October swaps

While I was away in Toronto my October swaps arrived from my mini swap group that I belong too. I had signed up for the Halloween swap, The Hutch swap - we had to make items suitable to display in a hutch or china cabinet, and a book swap. Everybody sent some really neat gifts and they are all so very cute.

these are the really cute Halloween items. I am going to make a shadow box and set up a mini Halloween Party display.

dollhouse miniature store and show

Well some of you know that this weekend (october 13, 14) was the dollhouse miniature show and sale in Toronto, Ontario. This was my first time going and boy did I have fun. I flew in Thursday evening, leaving a foot of snow behind in the Sault. I am staying with my sister and her husband  and kitty cat. The last time I was in the dollhouse store was several years ago, and I was in a rush, well this time I was able to take my time and really look around. My main reason was I needed some gifts for some fellow swappers for the birthday swap I am signed up for. So I picked up them and a bunch of stuff for me.

I picked up some flower pots ( i cant get them where I live), a bathroom kit to make for Ethan's dollhouse, my red splatterware dishes, I picked up 2 flower kits (I should be able to make patterns from the flower pieces and make a bunch more) I picked up a wash basin I will use this for my halloween display. The store did not have the splatterware pots so I picked up a Chrysnbon cookware kit and I will paint the pots to my liking.

Now on to the show.This was the first time ever attending the Toronto show. It is a smaller show, busy mind you. Lots of very nice people. There was one item in perticular that I was going for. It is the Evelyn and Crabtree bath kits. I had found Martha (the kind lady who sells them) on the internet and fell in love with the kits, so I just had to get one. They were 12.00 a kit (you have to put them together). I purchased the lavendar kit for my bathroom. I also picked up a magazine rack kit ( I want to make a pattern from this so I can make a bunch), i also picked up a cute kitty cat, flower pots( I am big into making flowers right now), a pointsetta flower kit, some mini lace, a Golly Wog doll (my sister and I had them as kids, and I had to get one when I saw it, it was a big  hit with my sister), I also picked up a Chrysnbon clear jug with 4 glasses (have been looking for this item, I am going to make it into a pink lemonade set.


These are the items I bought at the dollhouse store.

 These are the items I bought at the dollhouse show

 This is my sister's Golly Wog doll with my mini one.

hanging basket

Here is the picture of the hanging basket I made. I cant seem to get my other picture to download.

I got Brave!!!!!!!!

The other day I got brave. For a while now I have wanted to try making miniature paper flowers. I have watched many tutorials, printed out instructions, followed instructions online many times, but never got up the nerve to try. I am not really sure why I was afraid to make them beaacuse they are not very hard to make. I started with painting a bunch of coffee filters in a variety of colours that I thought would be good, dug out my paper punches and went to work. I started with making tulips since they seemed fairly easy, and they were, then I made a couple of sunflowers, and then finally I made some smaller flowers, they kind of look like forget me nots, but I did them in pink and purple, and later once the light blue paint dries I will make some in blue.

So here is what I have done so far, now allI need is some flower pots to put them in. I also am trying to make a hanging flower basket, i have the moss glued on and waiting for that to dry, I still have to make the chains for that. But I am having fun.

Well I got the basket done as far as the structure goes, all it needs now is some pansies which I am trying to do.


For some reason blogger wont upload my photos, stupid computers. I will try tomorrow
 

Halloween Part 2

With the dolls taken care of I moved on to Jack-O-Lanturns. I have never made them before, so I thought I would give it a try. I first rolled up different size balls out of tinfoil, then I covered them with orange Fimo, added a green stem, and sketched on the lines. I added a little bit of chalk to make it look like a little bit of dirt, it also helped accent the lines on the pumpkin. Then I baked them for a couple of minutes you need them soft to be able to cut off the top and cut out the face. The tin foil came out fairly easily. I think they turned out pretty well for a first try. They were fun to make.

I have started setting up the scene, I moved the picnic table from my outdoor scene (it is not finished yet) and I covered it with orange and black tissue paper and added what halloween food that I had already. So now all I need to do is make some halloween candy, some party games and decorations. I think i will wait to do the decorations until I get my halloween swaps back so I can see what else I need to make. I want to make some sort of pin the tail on the donkey game and a bean bag game, I also want a bobbing for apple bucket.

Here is what I have done so far.

Halloween Prep part 1

Well we all know that Halloween is approaching and i thought this year I would have fun with it and throw a mini halloween party for my mini people. It also was helpful that I was able to participate in a halloween swap with my mini friends and my dear friend Diane sent me the most beautiful mini halloween  goodies. Also i recieved a nice surprise, my mother-in-law has purchased for me a one year magazine subscription to Dollhouse Miniatures and they sent me a downloadable mini project and it was to make halloween things for my mini people. So in between my swaps I am working on I am making things to set up for a mini Halloween party. So today I thought I would start with costumes or the dolls. The ghost and the little pumpkin costume came from the downloadable mini project from DH miniatures magazine, Kevin and Olivia are wearing costumes that  I made from scratch, no pattern, they are my creations. Kevin is sporting the Dino suit and Olivia is dressed as a beautiful butterfly. I think that the costumes turned out great. Tomorrow I will tackle making Jack-O-Lanturns, and start setting up a few things to see what I have. My halloween swaps should be back by the time I get back from the dollhouse show in Toronto on the 15th. The show is on the 13th, but that is another blog post.

Here is a picture of my mini dolls sporting their halloween costumes

Back to minis

Well now that all of the kids are back to school, and the renos are done on the house I can get back to minis and back to my blogging. So as many of you know I am in an online miniature swap group and every month we make minis. So the other day I got my september swaps back and theu are amazing as always. This month the group decided to put together a still life vignette. It turned out great, and it was so much fun. I have uploaded the latest  pictures of the swaps. Also I met this wonderful lady online, she makes beautiful miniatures and we decided to do a swap between the two of us. She made me the most beautiful halloween goodies out of clay I have ever seen.

This is the still life swap that the online swap group I am in. We all had to make some of the pieces. I had to make the crate that the veggies are in and the cobs of corn and tomatoes, as well as the pot holders and the garlic and chillies hanging on the door.

These are the beautiful halloween pieces that a friend of mine made for me.

 These are the kitchen counter swaps that I recieved back from my swap group.

 these are the toy swaps that I recieved back from my swap group.

There are some very talented ladies that belong to this group, We have so much fun making these minis every month.