Some Wee little Mice for Jodi and All

On Jodi Creagers wonderful Blog yesterday she was showing her latest creation of a darling little mouse, and alot of bloggers commented on how great it would be to own an entire miniature scene for mice alone!

I knew I had seen just this in a recent magazine article and after spending ages in the workshop going through stacks of mags found Februarys edition of Dolls House World complete with the said article

These mice are of course very different to Jodi's sculpts. These are by miniaturist Steve Putnam, and are based on the Bramley Hedge mice, but I just had to show them in their wonderful setting.

Dont you just love the kitchen with the mice threading apples, baking pies, tiny jars of jam etc. Also there is a tiny baby mouse aslepp in a walnut shell, how clever!

Excuse the photos, taken with my camera as i dont possess a scanner but it gives you an idea of how amazing a setting for these micies could be! Click on each pic and it beings it up bigger to see the incredible detail

I think its adorable.

At Last My Angie Scarr Book has Arrived!!

Well I ordered this book , the 'Miniature Food Masterclass' a few months ago when i heard of its release on Amazon and have had several emails to say they were still out of stock becasue of high demand and today it came.

Great book, only trouble is for me, nearly half of it includes instructions on caning and Im rubbish at Caning!! No patience!

Still I'll persevere.

Its great to have a modern book, the other 2 I have are a little behind now when you look at how far fimo food has come and the excellent effects you can now achieve , this book is great to update old instructions.

It includes lots of canes, use of liquid fimo, moulds etc and really is informative so I hope to get some time soon to put it to the test and make a few things maybe for the kitchen or Potter Banquet table.

Has anyone else got it yet, what do you think?

Boys and their Miniature Toys!!!!

John is off on a 'Help the Heroes ' Charity Scooter run this weekend. He has always Loved the old Lambrettas and Vespas, of which he's had a fair few ,but as his Arthritis is bad now so he recently got an automatic Vespa which is easier to ride. Our local scooter club is riding to Brighton for a charity run this wekend, they have several stop offs in different locations where they stop off for a snack or drink and make a donation on the way . All of which goes to the heroes that have fought in Afghanistan or Iraq so all in a good cause.

Just wanted to say good luck to them all, I worry non stop to be honest from the moment he leaves til he comes back,!! Looks like its set to be a sunny day for it.

Here is a pressie I made for him last year, its a room box, you mount on the wall, with a replica of his first scooter his Lambretta which I bought in 1 12th scale in white and painted with yellow trim to match. On the walls are Posters I printed out, and little Haynes repair manual on the floor, together with a Vespa in pieces ( that was a joke as his vespa was always breaking down so hence it taken to bits!!)

The other scooter is another pressie I had made for him. I commisioned Kerry Alexander to make this for him. The brilliantly talented Kerry who you may know for her fabulous chocolate and candy displays, ( of which I have a fair few!!) made this Lambretta replica out of fimo, she is so clever. In fact, her husband Steve made the scooter itself and she painted it all up so it was a joint efffort. John loves it and it has pride of place on a shelf in the lounge!!

So its not all girly things in miniature in this household, the boys get a look in too!!

THANKYOU NIKKI SO VERY VERY MUCH

Just a Hugely big thankyou and Hug to Nikki from http://nikkinikkinikki72.blogspot.com/ , we recieved her parcel last night, and it cheered us up after a near disaster yesterday afternoon!!

To explain, we took the children to the park and treated them to a McDonalds for tea and when we got home, the wallet that John had given ME to look after ( BIG MISTAKE!!!!) was no longer in my pocket!! John had just been to the Cashpoint to withdrawer enough money for a charity Scooter run he is going on tomorrow so it was rather fuller than usual, plus the usual credit cards, driving licence etc!! We checked the car, house etc just incase Id put it down somewhere, then went back to then park, and it was nowhere to be found. John is a terrible joker and always playing practical jokes and he was so incredibly calm that i thought he was winding me up and was about to announce he had it all along! But after he phoned the police I realised he wasnt winding me up!!

