Making mini quilts - or at least my attempt at one :)

I've been seeing lots of topics recently on other blogs and also on Greenleaf about making mini quilts.  I will admit right up front that I am a horrible "sewer" (is that even a word?!) - needless to say I can barely sew a button!  I have my little handheld Singer and that helps a bit.  Anyway I love quilts and I'm always up for learning an new and easy way to make minis.  There was a great topic on Greenleaf that covered making quilts out of paper towels - http://www.greenleafdollhouses.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1038. 

I haven't tried it with paper towels yet, but the topic also went on to explain that you could iron thin fabric onto wax paper and then send that through your printer.  I had some really thin cotton fabric that we used to practice tying bandages with leftover from first aid class years ago.  It ironed onto the shiny side of the wax paper really well, but I had mixed results when it went through the printer.  It would print really well on one side and eat the wax paper on the other side or vice versa.  So after wasting all kinds of ink I decided to try another approach.  I took a sheet of cardstock and cut the fabric just smaller than the piece of paper and then used masking tape to secure down all of the edges.  And voila it shot straight through my Lexmark printer and came out perfect!  The quilt pattern that you see below is a free printie from Jim's website http://www.printmini.com/printables/quilts/index.shtml - you should be able to click and make it bigger.  I just love the way it turned out and I am totally on the lookout for more quilt patterns now.  If you know of any great ones PUH-LEEEEEEEEEEASE share!!!  Once I have this one cut out, stuffed, and sewed together (with my Singer of course!) I'll post an updated picture.

Mini travel trunk

Amid the hustle and the bustle of the Christmas holidays I did find a little time to do a new mini project. I was pleased with the way it turned out so I wanted to share some pictures with everyone.

I started with one of those little wooden trunks that Micheal's carries. I liked this one because it had little grooves carved into the top and the front - one on each side and on each end as well. I sanded, stained with Minwax Provincial 211, sanded again, and then stained one final time.

I wanted travel stickers for the outside so that I could make it look like an old trunk that my Mom has. I found a great website called http://www.hellotraveler.com/ that had wonderful collections of travel stickers from all over the world. So needless to say I don't own nor do I have the rights to any of these stickers, but I don't plan on selling my travel trunk. I do though plan on buying some stickers from their website because they would go really great in my scrapbook. I used a sheet of plain address labels to print the stickers out with and then very carefully cut them out.

After placing the stickers I used Minwax fast-drying Polyurethane clear satin spray to finish everything. I did two coats and it really helped to seal the stickers into place and gave the wood a nice shine.

I then used some very thin leather/suede strips and glued them to the two inner grooves. I think it gave the trunk a nice finishing touch.

Here's a view of the top of the trunk. I especially love the "Endless Caverns" sticker.

And here's the right side of the trunk.

And the left side. On this side I love the "Reno" sticker and also the "Sunshine Lake" sticker.

Above is nice view of the front of the trunk. On this view I like the Indian sticker that says "Steak House" and also the "Yellowstone Park" sticker.

For the inside of the travel trunk I wanted to do something special. I used newspaper print that I found at Jim's Printable Minis to line the inside with.

Here is a close up of the inside top of the trunk. If you've ever been to Jim's website then you probably recognize this wonderful printie.

And this is a view of the bottom inside of the trunk.  I hope you enjoyed the pics of my new mini!

Christmas gifts from far and near!

I'm a little behind on posting (as usual!), but I wanted to post some pics of some lovely gifts that I recieved for Christmas.  The first one was from our friend Kim at Flowers and Art.  She sent me this lovely card and this beautfiul handmade ornament.  I'm not sure if she's an angel or a fairy, but I'm going to go with angel.

Here's a better view of the angel.  She has a beautiful red dress with fir trees and snow falling in the background.  She has lovely golden yellow hair and she's covered in gold glitter as well.  I think I'm going to call her Goldie, appropriate don't you think?

And here is a back view to show you her pretty wings.  Kim's initials are on her tiny boot, which I really appreciate because years from now when I'm decorating my Christams tree I can remember who gave her to me :)

I also wanted to share some minis that my Mom bought for me.  She actually let me pick these out at Hobby Lobby and I totally forgot about them!  So I was surprised by these twice!  I think they will look wonderful in the saloon.  I especially love the cowboy hat and boots.  The gun and holster belt will probably be sitting on the bar.  The gun on top may be a bit too big for 1:12 scale, but I think I can work with it.  The gold stars might look nice hanging on the outside of the saloon.

