* ~ beyondbaffled ~ *

Forbes Farm is having another exciting giveaway!  Sandra is giving away an entire stash of beads that is taking over her work studio.  In order to enter this giveaway you must be willing to pay it forward.  If you win you must be willing to give away something of your own.  You can view all of the great beads that are included in this giveaway by clicking on this link:  http://forbesfarm.blogspot.com/2010/02/attention-beaders-destash-pay-it.html#links.  I think if I were to win one way that I would pay it forward is to make walking beads for my teammates at work.  As I've mentioned before 12 laps around the inside of the building where I work equals one mile.  I don't know if "walking beads" is the technical term for it, but it's basically a strand of beads with a knot on each end and one in the middle.  As you walk you slide a bead over the middle knot in order to keep up with how many laps you have walked.

On a completely different note today I wanted to share a cute pic.  Remember those great felt cowboy hats that I found at Ben Franklin's a couple of weeks ago?  Well Sophie and Olive seem to have laid claim to two of them.  Don't they look cute?  Now I just need to work on my sewing a bit more so I can start making some Western outfits...

I  apologize, but when I last updated I missed a new blog follower.  Tallulah Belle comes to use from Southern California.  She makes and sells very beautiful miniature flowers.  She actually made Cleopatra from the Addam's Family for another blogger Ara.  Tallulah Belle's blog can be found at http://tallulahbelleoriginals.blogspot.com/.  Sorry I missed you the first time, but I would like to say hello and welcome!

I have lots of leftover beads just lying around and I saw something wonderful that Tanya had done in her Picturetrail albums.  She made tiny finger nail polish bottles and I wanted to give it a try.  The small bottom beads are clear with just a tiny bit of color in the middle.  The taller gold beads look just like the tops to a nail polish bottle.  I think they are cute for a first try, but I think next time I will try to shorten the top beads just a bit.   I love that the beads came in so many different colors and I think they would look great on a little vanity table with make-up and a jewelry box, etc.

My blog now says that I have 51 followers!



Have you ever noticed that blogger isn't exactly user friendly when it comes to new followers?  I mean it's not like you can just look and see who your new followers are, you really have to hunt to find them.  If they don't have a picture then they usually show up at the end and even those that do have pictures don't always seem to be in the same order.

The 2 news names that I can find are morningmuse and CasitaMini.  I don't show a profile or blog for morningmuse but I would like to say hello and welcome!  CasitaMini sounds very similar to a blog I already follow, but I'm not sure if it's the same person or not.  The blog is written in Spanish and can be found at:  http://casitaminicm.blogspot.com/.  I saw some great pictures of beautiful miniatures so I'm anxious to read more of the blog.  I'm glad to meet the both of you :)

Ann Vanture is the owner of an amazing site called http://www.paperminis.com/.  She has a free mini club that you can join where you get a free paper mini each month that you put together yourself.  You can join the club by clicking here:  http://www.paperminis.com/free-paper-minis-club/how-to-join-club.htm.  The page will show you some of the recent free projects.  Since joining I have received 19 free projects.

For a while now I have been wanting to join her Book-of-the-Month Club.  The subscription is for 24 months worth of 1:12 paper books that you  cut out, fold, and put together yourself.  And since I joined before February 1st I get a free 25th book included in my last month!  Also another great thing about the club is that at the end of the subscription you get a free mini bookcase to house all of your books.  Sweet!

My first book arrived today and I am so excited to get started!  Book One is "A Compilation of Fruit and Floral Botanical Illustrations from the 16th to the 19th Century."  Pictured below is the kit that arrived in the mail.  I will post again once I have put my book together.

You may remember from a few posts ago when I told you about a giveaway that Forbes Farm Gifts was having.  Although I didn't win the contest I did find some lovely earrings that I decided I just couldn't live without.  And then my income tax refund came just in time! 

This goes along with a couple of my New Year's Resolutions: first learning how to reward myself every once in a while and second doing things to make myself feel better.  And wearing a pretty pair of earrings does make me feel better!

I can't tell you how pleased I am with these earrings.  As pretty as they are, the pictures really do not do them justice.  I wish you could see them in person.  They are beyond lovely.  I am wearing the blue and pink on gold Fairy's Petticoat earrings as we speak!  I can't wait to show these to everyone at work tomorrow!

As I pulled her hair down and out of the roll it was in I did discover that it was actually hiding a bald spot on the back of her head.  I wish doll makers would wig the entire doll regardless of the hair style.  I think after working some more of the glue out I'll be able to either hide the bald spot or will make a small hat or apply her rose to the back of her hair.  Kitty says she would just prefer to wear her cowboy hat anyway.  I'm using the towel you see in the picture to take individual stands of hair and heat them with the glue gun to remove any remaining glue.  It's a very slow process - no joke - I may still be doing this next year!  The strand of hair that you see in the top picture is mostly glue free, everything that I strategically hid behind her still needs some work.  I wish there was some sort of glue remover.  Something that would soften the glue (other than heat) and just sort of make it dissolve out of her hair.  There has to be ways other than glue for doll makers to add hairstyles.  Tiny removable pins or something.  If anyone out there in blogland has any suggestions I kindly welcome them.  This is quite a job!

Kitty has been so busy working on the saloon and trying to keep up with Sophie and Olive that she doesn't have much time to come and update on the blog herself, but she'd like to tell everyone hello.  Personally I think she just wanted to show off the new cowboy hat that I bought her yesterday - lol.  I have to admit though, she does look pretty darn good.  She asked that I start making her some more appropriate Western clothing for when the saloon opens.  I guess I better start practicing on my sewing again...

I'm thinking about taking the pearls out of her hair, which I think she would prefer anyway since she's been asking for a pearl necklace as of late.

4-6 inches of snow isn't enough to keep me home.  Although it was snowing (and damn cold) outside today I journeyed out with my Mother.  I needed to get more paper for the V-day card swap and plus I was in the mood to see what kind of new minis I might find.  So off we went through the winter wonderland.  This was the first time I have ever visited Ben Franklin's and I can definitely say I will be going back.  My Mother (who said, "I told you so") has been trying to get me to visit for months now.  On one hand it's similar to Hobby Lobby and Michael's and on the other hand it has food and clothing and other items sort of like the Dollar Store.  Odd combination, right?  But anyway, on to the good part, here's what I got:

This is a clay gun set and it includes 19 different shaped discs.  I would really like to get into making mini food with polymer clay and I thought this might be useful.  I was playing around with the different shapes when I took this pic.  I made a tiny "dessert" that you can see on the side using a piece of chocolate brown clay and the red clay as icing.  I think I'll check out a few tutorials before I try again!

Afterwards we journeyed on to Hobby Lobby.  Actually, that isn't right - next we made a pit stop at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (lol) and then went on to Hobby Lobby ;)  There I found some great scrapbook paper to use for the V-day card that I'm making for Melly Kay's swap.  Don't you just love it?!

I would like to say hello and welcome to 2 new followers today!

First I would like to introduce Jenny who is from Arizona.  She has many blogs listed, two of which are:
http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/ and http://tastefulgarden2jen.blogspot.com/.  From what I've read so far she's interested in gardening, candy (me too!), and something called Alphabe-Thursday that I need to find out more about...

Next is miniannalee at Anna's Minis.  She is from Georgia and just started her blog, but she is into miniatures and dollhouses so she will fit in just perfect here!

Today's post will be short, but I'll leave you with some new pics.  Melly Kay over at LAMC is hosting a Valentine's Day card swap and I am getting my materials together.  I went through all of my (and my Mom's) scrapbooking stuff to find some great V-day inspiration.