The Whittaker's Miniatures

Beacon Hill for Sale and Lots more!

2011-11-25T13:12:00.005Z

Its that time again, one last clear out before Christmas.

Im reluctantly selling my beautiful Beacon Hill American Greenleaf dollshouse

I have the one Beacon already obviously which is my haunted house but you only have to google the Beacon to see some fantastic differing styles for this design.

The house is 3 story, 9 rooms, painted in a coral and white but inside is a blank canvas and free of anything, so you can paint or paper to your style.

I'm afraid the only down side is that due to its huge size i cant send this house. I have tried, and looked into it in a major way, even down to spending a small fortune on packaging materials, specialised sized boxes etc, and on weighing it and measuring it, but because of its height and weight, it comes in at over £60 to send, so a NO NO im afraid.

We are in Reigate, Surrey, close to Junction 8 off the M25 and easy to find for anyone who fancys a trip over to us to nab a fab house and have a little tour of my other houses! You will also need a big enough space in your vehicle obviously! Email me if you need any measurments and would like to make me an offer. The house cost me over £250 a couple of years ago. Since buying it it has sat in my workshop , such a shame, it needs a loving home to give it the makeover it deserves! So if you are interested please make me an offer if you like before it goes onto Ebay on Sunday night. If i done get any interest it will go on ebay Sunday evening , but would like to give bloggers and facebook freinds the chance prior to ebay.

From what people say its quite a difficult house to put together from kit form , so its great to get it ready made, all the hard work is done for you, all that is left is to decide what style you want to do.

As well as the house Im selling several large lots of furniture , its easier to sell in bundles than list individually! There are many great items, and some bundles in which the furniture needs painting where its got worn sitting in boxes, but for someone who wants to do up furniture in a new look ie shabby chic etc, this bundle is perfect.

Lots more than showing here, about 6 lots of bundles plus other furniture

Some dolls for sale also, so please take a look this Sunday. Items being listed around 8pm UK time.
I am listing as UK only, if you are abroad and would like a price for international i can do so but will only send by airsure or signed for delivery which is more expensive. But please ask me before bidding as i know some people have bid in the past and got a shock at the cost of shopping to the US now, its not cheap!

I will be back in the New Year with project progress but this time of year is so busy for us, i doubt ill get a chance to blog before , just not enough time in the day! I will post the ebay link on Sunday

Market Cross Wizard/ Witch Project for Sale and some Swaps!

2011-10-06T21:25:00.006+01:00

Ive had a few things on ebay that although artisan made, and really fantastic, havnt sold so I thought rather than having them sitting here when they could be going to a good home where they will be displayed at their best, a swap could be a good idea.

Firstly my wonderful Vampire Count!

I bought him from a dollmaker in the US many years ago before i met some of the fab dollmakers here in the UK!

He is so much more exquisite than the photos show, he is well dressed in frilly shirt, and long velvet cloak, with brocade boots. He has a pale face, bloody fangs and long grey hair tied at the back with a tiny bat clasp!

As i am only having dear Julie's haunted ghost dolls in my house, he dosnt really fit in now bless him so needs a new home

He cost me £75 at time but I had him on ebay hoping to get £55 so if anyone has things to swap ( and you all know what projects im doing and he sort of things I love!) Id love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send me a message!

Secondly are these darling little mice by Julie Lawton

Julie made these for Lola, but fussy little girl that she is, she has decided she wants to stick to the larger mice that Jain makes so they all look the same style!

Julie's mice are beautifuly made and dressed, as you can see, and she sells similar on her Etsy shop. These are so cute for any mouse house.

Again,if anyone would love to give them a home contact me for swappsies! I dont like to see them sitting in a box, they need to be displayed and loved, they are so adorable!

My house collection is dwindling but I still have over a dozen left so dont worry that im giving up too many. Most are houses and shops i bought right at the beginning of my mini making before I knew what style I really wanted to do.

Here is another Dollshouse Emporium house, the market kit. I started to make this into a wizard house with starry roof and black and cream checkered floor , and painted black and white. The inside has plain walls all ready to be decorated. The base is a slate heavy base , a great area for wizards and witches to meet and maybe have the odd market stall of potions

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/witzend-minis

Still have a further shop and another house to sell , details to follow soon.

The workshop is slowly getting clearer, 2 boxes of furniture to sell and ill be able to get to my worktable again woohoo!

3 More houses have to go!

2011-10-02T21:51:00.004+01:00

Still not finished, so now Ive listed another shop project, needs a complete refurb and new door !

This little modified Dollhouse Emporium Kit of the Tower is a great little project for someone wanting to do a wizard/witch/dragon house.Has a lovely little shingled roof, needs redecorating inside and some work on the little ruins to the side and front where I removed the gargoyles but could be fab, so a good bargain!

And lastly, this beautiful 6 bedroomed house fully decorated and fully lit with wall and ceiling lights, very pretty, just too normal for me now im into more fantasy projects!

Some other bits and bobs on this week, more mags, and next week, maybe one more shop and some furniture then I can actually move in my workshop to begin some work on Honeydukes and do a 'proper' post!

Thanks again for your support ladies in my auctions !

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/witzend-minis

Relisting Springwood due to Ebay GRRRRRR!!!!!

2011-09-28T15:18:00.002+01:00

Hi all just a quickie, got a email today taking off my Springwood Cottage and basement cos apparantly someone from Dollshouse Emporium reported me as violating copyright laws from googling the pic of the cottage and listing it with this picture!

I only did it for a day to give me chance to get up in the loft and get the box down to take pictures of, and also whats the difference between using this pic an dusing the close up of the picture which is the same on the actual box ahhhhh! Anyway it cost me about £3.50 to list the items and now i have to pay this again to list and I havnt even got a record of what I wrote so I have to start over and explain why it came off!

Sorry to all watching, will be back on tonight!!!!

And it still keeps on coming! More Houses and Shops, and Minis for sale!

2011-09-27T14:51:00.006+01:00

So here we go again

Can I just say a HUGE thankyou to all those who have advertised my minis for sale, and for those who have placed bids and/ or won items , i am so grateful to you!

This week, I am selling another shop. This was my Witchy Holllow witches hat shop, but now I have a 2 storey Glad Rags as my witches hat collection by the darling Kat Hazelton, has got too out of control to house all in one storeyt!

This shop cost me around £100 on ebay when I bought it. It needs an overhaul paintwise id say. Inside is gold star paper, no flooring, so all needs doing. All the exterior sign and moss can be easily removed and then do as you please with it!

Starting this one at £28.99 plus postage in the UK. Its a lovely big shop, nice and deep and roomy!

Next on the list to go, is this NEW BOXED KIT from Dollshouse Emporium of Springwood Cottage. Im selling both the 6 roomed house and also seperatly the Basement which gives another 2 rooms

Needs putting together, painting, decorating to your taste etc. In flat pack kit form.

Costs £155 for the house and approx £88 for the basement new in DHE so Im listing at less than half price on both. A lovely house to work on and a great Chrismtas pressie to yourself or someone!

I have another little wizard house which will go on tomorrow if I get time, a one storey version of the Dollshouse Emporium tower, on a base.

I still have lots of furniture to list but will do this next month, so for now heres lots of Dollshouse magazines, great for sitting down with a cuppa and looking at projects, peoples houses, etc

In amongst them are 2 Dollshouse and Miniature Scene Magazines with articles by our wonderful Nikki Rowe. One on making jams and preserves, a fab article, and another on her spooky haunted tree! Also in this mag is other wizardy articles.

Other mags have articles on Rick Pierce, Kiva, and Jaquiline Dunn who I know many people collect her work.

Lots of Christmas mags too for those holiday season articles!

Please take a visit to me tonight and see whats new! thankyou all for looking!

Greenleaf Mercantile Store Kit For Sale NEW BOXED!

2011-09-20T12:09:00.004+01:00

Sorry to keep plugging away at my ebay sales but until I clear alot of things I no longer need I cant generate either the space no pennies to make or buy new minis to show you! I so want to move on with my Honeydukes but I need to buy lights and counters so need to sell sell sell!

So next on the list of houses, is this fabulous Greenleaf Mercantile Store.

I love this Kit, the store is so pretty and if you go further back on my blog you will see why Im selling the kit. Cos Im lazy and found one ready put up on ebay after id already bought the kit, so have that as my Antique shop now!
I love the style, its very fancy and you can see both sides which have lots of detailing, and if put on a turntable the whole shop is really wonderful from all sides!

A US kit I dont think ive seen it for sale in the Uk . It is slot and tab assembly, pre cut ply, no nails or screw needed.Silkscreen windows.
18" wide, 21 1/2" high and 25" deep so great size rooms for store and room above!

It also includes lots of counters, shelves and signs so all ready to put up, decorate and paint !

There are many of these done up on the greenleaf website/forum so go see what people have made them into, they look wonderful! Ive seen them as spooky stores, witch/wizard store, chocolate shops, dress shops etc

This is on my ebay listings tonight, Tuesday, from 9pm british time . Heavier than my other shop so still courier delivered UK only.

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/witzend-minis then click on items for sale, it will be at the end of the listings

Still more to add, thankyou for taking the time to look and for those bidding my thanks!!

And theres More!!!

2011-09-18T12:05:00.006+01:00

Just finished listing more bits on ebay, heres some preview pics but all in all I think there are over 30 listings so I wont put them all on here! Here is my ebay page
http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/witzend-minis and although they wont go on til 8.30 they will be listed every few minuites until about 10 ish Sunday night!

For the More spooky minded of you, there are 2 listings.

The first is this set of 4 spooky goodies.

There are 3 severed heads. One I had at the dinner table, ....brains for tea! the other zombie head i had hanging from a beam and I love the Egyptian Mummy head with scorpion! Also there is a wooden bowl of intestines, fingers and eyeballs, gross but great! Each item cost me over £15 each but Im starting all 4 very low, so they are a real bargain!

Here also and reluctantly is my Vampire / Dracula Doll. Made by a US Doll artiste, he is fabulous with his long velvet cloak, brocade boots, and his red red lips and long grey hair. His hair is tied at the back with a tiny bat clip! very cool and my pics dont do him justice, his face is showing up very glary, but it is of course very white!

I no longer have a house that suits him as my haunted house is to be for my ghosts by Julie now and no others.

I hope someone can give him a good spooky home as he misses it!

I have also listed lots of pretty shop items, hat boxes, shoes, ornate mirrors and some of Kats Hats, now I no longer have a hat shop!

Please visit me later. Ill post the link tonight!

My Miniatures and Shops for sale on Ebay!

2011-09-17T17:08:00.009+01:00

Well its that time of year again! Christmas is coming.....so the children keep telling me! So I have had a good look at my miniatures and decided what can stay and what will go!