I was crying, so cross with myself that I had lost it, but he just sat down to dinner like nothing had happened! Then a knock at the door and there was a guy from school with his 3 children , all who we know and the wallet! They had found it in the car park, and the children recognised the photo John has of me in there and came and found us to return it! John gave all the children a reward so they went home with great big smiles having learnt a good lesson that a good deed pays kindly!! Kind of spooky that it was them that found it as the park is a good half hour from our house, not a local park and we have never seen anyone we know in there before. It was sheer coincidence that they happened to go to the park that evening, and a good one for us!!

ANWYAY!!!.......... when the guy rang at the door, he also pointed out the parcel guy had a left parcels, ( he does that, it makes me sooo mad, just leaves them by the front door with not a knock or anything!!!) , so John got his wallet back and I had 2 parcels to open to cheer me up too!!

The biggest parcel was from Nikki, and I opened it up to find not only the magnificent wizard bottles we won on ebay, but also Nikki had so kindly put in, not 1 but 2 packages of various glass bottles for us to use in our projects!! They will come in so handy Nikki, we cant thankyou enough!! And also, a beautifully made bag, which Nikki has promised to make a Dragon Eye clasp for, which we think we will give to Violetta Vinweed the Potions Mistress . Its brilliant! How kind you are!

The second parcel was from Doreen, Nikki's friend. In this was a wonderful lizard preparation board, you may have seen it on Nikki's postings. We did , and contacted her to ask if we could buy one from her as its perfect for the Potter Potion room. Nikki was sending them to Doreen for her website so we did as suggested and contacted Doreen who so kindly agreed to send one on to us, the other one was already spoken for too, so you may be asked to make More Nikki!!! This is amazing, its a little lizard who is being disected!

We may now make another potion desk for the room, as we have alot of boards now so need more room for the students to work on them!

So all in all, a great ending to what could have been a bad day!!

We love our new minis, and cant wait to put them into place. We are thinking the bottles can go on the fireplace, and then we will have to make another potion shelf for the smaller ones. And cant wait to filll the empty ones with all sorts of concoctions.

Looking forward to more of Nikkis listings, we felt very privaleged to win these. What we love is they are not only brightly coloured ( my fav is the purple one!!) , but also heavy, so they feel like very real bottles. Good job Nikki, we think these are a big hit, and you should make more!

Gold Guy Award

A Big Thankyou this morning to Mary of http://mizmaryminis.blogspot.com/ for 2 Awards for our blog, the beautiful Butterfly Cool Blog Award, and this little Gold Guy Award. We adore Mary's blog, after all, as we have no new JK Rowling masterpieces to keep us enthralled, we have to get our weekly Potter dose from somewhere, and where better than Mary's blog! its like reading a Rowling Novelette ( is that a word?????) on each posting, so entertaining, and inpiring to our own Potter Projects!

Here's what Mary had to say about our blog.

Kate and John of The Whittakers' Miniatures: Although Kate and John are juggling at least half a dozen projects plus life, they always make their posts such an enjoyable read! A visit to their site is like walking into other worlds. And it's fun (sorry!) to witness Kate get into a flurry with a dilemma or question (like paper clay!) and then in the following post, show the successful results. And I love the eye candy: spooky Sweeney Todd and witchy Potter stuff.

We have been visiting a few new blogs recently so as soon as i can Ill be passing these awards on to more deserving bloggers, thanks Mary!

He He, your a treasure Mary, we are so pleased you enjoy our blog. We wish we could post more! Life is very busy at the moment and we are looking forward to the future months of this year when hopefully things will be less hectic and we can spend more time on our miniatures with the knowledge that all around us are well and settled!

I am abit ditzy Mary, and dont have the confidence sometimes I wish I had , so thats why its so great to have so many wonderful friends that we can question and pester to help us out. And yep most of the time all the help pays off and gives the desired results.......apart from a few little disasters!!

A Cool Blog Award and 50 Followers to Celebrate....ooh and winning Nikki's Precious Bottles too!!!

What a great night.

