New Potter Book, A MUST for our Christmas Lists!!!! And a giant snowman!

I just commented on Julia's blog about this fabulous book as it has some fab Honeydukes photos she could use as inspiration for her new shop

Then I thought Id best tell all of you so you can quickly hint to your families about it while you still have a few days ! I know Michelle, Kat, Jamie , Janice, Debbie, Nikki, Nicky, Julia, Ewa, and many others will just adore this book!!

I was out shopping with Emily before the snow hit us and saw this book, 'Harry Potter Film Wizardry'
Its one of those big books stacked with pictures, info, behind the scenes photos , lots of things that come out!!


Heres the description

Immerse yourself in the world of the spectacular Harry Potter film series, and learn why Yule Ball ice sculptures never melt, where Galleons, Sickles and Knuts are really "minted", how to get a Hippogriff to work with actors, about the inspiration behind Hogwarts castle, and why Dementors move the way they do. Written and designed in collaboration with the cast and crew that brought J.K Rowling's celebrated novels to the silver screen, Harry Potter: Film Wizardry delivers an enchanting interactive experience, transporting readers to the wizarding world by sharing filmmaking secrets, unpublished photography and artwork, and exclusive stories from the stars. Full of removable, facsimile reproductions of props and paper ephemera from the movies, this collectible volume offers a privileged look at the Harry Potter films and the talented group of Muggles that has made true movie magic.

I had a quick flick through and Emily then grabbed it from me and Im hoping she bought it for me he he!!

It looks great so get those hints in while you can, lots of inspiration in there for all our houses, shops and roomboxes! If you are abroad and cant get it I think Amazon sell it.
We have been pretty much snowed in since Wednesday. The snow hit hard while I was at Reillys school play and it was really difficult getting home. Its just got heavier and heavier ! Here is a pic of the giant snowman John built with the neighbour and children ( sorry about the Chelsea scarf Janice!!, Im an Arsenal supporter myself!)




And some pics of Bella who just loves it. We cant get her indoors! You can just see where the she is in the snow!



John built a huge wall of snow to stop having to chase her round the cars to get her in but it didnt stop here, she just ploughed through it!!



Hope you are all coping in the snow. Im panicking a little as still lots to do, all the food to get and no sign of it melting!!

Happy Christmas to you all!

Our Not So Mini Christmas Gift, Beautiful Bella!

Well here she is the latest addition to the Whittaker Family!

Meet Bella, our beautiful new 'Mini'! But At 8 weeks old she is not so mini, shes actually quite a big girl already!


Bella is a Maremma Sheepdog, if your reading this in the US or Italy you will probably have heard of the Maremma more so than in the UK as they are a rare breed over here.
The breed comes from Italy originally so we chose the name for 2 reasons. One is means Beautiful in Italian and 2, because its one of my favourite characters from the Twilight books ( not the movies, cant stand the movie version of Bella, shes so morose!lol!)
And we call her Bella Belle too Julie if your reading this lol!


We travelled to get her yesterday and she was as good as gold in the car all the way back, all 3 and a half hours of the journey! We are still waiting for her to turn into a manic puppy,as at the moment she is such an angel,sleeps alot, plays beautifully with the children and slept peacefully in our room all night. She loves Lolas Christmas hat as you can see!


The children are delighted with their Christmas present! I have put off a puppy for a few years but they were desperate this year so I gave in and am so pleased I did as shes touched our hearts so much already!

She hid under the tree for an hour when she arrived as the 3 children were abit much for her but now shes used to them shes playing with them and loving it! I think its even safe to put some pressies under the tree as shes not making any fuss over it, only likes one particular gold bauble!

Im sure you will be seeing more piccies of her over Christmas as shes quite a poser! Loads of real minis to show off, just dont know when i will get the time, so much to do in so little time so please bear with me!!

Happy Christmas to everyone from the Whole of the Whittaker Family !!!!!!

Wonderful Halloween Gifts Part 2!