Tomorrow night I will be listing lots of Artisan Made and other miniatures.

I am selling a lovely shop I bought last year but only used for about a month or so to see how it would look as a hairdressers/Beauty salon using all my furniture and miniatures I had bought and stored for a year or more!

The shop is painted white and blue. Inside is pale blue and no flooring yet. So really its a good blank canvas for someone to repaint easily to their won taste. It would make a lovely hat/dress/bridal shop, or Im selling all my things from it if anyone wanted a project ready made they can then add bits too, new posters, bottles and things and make it a really lovely salon?

I am selling the shop seperatly incase someone dosnt want all the minis, and everything else is listed seperatly. If you look at the inside pic all thats in there will be sold in lots.

Ill add the listing link tomorrow here and on facebook.

Also I am selling other things, including these 2 adorable mice made by Julie Lawton, hand made and dressed so beautifully! I bought them last Christmas for Lolas house but now shes thinking of a different style mouse house so they are new, never been out of the box!

Ill add the listing link tomorrow here and on facebook.

Another artisan made miniature is this pretty in pink cake preparation board made by Eve from after Dark Miniatures. anyone that follows Eve's fabulous work will konw she is very much inn demand and her work goes for alot of pennies as she has many collectors, so grab a bargain why dont you!

I wanted it for a shabby chic project that never happened as usual! Im conentrating on only my fantasy projects now, haunted house and all Harry Potter and witch /wizard houses so all else must go and make room for these things.

I have other things too, this pretty hat display i bought at a fair some time ago.

Im also going to be selling another shop next week, details to follow and maybe my 2nd Beacon Hill, I just dont have the room for it. Lots of other minis to go too, so keep your eyes peeled for my listing please.

Some pretty baskets full of goodies!

And check out these cool stools . I got them in the US and havnt seen any like them anywhere!

Oh and how about this for all you Alice fans!

I treated myself to this gorgeous Urban Decay Alice in Wonderland Box of Shadows make up set, bought out to co-oincide with the Tim Burton film release. I love it to bits, it oepns up with a little mirror and this fab pop up Alice scene, how cool!
I havnt used any of the make up, see all the amazing colours and names! Eye pencils and primer too.

It is a rare limited edition set so Im hoping it sells at the price i paid for it! I just dont wear make up enough to just warrant it sitting in its box, even if it is very pretty and collectable. I need the pennies for my love of minis!

So hope someone sees something they like. I can send miniatures overseas but have learned I have to use recorded signed for which is not cheap Im afraid but it gets there with abit of peace of mind!

As for my projects, well, Lacey starts full time at school this week so watch this space, lots to be done!!! And Lola and I have been having a play at a new hobby, as if I need more to do, but its fun, come by soon to see!!

New Homes for Houses!

2011-08-12T11:36:00.010+01:00

After getting thoroughly inspired by reading Sabiha's ( http://sabsminiinteriors.blogspot.com/) blog post about her bookcase which she has used to house her dollshouse projects , I decided to have a shift about with all my own houses!

I have a similar style bookcase to Sabiha's which I got on ebay although its an IKEA white bookcase with moveable shelves.

I moved this out of our conservatory onto the landing and it now houses various projects and dolls. Tricky to take a full on shot without falling down the stairs!

All my fav books from different movies are on the top shelf , then under this are some of my beautiful dolls which so far have no homes ready for them, and so Ive decided to display them as they are for now until their projects are ready!

On the first shelf , I have put my wonderful Sweeney Todd, made by the one and only Julie of http://bellabelledolls.blogspot.com/ .

With his dresser and Barber Chair, made by Dear Ara, and complete with this fantastic customer made by Julie also. He has a slit throat and lots of blood!

Ill take more and better pics of these soon, as I want to add Mrs Lovett to this display once I sort it all out properly. My Chest is here also complete with Perelli's hat by Kat and arm hanging out of the box....( Julies fab work again! ) love it!

Next to Sweeney is a doll Ive had for some years and absolutely love! The amazing Edward Scissorhands made by Lesley Hughes of Oaak Diddy Dolls, http://ooakdiddydolls.blogspot.com/was probably one of my first dolls,and I found the perfect setting for him at a car boot sale of a glass house.

I want to make the setting with a background of topiary bushes for him, and I promise to complete it one day!

For now at least hes on display , in his fab leather outfit and lethal looking scissor hands!

Another of my favourite films has to be Nightmare before Christmas, another Tim Burton Film, can you see how much I like them!

Jack was also a doll made by Lesley, as was the awesome Zero complete with his own grave! I love them.

When I had got Jack I asked Lesley if she'd make any of the other dolls from the film and she was halfway through making Sally so I was thrilled to own her as well and add her to my collection.

She is admiring Jack's wonderful wand on a stand, made by the oh so talented Lorraine from . Not only is the wand by Lorraine http://dollhouseminisbydfly.blogspot.com/, but also all these spectacular gravestones and pumpkins which complete the spooky setting.

Another collection piece is my Nightmare Christmas tree made by the lovely Sherry. http://19thdayminiaturessherrys.blogspot.com/
I have lots of Sherry and her daughter in law, Tara's work now and am always thrilled to add their pieces to my projects. They are full of life, fun and originality!

So for now, thats the bookcase so far. Im going to reshuffle things, as I have dolls by the fabulous Nicky Cooper also to show off, and other projects . I have lots of accessories to add to the Sweeney setting and the Jack setting too but wanted to show it off so far.

Now here is the new layout of the conservatory.

We have a large pine table and chairs centrally and a wicker sofa on the left side, so I only have the right hand side to play with. I have put all my shops which after much resoration and renovation will be my Harry Potter shops down this side of the wall. Honeydukes, 2 Sid Cooke single fronted 2 storey shops, to eventually be the wizard shop, and apothecarys, and another double fronted Sid Cooke which will be Glad Rags.

Going round the corner is my Tudor 3 storey House which is to be my Potter style Inn, complete with lots of Jains http://giddykippercharacters.blogspot.com/ ( witches and wizards as and when I can get them . I have several in there so far, but Id love so many more!

Then on the end is my wizard/dragon Tower. This is to be full of wizard miniatures and lots of dragons, as Im slightly addicted to Nicky Coopers and already have a lovely collection. I can never have enough!
My Snow White House and Antique shop are on a table to the left, so its stacked with dollshouses in here. Well, the way I see it, Im 43 now, so have a fair few years to do up all these resoration projects, so maybe if you come back in 20 years I may have half done at least!!!

Thats it for now. Ive been sweet making this week, but will take pics when I get another counter filled. Have a good weekend!

Bertie Botts Bean Display

2011-08-06T11:54:00.008+01:00

At last its finished!

Here is my version of Bertie Botts Bean Display for Honeydukes!

It was a bit of a nightmare to complete. Not only did I spend 2 days making all the different coloured jelly beans, which was extremely tedious, but then I had the fun and games of getting the tiny dispensers filled, stuck together and put into the cabinet evenly, which was a feat in itself!

The red and white display part is all drawn and painted freehand by myself, and that part, strangley enough was the easy bit and all went swimmingly!

The beans go in bands of colour , then with a twist of the lever, fall into smaller dispensers for mixing and then into the jars for customers to buy!

The Bean Flavour guide shows the customers what beans they can expect in their jars.

Here is the Universal and original Bean Display cabinets for you to see what I was trying to get close to!

The Version in the Movie

The Universal Version

This display fits neatly next to the last unit I showed you and next to these will be a double unit filled with themost amazing square glass jars I was lucky to find on ebay! They just need new labels and the lollipop displays on top and one side of the shop will be complete!

SO here it is, hope you like it. I'm very happy with it, even though it was a pig to finish! No more bean making for me, I think Im all beaned out!

The Honeydukes Sherbert Display at last!

2011-07-05T12:38:00.012+01:00

Side View!

My frogs are done so I have added the finishing touches and here it is, the first complete display, for sherbert and candies!

This is the corner display for the right hand side of the shop, it fits against my large double unit and the single Bertie Botts will fit in next to its left side.

The sherberts are all in tiny gold topped glass dispensers with little gold levers that when turned to the left dispense the colour you want into the Honeyduked labelled jars below.

Lets just say it took some fiddly work to get this completed, and Im hoping it all stays glued in place as it took me an age to get it to hang this way!

On top of the cabinet are several Harry Potter themed candies. There is a shelf lined with paper of the Honeydukes logo .

Candies include, 'Ice Mice' 'Pink Coconut Ice', 'Acid Pops', ' Fizzing Whizbees Bars' little shop display boards for Chocolate , and a Bertie Botts Bean flavour chart. A Fudge Flies and Peppermint Toad display board, and further jars of liquorice wands, rhubarb and custard sweets and more fizzy sherberts .

There are some tiny chocolate frogs and little Hermione and Dumbeldore candy boxes.
On top of the cabinet I made little lollipop displays with pink candy canes, and a cellaphane wrapped candy in the middle. Lots more superglueing fingers together for that bit!

All the tall cabinets will have this lollipop display on top of them so they will go around the room! Again, an idea 'borrowed' from the Universal cabinets but in my own colours and style

I am really pleased with this first display, and even more excited about the next, the Bertie Botts bean Display which Im hoping to complete soon.

It came together just as I imagined it should look, hope you like it just as much!

Now, the front is no where finished, the paint needs ageing, the windows need more work, Ive lost the acetate for one of the windows and the front doors need putting on, but just had to show you my daughter Emily's fantastic work on the front signs!

Im useless on the PC so she measured with me, and came up with this sign that runs the length of the shop front! I love it, its the perfect green on a soft pink and the lettering stands out beautifully!

We need a gutter maybe above the centre sign, and the top wooden part is going to be dripping with snow that just slightly overhangs the sign!

Im eager to get it finished but Ive also promised Emily that if she helped me out Id help her make a start on her Castle walls, so thats the plan for next week. I cant get on just yet with the Bertie display as Im waiting on things for it, so onto a different project as a break for a few days.

Once we have some progress with that Ill be back with a vengeance to completing more of the exterior and the cabinets inside!!

Thanks to Emily too for taking these brill pics as my camera is so rubbish!

Candy Galore!

2011-07-03T12:28:00.005+01:00

Hi again. Sorry about the confusion on the picture I had heading my post yesterday. It was meant to be lower down on the post only, to show the Universal Honeydukes that Im trying to emulate but afew of you thought that was my own version so far.......I wish!! Mine dosnt have the spiral staircase, but does have the same units, lettering, flooring and soon, lots of candy, so Im trying, and flattered you think It will be that good lol!!