Firstly thankyou Kat from http://minikatslittlethoughts.blogspot.com/ for our 'Cool Blog' Award, what a great one to recieve. I love butterflies and purple my favourite colour so a lovely award to add to our others. This is what Kat said about our blog :-

"The Whittaker's lovely spooky houses. I actually tell people who don't "do the internets much" to go see this blog. Have gone so far as to type in the web address myself and sit them in chairs. "

.................I do hope they watch of their own free will Kat, I now have visons of them being tied to the chair and Made to read our blog, he he!!!! But Im sure your too lovely for that!

Im sure you wont mind if I honour everyone of our blog followers with this award, as with hospital trips things are so busy at the moment, I dont have the time Id love to sit and peruse the blogs as much, and to list just 7 individuals, so I award it to you all for having such cool blogs .

We made 50 Followers too, Welcome everyone, you are all so special. I think the 50th follower is Debie from http://piskies-and-poppets.blogspot.com/ , we have just joined your blog too Debie , love your amazing creations.

And to top the night off, we sat with bated breath tonight, wanting desperatly to win Nikkis amazing wizard bottles for the potion room! We missed out on Sunday after unexpected visitors arrived so we didnt get on the computer. ( i wondered if they noticed me sitting cursing at them under my breath!!!!) . So tonight I made sure all was quiet, children in bed with books, while John and i refreshed and refreshed until they showed up, and quick as a flash we pressed that button!! So apologies to those others of you that wanted them too,. but think of it the next batch may have the beads and strings and then Ill be jealous of you too!!

Have a great evening everyone. Im going to finish it off with a nice coffee and choccie muffin while I catch up on some blogs and John watches footy!! ( yawn!!!) lol

Thankyou Kat for my Wonderful Hats!

Happy Monday all!

Heres's a pic of the latest additions to the Witch's hat shop that my dear freind Kat sent me.

Kat sent the parcel last week but I had to wait until this morning until I could pick it up from the depot, so i couldnt wait to get back and open it up!

Arnt they superb, I love the new style hats, and I will have fun later moving things around to make room for the May specials! Also I have 2 plain ones which I wont see again for a while as Lola and Emily will nab those and my ribbons and trimmings boxes to make their own creations!

Kat also sent me a bag of Sisal grass in pink which is great, i can make some funky pink 'Good Witch' Brooms with that. oooh and a lovely bag of Pot Pourri, perfect for the workroom to smell all yummy !

Thankyou Kat!

Cant wait for more new hats, going to work on a portable hat stall to put on the roof garden as Im runnning out of places indoors now!

A HUGE THANKYOU AND BELATED WELCOME TO ALL FOLLOWERS!!!

We would just like to say welcome to all our followers and thankyou from the bottom of our hearts for finding the time in your busy lives to follow and read our little blog. We appreciate everyone that has come aboard and hope you enjoy reading what we are up to with our miniature projects past and present.

We love having you all!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kate and John

Thanks Kat for our Goth Award!!

He He another award and what a cool one, a new award from Kat the Hat lady, which is so cool thanks Kat!!

The children are still moaning at me to have our Harry Potter weekend where we sit and watch the films back to back all dressed in our favourite characters costumes so when this happens you will all see this gothic side as my Favourite is Bellatrix and I have the outfit already. Long gothic black velvet lace up dress and thigh length boots, he he, sounds a bit kinky but I got them at a car boot especially for the occasion for £2 so couldnt resist!! As for the wild hair, well if it starts in the morning Ill be fine cos my hair look like that first thing anwyay!!! Plus the dark shadows under eyes are a permanent fixture too!!

Im eagerly awating a parcel from Kat with the new hats I purchased from ebay and if i know Kat there will be goodies too woopee!

As soon as i get it, out will come the camera and ill post them on here for all to see. My witches hat shop is becoming to small and Ill need another floor soon! Maybe Ill have to follow our daughter Lolas advice and make a roof top tea rooms with little stalls of hats up there so witches can shop while they sip their 'tea'.......do witches even drink tea????

