look what I did

Well last night I got the walls decorated and glued together for the first floor, the walls are so bright and cheery. I am painting the baseboards and will install them later this morning.

 

toy store update

Well today has been very productive. I was able to get the front wall cut out and glued together, it is currently under two heavy books drying. Well that is doing that I traced out the clowns for the outside front of the shop onto scrap pieces of poster board. I was not sure if the paint was going to warp the posterboard, so I did not paint directly on the front of the building like I had originally planned. I will print out paper that looks like slate for the sides and front of the store. The clowns looks so cute, they are large but most toy stores I have seen exaggerate the outside to make it look inviting to children.

I think the name of the store is going to be called "Clowning Around Toy Shop" since I have clowns everywhere.

 

toy shop toys and side walls

Well here we go, this past week has been crazy to say the least, but yesterday I was able to get a bit done on the toy shop which has become my new favourite project, don't worry I have not forgot about the other projects I just need to get some supplies and order some minis from the dollhouse emporium. So in the mean time I have jumped into building the mini toy shop. Last week I got the floor done for the first floor, last night I got the two side walls done for the main floor. The trick is (and it is not to hard) is to line up the wooden sticks before gluing them down. When Joanne said you need a lot of the basswood strips, she was not kidding, I am not even sure I have enough strips left for the front. Hopefully Michaels got some more in, I bought out there last stash.

I was working on these really cute mini trucks all week as well I made 2 sets of the 4 trucks. I have a fire truck, logging truck, a flat bed truck and a tanker truck. They are super cute. I also made a toy shelf for the shop, I wanted to see the size of it  and roughly figure out how many more I need to make. I think I will leave it the natural wood colour I don't want to take away from the bright colours of the toys. The toys on the bottom of the toy shelf are Squeenkies, they are little rubber toys which I have become addicted to trying to find, they come in all kinds of them, from barbies, Disney, hotwheels, and the regular collection of dolls and little animals. In my travels I so far have found Disneys cars and 2 two pack which contained a little elephant, zebra, doll and polar bear. They usually come in a package of 12.

Here are my latest pictures of my projects

 

cute mini toys

Well yesterday was a holiday here, In Ontario February 18 is called Family Day. So that meant the kiddies were home, so I did not get a whole lot done. The other day I was surfing the net and I came across two pictures of some really cute mini toys. There was no tutorial but they are easy to make just by looking at the pictures. They were an xylophone and a ring toss game. So that is what I did yesterday. I made three sets of each one set for my daycare centre and the other 2 sets for the mini toy shop.

 

Toy shop part 1

I know, I know not another project. Since I received so many wonderful miniature toys for my birthday and Joanne from Joanne's Minis was doing a building tutorial series I thought that it would be a great idea to jump on board and make my miniature toy shop. So I took my $65 worth of Michaels Gift cards and purchased the supplies I needed to start this project. It takes very few items to make but a lot of those items. All you need is poster board and strips of basswood, which I now know is going to take a truck load of this stuff I may have to chat with the manager to make sure that they keep a large supply on hand, I bought 10 strips and I used 5 for the floor. I also purchased scrapbook paper that I am going to use on the main floor of the toy shop. It has rainbows on it. The upstairs will have rainbow coloured stripes on it. I wan the toy shop to be bright and cheerful. So here is the floor and a sample of the paper that will go on the wall. The nice thing about this project is Joanne only does her videos on a  weekly basis so in between videos I can work on my swaps and the secret garden. If you want to follow along with this go to facebook or utube and look up Joanne's minis for the instructions and wonderful videos. She has lots of awesome videos.

 

And the birthday continues

Well I have been receiving amazing minis all week, first my birthday swap and then the mailman brought me my regular monthly swaps. This month I participated in 2, a sewing and quilting swap and a bakery supplies swap. And then my good friend in PA send me a gift for my birthday.
So here is what I received

 

these are the items from the baking swap, there was 14 of us in this swap

 these are the items from the sewing/quilting swap, there was 10 of us in this swap.

 

 

 

These goodies were from my dear friend and her husband in PA.

Here is what I did to the little table my friend gave, she also gave me a package of the little chairs which I will use in my toyshop.

