This & That

Kensington 2008

I went to the Kensington Show today and am exhausted!!! I think I totally overdid it as I was there for nearly 5 hours and though I sat down for lunch for about an hour or so, I was on my feet and walking around, up and down stairs the rest of the time. I'm so thankful that K stayed worked from home today and took care of N so I could go and have fun. I bought quite a few things but nothing that I didn't have an immediate home for (well, other than perhaps the stitchery items and the quilt template). I also got a roombox for a Christmas scene I want to do. I thought it would be nice to have a decoration that comes out each year at Christmas so I decided a mini scene would be fun. My roombox is from The Dolls House Builder and is display box 3. I know Lisa was curious about it but as it's flat packed I figured a photo of it built would be more interesting. I like it as it has a curved base and top and the perspex slides into place.

I have a few out of stock items that are being sent to me in the next few weeks. Still to come: a sterling silver teapot from Simply Silver, an overmantle (mirror) from Sue Cook (the photo is in the Kensington album as I borrowed it from her website but mine will be gold rather than mahogany), and then some fiberglass roof tiles from Richard Stacey. I am so glad I go on the Friday as things sell out so fast. I can't imagine Saturday being much good unless you're new to the hobby and still don't own much. Many things were out of stock by the time I got to some of the dealers. I make sure to go to my favorite dealers first so I get first dibs on things!

All the photos of the things I bought are in the Kensington Album for anyone who would like to take a look! I had a great time, met up with a dear friend (Jackey and her husband) and somehow even managed to come home with a fair amount of money. That is unheard of. I even had one year when I spent ALL my money and didn't have cab fare left so had to walk home. Luckily it was only about a 20 minute walk! I cabbed home today. Not sure I could've walked home this time as it's about a 45 minute walk now!

UFO Challenge

Over on the Petitpoint yahoo group I am on, one of the members, Caz suggested a UFO challenge running over a 2 month period. UFO= Unfinished Objects. A lot of us tend to start new projects without finishing previous ones, especially as there are so many cool charts available, it's hard NOT to want to work on several things. I dug out my UFOs last night and though this isn't everything, it's almost all of my half baked items. I found about 5 more today (mainly pillows) but I won't depress myself further by taking a new photo. I did manage today to finish off the 3 santa pillow I had started about 2 years ago. It's approximately 1" square and is worked on 40ct silk gauze with 1 strand DMC floss. The pattern is by Mary Bures. It had the least amount of work required out of all my UFOs so it was pretty much instant gratification. I've been out of minis for so long though that it all feels very fiddly.

I've added a few teapots to the shelves in my teapot shop but not enough progress to warrant another photo at the moment. Will work on it some more this coming week.

Another update

Between yesterday and today I managed to paint the shop's upstair room, the trim and the wood flooring (it's long strips of pine that I stained and cut to size then glued them in one piece at a time-- time consuming but looks pretty good I think). Today during morning and afternoon nap time I managed to glue everything into place. The paint on the inside walls is a pale pink but I struggled to get a good photo. Now I just need to paint the exterior side walls, the walkway, the top section/roof and the outside is done. I still have a few more display cabinets to paint so should start on those soon but they are SO boring to paint. Furniture kits should arrive tomorrow so I can start on those as well. I can't do the lighting yet as I don't have all the lights I need. I thought I had more in my stash but I guess I got rid of more than I thought. I'll wait until Kensington and get some more lights.

Teapot Shop Progress

It's amazing how fast a little bit of paint here and there can add up so quickly and show quite a bit of progress! Today I managed to get the stuff glued to the front of the shop. The plastic windows still need to be painted (white) so it won't be this yellow color for much longer. The windows are not yet glued into place. The inside is still in progress as I've realized I need another corner shelf unit but the maker is out of stock so I've emailed to see how long the wait will be. If it's a really long time I might just make do and angle one of the straight shelves the way I have in this photo. I need to work on lights soon too.

We went to Homebase today and I got some more paints and am going to paint the upper inside a pale pink for the tea room. Just to have a bit of difference from the downstairs. I need to paint more display shelves and then assemble chairs and tables and get them painted. I'll buy some cakes at the Kensington show in 12 days time so this could all be finished a lot sooner than I thought. If I do get it done quickly then I want to start on a pub/bistro. I have all the contents for it already so just need a structure and will go with the corner unit that can sit nicely next to the teapot shop. Will be nice to use the pub counter that I had custom made a few years ago. It is absolutely gorgeous so I don't want it to go to waste.

We're enjoying a long weekend here and K and N just got home from a walk and they should have a brownie for me :) Off to enjoy my snack and then work on some more painting!

Guess what we're having???

We mulled over names last night and finally agreed on Anna Banana for a girl and Potato Frittata for a boy. We like the really unique names. All joking aside, everything is looking great so far so fingers crossed things continue to go smoothly!

Teapot shop flooring

Not the best photo but it's pretty darn dark here today. I finished the flooring this morning as I had a few pieces to cut to make them fit but I was glad to see the floor is nice and flat after a night with books weighing it all down. It was seriously warped last night and I was worried. The wood is from a flooring kit I bought about 4 years ago or more at the Philadelphia show and I had originally glued it down onto mount board and used it in another house. That house is long gone but I kept the floor and spent hours a few nights ago removing what I could to salvage it. The background squares are 1"x1" pieces, I didn't sit there gluing down tiny pieces. The central medallion was originally all those tiny pieces but it stayed together with remnant paper from the mount board so it was super easy to just glue down. I was going to add some skirting but I don't think it would look right so I will leave it as is. Just waiting for the last paint on the front of the shop to dry and then I can start gluing various trims in place. Next on the list is to keep painting the display cabinets I think. SO tedious.