Anyways as promised heres a few pics of some of the candy made so far. If you click on the pics you'll see them close up for all the colour variations! I had a night of rock and lollipop making. Some are large long sticks of rock which are going in tall jars and standing on each step of the pink staircase. So all the candy will be going up the stairs. I want it to look stacked with sweets!

The smaller stacks will go in a tall cabinet, and the little jars are having ribbon around the tops and acetate tops as they just fit inside the small glass fronted unit I have that takes 40 jars. as you can just see they have tiny honeydukes labels on them. In these jars will be things such as marshmallow flumps, bonbons, strawberry lips, jellied eggs, gumdrops etc.

I have made loads of lollipops. in various style and colours.They will again go in jars, and Ill make some displays out of fimo too. Some will be kept for my Honeydukes Hogwarts candy cart to be completed later. But there are spares so those with candy stores , as promised some will be coming your way!

Hoping my frogs will be done by Tuesday so I can complete the sherbert display counter for you to see.

A lovely glorious day today, we have already taken the children down to the riverside, and now back to watch the Wimbledon tennis final before I carry on with some more jar filling sessions!

Have a fun Sunday

More Work On Honeydukes.

2011-05-28T13:08:00.023+01:00

Work is coming on slowly but surely!

The flooring and staircase are now permanently in place and the new counters painted .
I painted some coving green and then some skirting board to be used under the coving as name boards for some of the candies.

I got this idea from the Universal version of Honeydukes . In Hobbycraft I bought some transfer gold fancy script letters. I knew I wouldnt be able to get inside the room to do the lettering so as I had some spare skirting I had the idea of being able to place the lettering on this and then glue this into place.

It took all of an afternoon as I had to try and work out how to centralise the words and I was tearing my hair out as twice I made silly mistakes and had to sand it down and start again, ahhhhhh!!

But eventually I got it right and made 3 lengths with ' Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans' for the back wall, ' Exploding Bon Bons' and ' Squeaking Sugar Mice' for the side walls. I have also made 2 smaller lengths with ' Acid Drops' and 'Chocolate Frogs' for underneath the front windows inside the shop. In the pic you can see how it looks in the real life shop and in mine! Excuse the terrible pics, my camera does not want to play today!

It looks really effective and Im so happy with how such a small detail can make such a difference to the interior. an you believe ive never put up coving before and Emily and I spent an age working out how to get the right angle on the fancy coving using a mitre block. We kept messing up and the wood was getting shorter and shorter and by the time we figured out the angles JUST had enough to fit in phew!!

I ordered about 40 jars for one of the counters and have started to fill them so that it eventually looks like this picture, again a Universal version.

My lights arrived. I ordered a green oil style light for downstairs and 2 smaller oil lights for upstairs. I have painted the dark green into the matching green of the counter colours.

Now painted and looking like this!

Here are the lights to go in the upstairs room.

I also ordered 2 white wire pieces , a plant stand which will be painted pink and filled with jelly snakes, and a trolley which was to go inside the main room. However when it arrived it was too large and took up too much space so now Ill keep this as a seperate project and make it into the Honeydukes candy trolley used on the Hogwarts Express!

I have googled lots of Honeydukes candy labels and again this is going to take some time to make into the candies that will make this shop extra special! So a long ongoing project, not quite as quick as I thought it may be, but we are having fun filling it and will do for quite some time to come I think!

I have had a brainwave for my Bertie Botts display and must say that so far Im over the moon with excitment and delight at how its turning out. I copied the red and white display freehand and couldnt believe how it turned out perfectly straight away.....when does that ever happen!! I wasnt sure whether to show WIP pics of it or do a big reveal and have decided to go for the latter! So now we just have to wait on the sweets for the candy dispensers and Im all set to finish it off and show it to you.

In the mean time, as I have 2 corner units, the large low counter and a double display to complete I set to work on the first corner one. I am making this into a sherbert display and its almost completed.

On top are lots of HP candies, ice mice, pink coconut ice, acid pops, chocolate frogs, and little lollipop displays.

The different coloured sherberts dispense from some tall thin glass bottles into Honeydukes jars ready to sell. Ive used similar dispenser jars for my Bertie Botts display and am really happy with them! Cant wait to show you, Im so pleased with it , so I just have to get my chocolate frogs made and I can take pics!

Oh and ive made LOADS of sweets, so will take some pics of them too and show them to you. Lots to spare, even when I fill my candy trolley Ill have far too many as i got abit carried away with lollipop and rock making !!

Back next week with some different pictures, some beautiful new miniatures made for me for my haunted house, a giveaway prize just arrived , and fantastic Harry Potter miniatures that I just had to have for another Potter project ! Lots to see!

Ok so I admit it, Ive bought a few things!

2011-05-18T09:22:00.011+01:00

I know I said Id been good, and really for me, I have! Ive bought some little things for various projects. I know alot of people only buy things for the project they are working on at that time, but if something comes up I see and love then I prefer to grab it while I can and keep it by for when I work on that house/ shop!

So when I saw Victorias wonderful house she is working on right now, Vultures roost and saw these lovely pillars in it, I knew I had to buy a couple for my dragon tower. Luckily Victoria sells these in her shop ! When the parcel arrived, as always Victoria had been too kind and included these darling little Alice bottles which ive put in the Roombox. And some little labels for me and Harry Potter and stickers for the children, thankyou Victoria!

Also for my dragon tower I saw these gorgeous dragonclaw sword holders made by the lovely
Nicky Cooper, another must have , love these too!

I have to say my other 2 purchases are hmmm..............somewhat larger shall I say.......BUT absolute bargains , that I was very lucky to see when I did! One Saturday morning I decided to just have a look at the dollshouse, just to see what was out there, no intention of buying of course!
When I saw these 2 Sid Cooke shops I couldnt believe the buy it now prices and after a quick , "Can I Pleeeeease???" to John ( If he said no, Id have got them anyway he he!) I got them there and then and the lovely lady agreed to box and send them for the cost of sending one shop!

In a few days they arrived and Im thrilled with them. I know alot of people prefer to buy the kits unmade as its easier to decorate then but Im happy to strip and redo them, I quite like that bit!

The larger shop is another double fronted Cooke shop, different from my Honeydukes, in that it is not as deep, has only the one door and no stairs.

This will be 'Glad Rags' the wizard and witch shop for all their clothing, hats, shoes, bags and accessories! Cant wait to do this one. It means I will loose my witches hat shop as I will be putting my massive Kats hats collection into this 2 storey shop now. I had run out of room in my single storey shop so this is great. I will be contacting the lovely Cher who made my Alice Mannequin for some witch and wizard mannequins!

Here is a picture of the Universal Glad Rags and this is the colouring Ill be doing, shabby pink and purples. I think it will compliment Honeydukes beautifully! I do love that double box frontage, but abit tricky to change the existing shop that much beacuase the windows are already in place , shame !

The single square fronted shop is an older shop, all wood, with wooden window frames. This will need alot more work as it seems to be stained in a deep redwood varnish , yuck!

Saying that, if you look at 'Zonkos' at Universal again, it is very similar in colour so I may not have to do that much with it as I thought, maybe take off all the posters, rub down and keep this sort of colour, just ageing it more. However I wont be doing the joke shop, boy that one would be tricky to fill!

I love several Potter shops, the Post office, Ollivanders, The Bookstore, Scrinvenshafts and Potages, so which would it be? SO I had a brain wave. As I dont relish making hundreds of wand boxes and books etc, how about I make my own wizards supplies shop, with all of these goodies in one store! Wands, books,quills and inks, brooms and cauldrons, this will be a fun one to fill!

So I have to admit these will take a while, but hey whats the rush! Lacey starts full time school in September so from then I will have all my days to fill with mini making, so although I have many projects to choose to work on, I couldnt let these babies go, and one day youll see the Potter street grow I promise!

Today in the post arrived my latest ebay find! Made by Dave Williams from Harvington Miniatures, http://harvingtonminiatures.blogspot.com/, this beautifully made table with benches is the perfect addition to the Potter inn I will be doing. Dont Jains wonderful dolls look at home in there already ! I was only browsing looking for things for Emily for her castle potion room but came across this set and had to bid!

And here is a closer picture to see the table, I love the aged look it has to it, everything about it is just right for this setting! I will be back to Dave for my pub signs, some beer pumps and more, just love his work thankyou Dave!

Now I just need some witches to be sitting on these wonderful benches........Jain can you hear me.....i NEED another!!!!

So, I may not have got to KDF this year but Ive made up for it with my ebay and internet bargains. Now the table is in, Im going to work on the pub counter I have this weekend to go in the downstairs room, a little something to do while I wait on Emily to finish my Honeydukes signs and then next week, time to make sweeties galore!!!

Wonderful Gifts from Ella Rose Miniatures!

2011-05-17T12:53:00.013+01:00

Ive been meaning to show off my fabulous prize that I won in Kerry Fawcett's Mothers Day giveaway draw in April so today I finally got the camera out so I can do just that. Kerry's great blog showing all her tasty treats is here for you to see. http://ella-roseminis.blogspot.com/

Isnt this a darling little set with a breakfast fit for a Queen! Dont tell them but I wish my children bought me such finaries on Mothers Day, I seem to remember baking myself Chocolate Croissants with a cup of tea!

At the moment as you can see, Lola has aquired the set for her Mouse house, as she tells me I have no 'normal' house for it to go in until I get my French house on the go, and then, sorry Lola, Im nabbing it back! The gorgeous table and stools were made as a pressie by Victoria http://darksquirrelminiatures.blogspot.com/ for Lola and I shouldnt be showing them here as Lola demands we need to catch up her own blog and show off all her gifts but they looked so perfect on there, I had to show, thankyou Victoria!

Well, I recieved that parcel , early April, so today was quite bemused to find the postman bring me another box with EllaRose Miniatures label on the box? I couldnt remember ordering anything, Ive been good with my spending limits lately, honest!

So imagine my excitement to open it up and find 2 beautiful candy displays made in perfect pink and green candy stripe papers, full to the brim with sticks of rock and swirly lollipops!
They are gorgeous and will go beautifully on my counter display thankyou so so much Kerry for making them for me! Kerry thought they would fit right in with Honeydukes and they sure do! My pictures dont do them justice, even on macro!

I was instantly Inspired to get the fimo out, only to find I cant for the life of me find my giant floor tile that I use to bake everything on.....where on earth have I put it!! So until I scour the house in search of the safe place I obviously placed it, I have to just get out my notebook and sketch pictures of what I will eventually make!! How frustrating!

SO a huge thankyou and Hug to Kerry Fawcett for my fabulous new goodies!