A beautiful holiday decorating idea!

I saw these and I thought they were just beautiful!  The first one is a scan of a Christmas card that I recieved and the second one I cut out of a Wal-Mart flyer.  I think this is the cutest idea ever.  It's a little late for me to do this year, but I think next year I will try this.  I think a pretty glass bowl sitting on the coffee table filled with shiny Christmas ornaments would be so pretty.  What do you think?

45 followers - wow!

Did I ever mention that you guys are the best?  I just wanted to take a minute to say thanks for reading my blog and also thanks for sharing yours with me!

Today I want to introduce and welcome a new follower.  Her name is Lisa and her blog can be found at http://schererart.blogspot.com/.  Take a minute to look around her blog, it is well worth the time.  She does amazing paintings of angels and she is very talented.  She also sells through etsy so I had to bookmark that as well.

And I wanted to show you some lovely Christmas bags today as well.  You should be able to click the pictures to make them bigger.  My Aunt Sandy who lives very far away would send us wonderful gifts for Christmas when my sister and I were little.  She would send them wrapped up in these cloth Christmas bags.  I had completely forgotten about them until my Mother and I were going through Christmas ornaments the other day.  They are very easy to make - cut the cloth to the size you want, fold it, sew up the sides, and then take a matching ribbon and sew it into place to use as a drawstring.

My favorite is this one with the celestial angels - it reminded me of Lisa's blog.  I bet she would like this one as well!

M&M Babies - Heavenly Handfuls - just a "little" something to put you in the holiday mood!

It's super cold and snowing outside here in Tennessee - so I thought I'd share some pics of my M&M's doll collection - to warm your hearts!

The display is made of of ornaments that I borrowed from my Mother.  The tree and all of the little cars, etc. are little metal replicas.

"I Melt For No One"

"Gimme a Break"

"Never Let 'em See You Melt"

"There's a little nut"

I just love the little drums!

These are my favorite pics.  I added a little sparkling Christmas light to match each doll.

Another great one of the little Radio Flyer.

Heroes In A Half Shell - Turtle Power!

I have been "attempting" to spruce up my blog a bit.  I read a couple of tutorials and think I have finally figured out how to widen the reading pane.  It always baffles me that blogs are so narrow and there is all of that wasted space on the sides.  I also added a google translator because I am always thankful for those when I find a great mini site that's in another language and I really want to read what it says! 

I also found this adorable little widget (or at least I think that's what it's called) that I added as well.  Right now you have to scroll to the very bottom to see it but I may move it to the side instead.  It's a little turtle tank with two hungry turtles inside!  You click on the tank to feed them and they rush right over to you - it's just like the real thing!  I've seen other cute widgets on blogs with hungry fish and even one with a hungry hamster :) 

I got to thinking about it and I don't know if I've ever shared any pictures of my turtles with everyone or not.  So I went searching for some pics of my real turtles and found some of Herman when he was just a baby.  He is a Red Eared Slider or RES and this was when he was only about the size of a quarter.  He was such a cute little guy!

Here he was posing at the side of the tank so I could tak his picture.  This was back when I could put gravel in his tank.  As he got bigger he started to eat it (bad idea) so we had to gett rid of all the pretty rocks.

And here he is on his little land area.  This was a very tiny tank - maybe 10 or 20 gallons at the most.  As you can see he had a lovely background to look at.  He had some fake plastic plants for decoration (had to get rid of those because he munched on them as well!) and also a sort of gargoyle guy in the background to guard his stuff.  But he really just liked to sit right there in front of his palm tree.  It was with him when I adopted him so I guess it reminded him of home.

Aren't turtle behinds just so cute?!

And here's a long view to show you his swimming area.

And finally an overhead view while he was taking a nap.  Too cute!!!

I'll post some pics soon, you'll never believe how big he is now!!!  Oh, and I almost forgot - "poke" the pictures like Casey always says on her blog to see them bigger!

Simple way to make mini candles

I've looked around on ebay, etc. and mini candles are expensive! It bothers me to pay for anything if it's possible that I can figure out a way to make it myself so I thought I'd give it a try.

You'll need:

thick thread (I used waxed jewelry thread that came from Wal-Mart)

different sized straws - soda straws, milkshake straws, coffee stirrer straws, etc.

a candle - tapers are the easiest to use

I took the straws and cut them into different lengths - pillar candles, taper candles, just whatever size I thought would look good. I used tape sticky side up to hold the straw pieces in place. Then I took a lit candle and let the wax drip into each of the straw pieces. Once the straws were filled I took a piece of the waxed thread and stuck it into the middle of the wax as it began to cool.