Just after Halloween the Postman knocked again, and another massive box arrived all the way from the USA!
I had been waiting on a parcel from Jamie Moore http://creepycreations.blogspot.com/ but only expecting a small box, nothing like this!
I opened it up and had to call the children and tell them all to get dressed , quick sticks so I could take some pics of the beautifully wrapped and named packages inside! It was first thing Saturday morning and we were all slobbing around so it made us all move, so excited to open it all up!

Inside we loads of tissue wrapped parcels each with the childrens names on and some for me too yippee!

Lola opened hers first and inside was a fabulous little story book with loads of photos taken by Jamies beautiful daughter Kaylie and a lovely story written by Kaylie too all about 3 little puppets. And surprise surprise the 3 hand puppets were in the parcel too so the children had fun all morning with Lola reading the story and them all acting it out with their puppets! Lola got lots of other goodies from her penpal Kaylie too but she wants to blog about them herself so watch out for her posting soon!Reilly and Lacey loved their puppets and they all got yummy lollies too which I just had to have a slurp of!!


Now for a while now Ive been nagging Jamie to make Halloween miniatures as her full size Halloween art is just the best! Jamie has got really into it and Ive shown you some minis she made me before but Jamie wanted to make me something for my haunted house which was so wonderful of her! We thought of a piano as its something I havnt got and then I left it entirely up to Jamie to design and make and even when it was finished I didnt want to see a photo so it was a total surprise!

Jamie sent it way before Halloween but typical postal service it took 3 weeks . But it didnt matter to us that Halloween had passed, all the more fun to make it last longer!

The piano is totally awesome Im sure youll agree! I just love it to pieces thankyou Jamie. It has skulls for feet, and the little fella inside is just the best bit. He is peeking out of the piano with such a spooky expression on his face!



Ill leave it to Jamie to tell you all how she made it , Im hoping she can now show it off on her blog now Ive finally got round to posting it here!



The colouring is perfect and so far I havnt put it in the haunted house. Its on my full size spooky shelf with all my filled bottles and other Halloween and haunted art work. Its so very special it may very well stay here to be shown off in all its glory in the sitting room for all to see!!

I cant thank Jamie and Kaylie enough, I was quite tearful when all my Halloween parcels arrived. I have so wonderful, thoughtful and kind freinds and couldnt do without any of you! Id had a lousy week that week and so had Lola being poorly and this cheered us up no end! It was like Christmas again! Jamie also gave me this fab cauldron shaped tea mug and I use it every day! After all I am a little witch at heart!

So more Hugs overseas to Dear Jamie and Kaylie, just wished you lived over here you guys!!!

Im working on a return package right now with Lola in time for Christmas with a Harry Potter theme as Jamie is in the middle of her very own Potter room box. So watch out that on Jamies blog! I just know it will be spectacular and cant wait to make some things to add to it for her from us here in the UK.

Wonderful Halloween gifts! Part 1

As always a little late, I spend most of my days in the car nowadays, cant find much time for anything!

I have loads of new minis to show off so in the next week or so look out for Fab Floozies, Beautiful Bottles, Precious Owls, Amazing Toads and Pumpkins , Awesome Alice minis , Gorgeous new books and even a new doll! And much more!

I love to show off my new minis but simply havnt had any time to sit and photograph and post so sorry to those lovely miniaturists who have made all these great minis and pics will follow soon!

But I couldnt let any more time go by without showing off some wonderful Halloween gifts we recieved.Im doing this in 2 seperate posts and begin by showing off my Dear Friend Kat's parcel that arrived before Halloween.

Lola has already showed them off on her blog but I wanted to pop some pics on here too.

A HUGE box arrived absolutely stacked with Halloween goodies.

All sorts were packaged up for the children, spooky strawers, bags, skeletons, jewelery, bugs and bats, cut outs and stickers, halloween confetti and loads more! All packaged beautifully in Halloween tissue paper and labelled name tags for everyone!

I quickly nabbed the cackling witch, and Kat had kindly put in a lovely black spider candle holder for me and a great whitewood oven I can paint up for my witches cottage. I got lots of other little goodies too including funky purple and black witchy tights and we had a great time opening it all and an even better time the rest of the day playing with it all! The girls made cards for their friends and Reilly decorated all his room with spooky bugs ehhhh!!