Oh and that was the second surprise today, I awoke to find Id won the giveaway on Carol's blog http://true2scale.blogspot.com/with the amazing prize of $25 of goodies from her Etsy store! Imagine my delight at being able to choose from the beautiful array of miniatures, all perfect for Honeydukes in shades of green and pink! I have made my choice, hard as it was ( I do so love that delightful little halloween haunted house kit......another time Im sure!) and you will all see what ive chosen as soon as it arrives! Cant wait.

So 2 surprises in a day, shouldnt there be another, they say things come in 3's! Im off to check out if there is anything I can enter in case i'm on a lucky streak! If I win big time on the lottery Ill buy you all something of course!

A Candy Pink Staircase!

2011-05-11T12:58:00.011+01:00

Honeydukes is painted, and my staircase is pink!

I decided the budget wouldnt allow for the spiral, so I painted the original stairs pastel pink , bought new spindles and newel posts and set to work putting it altogether. I havnt glued them in incase I decide I hate them!

All the walls were painted with Dulux eggshell. I had to get the paint made up as no tester pots had the colour I wanted which was a dusky mint green. The actual Honeydukes is a darker green but I love this mint colour, I didnt want it so dark, so went with that! So i mixed several together, painted up one unit and took it to Homebase who then scanned my cabinet and the machine cleverly tells you the closest colour which was 'Roulette' . I then bought a Clover green which I smudged into the windows, doors, edging etc to age it more. Dosnt really show up in the pics unfortunatly.

As I bought this shop already decorated in a dark buttermilk colour with the stonework already on, Im unsure as it what to do with this outside part.

Im leaving the stonework, but I have the creamy colour which surrounds the windows and double door and Im unsure as to whether to age it with washes to dirty the perfect paintwork up, or to mask up around my windows etc, and try my hand at some plasterwork, or to paint a dark dirty grey/ green colour......like I say, undecided as always!

Inside it is painted all green, cabinets to match. Im waiting on another single unit for the corner part on the right, and another single is going on the far left wall. I also have a wall mounted shelf unit to go at the bottom of the stairs. The flooring is a cream and black and I love it!

The perspex topped unit is a lovely shape but as soon as I took it out of the box the perspex fell apart so I had to glue it and then it goes cloudy, as it didnt like my glue, oops! Hence why some candies are already covering up those parts. You wont see them but I know its there and its annoying me so in place already are Kerry Fawcett's http://ella-roseminis.blogspot.com/
beautiful balloon displays and Kerry Alexander's http://cherryberryminiatures.blogspot.com/ meringue tower, he he couldnt wait!

Inside the perspex part will be boxes of candies, and on top, stacks of coconut ice, and chocolate and mint fudge. Bowls of jellied snakes, chocolate frogs , giant lollipops, ice creams and much more.

Inside the wall cabinets, lots of jars of candies, and in the back perspex unit, lots of toffees, fudges etc.

The very corner cabinet on the right will be Bertie Botts beans display. Working on that next!

I hanvt got room to put in window displays as I had wanted to do, but I will have a round table with a candy floss display, and upstairs will have a matching table with a giant chocolate fountain . Oh if only it was real!

So still loads to do. But Ive broken the back of the inside lower floor.

Upstairs id like a pinstripe pink and green wallpaper, with whitewashed floorboards, and beautiful laser cut display cabinets showing off all my 'Holiday' halloween and Christmas candies!

Speaking of Christmas Id really like my shops to have a winter theme and would like to snow top them so any advice on the best material for this is appreciated. I have seen Stan from http://greggsminiatureimaginations.blogspot.com/ uses paperclay for his snow, and I really like the thick look he uses on his winter house. But Id like it more sparkly so maybe I can add some shimmer somehow. Ill be adding it to the window and roof tops, and some on the pavement below , but this will Id like a more scattered look of snow so looks like its diminished with customers walking in and out.

The shop signs all have to be done, and again Im no Pro with the PC, but have chosen a pale pink paper and already managed to do the Honeydukes sign in a greeney grey font for the windows, but if I cut it out and it looks terrible ill look for an expert to do it for me !!! I also would like 'Honeydukes ' signs on the bottoms of the cabinets and I will be making little shop bags for customers to take away their goodies!

And so, back to work!

Have fun, all those going to KDF this weekend, either to sell or to buy. Wish I was going and look forward to seeing your show reports on your return!

Check out Emily's Castle , Advice needed please!

2011-05-08T16:41:00.004+01:00

Hi all, well progress is slower than Id like it to be on Honeydukes, but I managed to get the perfect paint today and have painted the walls and some of the many counters at last!

I havnt got pics just yet as all the paintwork has to be aged and Honeydukes signs made to go on the furniture . Still loads to do.

Just wanted to let you know that my eldest daughter Emily is back into blogging so please support her blog whenever you get a chance!

A lot is fashion/ beauty/ Reviews etc but she is of course into miniatures.....well theres not much chance of her not being with me is there!

Her next project is the Merlin Castle and as always its only money holding us back on starting ,as she wants the walls done realistically with compound and stencils so we need to save for the materials. We already have collected quite a number of medieval items and furniture so please check in to see what shes up to! She'd appreciate any advice and suggestions on the castle, ideas for the exterior, tips on putting it together, makers of medieval style furniture, etc

http://emilyclairefashions.blogspot.com/

Back soon with pics of some new purchases this end too! I have been good and not spending too much but there have of course been certain things I just HAD to have !!!

Have a great week

The New Alice Dressing Table , Curiosity Cabinet and Gifts

2011-04-24T13:18:00.008+01:00

As you know Ive been after the perfect dressing table for all the Red Queens perfume bottles for some time.

Well I found one I liked with the same bow legs as the table in the roombox so put in my bid and won and its the perfect colour and style. It has a little lift up section in the centre with a hidden mirror so Ive done something abit clever with this!

Firstly I glued on this lovely tall ornate gold mirror onto the dressing table to make it look more like the one in the film. I added gold detailing to parts of the table.

Next I lifted the tiny mirror and replaced it with a sneaky picture of the white queen! Now the Hatter loves the White Queen but I dont think her sister would be too happy on him having portraits of her hanging in her room, hence why he has put this little secret picture of her in the dressing table , that only he knows is there!

On top of the dressing table is a fine array of perfume bottles, most of which are made by the talented queen of perfume displays, Victoria! I have added some of the smaller pretty bottles Dear Sabiha made for me and they go amongst the others a treat!

On Mothers Day my pressie arrived just in time to complete my roombox.

And what a stunning piece it is! I knew The fabulous Tara was making an Alice cabinet and asked her very cheekily if I could see it before it hit her Etsy shop shelf! I think we were both quite stunned by how perfect the finished piece turned out to go with my own pieces! Tara hadnt seen my roombox, she was actually making this cabinet at the same time as I was decorating my room, and neither of us had seen each others progress. So when I had finished the room and afew days later saw the cabinet in all its glory we couldnt believe how the piece actually looked like it was made just for my room. The colours, style, everything about it matched my room and all my other miniatures in there! So of course it was meant to be, and made its way to the UK in time for my Mothers Day treat!

A huge thankyou to Tara, and stay tuned to see more pictures of the dressing table and cabinet in their new home. I hope you agree the new furniture all works really well! The detailing in the cabinet is amazing, theres even a dainty red heart painted on the sole of the queens boots.

Squimberry Tarts, under a glass dome. A beheaded thieving frog in a red coat and black bow tie stares blankly from his stuffed perch at what he wasn't allowed to have of the Red Queen's. The Oraculum-bound together by red ribbon is also tucked inside, the calender of Underland currently in the Red Queen's castle. Bottles and Tottles in Red Queen style sit on a dainty tray. Photographs of both the JubJub Bird and Jabber-baby-wocky are framed in high-styled ornate frames. The crown of questionable ownership also sits inside on a velvet pillow. A well-worn copy of the study book "Dominion Over Living Things" sits beside it. A trinket and jewel chest, looking recently rummaged through, sits with drawers open and jewellry spilling out.

On top she has a lovely red bird, caged in a fabulously ornate wooden cage. Two lovely crystal bottles sit beside a gorgeous hat and hat stand. Red roses twine around the items on top of the cabinet. Beautiful!

Also for Mothers Day I recieved a darling little corner shop, already made up, and in need of tender loving care, which of course it will recieve in this dollshouse mad house! Not sure what it will become as yet, but have already stripped the walls inside and out and now it will sit on the shelf until it speaks to me. Something magical and different of course!

The exterior green paintwork has been started on Honeydukes, and has been extremly tricky as I had to mix 2 paints to get the colour I wanted and Im going to have to do the same on the interior units and walls as one matchpot was too green, the other too dark, etc,and the perfect colour cannot be found without some magical mixing! I have more primer to buy, surprising how quickly it dissapears having to primer so much furniture etc. So once I get the materials needed Ill move on and start ageing the woodwork on the exterior and painting up those cabinets! So not as quick a start as Id hoped for!

The pink spiral staircase , which was a dream of mine, will have to remain just that, and Ive decided to keep the existing staircase for ease and to keep it in my budget. It will be pink though, I still love that idea!

I am 1 wall unit short and the suppliers are out of stock, so Im now scouring the internet for a matching plain wood single wall unit to complete my shop furniture display!

Stay tuned, school resumes on Tuesday so Ill hopefully get more painting done !

Happy Easter everyone, we had our usual Easter egg hunt in the garden this morning, and the chocolate is not lasting long!

Not just Eye Candy! HONEYDUKES is On the go!

2011-04-19T16:46:00.007+01:00

The Easter holidays have been a complete disaster so far, with all of us coming down with some viral flu thats knocked us for six for about a week each!

The poor children have had very high temperatures and sickness and its tricky coping when you feel the same, so weve had to take it in turns to all rally round those feeling better and do things with them and then try and catch up on sleep!

I have really wanted to start on a Easter project that the children could help with and had decided that the easiest house to do that with, the one with the least work needed, was Honeydukes, the Harry Potter Sweet shop.

I have a couple of great shops I was debating on using and at long last made the decision to use my 2 story Sid Cooke house that was previously used as a hair and beauty salon. I took all the contents out and have now got a small roombox for this instead and am selling alot of the hair salon pieces.

Honeydukes has a lovely bow fronted shop front so this shop is perfect. Id love to do a snow effect on top of the window, any advice for making this similar to the picture would be greatly appreciated!

I chose the 2 story in the end after seeing the Universal version of Harry Potter Worlds own Honeydukes. This is a combination of mint green and baby pink colours and has a beautiful pink metal staircase going upstairs!

I LOVE this, although I do not relish making the staircase kit as I know from Michelle its a nightmare to do! SO this bit may have to wait! There will be lots of mint green counters and shelf units stacked with candies!