Once the wax is completely hardened then you can use something small to push the candle up out of the straw. Here's a pic to show you some of the finished candles. I bought a bunch of different colored tapers from the Dollar Tree (50 cents each) so I can make a little stockpile of candles for future use. One helpful hint is to let the straw cool down completely between candles or you'll melt the straw by accident!

Do you decorate your dollhouse for Christmas?

As you can see I'm still trying to upload all of the pics to show everyone what I've been up to for the last few weeks. I kept thinking that I wanted to decorate the saloon for Christmas - funny thing to do for a house that's not even finished yet! I saw a fabulous mini tree at Wal-Mart in the section where they sell those little Christmas scenes and finally decided to do it. A couple of weekends ago all of the Christmas decorations went on sale 50% off at Hobby Lobby. I had been desperately waiting for this sale because they have so many great ornaments that can be used as miniatures!

As you can see I bought gold garland for the tree, mini multi-colored round balls, and lots of sparkly candy canes. The tiny manger scene is actually a set of mini ornaments that I have had for years - I just removed the strings. And I had the battery operated mini lights from a few Christmas's ago as well. I hung a mini wreath beneath each window as well.

Here's a view from the side with the tree lit. It was hard to get a good pic because it's so small that you have to get very close in order to see the lights.

Next I want to show you one of the sets of mini ornaments that I bought from Hobby Lobby. I plan to hang the horseshoe over the saloon door and the pistols will probably be laying on a table inside the bar. I'm not sure what to do with the rest of them yet, but they all fit my old west theme so I'm sure they'll find a home. My Mom bought a few mini ornament sets for me, but unfortunately she says I can't have them until Christmas. One of them had this old looking shotgun in it and I think the other had a cowboy hat, boots, and gloves. She also bought a bag of faded metal gold stars for me that are meant to be hung on a tree, but they're the perfect size to hang on the front of a dollhouse.

My last picture is to show you something else that I bought. I got this tiny tripod from the Dollar Tree (I love $1 finds!). As you guys know I take a lot of pics of my minis and digital cameras are so sensitive that even the tiniest bit of shaking can make your picture blurry. This little guy is great and it fits my camera perfectly!

Updated pics of the saloon - check out the board and batten siding!

Here's a recent shot of the inside of the saloon. You may remember our dear friend Jack working tirelessly on the upstairs flooring a few weeks ago. Well I'm happy to say that both floors are now finished! For some reason in the picture the flooring looks dark, but these are actually just regular skinny sticks. I do sort of like the color in the photo though, so I may look for a stain in a similar shade.

And finally to show everyone what I've been working so hard on. A fellow Greenleaf member suggested that I go with board and batten for the outside of my saloon. After googling a few pics I really started liking the look and decided to give it a try. I think it turned out wonderfully, but boy did it ever take a LONG time!

The quote that I gave my Greenleaf friends was something like this:

"Siding strip, hot glue gun, burn my fingers, skinny stick, wood glue, glue my fingers together, curse and repeat."

And If you ask my b/f this is pretty much exactly what I did! I added the door and windows temporarilly to give a better picture. As you can see I had to remove the porch roof and posts in order to do this.

And here's a view of one of the sides.

And a view of the other side. Once again I had to remove the balcony and the stairs in order to add the siding. I'll try not to be quite so overzealous the next time I'm building. Taking apart pieces that have been glued for months is no fun whatsoever. I will have to rebuild parts of the stairs myself when they go back on. I'm looking into a couple of different painting techniques right now as I do want the outside of the saloon to look aged when I'm done.

Incandescent light bulbs and mini liquor bottles

I touched on this subject many posts ago, but wanted to give an update. Inside of every incandescent light bulb is a tiny liquor bottle. And given that I'm building a saloon I'll be needing as many bottles as I can get. We've already switched to the new compact fluorescents at my apartment so I've had to get my Mom to save her old bulbs for me as she begins to switch over. This was much easier than my first try as I bought a glass cutter from Hobby Lobby (used my 40% off coupon too). I found a video on youtube where a guy gave step by step instructions on cutting glass, which was very helpful as well. I'm at work

This picture shows the bottle still inside the bulb and also one that's been removed.

This is a close up to show you the bottle after it's been removed.

Here's a pic with the label attached to show you the finished product. The label is a printie and it says, "Jack Daniels Old No. 7." I think these will look great once I have a whole shelf of them to put behind the bar!