So a HUGE thankyou and hugs from us all to Kat for a great Halloween surprise, what a great friend and what wonderful treat for the children! Kat is always so very kind and we were just over the moon with her generosity, such a lovely start to the day and it kept them all quiet the whole weekend!! xxxxxxx

Tara's Fabulous Harry Potter Minis

You know how you come across someone via someone elses blog and are So pleased you did!! Well some time ago I found Tara http://19thdayminiatures.blogspot.com/ through Victoria's blog and looking at her work fell in love with her style and miniatures. Tara loves to make fantasy minis, Harry Potter, fairy, Witch and wizard, so all ideal for my projects. Looking at Tara's blog I found a delightful potion chest and ingredients box great for the Potter house, and contacted Tara to ask if she could make another!





Very kindly Tara agreed to start straight away and despite being a busy mum with lots of family commitments , in no time at all my order was ready!


When it came , not only was it beautifuly wrapped in halloween tissue colours, when unwrapped Tara had also included a fantastic gift!

I adore my potion chest, and I think it will go in my Potter loft room with the other chests and trunks . The ingredients box will definatly go in my potion room together with this beautiful gift of a box of Amortitia the love potion, isnt it fab!! Sorry about the blurred pic need a new camera for christmas but Minis come first of course!



Tara also made me this fantastic Book of Monsters which is brilliant and scares my children to bits so it must be good! Now when Lacey is being naughty I know what to do, I get the Book of monsters out! He he arnt I cruel!!! It is really furry and those eyes are really freaky. Just like the real thing! As you can see he's already munched up one of Harry's pieces of homework, naughty monster!!


I also ordered a little tiny Alice bottle of 'Drink Me' potion for my Mad Hatters tea Party Table and it is the cutest!Go check out Tara's etsy shop, its full of amazing miniatures and Tara is a lovely helpful lady who goes out of her way to please! Tara's daughter has been poorly with pneumonia so sending them both big hugs and hope she is on the mend Tara, thinking of you both!!

Thankyou Tara for such amazing miniatures, and cant wait to add more of your imaginative creations to my collection!

Your a star I love it all!!

My Amazing Hatter Bottles

Still on the Alice Project, a while ago I asked the talented Victoria http://darksquirrelminiatures.blogspot.com/ to make me some bottles for my Mad Hatter Dressing table for my room box.
I found a large dressing table that Id bought ages ago on Ebay with an ornate mirror ideal for the purpose.
It was plain brown so I have detailed it in gold and added some heart embellishments. Not finished yet, so that is to come, but I wanted to show off the bottles.




In the movie the table is stacked with various styles , shapes and sizes of bottles, presumably where the Red Queen sits to be titavated and coiffed! You can just see the dressing table in the left of this movie still.



I will add some other bits like lipsticks, varnish, her mad eyeshadow colours and hair accessories and stack the drawers of the table with laces and other materials.

Victoria made some really spectacular designs of bottles I think you'll agree! I love the very tall ones with hearts the best but they are all fantastic! I also said that I really wanted a powder puff and lo and behold the next day Victoria had made me on of those too which is very cool, complete with red velvet puff!



A Massive thankyou as I love them all, and cant wait to fill the table with them and show them all off in their new home. The bottlea are beautifully made as they always are, and so different!

Hoping to finish it soon, now the Migraines gone I can begin to look at tiny things again!
Thankyou for allyour get well wishes, to be honest until I have the surgery and sort out all my hormones I get them most months but seem to be getting worse and affecting my minis, .....and that really will not do!!

Also just to say Lola has been busy today putting a new post up but her blog dosnt appear to be showing its update in dashboard so please pop over to see her and her new Brambley purchases on http://princeslolasminiaturediary.blogspot.com/
She'd love to see you after such a long time!

The wait is over!! The Hatters Magnificent New Addition

So sorry to dear Susan http://tabithacorsica.blogspot.com/ for the delay in this posting ( and also to Victoria and Lorraine , Tara and Nikki, who I also received fab minis from last week and I haven't got round to posting pics of) . Please all be assured I was thrilled with my new miniatures and promise to show them off soon. This week has been one of those weeks, Ive had a nasty migraine for nearly 3 days, just easing today as I couldn't look at light let alone a PC screen til now. Then Ive had several hospital visits in the last few months which I wont bore you with but seems Im going to have to make a decision on some surgery soon and stop putting it off, so thats been taking up more time than Id like too!