Here is the original film version of the shop, which is not quite so bright in colour, so Ill be doing a combination of the 2 styles. I like the counters in the original but want to go more with the pastel combinations of the Universal shop. I'm unsure on the flooring , either black and white like I used in the Alice room, or maybe a black and cream smaller print I have.

Upstairs there are at the moment 2 rooms. The Universal shop I think combines the sweet shop with the joke shop but I think this would be tricky to find miniatures for, so I will instead have Honeydukes's special Christmas candy room! This is because I already have loads of Christmas candies so this is the perfect way to show them off.

Ive today taken out the central wall so now I have a Huge upstairs room which is just what I need as I have large detailed shelf units I put together from Lazer kits some years ago and this will show them off beautifully!

Having a regular sweet shop, that is rarely given any attention, I wanted to do a fantasy sweet shop . I have already got Emily who is a computer whizz, doing the Shop signs and today to get some fresh air , I went to Homebase and got the perfect colour paints ......well , after bringing home about half a dozen paint samples to match with my PC images! I have chosen a mint green like in these pictures and will do gold lettering around the top of the walls.

SO we are on the way!

Tomorrow if Im feeling better Ill primer and paint the outside and maybe interior downstairs. Luckily the walls of my shop are smooth and painted already so no preperation needed, just paint over!

Then next we have to do the same to the units, again which I already have. I wanted wall to wall units but as my existing staircase hole is cut at the centre back of the shop I have to arrange the units to fit in with that. So instead, Ill have one large counter, a double, a triple shelf unit, and 2 lovely tables , one with a tall candy floss display, the other with a huge , tall chocolate fountain that I bought from a fabulous miniaturist some years ago and have never been able to show off! Now I can!

Once that is done I can even start to fill some of the shelves with existing candies, but will have lots more to make, with all the wonderful Potter names, and will make sure I make doubles for Julia who is doing her own Wizard sweet shop, and I promised to make her some lollies and candies! I have a few people who Id love to make me some things as commissions so will be emailing them shortly as I have visions of certain things Id love made but no that I couldnt possibly make them myself!

I have found some labels on google for wrapping sweets and sticking on candy jars, but if anyone knows of any sites that show off packaging or labels I could use Id really appreciate any help! I also need lots of different style jars, like in the candy picture .

Im hoping its a project that will come together quite quickly and that the children can help out with , and its one that we can add to for a long time to come. Hopefully Ill find someone who has a spiral metal staircase already made up that wants to sell it to save me that task! If any of you find one already made up on ebay or suchlike while your surfing the net please let me know, its not that Im lazy ( well, maybe a little!) , but I am very impatient plus, if Michelle found it tricky I'm sure I'd find it downright impossible!

Here is the shop as it is now. The fibreglass stone paper will stay but all the outside will be in a mint green and a slightly darker green. May or may not keep the pillars on the exterior. The inside will be mint green and baby pink, very girly!

I have 2 great Mothers day pressies still to show off, and interior nightime pics of the Alice room still to load on, so more to come soon! Have a super Easter everyone, I hope we all feel like eating Chocolate come the weekend!!

A New Fabulous Blog on the Block!

2011-03-29T10:08:00.004+01:00

Just had to share with you, this new blog that deserves lots of attention!

The Blog link is http://greggsminiatureimaginations.blogspot.com/

We all love a bit of fantasy and this new blog dosnt dissapoint! Stan makes the most fabulous miniature houses, gnome/fairy style houses.

My favourite so far is his truly gorgeous Hagrids hut that was Stan's first paperclay project, though you wouldnt believe it as its totally brilliant and I love it inside and out!

Please go and check it out and say hi! Stan is in the middle of his latest creation, a new Gnome house, so I think we will all enjoy watching it grow and following his progress!
Lola and I cant wait!

My Wizard Light Up Table

2011-03-23T16:09:00.003Z

I was checking through my blogs I follow and found Dales wonderful new fortune telling table complete with light up crystal ball, and it reminded me of my own Wizard light up table and I couldnt remember if Id shown it off before.
This table used to be in my haunted house but as this now has a different story behind it, this is residing in my new Wizard tower in the top floor.
It has got dragon heads as the base, with a wonderful stone in the centre. The table top is glass, and has a cut out for the LED lights to shine through. The small LED box is a 3 colour one, shines red, blue and green which is quite wonderful at night! It works off a simple switch to turn it on and off, on a tiny battery to power it. The glass marble acts as the crystal ball on top and the colours bounce off it around the room!

I love the table, I think Ive had it for about 5 years or so now, its a favourite piece!

So hope you like it Dale and everyone else! You will see it again in situ in my wizard tower once its all redecorated

A break from Alice to show gifts from Wonderful friends!

2011-03-18T12:37:00.009Z

Firstly , can I say thankyou so much for all your lovely comments on my blog yesterday about the new Alice roombox, I really appreciate you all finding the time to leave your feelings on it, it spurs me on, and makes me want to do more projects to show off! I know everyone leads busy lives so its so lovely to see friends find some time to leave a little comment on what they think of what youve done, its very heartwarming!

I took lots of night time shots of the shop last night, but wanted to give you a break from it for a bit so what better way than to show off some parcels recieved in the last few days from incredible friends!

A while ago I made a comment on the wonderful blog by Sabiha, on her beautiful new dollshouse! Sabiha had made some darling little pegs for a washing line out of ornate toothpicks and I left a comment to ask how they were made so I could follow suit for some for Lolas mouse house.

And then in the post arrives this pretty parcel , wrapped in these gorgeous little boxes, with pressies for lola and I, and some sets of the toothpicks for us to use too! How kind, thankyou Sabiha. Lola is very behind on showing off a multitude of lovely gifts and minis , so Im leaving her gifts to show herself, and she will do it soon I promise!

But in the mean time, look at these stunning little Alice themed perfume bottles from Sabiha, she made herself! So, so perfect! And lots of beads, and some fabric hearts too that I already have plans for and think Sabiha will like what i have in mind when its made! They will all be a wonderful addition to the Alice room i think you will agree!

And one of the parcels was wrapped with the sweetest Cameo, which I have a special love of, so this will go on a ribbon around my neck Sabiha, its so adorable thankyou for all your kindness all the way from Holland!

And good minds think alike as Dear Janice also saw my blog comment on Sabihas blog and she saw these detailed toothpicks and sent them to me to use, and also previously had sent some sheets and cut outs of card as samples for future brickwork and roofing work. Janice always sends me something if she sees it and thinks of me, its so very thoughtful thankyou too Janice! I have already used some of the brick card slips and will certainly be going for some cards in the future, nice and easy to cut out and use!

Lola and I will be trying out the toothpicks and Im also thinking of using them to make some orante scrolls for the wizard house! Will let you all know how they turn out!

As I said before dear Kat and Nicky C sent my Emily lots of material and bits and bobs for her Uni project, which I cant get pics of as shes already delved into the stash and used lots and put away the rest for future work, but we both apprciated it so much, it was a great help to her!

But as well as sending the material Kat kindly sent me some bits and bobs for various projects and as always i love my Kat parcels, always full of fun and different things to use thankyou Kat!

So sending huge hugs to my friends, what a wonderful group of thoughtful ladies you all are!

Alice Shop Pictures Galore!

2011-03-17T13:32:00.006Z

Ok, so here it is!

Not everything is in yet, all the left side of the shop will totally change, the mirror is a temporary fixture and the shelves will probably go on the right side of the room as the dressing table and another unit are going on the left!

Its so strange as looking at the pics it all looks muddly and like a complete muddle as there are so many pieces and so many colours but in real life I am thrilled to bits with it! These are alll taken in daylight, Im hoping to fathom out how to take shots through the windows later with the shop front on so you can see how it looks in the dark.....if my camera allows me!

Here is the left side of the room

The right

Close ups of displays

The shelves
As you can see Ive had to put up some of Victoria's beautiful perfume bottles, i couldnt wait any longer, but they will eventually go on the dressing table. Look lovely here though!

The Table

The Sewing machine

The whole work area

Susans fabulous piece, Kats hat etc

Still will be fiddling, moving things about, nothings fastened down ! The pictures are also temporary, ive ordered more ornate frames than these oval frames but had to put something up, the area looked too bare!

I have to say thankyou to Lori who has given me a great idea for a name for the roombox and how to do the logo. Im pretty useless on the PC with any photoshopping etc but I may try tracing some lettering and a hat logo somehow onot the black space and painting with gold lettering .

Interior Shop Frontage of Hatter Shop Finished

2011-03-16T14:01:00.006Z

This morning work! Here is the interior stripped

And now fully painted up, papered, peel off on and spray glossed to seal....all finished!

Just have to decide on a name and how to do the shop sign and Id really like to have a Top Hat on the front somehow, but Im no artiste so not sure how to go about that one!

This will go on its original bracket and save the dust getting in!

Ive bought 2 lovely wall display shelves, thanks to Michelle letting me know about them on Ebay thankyou Michelle! They are perfect for putting up with hats or perfume bottles.

Im still scouting for the perfect dressing table but hoping that will be soon, but I will post pics of the interior and what I have in there so far really soon, when the picture frames come Ive ordered and are up!

By Royal Decree, New Hats and Dress or Off with my Head!!!

2011-03-14T16:15:00.007Z

Ok so the Queen has been making demands that her hats and dress must be shown off to you all so here they are.

The red mouldings are in, albeit abit wonky but to be fair these wernt cut by me, it was a second hand roombox so I just took them off and painted them, they dont but up perfectly, but hey, just dont click on the close ups, you wont notice!

Here are some more close ups of Kats hats in the lit arches. Im putting some little perfume bottles and other accessories in here too.

Now advice please? Do you think the black display panel needs more detailing, maybe more gold on it, in the form of more peel off stripes or fancy bits like Ive put on the corners? What do you think? Or maybe 2 more smaller pictures hanging on the wall?

Last year Janice put some beautiful dresses on her blog by a very talented lady called Cher. ( Click on her name to go to her ebay shop) I contacted her directly to ask if she fancied making me a Red Queen dress on a mannequin.
Cher was excited to help out and I was totally delighted with this stunning dress, as Id only sent an idea from pictures of what Id like it to be like, the rest was all Cher's imagination and design!

I love it, it fits in a treat in the roombox and Cher has kindly agreed to making me other things for the roombox in the future , maybe a red wig, or another corset ? There are so many things I want to fit in, I keep teasing Emily and saying Im going to steal her castle kit shes bought and use it for a whole red Queen castle so I can fit in all my ideas!!! Somehow I dont think she will let me !

And lastly here is another Of Tara's fantastic creations, an 'Eat Me' cake complete with its glass display box. Adorable and so detailed and beautifully made! This is going at the foot of the sofa, but Tara's pics are better than mine so here it is!

