Merry Christmas!

Okay, admittedly, I have been bad, not posting for awhile. In my defense, it has been a bit hectic lately, but I thought I would take advantage of the time between opening gifts and stuffing the turkey to make a few amends to my loyal, if not just a little annoyed readers by making a lovely Christmas post, just for you!

I had a pleasant Christmas morning, and am quite giggly with my gifts. For one thing, there was a Dalek under the tree! 

This, by the way, is the "Eternal Dalek" - as per the The Dalek Handbook "its exact function is a total mystery, but it's probably something to do with the Progenitor device and the continuation of the race." Nice! 

I also received some fab minis from my dear sister...

I am thinking a lovely scene with a lady's boudoir is in order here - something romantic. Something very girly. I like girly. I do girly VERY well. One of the most exciting gifts to get, in my mind anyway, is one that fires the imagination and leads to greater things. Can't wait to start creating! 

One of the reasons I was very busy, other than Christmas activities, shopping, and general mayhem at work leading me to make hissing noises and make the sign of the crucifix at my computer when I walked by on my off time, was a great little commission that I was asked to do. It all started when I made a tiny glitter house, which I was putting into the MECO Christmas party swap. Oh yeah, about that. Forgot my camera. We had a great time, lots of loot. A great time was had by all.  I will have to ask you to use your imaginations on the rest.  Anyway, back to the topic, I had shown my glitter house creation to one fellow at work, who loved it, and mentioned to his wife that it reminded him of an ornament that his dear mother, now passed on, had as a decoration when he was a little boy. His wife then asked if I would make one as an ornament for him, as a remembrance to his mother. How wonderful!  I agreed. This is the kind of commission I love, something that has meaning to the heart. 

Then I realized - how do I *make* it into an ornament? Usually when I make a miniature, it is a given there is a house that it will sit in, so automatic container. Not so when you make a mini for a member of the non-miniature crowd.  I didn't want to leave the house exposed, as - as good as Martha's amazing sparkle glitter is - it will shed, as all glitter does, and fairy glitter all over one's house does not make one any friends. Plus, being a paper creation,  it is a little on the fragile side when it comes to being a tree ornament. I didn't want to make a special homage for someone, and find that it got batted off the tree and chewed on by some misguided pet who loved it just as much, or eventually ripped by accident.  I had gone to Micheals the week before, as I had a plan to use the fillable ornaments, which would have been perfect had I found any. Word to the wise - there will be nothing *left* at Michaels a week before Christmas. Especially after their 70% off sale. Literally, there were entire aisles that looked like this guy got there before me...

Honestly, he didn't leave as much as a crumb for the who's mouses! 

Anyway, my mind raced, what could I use? I got a fellow crafter to go through their stash, just in case they had something cool to spare. Then I went to a pharmacy and lo,  there a Christmas miracle! Later of course I saw cool things like upside down wine glasses, cupcake holders, etc., but of course, I was on a deadline and no time to hunt. So, finding this treasure truly was serendipity! And yes, I bought 2...!

Perfect, a clear glass bell, one that looked rather elegant! That was something else I was hoping for, I didn't want it to look like a bargain bin anything.  It came with a little glass ball clapper, but I very carefully removed same with a crochet hook and a little patience. Perfect! 

I built the little mansion that I found at About.com - one that I had used before. I had also built a small church and bell tower, but as I had limited room (so will appear at a different time), I decided a little house on the hill was perfect, especially since I had limited time to finish this creation. 

Again, I had some logistical problems to solve - what will I use for the insert? What should I use for the base?  Interestingly, my love for Christmas goodies came in handy for the former. I had purchased a package of butter tarts, and realized, hey, these are, with a little trimming, the perfect size! So I cut one down, added a matboard stage (to have a flat top), and covered the insert with paper towel (glued down like paper machiere (mache? Mash-shay? You know what I mean).  I added more matboard to the bottom to achieve stability. I gessoed it, painted it white, and glittered it. The scalloped base was from coasters I had left over. I cut cardboard to strengthen it and build a base. I glittered it, because I glitter everything - eventually.  Apparently there are cool circle cutting and scallop making tools, which was nice to find out about but...no time to shop.

