember times when it wasn't expected that you would have everything you wanted. Maybe that is why so many of us are enjoying a second childhood and catching up :~D.

Meccano wasn't a part of my childhood, although I can remember being shown the pride and joy Meccano set of the son of friends of my parents. The Meccano was nice, but the box it came in...Wow! Drawers and compartments galore - that was something to covet - every piece arranged in it's own section. I love order even though I have trouble practising it myself.

Meccano was however part of my husband's life so naturally our sons had Meccano sets as well and it became a part of my adulthood. As I think my boy in the 40s would have had a basic Meccano set, the research started. There is so much information and nostalgia about Meccano (introduced in 1901) out there in cyberspace! I could picture hundreds of men pouring carefully over catalogues and old advertisements sharing what they had found in sites and blogs and reliving their boyhoods with enthusiasm and delight. It touched me.

 I was pleased that post war the classic red and green was correct as the colours changed periodically and even the shades of those colours varied. Slotted bolts went to hex bolts, plastic came in and models were updated with space travel and the changes in technology. Even with the company changing ownership and computer games threatening to wipe out classic toys, Meccano moved with the times!

I won't bore you with the vast amount I now know about Meccano (although I hope I can use it at a trivia night before it all slips from memory) however I will share this site which contains full editions of Meccano magazines dating back to 1916 when Meccano technology was helping with the war effort. Meccano magazine

Plus I have 2 new followers! 

Welcome to Keli at iseecerulean  Her house is alive and busy. I love the bits she shows which look so loved and lived in and am staggered at the speed with which she posts and works but still with such great results.

Also welcome to minisdecris I would love to visit you in return but your settings are showing up as private! 

 Meanwhile there are a couple of days left to enter my first giveaway for a boxed farm set as shown below this post. Leave a comment on the  giveaway post  to enter. 

I'm sorry about any confusion when I tucked the giveaway offer on the end of a post, as I think some have found it vague what the gift was. I now know that giveaways are better as a post by themselves  and (I hope) will be more expert next time! (I was a bit nervous about having a giveaway but wanted to as I really enjoy the support and camaraderie in blogland)

Phoenix kits, boy's toys and a giveaway

After all last month's work came playtime, both in the dollshouse and in real life. With the exchange rate so good for Australia at the moment, the time was right for some internet shopping...

So off to Phoenix model developments  which I had been introduced to early in my mini journey by an online friend. I love the detail in their kits and being made of metal, they have a solid charm reminiscent of vintage toys . My first Phoenix kits were easy kitchen pieces bought from this Australian seller, Eastwick Dollhouse,  (have a look at her crochet patterns and doileys as well) and I progressed to the gramophone which sat for months half painted after the cat decided it would be a nice thing to bat around while the paint was still wet. The records were a gift from my Phoenix loving friend who knew I had bought the gramophone. 

The farm came next. It is one of the things which has thrilled me most. I loved my plastic farm animals as a child and was besotted with another friend's vintage Britain's farm set as an adult. This set fills the longing at half the cost of one Britains animal. 

In Enid Blyton stories, trains are an essential for boys, preferably a big set that can spread through the house...which means extra pieces such as a station and points ... and maybe one day more track...  Meanwhile I have been happily making boxes for the sets which are becoming authentically scuffed as I get them out to play trains.

With the paintbrush still soaking I turned to the Monopoly set and the racecar caught a coat of paint in gay yellow and green, along with some charms, phoenix opera glasses, golf clubs and ball and a gorgeous little London bus. The battleship was waiting in turn until I saw a lead toy battleship from this era on ebay. Maybe it will stay metal.

Cricket is quintessentially post war English, so a cricket bat and ball was a must along with paper boats and planes. I considered a slingshot, but decided the nicer characters in Enid Blyton books wouldn't have one. 

Most necessary of all were marbles and the indescribably gorgeous glass ones from marble monkey were perfect. 

Finishing this collection was the tadpole jar from this online tutorial, miniatureprojects tadpole jar now with authentically rusty wire handle from my wetting and a billycart also authentically aged and battered. 

Hello to my new followers! It is lovely to see new faces and visit your blogs.

Kim at  my fairytale cottage is a painter and creator and refurbisher. She does it all and with lovely results. She likes antiques and thrift stores too. Don't you sometimes wish we could all get together in real life and chat and share and chat some more! 

 Irene popped over from the DHE. I have been following her 3  properties for a while now over there and can say they are truly inspirational, a point Miniaturias must have agreed with when they featured her Hambleton Hall recently.

Carolienbooms, Mandy and Annie aren't showing up with blogs, so please leave a comment so I can find you.

Gillian I discovered today while 'blog surfing. Oh my goodness, I was speechless when I saw her tiny patchwork with real patchwork fabric rather than hankies. I can't imagine how she does it and the other miniature bits she makes. Inspirational and cheerful if you can have such a mix.

My newest follower is another double blogger, cambiosentuvida to make you think and miniaturista-minis for frivolous dolls housing, except  that there is nothing frivolous about this dolls houser's minis. They are exquisitely made and perfectly scaled. 

Now for the giveaway! I had intended to have a giveaway at 100 followers, but that magic number slipped by, then 120 but oops again, so I will celebrate my 21st post and my coming of blogging age! Thank you to all those who have been following and encouraging me and if you would like to be included in the draw and are among the first 125 followers, please leave a comment on this post and I will draw a name on the 16th November.

The gift is a Phoenix farm set painted and boxed by myself, with enjoyment and enthusiasm, which will fit nicely into any nursery setting. 

 Thank you for making it to the bottom of the page!