I have moved the roombox to its new home, though even John says it may have to come into the lounge to be shown off if i get dolls!!!

Its had all the furniture I have so far put in, but I still have pictures and other fancy bits to put up, and maybe some more hats need to be made!

Tomorrow Im off to Hobbycraft to look for some hearts and gems and see what peel offs they have that may go over the archways?
On my return Ill be busy decorating the interior of the shop front, maybe putting some things on the interior ledges .

Once its nearly there Ill do a big reveal, still not quite there yet!! But hey this is a major accomplishment for me, as I am known as 'Mrs I dont ever finish anything'!!

Lots more done today and some teaser Pictures!

2011-03-13T15:20:00.007Z

I've done lots today!

Firstly this morning I decided to upholster the sofa.

This is the original in a cream satin which I stripped and used the old material as the template to use this gorgeous deep red velvet, courtesy of the wonderful Kat! Kat sent me some material for my eldest daughter Emily as Emily is currently doing lots of sketchbook work for her Fashion design BA and needs lots of fabric samples which she is having real problems finding. Id like to thanks both dear Kat and also the wonderful Nicky Cooper who were both very kind this week and sent Emily loads of samples and strips of fabrics that she can use, and I havnt seen her all day as shes been so busy using them all, thankyou both of you!

But I had a quick peek first to see if there was anything I could use and sure enough there was the perfect red for the sofa! So I stuck this all on, trimmed in a gold to match the chair I dressed some time ago, and detailed the furniture with the gold trusty pen!

Here are some pics of it, hope you like it. Kat's fab Hatters hat is already on it and looks perfect!

Next I made a small hat box and put some playing cards and hat pin stands on it.

Still eager to get on, I spent time sourcing some good pictures and printed them on gloss card and framed them.

Here is the red Queen in all her glory. This is the perfect space for the painting but once the chandelier is permanently stuck in you will only see it from the sides of course!

Ive also made up framed pics of the Bandersnatch and the Knave for other walls. I may detail these frames in black and red.

I couldnt resist taking some pics with some hats on stands in the archways. Most are Kats work, but can you also see my beautiful Hatter hat on the stand of books made by the lovely Sherry, Tara's mother in law. I have a few pieces of Sherrys work, and many of Tara's and I just love it all, they are such talented and creative, imaginative artistes! Sherry made a hat for Tara and I loved it so much she made one for me, and I think for another friend also! Im very proud to display it in the room box thankyou Sherry!!

So , what next? Well dopey here fell asleep last night and forgot to bid on the much wanted dressing table, ahhhhh!! But good news was, I contacted the seller who is getting more in, so end of the month fingers crossed that piece can be done and put in the room. In the mean time I have to take it all out, to move onto the landing and take some more pics for you. Then the table, sewing machine and hats can all go in, as well as another secret special piece Ive been saving to show you.

Just need my precious dolls now! If John says 'I told you so' one more time when he tells me I should have jumped in quicker when Julie was selling her Mad Hatter doll, Ill throttle him. He was, and is an incredible doll, and I think to have the Hatter hard at work at the sewing table plus another couple of special miniature pieces I long for in here, will just make this roombox truly perfect for me!

A new Display for Susans Fabulous Creation plus more!

2011-03-12T18:04:00.009Z

When I received Susan's incredible ribbon spool display some months ago, I was undecided on the best way to display it to show it off at its best! I tried various tables but nothing looked right.

Looking through my boxes of furniture I found 2 little wooden displays I bought some time ago from someones bridal shop which were just unused. Once again too eager to get going, I forgot to take before pics but they were just plain wooden half circles with horrid carpeted tops! So I stripped them, painted over them in a red wash to give a redwood finish, then detailed them in gold and added the same black and white harlequin gloss paper thats in the archways, onto the front of them. Finished with some black peel offs for more detailing its a great unusual addition to the room. Photo is bad as I was dying to show it off but its dark in the conservatory so Ill retake tomorrow, check in for a better pic!

I added the spool display, a tea cup and tiny heart cupcake also made by Dear Susan, and voila, the perfect display for it!

I had 2 of these units so painted the other one to match and have added a little head and one of Kats beautiful hats to it, and will make something else to go on it too.

I did have a lovely dressing table all ready and painted up but once it went in the roombox, it was strange, but it looked completly wrong, far too big and bulky. So I have my eye on one on ebay and hoping I get it so i can dress it with Victorias gorgeous bottles she made for me.

Another find in my boxes was this haberdashery display. Once again I repainted it, added some reams of material ( I still have more to add on the other side) and put some of my homemade ribbon and lace samples, cotton reels, an iron, and some perfume bottles onto it, to give it the 'Alice' look! There is also a fantastic little tiny Alice 'Drink Me' potion bottle and the cutest darling little sleeping rose plant made for me by the oh so talented Tara.

The material display was a really battered and old piece of furniture so Im thrilled to find use for it!

Next week I have the ornate sofa I bought to reupholster, and if lucky with my dressing table, that to fill too.

I am leaving a couple of gaps for future purchases but have already put everything in I have so far to see what it looks like, and am thrilled with it! The red skirting and cornicing is in and you'll see that when I take another pic once I put the roombox in its new home on the landing table where it can be lit at night! Im really pleased with it so far, let me know what you think!

Oh and for those who have asked after her , heres a pic of beautiful Bella, alot bigger now already at nearly 5 months, but still a darling and cheeky pup!

Phew what a Day, but we have lights !!

2011-03-09T15:35:00.009Z

So all did not go to plan today but its all turned out ok thanks goodness!!

I papered last night, really shouldnt have as it was dark and shouldnt really work in false lighting as you see the faults come morning, but it was ok when I got up, no mistakes!

I decided to add some little strips of the black and white check paper to the ledges on the display panel to give some contrast to the black paintwork.

All went well, I decided to spray a gloss sealer on all the paintwork as it was chipping!

Then I marked the original holes for the lighting and added the new lights. Id bought 4 spotlights in the end, took off the plugs and fed the wires through the holes and then as it was too too tricky to nail the lights as they should be, I attempted superglueing, which was a challenge as the base was metal , glueing onto gloss wallpaper wasnt easy! But it eventually held fast and they are great as they pivot so you can position directly onto the hat areas!

Forgot to take a pic of the lights done , der! , all too eager to get that display panel back in to see if it worked!! Here are the stlye of lights used.

First I put in the chandelier which surprisingly I found straight away, first box I went to this morning! I fed this through one of the arches and then began the tricky part!

Getting the display panel out was nightmare. Getting it in, OMG!!! REAL BIG nightmare!

I wiggled as gently as I could but as Ive put added layers of wallpaper, paint etc it just didnt want to go. I had to give a big shove and in it went...........but it took a big chunk out of the left hand side of my wallpaper :-) Also some of the ceiling paper has scuffed but this Ill just stick down and paint some white acrylic over! It could have been alot worse, if it had taken the floor out it would have been a big disaster, but I just stuck it down and the dressing table is going there anyway so it will be hidden

. ( Truth be told I was all for stripping it and starting again as Im too much of a perfectionist but John told me not to as it wouldnt be seen.....but as I said to him Ill know its there lol!)

Then the moment of truth, I plugged in the lights and they all worked and look fab, directing the spots infront of the archway displays for hats, and the main pretty chandelier lights up the room a treat!

I took these pics and dont know how to take them to really show them up in the dark, my camera automatically adjusts so you cant see the lighting well! Also I had only just sprayed up the skirting and cornice parts so they arnt fitted yet, as still have to let them dry and then gloss them too. They will fit in on the left and right side walls top and bottom to match the mouldings on the display panel! But the pictures give you an idea of the look of the box!

So tomorrow Ill fit the mouldings and start to add what I have so far for the room. I still have lots of furniture to upholster and things to make but Ill show all the pics as I do it!

More Alice work!

2011-03-08T18:49:00.007Z

Lovely sunny days means i could go out and spray paint the roombox.
First I painted the exterior of the box all black and then masked up the interior display panel to spray black then painted the mouldings bright red.

Added some gold detailing then moved onto the outside of the roombox.

This was a lovely cream and black but Ive repainted the black and painted the cream bits red and again added lots of gold and painted the little fancy trimmings gold too.

Already it looks very Alice. In the movie theres a part where Alice is in the interior of the Queens castle and the walls are back, red and gold like this so its quite cool!

I started wallpapering the walls with black and white pinstripe, very Tim Burton. Just have to reprint more paper, and then tomorrow its onto the back wall, painting the other cornicing, skirting, and then adding the lights!

Then that display panel with the arches will fit at the very rear wall and the room is free for all the furniture. The hats will all be displayed in the archways on the little ledges which will all be lit. I may fit a chandelier if I can find the damn thing, as the room is now quite dark, being a lot of black and red!!

Once all thats done, which should only take tomorrow, I can begin to fill.

I still am debating as to whether to use my existing dressing table, as ive seen another on ebay similar to that which is in the movie.

I also saw a beautiful Bespaq long mirror on ebay perfect for the queens room, but alas it went too far out of budget so Ill have to make my own!!

Progress has been made though even while ferrying around the children, parents evening and washing the cars, so not a bad days work all in all!!

Its spurred me on, and inbetween this Ive printed out a perfect wallpaper for the Ghost whisperer store bedroom, and also purchased some Dulux paint match pots to do the stripe wallpaper in the main shop part. As I already have lots of lights for it, this very well maybe the next project to move onto!

Somebody stop me!!

2011-02-25T20:08:00.012Z

Yippe, another project !!! ( I know, I know, as if I need one with all I have to finish!!)

I recently put a shop I liked the look of on ebay to watch and then forgot about it with half term taking up all my time. Well , John didnt forget and came in to tell me he had bid and won this fantastic Greenleaf Brimbles Mercantile store for me as a late birthday pressie!!

I love this store, i have seen a few other bloggers turn them into incredible shops and always wanted one to do my 'Ghost Whisperer' style antique shop.

So another to put on the list of to do's!!

This is my 3rd Greenleaf house, I have the Beacon of course and a Willowcrest in dire need of alot of work!

It arrived today ( beautifully packaged in a huge crate) and I am going to have a Ghost Whisperer DVD fest once Alice is done to get ideas on colouring etc. Outside is a green which I may just tone down a little , easily repainted. Inside is a blank canvas, tricky to decorate but once primered will paint up nicely too. Im looking forward to planning what Ill do with it. I have loads of display cabinets, and some goodies for it already that Ive bought when ive seen things , already having this project in mind! I bought lots of candelabra made out of pretty coloured glass a while back as the shop has lots of hanging lights. Also lots of vases of flowers so Ill have to get good at making flower kits! I have units to use, I need to buy an elaborate ornate counter like the one in the programme.