From there, of course, I glittered and landscaped. The tree was a cut down brush tree, covered with some sweet little silver stars that were intended to be nail art pieces (found in the dollar store, of all places, but nice enough that apparently the nail artists in town use them - score!). I used bits and bobs of land scaping for the greenery around the yard. The snow man was paper towel that I rolled into balls, and built into a snow man. I painted the eyes and the nose. The hat was a sequin and a bead, which was painted. I made a tiny frosted apple tree in the back (granted, more of an accent - with the original putz houses, scale was more of a suggestion than a rule, and I kind of like to make these little fairy trees). I added a little fence, which is a piece of cardstock that was cut with a border scissors. I frosted it white, and then accented it with pink glitter. Next time, I will glitter the fence away from the main structure - it tried to "pink" the snow, and that glitter I used is beautiful in that the colours are strong. I ended up having to repaint a little to give my snow a little more of a white appearance. I accented the house with tiny little scrapbooking jewels. 

The bell glued down over the house. Precious, right? I also added a crocheted snow flake to the bottom, so this ornament could be used on a tree, or sit on a table top and not a) scratch someone's table, and b) not get chewed up, as it is a paper creation. One caveat if you make an ornament like this? Make sure your hair is tied up - tight. In a net if you have to. Nothing - NOTHING is worse admiring your work, realizing that there is a giant loose hair floating around AFTER you have glued the darn thing down (very carefully doing surgery so you could remove the telling DNA out of the commission). I swear, I shed more than the average collie.

 My final touch was to add a piece of silver chenille around the bottom, add a bow, and glue a tiny little sparkle to the front of the bow. Looks very cute on the tree, I must say! Of course, after I finished, I did have several thoughts of things I could have done, but perhaps it was better that I didn't over do things either.

This was one of those projects, however, that I felt my hand "guided". Sometimes, you walk in to your war room,  and you find everything you need, you have all the supplies you need, very few things go wrong, and the creative juices flow so strongly that you know - just know - you aren't going to be able to BE creative for a week, because you have given your heart to the project just finished. It is a good feeling, however.

Of course, once I finished this, I had time to putz around the internet, finding other examples of things I could have done as well, which I will file away for "later". I did find one clever soul who used plastic wine glasses as a dome . How clever is that! As well, I found ways to light a tiny structure - yes, I said light a mini glitter house    and a couple of different ways, too, like this amazing tea light idea from Karin Corbin . By the way, check out her etsy store as well - I guarantee you will drool over the detail of her tiny houses, which rival some of the best putz house structures out there, and they aren't that expensive either. 

For a little inspiration, I found this sweet video of a Putz village, with trains and everything. Plus I love the song too - I hope you enjoy it. 

Until next time, my little tired elves! Help yourself to a treat on your way out, and I wish you a very Merry Christmas Day, and a Grand New Year! 

Wibbley Wobbley Timey Wimey

L- R W. Hartnell, P, Troughton, John Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Chris Eccelston, David Tennant, Matt Smith

Well, the much anticipated and speculated about 50th Dr. Who special is now a week past - or perhaps somewhere in the future, depending on  where you are in the time stream - and I have to say, well done Steven Moffat and the amazing performances of Who-ville. I wasn't even that upset about Billie Piper being inserted in so uncerimoniously, but then again she didn't quite play the simpering "its all about me" companion, but the way cooler "Bad Wolf bomb interface" persona, which fits into my Whoniverse so much better.  I am not sure what will become of the canon now that John Hurt is part of it all, and whether we are actually considered up a Doctor  (Paul McGann ended up being the 8th with only one questionable movie attempt at a reboot in the 90's)  but that will all become apparent, or has become apparent..."Who" knows? (see what I did there?).

Sometimes I do identify with the Doctor a bit more than I should (I know, you are saying "really? We wouldn't have guessed" but yes, yes it is true), far more than the companions he travels with - especially lately when I seem to have a work space that is bigger on the inside, I am running around with my own equivalent of a sonic screwdriver saving my equivalent of the planet,  and have even been (re)generating quite a bit this month with the initiation of a marvelous device of a paperless office. I must say, I have embraced a paperless office with a full frontal bear hug. For one thing, I don't sneeze as much (paper fibres and dust allergies being a hazard in your paper-based office), and for another I am not buried under mounds of physical paper, which is something that can get a girl down at times. However, the dark side of that moon is that people look at a clean desk and think you aren't working hard enough and want to give you more just on principle - suddenly piles of work are all theory...I might resort to fake documents in fake charts,  just until those who are not quite used to the whole dimensional shift yet have time to acclimate. This has left me a tad tired and finger sore, trying to catch up with work, while saving the universe in general. There is a reason why there aren't many of us time lords lurking about, and why we tend to hide when we can.