Thanks again for this different style of award and we have great delight in adding it to other others xxxxxx

The Potion Cabinet and more!

Heres a close up of the Potion Cabinet. This has sat in my drawers for years and i found it and thought it would be good in the room. I just sanded down the wood so it looked abit more aged, and then put in lots of different potion ingredient bottles. I then made holes and put in some of Nikki's hanging items, dragon skins, teeth and herbs etc which look quite cool!

The bench is just balsa painted black, and railings painted gold glued together , a nice cheap potion table!

This morning Violetta is having a mix herself to see what spells she can put together for her first lesson

Have a great Sunday and yep I think it will be Dumbeldores office next. thinking of a design for the bookcases today.

Another great Award!

Thankyou today to Julie from http://bellabelledolls.blogspot.com/ for this great award, I think if I get it right its about friendship in blogging so I have to award this to the following lovely people and their fantastic blogs. I know some of you may have it already so now you have it twice...or more !! Oh and of course Julie's blog is one of my top of the blogs too!!!!

Firstly, to Debbie of http://debbiestinytreasures.blogspot.com/,

and to Nikki , but this time for her other great blog , http://niksimagecollection.blogspot.com/ The 2 wonderful ladies , who , I wont say pestered, but more gently persuaded John and I to start a blog in the first place. Who so kindly helped me to see that getting back into making miniatures and doing our projects was the very best way to take my mind off the not so good bits of everyday life that have plagued us since Christmas. I thought 2009 was going to be 'One of those years!' not good from the start, but since blogging and getting back into the hobby I love it has meant its got better and better so thankyou so much both of you, and thankyou too for such inspiring work that both John and i enjoy to drool over on your fabulous blogs! We are very proud to own such amazing and original miniatures made by these great miniaturists.

Next to my Mate Kat, Just love all Kats blogs, but this blog award goes to her Gothic page, which we love http://katgothpage.blogspot.com/, such great gothic goodies!

Kat is a great friend and has been since i 'met' Kat on Ebay when she was tremendously helpful in helping me to find reasonable priced hats for my daughters hat shop. Once I saw her hats, I had to have a shop too, to fill with all Kat's creations, and then another to house all her wonderful and addictive witches hats! So thankyou Kat for always being there for me to have a moan and for all your great goodies you send, emails and pictures you send to inspire me and to get my 'but' into gear and do some minis! I promise to get myself motivated and to make some minis this year!

Another fantastic miniaturist and lovely lovely lady with a great blog is Vicky Guile, http://njdminiatures.blogspot.com/ who is always so helpful and freindly , always offering help and tips for me and giving great ideas for the houses. From the first email from Vicky i knew we were very similar with our tastes and thats another reason I love to catch up on her blog to see what amazing work she has been creating. And I love or chatty emails , another lady id like to eventually meet in person .

To Jodi at http://creagerstudios.blogspot.com/ I love the way that blogging brings you closer to people all over the world, and Jodi is one of these amazing people that although she lives in the US, so many miles away and is I would say one of THE very best dollmakers in the business, she makes you feel from her lovely comments on everyones blogs, that she is merely 'down the road', and will chat to you as a friend just like your neighbour would that youve known for years. She has a great blog in which she not only shows us step by step insights to her fantastic projects but also gives us a great laugh every day with her amusing blogging. She always finds the time to comment on our blog and to reply in 'person' to each and every individual comment on her own blog, so as a freindly blog who could ask for more!

To Mary, http://mizmaryminis.blogspot.com/Another wonderful lady who always makes the most helpful and kind comments on our blog. Mary's new blog is always such a fun read, one of our favourites to read being Harry Potter based, she has an incredible way of writing each posting in a make believe way that is just adorable! And Mary is so thoughtful, she went out of her way to find us something to post on her blog for our project thankyou Mary!