So enough of excuses!

But poor Susan has been dying to show her creation she made for me off, and has waited patiently so here it is for all to see and I think you'll agree its simply breathtaking .

A while ago dear Kat the Hat sent me a pic of a prop from the Alice movie of a ribbon /thread holder that was used in the Hatters Hat making room scene.
I fell in love with it and kept looking at it and imagining it in miniature ( as I do most real life things!!)


I emailed Susan with the pic as I knew Susan had made some orrerys and suchlike in the past and thought she was the perfect person to ask if it could be done. Lucky for me, Susan came back with a definate YES and she was excited herself to begin designing and making it.
I was figuring on quite a wait , but nope, within a matter of a week or so back came a photograph of this awesome creation all finished! Isn't it absolutely beautiful, full of reels of ribbon and thread, with the tiny pin cushion on the top!



I cant quite get over it myself! Its exactly like the real life version, made with such detail and precision!

I could not be happier and neither could Susan who really enjoyed making it and is going to make herself one as she was loathed to let it go once made!!

I had wanted to make my table scene for it this week, but illness has set me back so apologies again but here it is for you to see and once its in its proper home Ill take new photos! The table scene is the one Susan took but the pins wernt in place at that time.

SO a HUGE thankyou hug to the talented Susan, who made my dream come true and has made quite simply one of the most treasured miniatures I will be lucky enough to own!!

Now its over to Susan who Im sure can tell you all how it was made etc and I know it dying to post herself about her wonderful design and creation!

The Mad Hatter's Hat Making Table

At last, Ive finally got round to taking pics of my Mad Hatters hat making table!

A few months ago I bought yet another room box cheaply on ebay. This was a long narrow room with perfect dimensions for my version of the Mad Hatters room from the new Tim Burton Movie.
In the film, the Hatter has a work table, beautiful dressing table for the queen to preen herself, and a pretty chaise .

The roombox all needs redecoration and lighting but in the mean time I just couldnt resist starting on some of the internal furniture!

I have lots of furniture I could use in the room, but had trouble finding a suitable table. Eventually the perfect ornate table came up on ebay and I set to work

Id like to thank Nikki Rowe for her immense help and loads of tips and advice. I had secretly hoped Nikki would take on the project for me, having seen her fantastic witches hat making tables but I knew that Nikki dosnt really like to take on comissions so instead I took all her advice in hand and got started on it myself!
Thanks too have to go to Kat the Hat for sending me loads of trim, beads, material, and lots more that she had knowing it would suit my project! I could never done it without you two so huge hugs! And also to Susan for all her help on my questions I bombarded her with after seeing her own fantastic Alice Hatter room scene. Seeing this room really spurred me on to get on with my own and inspired me no end! Plus Susan was so kind and helpful with how to make and buy different things I needed in the room.

So now onto the table itself. I bought this deep mahogony table and chairs and edged the table in gold and re-upholstered the chair with red velvety material, gold trim and a heart shaped decoration.

The the fun began!! I made lots of different size cotton reels, some from balsa wood dowel and buttons, some from....well just about whatever I could cut up really. I was cutting up the children's pencils and all sorts to get differing widths and sizes of reels. I decorated each top with a tiny logo . I chose 2 logos, one of a vintage style Hatter hat and one of the Hatter himself but not Johnny Depp, the older Lewis Carol Hatter, which was more colourful and showed up clearer than the Depp images I found.


I made several with ribbon, some with thread, some with trims. I also made lots of pieces of card with the Hatter logo which I wound ribbons and trims around. I made stacks and rolls of materials.

Then I continued to dress the table with jars of feathers, beads, buttons, bottles, hatpins etc etc



The fantastic hat pins, hats and the unmade hat on the right of the table are all made exclusively for me by dear Kat!



It took quite a while and I kept changing the layout until I was happy enough to start sticking it all into place. After all with all these little fingers in the house I dare not leave it all loose!