 

 

 

speaking of toy shop, Joanne from Joanne's minis is doing a tutorial series on how to build an inexpensive doll house out of posterboard and wooden pieces. I am going to turn mine into a toy shop, So that is tomorrows job is to go to micheals with my $65 in giftcards from my dad and MIL to pick up supplies need for the big project. Wish me luck it should be fun. If I really like it I will make the rest of the shops out of the same material. Sorry I have no been working on the secret garden lately I need to get the next swap finished and shipped of with the other 2 swaps to help save some money since all of the shipping rates have gone up. The next swaps I have to send in are Cats Swap and ladies tea shop swap, those were fun to make. The newest swap I am in is the Farmers Market. That is the one I need to get finished and I need to get it done by Wednesday. Well that is all for now, I am off to make tons of veggies and farm fresh eggs for the swap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birthday Swap

Today I received my box of birthday swap items, I know my birthday is not until sunday but I would not be able to wait that long, ( I am as bad as the kids). Before I show you what I got I will explain how this swap works. First we sign up in august/ early September and we make gifts for the other people who sign up and send them in. These gifts match themes that we chose, usually projects we are currently working on or will be working on and then we send everything in and on or near our birthday a box arrives with a beautiful card and all of the lovely packages from the others in the group.

So here is what I got from some very talented ladies in my swap group. I loved everything.

Oh I guess I should tell you the themes I chose. I chose a toy shop, my child care centre, and a tea shop.

so here we go
gifts from Nicole

 gifts from sheila

 gifts from Leslie

 gifts from Teresa, those blocks come out of the little cart

 gifts from Bonita

 

gifts from Wendy  

 gifts from Linda

 gifts from Barb K

 Gifts from Barb M

 

Gifts from Ann 

 Gifts from Adrian

 Gifts from Joanne

 Gifts from Fern

 Gifts from Audrey

 Again thanks to all of those  who are mentioned above, these are just beautiful gifts and I will cherish them always.


 

back to minis

Now that winter cub camp is over I can get back to working on my mother in laws garden project. Today I started putting the hanging basket together, need to make more petunia stems, lots more. I also made some flowers to put in a few pots. They turned out cute. I also covered the floor in the watering can and glued it in place as well as the cute flowered paper on the back wall. I also mapped out where the flower beds and veggie patch will go. I want a winding path leading to the shed with some fancy stepping stones. I also want to add a fountain of some sort, maybe with some polished stones, my mother in law has a fountain in her yard.

 As you can see from the photo I am planning on putting the veggie patch to the back and the flower beds on the side with a winding path. the beds will not be rectangle I was just using them as a reference. The white disk will be a base for the fountain. and then I want a winding path down the centre.

 

busy with cubs

As most of you know I am a cub leader and sometimes I get busy with that. This week has been one of those weeks. This weekend I am taking the cubs winter camping (no we don't sleep in the snow, I leave that up to the scouts) but that is why I have not posted much this week, because I have been busy making things and getting tuff ready for camp. The cubs chose the theme of things that fly, so this afternoon I have to make an airplane out of a box that will have the treasure for the scavenger hunt inside. I will be back to making minis on Monday. also sometime next week I should have some swaps to show you as well.

talk to you later have a great weekend
alicia

secret garden day 4

More Flowers,

Well today I worked on two more types of flowers. I made Stargazer Lilies and some Irises. No leaves yet, I think I will do all the leaves at the end, I want to pick up some lighter green paint for some of the leaves. Next I am going to make the hanging flower basket with petunias in it. I am going to use a green bottle cap for the basket and it will hang from the top lip of the watering can.

I hope you are enjoying my project with me as I work to complete this garden scene for my mother in law for Mother's Day.

 

secret garden day 3

Flowers, flowers, flowers everywhere, that is what I am working on today, flowers for the flower beds. I have not put leaves on yet, and I still have tons to make, but you have to start somewhere.

We came home from church to find Smokey sitting in the secret garden, I guess she thinks its for her.


 

secret garden day 2

Well I have decided to keep the watering can, I cut the foam core floor in half which helped, so now you can see the whole bench. I cut the base for the project and I am in the process of covering it, I have the top covered. At least it is a start. A while ago I had made a trellis to hold a morning glory vine on it to attach to the willow, I will make another one for that later, right now I am using the trellis for the secret garden, that is what I am going to call it. Irene's Secret Garden. Micheal's is now carrying lots of the landscaping stuff so I was able to pick up the grass, and some "dirt" and I plan on picking up some gravel and some bushes along with fake water stuff to make a small fountain structure. Any way back to the trellis, I wrapped green wire around and added leaves and flowers in a beautiful shade of blue. I make all of  my flowers from coffee filters and paint. It takes me a better part of the day to paint all of the filters(both sides) but I am really pleased with the end results.

Here is what I have so far.

 

watering can delema

Well I went to get a watering can, but the store did not have the one I wanted, I wanted a large green and white one, all they had was a smaller square looking one, my problem is the bench looks too tall for the can. So I have no idea what I want to do. I might work on all of the other components and wait to finish the can to see if I can find the one I want. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.