Anyway, I continue to make inroads on my little recreation of Mondorf at Christmas time. Most of the buildings are done, although there is a church with many buttresses that will be entertaining but as of yet uncut. What I worked on this week was my wee Christmas stalls. These were interesting in that they had an insert to give the shop a little depth. 

This is one of the little stalls - I made 5 in total, but they were all pretty much the same structure. The base was cut out and scored, the window excised. 

I found it easier again to put the insert in before I glued the tabs down - certainly from this picture one can see just how small the space is. 

The insert prepared. Really quite impressive detail given its overall size. 

The insert - well - inserted.  Tabs were glued, and a roof added and/or a garland attached.

Rinse and repeat 5 times. Can you not just smell the sugar cookies, the breads, and the cakes? Can you just not wait to explore those stalls to see what Christmas treasures are waiting for you? Me neither! Dangit, now I am hungry and I want to shop...le sigh.

One of the smaller trees, because apparently I wanted to perfect the tree in the tiniest scale imaginable before I tackled the (most likely) easier bigger version because otherwise where is the challenge? One of those squares is an inch by an inch, just to give you an idea of how tiny this wee tree was. I had to quit at two trees, although there is a 3rd waiting to be built - it isn't technically "that" hard, but does take a bit of patience and understanding, which was starting to ebb away a little by the 2nd tree. Never push yourself to keep going with a project if you just aren't feeling it, because nothing ruins a project faster than rushing about and making a mistake, and I will tell you this for a fact - the trees have no mercy (- obscure line from a "Classic Who" episode - trust me, there are Whovians who are rolling around on the floor laughing so hard they can't breath...)

Here is the little village square so far. I have one small tree, one large tree, a church and possibly a very strange piece of artwork to finish. I haven't quite decided what to do with the base - they have supplied me with one, but I wonder if I could find something big enough to do a version of this...

These, by the way, are available (at least the paper kits, not the clear ornament) at Paper Minis.com . Definitely a site to check out if you like using paper minis, but don't want to have to do the scaling and printing of these things yourself. She also offers - with a subscription to her newsletter - freebee printies. 

Anyway, I am thinking something like that. I might have a water globe that is big enough for my Mondorf, we will have to see. Still thinking a tiny Tardis might find its way in - the Doctor has a soft spot for Christmas, you know. 

To Celebrate 50 years of Who, and just in case you want to put a tiny Tardis in to your scene and have all your Whovian friends swoon with jealously, I have found for you today a Tardis charm to make - alons-y! 

 
Until we meet again, my dear Companions - you have been Brilliant! 

A Rose By Any Other Name...

I have been a little naughty to my loyal readers this month. I have been fighting the good fight and seeing a project at work I have been taking point on get implemented, working out the problems,  soothing frustrations, being a cheerleader, gritting my teeth avoiding defenestrating those who get on that one last nerve I have left (always a good practice regardless of your stress level), and just carrying on as best I can (again, another good practice). Needless to say (yet I am saying it anyway), staring down a computer in my down time has become a little less desirable.   However, guilt weighs heavily, plus I had a chance to play this week, which is a win-win for all, depending on your point of view. 

The journey started when I was looking up putz houses again - yes, something about this time of year makes me want to glitter something (I blame the weather and the sparkly white precipitation we have had a couple of times already this month). I came across an interesting site that had this little beauty on it....

Neat, right? It is a paper recreation of a Christmas Market in Mondorf Germany. I will have to take their word for it, as Google has failed me and I can't for the life of me find an *actual* picture of the town at Christmas time. The actual pattern can be found here . Two things about this project...a) it isn't technically "in scale" or any one scale. It is labelled as "naive" (code word for someone took artistic license and played fast and loose with scale). Secondly, the directions are in German. Not a problem, just learn German ( Or consult a translation service , your choice) and Franz is your onkel. Just be aware, if you do use a translation program, these things don't do well with slang, local idioms, etc., leading to very strange instructions indeed. It reminds me of a joke told once of an English phrase, which was translated to Russian, and back to English. The phrase was "The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh Is Weak". The final translation at the end was "the booze was good, but the meat is rotten". Granted, this was in the early days of translation software, and it has come a long way from those heady days when your modem went 'screeeeee!' to get you on line, but don't write any legal documents based on the translations, no matter how good they seem at the time.