Upstairs will be Melinda's bedroom which has a lovely brass bed and again I need to buy an ornate wardrobe and other bedroom furniture and the whole house will be painted in shades of cream and gold in a shabby chic style.

But in the mean time, I have been waiting on my lights for the Alice roombox and promise to have more updates soon. Just deciding on the colours to use for the interior display panelling part and the actual outside of the roombox. Once I can make the decision if I have a dry day I can take it outside to spray paint it and then fit the lights , wallpaper and flooring and we are ready for filling!!

Work on the Alice Project at Last!

2011-02-19T19:04:00.006Z

Yesterday was a grotty wet day so I took out my Alice roombox , the one going to be for the Hatters workroom, and set to stripping it, a job Ive put off for ages!

I know I took a pic when I bought the roombox as it was then decorated,but went to load it and its now not there so Ill explain, its long and narrow, like the room in the movie. It already had fitted a built in display area in the back with arches cut in, perfect for showing off hats on stands! I needed to strip all the existing paper which was candy pink stripes, and didnt think Id get out the back partition without damaging it, as it seemed truly stuck fast!

John told me to give it to him and set to work, prising off the coving and skirting and then set to easing out the back part! I was cringing and threatening him as he did it, as hes not quite as gentle as me and I could see it breaking and me cursing him, but no, he did a great job and got it all out in one piece! Phew! Once repainted this will fit back in ( hope it goes back in better than it came out!!) against the back wall which will be the lit hat display part.

So I soaked off all the old paper ,I love that job, its very messy but satisfying! Now I have a clean canvas to paper the walls all around, I can paint all the partition, skirting and coving and put in my flooring.

I found 4 little lights already fitted which were above each archway but they are attached to a copper strip, and also seem to have come unsoldered in 2 places so not sure if they work still. Im thinking of replacing them with some on a strip as i have never done copper lighting. I'll have that as a way of highlighting Kats Hats and this will be the only lighting so needs to be bright and id prefer battery lights instead of a big transformer for such a little room. Any ideas anyone? Ive seen spotlights, maybe 4 of them, or LED lights? Janice, you'll know!!
Here is the rear of the roombox with the drilled holes for the little lights which are soldered onto copper but as you can see one is loose.

There is a shop front which I may or may not use, its a lovely cream and black but Im thinking it maybe should be red and black. Also Im using black and white chequed flooring and pinstripe paper on the 2 side walls and behind the partitioning bit behind the hats, but not sure what colour to repaint the roombox itself and the outside of the display part? First thought red but think it would be too loud and take away from all the things going in it, maybe just clean white as theres lots going on in the room, lots of prints, fabrics, pictures, etc? Its cream right now but that dosnt match with the flooring or wallpaper now.Im so indecisive!! BUT at least Ive made a start which is good for me, and I want to do more, even better!

Once the room is decorated most of the things for inside have been made and bought already so Ill have great fun filling it. Just need to make some more fabric and ribbon minis to fill some shelves but I have some great pieces you havnt seen yet so I better get on with it! Progress at long last.

Im saving hard for some large pieces for the room, Id really love a Hatter and Red Queen that can be swapped between this and my Tea party project. SO I will be listing things on ebay soon and will let you know when I do. Janice made a great suggestion to offer swaps for some of my minis for sale but to be honest I really need to save the money as the things I need at the moment are mainly dolls so more major purchases.

I am selling right now on ebay a Brand new and Sealed Harry Potter DVD box set with a trunk style box, and 12 DVDs full of 1 to 5 movies and loads of added extras, about 719 minuites in all I think! Its region 2 but if anyone is interested its got about 3 days to go, its all new and sealed so a great pressie for a Potter enthusiast or collector!

The link is http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-Ltd-Edition-Harry-Potter-DVD-Box-Set-1-5-12-Discs-/180625513881?pt=UK_CDsDVDs_DVDs_DVDs_GL&hash=item2a0e1e9d99

Sold out in many stores, but I have found a new one on Amazon for about £75 so Ive listed it at much less than half of this at £29.99 plus postage which is recorded delivery.

Now, its half term this week so cant promise Ill be managing a post on progress until the end of the week as Im planning shopping and cinema trips to keep all these 5 occupied! Wish me luck!

Beautiful Pressies and A New Project!!!

2011-02-19T18:12:00.012Z

Wednesday was my birthday, thankyou to those of you that sent lovely birthday messages and wonderful cards!
I started the day opening pressies, I got lots of much needed things for myself, not too many minis from the family but some money to start saving or treating myself to them which is just as good!
I had one large parcel to open which had sat looking and calling to me from the day before from dear Nicky Cooper and couldnt wait to open it!
Look at all my amazing goodies, Nicky is so generous!
I couldnt quite believe how lucky I was to have been given Nickys work of art, her dragon fireplace! Nicky made this for her own room box but luckily for me, decided it didnt fit, and she was so so kind to give it to me for the Potter house. In this before pic you can see the boring black fireplace that was there before , and see above for the dragon masterpiece and the difference it makes to the room! Its made from paperclay too so a really clever piece of art!

What was spooky was that it is painted in the same colours as Ive used on the wall, and so instead of looking like a fireplace simply added to the wall, it looks like its sculpted out of the wall itself! Im so pleased with it! As Emily commented it looks like it was made to fit this very room!

On the photos you can see more of Nickys work , I treated myself to this a while back. The little dragon on the potion board next to the old fireplace and the little pet bird the potion master has sat on the fab table made by Debie!

As always Ive been changing my mind on projects and their theme and as Nicky has been making such irresistable creations and I knew it wouldnt stop I have decided to change my tower which was going to be for the Snow White wicked queen, into a wizard/dragon tower. I will still have a wicked queen room but its a one story version of the same tower kit from DHE I have! Ill have to redo all the exterior and interior decoration to a more suited wizard style.

Downstairs is a courtyard style room. I hate the paper that HAS to go!!

Here I will have the wizard cloak and hat hanging up with a shelf of books and baby dragon bookends that Nicky sent me for my birthday!

Also can you see the darling sleeping baby dragon on the barrel of grapes, got a bit tipsy didnt he , ( abit like me on my birthday night lol!!) I think hes one of my favourite dragons so far, he is so tiny and well detailed! Thankyou Nicky for these beautiful gifts, they have made the perfect start to my tower!

Upstairs will be a bookcase I bought several years ago, filled with wizard goodies and a table Ive bought but have the fun of filling! A dragon plaque above the table, and.....well not sure what else, but with more and more of Nickys imaginative work being made Im sure there will be alot more to see!
See Nickys work on her new excellent blog http://theminidragonqueen.blogspot.com/
And another wonderful new blog from Nicky for her dolls !!
http://bodybaker-dollsincreation.blogspot.com/

Tomorrow Ill be posting some progress on one of my projects.......yes finally some work done!!

Fabulous Christmas Pressies and treats Part 2!

2011-01-21T20:10:00.009Z

I was a very lucky girl at Christmas ( yes girl, I still call myself that, and Im permanently 33 also lol!!) and all my family were kind to me and gave me money instead of clothes, make up etc i never end up using.

So I counted it all out and was ecstatic to find enough for lots of new minis!

So my first port of call was to Jains site to check out her dolls for my Witches tavern. I couldnt believe my luck when Jain sent me pics of her witches and spooky dolls to find the PERFECT innkeeper for the tavern!

Isnt he a great spooky , kooky character I love him! With his stoop and droopy slightly eery face he fits in a treat behind the bar!

Still some pennies left so I waited til Jain announced her New year sale and scoured for witches! And there I found this little darling!

She is my favourite colours of black and purple, and is my second of Jains witches for the downstairs part of the Inn. I hope to add a sitting witch later in the year and maybe another wizard?

Jains work is as always superb and Im thrilled with them both. Just need to pull my finger out and get to work on the interior of the tavern now, the furniture and little touches . But these two will spur me on Im sure! Ill take some pics of them in the tavern once Ive painted the counter I promise!

I havnt chosen names for either so as soon as I get another free day without being Mum the taxi service Ill think up a giveaway name prize , so get your thinking caps on ready!

I got my Harry Potter book from Emily which was one of my best pressies too, I cant believe the amount in that book for the price!

The children bought me this cool little Harry Potter Book of Monsters Keep sake box!

It is hilarious, you even have to stroke it perfectly 4 times on his spine for him to open to get your goodies inside, and if you make a mistake he will chatter his sharp teeth at you!!! They know what sort of pressies Mum loves! You can imagine if Lacey was scared of my mini version what she thinks of this. Funnily enough since Christmas shes behaved so well, maybe its the threat of getting out 'THE BOOK' when she plays up. He he what a naughty mum I am!!

Anyway I still have more to show you, lots of things Ive been meaning to show off for months before Christmas before all those wonderful miniaturists that made them think Ive forgotten them!

And woohoo, my birthdays in 4 weeks plus Valentines day so when John asks what Id like from him and the children, of course theres only 1 answer.........................more MINIS please !!!

Fabulous Christmas Pressies and Treats ! Part One

2011-01-20T13:26:00.004Z

Well, Im here at last, abit late for my First New Year post!
I thought Id share my Christmas and New Year presents with you before I go backwards to show off some of last years miniatures that I bought and had as gifts and still havnt got round to showing!

Firstly a parcel arrived before Christmas, a huge big box and inside were the most fabulous tree decorations made as a gift for me by my dear and talented friend Nicky Cooper. Nicky not only treated me to these darling 2 dragons in my favourite colours purple and gold to match my tree , but also made all of the children their names in fimo hung on gold baubles ( sorry I forgot to take the pics of them and now they are safely packed in the loft doh!) together with giant mint chocolate santas which I had huge problems prizing from their mouths!!!
Nicky is a treasure and so thoughtful and kind so sending her the biggest hug for her pressie!

We had a lovely albeit quiet Christmas and I was treated to some much wanted minis from my wonderful hubby John. Firstly, take a look at my newest haunted household members, the maid and butler!

Made of course by the amazing talented hands of Julie fromhttp://bellabelledolls.blogspot.com/ . I spied these 2 on Julies blog and as they came back from her fairs unsold, so well, i figured they were just supposed to be for me then!

Recently my haunted house has been given a major overhall as it started out with mostly spooky, gory minis. I have either sold or boxed up these to sell, as my house has a new story. It will be a regular house that suffered a tragedy wherin all the occupants died and now still haunt the house as their own. No one will move into the house because of the ghosts so it has been left as it was but completly run down and dusty ( good excuse not to have to dust it as its a back opener house!)

