Thanks to Silvia

Silvia from Italy sent me the most wonderfully detailed miniatures for the Christmas swap Caterina hosted. The little game pieces and pumpkins are so tiny and the candles are perfect. Until my toy store is ready to be stocked these little treasures will go under my beaded tree. Don't forget to enlarge the photo to see all of these wonderful miniatures. Thank you very much Silvia, everything is truly masterful!

Iris' Giveaway

If you hurry there is still time to join Iris's giveaway. The draw is December 27th. There are also links on my sidebar to giveaways hosted by Flor and Mimmi.

Greetings

Have a Merry and Blessed Christmas 

Celebrations

I was thinking it was February but my blog turned one back in Novemeber. We are also going to grandparents for the first time in April and its a girl! It took a while to sink in but now it all about her. Life is good.

 

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum

There are miniature trees all over my house. I wanted to share a beaded tree with you along with an update on the bottle brush trees.
Tammy from Dollar Store Dollhouse wrote in a comment about painting the bottle brush trees. My paint selection is rather limited so I stuck to white and green. The color of most of the trees was not to my liking so these were subjected to a bit of dry brushing. Huge improvement. Sorry my photos are not very good but they do look really nice. Take a look at Tammy's tutorial on using easter egg dye to recolor them.

Here is a photo of the beaded tree I picked up by auction last year. Truth be told it is my second. My original is in storage and the goal was to use this one to learn about lighting with fiber optics.

Circus toys

For some time now I've been collecting toys to go into a shop. These are from some Kat Wingler kits purchased at a miniatures show some years back. This year they will be displayed under a miniature tree. Oops, looks like I forgot to place the drum sticks that the little bear should be holding.  I just love miniature scale toys.

Thanks for you and miniature harvest

On our american Thanksgiving holiday we gather around our dinner tables with family and good friends. It is one of the times where we stop and reflect on all the wonderful bounty that we have been given. We prepare and eat foods we might not normally eat the rest of the year, often to the point of gluttony.

Back when we had no high tech types of communication the gathering of family and neighbors allowed us to share ideas, form stronger friendships, solve world problems, to basically connect as human beings. Its funny but it is hard for me to remember back when there were no cell phones and no internet. Perhaps I just don't want to. I love being able to have these new connections to information and of course the people. We may not all write the best, using proper grammar and sentance structure but we know what each other means and we offer each other our talents and friendships. This is our dinner table and contrary to what some experts believe we do really connect as humans and for that I am very thankful.

I have so many reasons to feel blessed and wanted to send my warmest thanks to you, for following this blog, offering your friendships and for taking me places and showing me art that I may not otherwise ever be able to experience.

Dyeing bottle brush trees

I'm in a 'use what you have' kind of mood lately and been wanting to dye some of the bottlebrush trees that I have on hand. The directions are to remove the original green color by soaking them in a solution of bleach and water. I used various strengths and as you can imagine came out with different shades of green down to a creamish color. Further directions said to used dye to recolor. With only some food coloring on hand I decided to give that a try. The blues and blue greens did not turn out well at all. The green trees you see below are the result of watching and removing from the bleach solution at different times. A dozen of the pink were sent off a few weeks ago for a swap, they are my favorite. They all look much better in person. One thing I'd like to add is that different results were achieved with the different brands of trees. One batch literally melted. I never did achieve a nice clean white color so if you have, please let me know your secret. You can play with the shape of your trees by fluffing up or squishing down the bristles.

These are going to be fun to fix up and decorate.

Its Veteren's Day, here's how you can help and a Marine Tribute "On My Watch Tonight"

On this Veteren's Day I'd like to say thank you to all of those, including my father, husband and nephews that have served, continue to serve and will serve in their militaries. The sacrifices and dedication that you, your parents, spouses and children continue to provided makes me proud beyond measure.

I am fortunate that my career is in support of all of the very fine Marines and their families serving in the United States Marine Corps today. It is easy to get caught up in our day to day lives but please keep in mind that our deployment cycles are taking a toll. We continue to suffer losses in combat, suicide continues to rise, operational stress is prevalent and the toll on our families is high so if you can support them in anyway please do so. It really does mean a lot to them.

Here are a few things you can do

**Embrace a couple of service members into your home for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. They love to be part of a family, playing with kids and dogs, talking to mom and dad or just watching tv in a livingroom. Contact your local base, recruiting station, wounded warrior or other unit. If you need direction for your area please contact me.

**Give to a charity that provides for our service members currently deployed overseas. Here is one http://america4rmarines.org They just now putting together Christmas Stocking for thousands of our deployed Marines.

**Give or organize a blood donorship. http://www.militaryblood.dod.mil/ This way all blood donated goes in direct support of military members.

**Adopt a unit. Gather your community resources, VFW, churches, schools, womens groups etc. Send care packages and letter to our troops. It does not have to be alocal unit. They truely LOVE IT!

The video below is by Mike Corrado, he is a United States Marine, family man and super nice guy.

Wow. What a difference a light box makes.

With some extra time last week and the realization that my photo journaling skills need a big boost, I decided to make a simple light box for photographing miniatures. 

 

In the next two photos, the subject, a birdhouse kit by Northeastern Miniatures, was photographed on a tabletop under the conditions offered by the day.

 This next photo was taken in the lightbox with the white background in place.

 These last few were taken with the black background. The lighting used was moved around a bit and they were taken on a very cloudy day. The daylight conditions still have bearing on the outcome, I think but these are much better to me than not having used the lightbox. You will see in the last photo a much different outcome.

 This one was taken in the evening under artificial lighting conditions. I do like the outcome but obviously still have a long way to go.

My blog post title box is still missing..........has anyone seen it? 

Trick or Treat

We had no decorations to display so I decided to create one. Perhaps I will get the other side finished enough to share with you tomorrow. It was a real treat playing with tools.

It seems as though I have been tricked as well. The blog title box has disappeared from my posting section......spooky.

Fall flowers Asters and Zinnia

I just love Autumn. The colors and smell of the leaves, pumpkin patches, cooler weather and cozy fires. My friends who are also from the northeast miss Autumn as well. Here are some miniature flowers made from kits by Bonnie Lavish.

 A while back I wrote to Ingrid about her miniature metal pieces. She was very encouraging and her work showcased on her blog is inspirational. After running around yesterday collecting supplies the bench below is my first attempt. It was quite easy and this little project already taught me a lot about the order of things. I think I will be adding some detail today....

Lacy supplies and the 100 yen store

The Japanese version of a dollar store, the 100 yen store, had some nice miniatures supplies for me to take home. I did not realize it at the time but they are mostly lacy type items.

This first group is made from the same type of paper as doilies.

 This is the most delicate sticker. You cannot tell they are rubbery unless you feel them.

I went all the way to Japan and brought home a couple of punches. With the exchange rate they were less that $1.50 each and that is a lot less expensive than anywhere else I've seen them. Wish there were more to choose from.

These are the tiniest nail art decals I have seen.

Iron on and the designs are perfect size for miniature.

All in all I really enjoyed the 100 yen store and hope to return sometime. What would you do with some of these items?

Surijo Castle, Okinawa Japan. What a lovely place to spend some time.

 These are miniature replicas on display.

These dancers were brought in especially for the Family ReadinessTeams. The costumes were vert beautiful as were the dancers.