Without any further ramblings, here is my first foray was the little Karussell (I am betting you won't need a translation). 

I love a good Karussell - it was always my favourite ride at the fair, although it was too tame for most of my peers. Honestly, it was a bit slow for all but the tiniest of riders, but these were horses, and I have a weakness when it comes to the ponies.  To print the patterns, I used cardstock, and I used a fixative on the ink before I started mucking about with it. The little pieces are very finicky and intricate, but are worth a careful effort. 

Having finished my Karussell, I went on to the Das Hafenschlossen (or "The Harbour Castle"). It took me quite a while to cut out the carcass...

 Again, the translations made things a bit slow, and this is what one might call a puzzle. Once it goes together, you say "oh, that is brilliant", but it does take some careful thought. 

A tiny outcropping on the left hand side of the building (no, your other left). This is not your typical square saltbox house, so there are all sorts of interesting architectural manipulations. 

The roof piece, cut out and partially glued. 

The first part of the roof, applied to the carcass. 

This part had me stymied, because there really wasn't any obvious place to put the stripe-y bit that I could see. I realized that I had accidentally tucked a roof piece under where it shouldn't have been too, and once I had my roof  fixed and saw the bare underside I realized  - oh yes - back in the Ol' Kimberley Days, where we had our very own Bavarian City, there were timbers used as decoration for the town square buildings, so what else could the stripe-y bit be? 

Building a tower - this side was trickier than the other tower, as it had 4 different cut outs that were stacked and glued together (the other side only had two and the spire was bigger - truly inspiring...see what I did there? No? okay, continuing on...). Again, I marvel at how well designed this project is, as it went together quite beautifully. 

The spire completed for this side of the Harbour Castle. 

 Building a tower piece for the other side of the castle. 

The second turret with spire. 

Add a couple of balconies, and voila, Das Hafenschlosschen! I will start on the church I think next, probably the second most complicated building. When I relax, obviously, I don't play around!


To get you starting to think about Christmas, I have added today a little video on how to make Christmas Sugar Cookies (by Loida Gracia). Enjoy! 

Until we meet again,  my little darlings!

Time Is The Enemy Of Us All

Here we are at another time change. It seems like the last one just a mere eight months ago.  I gained an hour this morning, so I made the most of it by sleeping in. 

Anyway, it has been pretty busy here at chez la vida loca, what with this week being Halloween, and with work being one adventure after another. I have been lax with my blog because quite frankly, my fingers hurt and my eyes are a little strained from learning a new system and saving others from themselves. I thought I had better, however, feed the machine regardless of personal pain and anguish ... <hand goes dramatically to forehead>

Yes, well, that is one person's opinion. 


Anyway, this week I remembered why Britannia rules the waves, in that I received my lovely dolls from Robin Britton  , and in record time too I must say, as it took only 4 short days to arrive all the way from England to Canada. Oh Joy, oh Rapture! I have to wonder if there wasn't a TARDIS assist involved here, because I have had letters take 4 months to arrive IN the country to get where they were going...possibly she used this service? 

Either way, interfering Time Lords or the Royal Mail magicians, I have received these beauties! 

Salty Sam - Love me a sailor!

Angus! Isn't he handsome. I am a sucker for a man in a Kilt.

Florrie (in the blue bathing costume, who I had Robin change a little to make her older)

Aren't they lovely? What a wonderful thing to have on your door step after a long hard week! I will be doing a seaside tableau, and I do have part of my beach hut made. 

It is coming along slowly but surely, but it is off season so no one is too worried it is still under construction.  I put it aside, admittedly, because I had a good inspiration for my Pedlar's cart - a witches' coffee trolley! It was one of those amazing "in the zone" times, and ideas and such sprang unbidden from my hands. I love it when that happens - much better than when everything just crumbles to dust. I really hate that. 

 Once again, the cappuccino machine I made. That is where I left it a couple of weeks ago. I found my machine a little too ungainly for the space, in that the base was a tad too big. I solved that by adding a small raised stand for the machine, and no worries mate from that point on!