I had a couple of gaps left on the table top and then something spooky happened. Id tried and tried to make a pincushion and just couldn't get it right. Then I recieved my parcel of perfume bottle displays I had ordered from Victoria of on Etsy and in there was a little bag of goodies that Victoria had made and sent me knowing I was doing the table! In it was the cutest little red pin cushion on a c cotton reel, a pair of oversized dressmaker scissors which was exactly what I was after, and a yard stick Victoria had also made herself!! Just wonderful minis, so thankyou Victoria, it all came at the perfect time!! I can still see a couple of little gaps that I can fit some tiny buttons etc in to fill them up . Funny how you notice them when you take pictures!



I dressed the table top and then got to work on stacks of material , hat boxes, patterns, cotton reel boxes etc for underneath the table so the whole setting looks really stacked with things to look at.

I had so much fun making the table that I got to work on an old sewing machine on a small table I have had sitting in a box for years and this will go next to the table, as I just didnt have enough room on the table itself for him to do his sewing.



So , hope you like it so far, I think the Hatter will when he gets here!



I now have a great material holder to decorate with reems of material and the chaise to reupholster.

Soon I will have finished the dressing table which Im so excited about as once again another brilliant blogging friend has made lots of exceptional miniatures for it which I cant wait to show off! I am waiting on the parcel with them and then will start to to dress the furniture this week!

I am also awaiting a totally unique and amazing creation made for me by another talented, lovely fellow blogger and friend which is all hush hush until it arrives then it will blow you away!

I suppose I best get to work on the decorating too, not much point in having all this fun furniture and no where to put it all to show it off!!

Eva's Wonderful Dragon Miniatures!

Staying on the Dragon theme now

In the holidays I ordered 2 great miniatures from the lovely Eva
http://mini-escenas.blogspot.com/ for mine and Emily's projects and at last have the time to show them off to you all.

I was lucky enough to buy the dragon tail board and potion board from Eva's Etsy store http://www.etsy.com/shop/evamini
before anyone else did and they came really quickly and we both love them, they are beautifully detailed .
Thankyou Eva for such treasures. We are proud to be able to have some of your creations in our projects and hope to come back for more soon !

Im trying to do as many posts as I can on my new minis as Lola is wanting me to help her out with photos etc so she can do her blog posts so watch out for Lolas blog soon too as she has some darling new minis too!

Now meet the Queen of the Dragons!!

I mean this in the nicest way!!!

I have bought many miniature birds and animals from the ever-so talented and lovely Nicky Cooper, and always thought of her as the queen of birds and wildlife, although I soon discovered she makes the most beautiful dolls also.

Well a few weeks ago Nicky made something with a difference and I think I can safely say that ever since that, her love of these little fellows and our love of them too, has grown and grown.

Nicky made a dragon head plaque and called him 'Ice' he was just incredible and I knew Emily would love him for her Merlin room. So I was lucky enough to buy him.




THEN a few days later Emily saw that Nicky had made another dragon and she loved it even more as its style was more suited to her project and so I bought her 'Midnight' and she just adores him! I was quite chuffed as it meant I could keep Ice for myself and we had one each!


When he arrived, in the parcel was a gift from Nicky of something she had been experimenting with, a baby Ice hatching out of his egg. He is precious and will go in the Potter house in Dumbeldore's office for him to look after.

Since those first couple of dragons , it has just gone mad for Nicky, she has created loads more dragons on plaques, dragon babies, naughty twins, dragon fountains, the list goes on and on. I think she must be working from dawn to dusk and the quality is just superb!!

Please check out Nickys wonderful work on her ebay page.
http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/nickycc41/
You will soon see from the great feedback how many people are loving these new creations!

And its not just dragons, but Nicky is also making other fantasy work, and next week I hope to get a very special piece that leapt out at me for Dumbeldore's office that I was very very lucky to win! He is this amazing Firebird which will proudly mount on the study wall! Cant wait to get him!


These are new, original and creative miniatures that are taking the miniature scene by storm, hence why I now call Nicky the 'Queen of the Dragons!!'