Only 2 more weeks until the Kensington Show. Am so excited!

Do I look different?

Happy belated birthday to me! It was my birthday on Monday and my present from K arrived this morning. A brand new white MacBook. It's so cool and easy to use but then again, it IS a Mac! He ordered it at 3pm yesterday and it arrived at 9am today. How's that for great service? I need to load some software like PSE and Microsoft Office and then we are putting my iMac away so we can get rid of the desk from the living room and have more space.

At the moment it's really noisy outside. Chelsea just beat Liverpool in the Champions League semi finals so everyone is celebrating, loudly. At least the final is in Moscow. Usually I am not fussed if Chelsea wins or loses but as I'm not particularly fond of Liverpool, I'm glad Chelsea won.

I'll have some updated photos of my dollhouse project hopefully tomorrow. Lots of painting has been done as well as the wood flooring glued down but I've got some books on the floors at the moment so they all dry flat so no photos tonight. The moment N goes down for a nap I rush into my room. Reminds me of when N was first born and I used to rush into my room to scrap. I wonder if I'll get more than 1 LO done this year?

Yesterday's Efforts

Yesterday I managed to build the shop and the add on top unit. I hate that things take so long to dry but also know that if I don't leave glue to set properly, the project could get warped/fall apart. So, I left it to dry overnight. Today I tried putting in the display cabinets and other stuff to see how it would all look. I am going to add false doors as there are no stairs and though a lot of people aren't bothered by that, it does annoy me. The two pictured are ones found in my stash but as I want to paint them white I've emailed the person who does them and hopefully he still does them. I decided I don't actually like the chairs I had ordered a while back but managed to find some kits for nice Georgian style chairs in my stash and then located a shop that sells a table from the same manufacturer so I ordered those today as well. Fingers crossed they have 3 kits in stock. This afternoon I painted both ceilings and then most of the external trim along with 2 of the diplay cabinets. I had hoped to paint the inside walls as well but as it's getting kinda late already I might wait until tomorrow. It feels good to be working on minis again but also takes some adjusting. Scrapping was great in that you could easily start and finish a page in an hour. With minis it's a long term project that can take weeks/months (and years). I'm enjoying the process more than with scrapping though. I like that with minis there are so many aspects to it whereas with scrapping it's basically paper, glue, photos and embellishments. It gets kinda repetitive after a while so it's good to take a break from it. Hopefully it's not a permanent break.

Tagged by Maria

I just realized Maria tagged me last week and I totally forgot to respond. So here goes!

1. If a movie was being made of your life who would you like to be cast to play yourself? And why?

I'd have to say Audrey Hepburn although her and I look nothing alike other than we both have dark hair. I would pick her as I admired her and thought she was so elegant.

2. You are spending a whole month on a desert island for charity and you have to choose your favourite celebrity to spend the first two weeks with & your least favourite celebrity to spend the second two weeks with, who would they be & why?

I think the first two weeks would have to be with Patrick Dempsey (from Greys for any one who doesn't know who he is) as he's nice to look at. The last 2 weeks would have to be with Kerry Katona (hardly a celebrity, more like trash that litters the tabloids) and the reason would be because I'm a glutton for punishment. She'd be lucky to make it off the island alive.

3. What are your three favourite crafting products?

Glue, Quickutz and my craft knife I think.

4. If you could invent something to do anything what do you think it would be?

Something that would give me my own private roads for driving on so I would never have to sit in traffic or deal with idiot drivers again.

5. What are the last three books that you read?

All dollhouse books.

6. Qvc or create & Craft?

Neither, they are both crap and a waste of time and money.

7. Docrafts or Dovecraft or DCWV?

Neither.

8. What is your claim to fame?

I was a studio audience person on Montel Williams when an old boyfriend was on the show. They interviewed me in the audience so I made it onto TV. It was something to do with high school crushes and BF's high school crush called him into the show so they of course wanted to know what I thought about all of it. I think they wanted me to be the jealous crazed girlfriend but as the girl looked like Miss Piggy it was hard for me to be nasty about it all. (Other than thinking she looked like Miss Piggy of course). We got a great free trip out of it as they flew us both out from LA to NY, we had limo service all around, a daily allowance, 2 nights in a hotel and a Montel mug. I still have the mug.

OK, I'm going to tag Charlotte, Carole, Anso and anyone else who is reading, hasn't been tagged yet and wants to be tagged!   

Teapots!

I ordered these tea pots a few weeks ago from one of my favorite makers, Val Casson. Two of the pots have different designs on the reverse side so I took two photos. Each pot is approximately 1" in height so they are quite tiny. I have quite a collection of her pots already and used to look forward to buying some each year at the Kensington Show but unfortunately, she has stopped attending shows in general! I will keep checking back on her site from time to time to see what she has that's new (to me). I started work on my teapot shop this afternoon. I initially was going to try and scrapbook a bit as it's cybercrop weekend over at UKS but a few things got in the way. Like the Mac on my mouse being broken and all my photos being on my Mac. Then I realized I have photos on a CD so I could use the PC but then, my photoprinter is not set up to work on the PC and I don't know where the disc is to set it up. I guess it just wasn't meant to be which is fine as I'm not really interested in scrapping at the moment anyway. I had just hoped that a cyber crop might jump start things. Anyway, back to the teapot shop. I've glued the shell of the shop/upper rooms kit as far as I could and am now waiting for stuff to dry before I move on to the next step. I could start painting some of the trim and other bits and just might do that now so it can dry overnight and I can glue more stuff together tomorrow. It's been a while since I've done all of this so I totally forgot about waiting time for glue to dry. I found my box of teapots this week as well and am so excited to get stuff finally on display.