I needed a little display stand too, as I wanted to be able to show off some of the fine products that could be purchased at the "Witches Brew" coffee cart. I decided that my dear witch was fairly innocuous, but she is a witch, so it is expected of her to have certain items for sale, although her real passion of course is brewing coffee for unsuspecting individuals looking for that magic cup of ambition, and she has discovered people are far more willing to pay for that kind of magic than anything else.  I made the above display out of 10 lengths of stock wood piled up in a pyramid, with smaller sticks accenting the structure. I wanted a rustic look, but certainly a nicer display could be built in a number of different ways or materials. This was nice because I didn't have to cut too many sides and make sure everything was level because it was already milled - i.e. I was lazy.

I wanted a little pot of coffee beans, so Esme (just calling her by her title was getting a little too formal) could have a stock of beans ready to scoop into the grinder. The pot is a copper pipe fitting, the beans mustard sees that were painted and varnished, and the scoop I carved out of some very accommodating balsa wood. 

 
 I needed some little potion bottles. They are very expensive and very difficult to find at the best of times (especially if you are searching in the jewellery aisle and they happen to be "trendy"), so imagine my great glee when I found some nail art in teeny perfectly sized glass (not plastic, but glass) jars. And they were pre-filled, so I didn't have to do much except label them, and they were dollar store finds, so in-ex-pen-SIVE! I found labels on the interweb, and went from there.

The final result. I could have changed the stoppers, but I kind of like the look this has, it would be more what you would see on a real witches' cart.  Well, maybe not a quote unquote "witches cart", but definitely the stoppers look more realistic in my eye than would a giant piece of cork.

Esme is happy to sell precognition devices, such as these crystal balls.  Our big box craft store had, in the floral aisle, decorative glass marbles. I paired these with some interesting bead spacers and caps, and a crystal ball was born. 

What Witch would be caught dead without little mysterious bottles of elixirs and potions? Not mine, that is for sure. Again, little decorative bead spacers, a variety of beads and findings, and a mustard seed as a bottle stopper (these were painted and varnished, to keep the critters at bay...I hope). Next time I make bottles, though, I will use a pin or a piece of metal to keep them lined up, and avoid gluing my fingers together - again.

As you can see, there is halloween carnage everywhere.  On the top shelf of the cart, you see a black widow spider plant, a lovely cake, some cookies (most likely gingerbread), tea and coffee for sale, and hanging on the sides there is a little garlic (for that vampire pest you have been meaning to get rid of) and an unnamed  and mysterious herb on the other side, but is always present on these types of carts for some reason - possibly for the look of the thing. On the side,  there are apples - poisoned upon request. The coffee grinder was a metal mini I found at some show or other, and I added some bling to it to dress it up. A bit of sugar to sweeten our coffee, the beans, the coffee pot, a cup hanger, and a lovely little spoon holder (bead spacer and bead caps - and for a change I actually had something as mundane as spoons...) The bottom I am not totally sure about yet. I like these apothecary jars, but feel they should be in a scene where they can be more prominent to show them off, especially the interesting tarantula in a jar (perhaps a wizard is in my future, I will check my crystal ball). I made some little bushel baskets for produce, although perhaps there will be something else, we will see.  There is a little black cat hidden at the base, which was a cheap resin mini which I repainted. 

 A little better picture, with Esme ready for business! 

Closer in for a little more detail. 

My little coffee mug holder, which is made like the fairy trees I have done in the past,  bits of wire with beads wound around, and wound around again to make a trunk, but I have added little bats for accents. The base is a bead on a bead spacer. Hmm, I could have sworn there were 3 spoons on my spoon holder, hopefully one didn't escape. 

For the hubcaps I used teeny little crow stickers. In real life I hate crows with a passion, because of their hateful call, and the fact that when they have a nest nearby they insist on strafing me - every blasted freakin' day that nest is occupied - and they will cut you, oh yes they will. You would think they would, as they do see you every day, realize that you are not about to scramble up a dumb tree to steal an egg, but they are not as smart as they would like you to believe, sadly. However, as long as they are cute and sparkly and not dive bombing me, they make a cute accent for my cart. 

Close up of my pre-poisoned apples, and one of the cute signs I resized and printed.

The handle side, and another pithy sign. 

So my dear, what can I get you today? 

There are a few other things I would like to do with the cart, but with all Zone Euphorias, this one petered out and I am done for awhile. Still, I think I carpe'd the diem right out of this quite nicely. 

To finish off, perhaps we would like to make a charming (see what I did there?) little apple pie ... happy 3rd day of November everyone, and may your witches brew never be bitter!