To Jayne , http://tallulahbelleoriginals.blogspot.com/who offers such helpful advice, and who recently put herself out to post a paperclay project for me when I was struggling for answers. Jayne is another one of these incredible ladies who can make you feel like you can ask her anything and she'll do anything to help. I mean take those Foxgloves she made for Nikki, who else do you know who would have perservered in that way , never giving up until she produced the most unbelievable and lifelike foxgloves youve ever seen, with not a moan ( well ok maybe a little one but she is human!!) to hear of!! A great blog, and a lovely freindly blogger

Supposed to be 7? ..............Oh well, hers an 8th cos I cant leave out Marsha,!!!http://sassyminidolls.blogspot.com/ She loves pink and chocolate and Betty Boop so she is a girl after my own heart to start with, not to mention that she always leaves such kind and motivating comments on our blog, and is just the kind of lady youd love to meet , so we are so pleased we got to know you in blogland Marsha, even if we are too far way to ever meet in person!!

As this is a blog award for freindliness it is difficult to leave anyone out so it should be awarded to ALL for everyones 'blogging' friendship' , for finding the time out of busy miniturists lives not only to read our blog and follow it, but to leave such great comments too, thanks to all!!!!!

Phew the Floor is done at last!!

Well Ive done it, this time without having a hissy fit and tearing it all up!

Today I finished painting the oven and then mixed up another batch of terracotta paint to paint the floor. First I grouted any gaps with a lighter shade , then sponged on the paint. Used a tiny slither of sponge to add the black to the border tiles and some of the main tiles and then added another sponging of a different shade on top, and some white to look like the tiles have wearing, and some flour on the floor.

Quite pleased with both the oven and floor and so now just have to wait for the roof tiles and flooring which I have on order to get on to the next step.

Just popped afew bits in to take the photo, need to really dress the room now, dolls and all!

More Beautiful Dolls To show off!!!!!!!!!

Hi Guys, sorry weve been a bit quiet lately, things are pretty manic here. After Johns blood clot scare we have been back and forth for his treatment, and now my wonderful Mum has just begun her second phase of cancer treatment which means daily hospital appointments for 4 weeks, so we may not be blogging quite as much for a while but we are still here and whenever we get a moment we will try and get some minis done.

Well Debbie you were right of course, in a previous posting I asked if anyone could guess which of Julie Campbell's latest creations would be the dolls Id fall in love with and Debbie of Tiny Treasures guessed it perfectly, ( you know me well already!!) as the Haunted mirror Lady, and Violetta Vinweed!

Photos are courtesy of Julie, I have not taken any yet of them in situ in their new homes but hope to very soon.

Regularly checking in on Julies wonderful blog, I came across her posting of her new dolls for the Pudsey Fair, and instantly fell for these fabulous dolls. I guessed Julie would want to take them to the show but emailed her on the off chance to see if she was willing to sell them beforehand, as they were so perfect for our projects. And being owed money I hoped I could afford them!

Well as always Julie was so helpful, and this lovely friendly lady agreed that I could buy them from her and she would simply display them as 'SOLD ' at the shows. Thankyou Julie,!!

Well today they came and as always with Julies dolls they are indeed even more spectacular than in the photos.

The lady in the mirror who I have yet to name, is so very sad and haunting in a serene way and will grace the bedroom of the haunted 'Gerry Welch' house perfectly.

Violetta, well. we thought we'd employ some new staff in the Potter house when its finished, so she will be our very own Potions and herbology mistress. When the conservatory is started she will then be moved to herbology mistress, and Snape will return from his well earned break to be reinstated in Potions. But for now there she will stay, keeping a watchful eye on all the ingredients, cauldrons, and bubbling brews in readiness for her class. We think she makes a perfect Potter teacher, dont you agree.

Now I must save up those pennies in readiness for buying the barbers chair, as thats the next big purchase.Then Ill be back to begging Julie for Sweeenys 2nd victim. The first having already been killed off and slumped in the chest in the barber shop in waiting for Mrs lovett to drag him into her mincing room!!!!!!!!

Im so delighted with my new dolls, naughty I know, but when you fall in love, you cannot resist! ( The proof of this being my John!!!!!!!!!!!)

Hope to be back in a couple of days with the pics of the Sweeney floor and the oven, all being well!!