I have my mother ghost who comes out of the dressing table mirror, calling to her daughter Faith, now these wonderful 2 new dolls for the sitting room. ( all dolls by Julie, I like to keep the same artistes work in one house, so it has the same 'look' about it!) In the pics they show up with a bluey tinge , thats my camera as they are actually very white and ghostly and I think its becasue they glow in the dark which is very eery at night as this house backs onto our bed!

So the plan this year is to add a cook, father and son ,so Im planning some serious selling of unwanted houses/projects and minis and loads of materials, fabrics, trims etc I no longer need or want, to fund this! Julie, I know how busy you are so on top of my wishes for my Alice dolls Im sure keeping you busy in the future, I hope you Never decide to quit!!

The new additions look so amazing in place in the house Im sure you agree, as always Julie has outdone herself and I love them!

For my Potter house, John took my hints very well on looking at the new minis that Debie of http://piskies-and-poppets.blogspot.com/ put on Etsy before Christmas! I think I went on about them just enough for him to go and order me one of Debie's amazing elf heads and he chose my favourite one at that! This will look awesome in the Potter house, Im putting all pictures, frames, etc on the door walls so as you open the house theres lots to look at on both the inside rooms and the inside of the opening doors too! He is a total treasure thanks Debie!

Im still working, albeit slowly on my Alice projects and am collecting minis for them both when I see the perfect pieces. And this cake by the lovely Vesalina of http://vesperminiatures.blogspot.com/ of was one of those perfect minis I had to have! Vesalina made this for me especially as the one she had put on her blog was her own. It is the ideal fancy cake to place in front of the White queens table at the tea party. Beautifully made and so detailed, I cant wait to add more of Vessy's work to my collection. Here is her Etsy shop for you to check out, Ill be back there for sure this year ! http://www.etsy.com/shop/vesperminiatures

Hope you like them so far, I've had some parcels delivered this week, 2 from overseas, that Ive been eagerly awaiting and we even had a Sunday post as they are trying to catch up with the terrible backlog at out local depot! So will take some pics and show off these , other gifts from blogging friends and the other 2 dolls that have been my New Year purchases with my familys Christmas money! I know you are going to love these too! I love Christmas and February when its my birthday as I can ask for minis that I cant afford myself when anyone asks me what Id like!

Oh and if you are on facebook and are a friend of mine or have sent requests but not heard back this is because Im phasing out my own personal page which I only ever set up to keep an eye on my children!! Now as Ive had so many miniaturists send requests and I like to keep up with you all and your work, Im going to change my facebook page to The Whittakers Miniatures own page which is set up but Im still working on photos etc so will start adding to it slowly when I can and stop my other page. So dont be sad if you disappear off my page as Ill send you a request for my new miniature one. I dont go on facebook much or have much time to comment or post on it but its nice to keep in there as a few of my friends sell from there and post on there more than blogging so I have to keep my hand in or I miss out!! Ill figure out how to add the link again soon!

So more soon, and I think Im going to have another giveaway soon to find some names for these fantastic dolls and you know Im useless with names!

A Warm Welcome to another New Young Blogger !

2011-01-20T09:19:00.004Z

Well I have loads to show you, Im taking lots of pics this week so promise to show it all off asap!

In the mean time I just had to tell you all about this wonderful new blog I found by an extremely talented young blogging miniaturist of only 17 years of age from the US called Blake.

Blake's blog is called http://ahhwahwah.blogspot.com/ and when I came across it I was completely blown away by this young guys work .

Blake hasnt being making minis for a long time but already you can see he is an absolute natural!
So please check in on his blog as Im sure he is going to be a name to watch in the mini world!

Congratulations Blake on your wonderful minis, we will all be watching for more of your creations and art work too! Lovely to see more youngsters in blogland.

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

2010-12-19T13:16:00.012Z

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!

2010-12-12T10:50:00.005Z

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!

2010-11-20T18:34:00.009Z

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

2010-11-20T18:14:00.006Z

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

A long Time Coming but a Belated Thankyou!

2010-11-07T14:37:00.001Z

Sorry girls for the delay in showing off these fantastic minis. My idea of having more time in the day hasnt quite worked out I seem to end up doing more housework and tidying now Lacey is at playgroup 3 hrs a day! And Im taxying Emily to Uni as the trains are so rubbish so my mornings ar now non existent!

SO this post is a long time coming and here at last.

Firstly are my fantastic miniatures by Lorraine of http://dollhouseminisbydfly.blogspot.com/. I ordered a few bits on Lorraine's Etsy store , these beautiful purple candles ( my fav colour!) and little taper candles, and this gorgeous skele scroll too. When my package came it also contained these truly fab Harry Potter newspapers and I love them!! I had seen them on other freinds blog pages and lusted after them and now I have my own, Im so lucky and so thankful to you Lorraine!! Im always thrilled with Lorraines work and I just know there will be lots more to come as her imagination just keeps creating such wonderful minis!
I was also lucky enough to win a beautiful wand from Lorraine in her guessing giveaway in which she generously made and gaveaway lots of her fab wands. That has gone straight on Dumbeldores Desk thankyou

I also was lucky enough to grab 3 sets of Nikki's beautiful miniatures on Etsy the first time round!

Those cool glow in the dark bleeding candles for my bad witch house, and waxy cream dripping candles for my Good witch Gertrudes cottage. I couldnt resist the candle jar too . I always sit like a mad woman possessed on Nikkis Etsy sale nights and that time I even nabbed Emily's super duper new laptop to get in there extra quick but it still didnt help me buy the much wanted candles with faces or skele jar sets, how do you lot do it!!!

But I was thrilled with Nikkis kindness in adding a whole set of coloured bottles which she had accidentely put in a too hot oven and had singed slightly! As always they look perfect to me but Nikki wasnt happy to sell them so added them to my order thankyou lovely Nikki! I love my kind friends!!

So all in all another great lot of miniature to add to my collection that I am totally thrilled with!
I hope I can manage to buy afew more of Nikkis wonders soon!

More minis to come this week, trying to work through my fab new purchases!

Not long now til Harry Potter comes out at the cinema yippeee!!!!!!!!!!

Tara's Fabulous Harry Potter Minis

2010-10-02T15:08:00.012+01:00

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

2010-10-02T14:52:00.006+01:00

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

2010-10-01T13:27:00.006+01:00

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

2010-09-22T17:44:00.009+01:00

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!!

Dumbledore's new desk and chair

2010-09-12T13:33:00.004+01:00

Another fabulous change in the Potter house is my new desk and chair made by the talented craftswoman Angela Downton of AMD Crafts. ( check out her ebay listings on http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/amd5758/ )

I found a picture on the internet of the real desk and then I drew a rather amateur sketch design drawn myself , together with approx sizes i wanted and colour etc, and Angela made it a reality creating this beautiful desk in a medium oak. Angela sells beautiful frets in various styles so I chose the one I figured worked the best and it came out exactly as i wanted! You can just see the front of his desk in this picture.

I love the tall chair , its much more dramatic than my previous comfy resin chair he had. Im not sure if I should give it a fancy seat cushion though, what do you think?

Dumledore is very pleased with his new additions, we love the fancy fret work. We are hoping to soon do another sketch of the bookcases for the long wall to match this furniture if Angela can find the time for us.

A huge thankyou to Angela for this superb work.

Now the fun part of filling it all again, will post a pic once Ive finished it next week.

Eva's Wonderful Dragon Miniatures!

2010-09-11T21:39:00.006+01:00

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!!

2010-09-11T18:48:00.010+01:00

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!!'

Fabulous Alice minis

2010-09-11T14:19:00.010+01:00

Well as promised here are pictures of some of my Alice in Wonderland Miniatures. Sorry the pictures arnt great, my good camera is playing up so using my old one whos macro leaves a lot to be desired!! I have used some of the actual pictures from the miniaturists etsy sites on some of the minis where I could.

Firstly I was so delighted to see Susan from http://tabithacorsica.blogspot.com/was selling some beautiful sweet treats on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/tabithacorsica, which were perfect in their style for my Alice table scene.

Look at the detail they are just stunning and so beautifully made. The stands are filagree and heart shaped too and each tiny candy has dainty little details, my favourites being the white with red hearts! You just know the Red Queen will want them all to herself!

I was a dope and forgot to tell Susan about the customs charges once US parcels come into the UK and so got that dreaded customs bill to pay and so the lovely Susan very kindly sent me another fab parcel of goodies to compensate for this and look at the cool red queen cupcakes and the halloween display set and an adorable plate of tiny little chocolates which are going straight in my candy store thankyou so very much Susan! Lola was happy too with some cute little cupcakes of her own. As I said to Susan the scale of these little candies is just perfect. So many times I have ordered from ebay from unknown sellers and been a tad dissapointed in sweets and cakes being far too large but Susan makes them just right and hoping they will be on the table soon so you can see them in situ at the tea party. Its always so lovely to have the work of friends and fellow bloggers in my projects!

I also have a big thankyou to say to the wonderful Lory
( Etsy store is http://www.etsy.com/shop/64tnt , dont forget to take a look at all the wonders on there!) who made such amazing Alice themed goodies for me! I emailed Lory as I have bought from her many times before and just love her work, she is so very talented. I asked Lory to make me some cakes similar to some valentine ones shes made before but when I told her the setting was to be Alice she told me she was already planning and making Alice minis and would give me first refusal, how kind!!

Although I loved them all, I had to be good to keep in budget and so bought 2 beautiful sets of Alice cupcakes.

I later ordered the yellow and white daisy cake from Lory's Etsy store once Id saved a few more pennies . I love them all , as always with Lory's work they are just perfection! !! I also bought a dainty red heart style teapot but it wont have its picture taken so that can be saved for later!

Trying to follow the look of the picture I am using for inspiration of the tea party , I was also on the look out for a strawberry cheescake and saw the perfect one by Kerry Fawcett of
http://ella-roseminis.blogspot.com/ , and just adore the tiny little berries , its so realistic thankyou Kerry!

I have loads of Kerrys minis in my candy store and am always delighted with Kerrys work Kerry sells on ebay , here is the link and I noticed she has some really cool Halloween minis on right now so take a look! http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/ella-rose36

So Im getting there, slowly and surely.

NEXT.......those magnificent dragons!!!

And of Course they could ONLY be Kats Fabulous Alice Hats!!!

2010-09-10T13:59:00.006+01:00

Of course my new hats could only be from Kat the Hat herself, who else!!

I bought a great long narrow room box a while back and decided it was the ideal Alice Hatter room and have been busy picking out furniture and dressing it, reupholstering etc, and all I have to do now is decide on the actual flooring and wall covering and it can all go in.

Of course I Had to have several of the Red Queen's Hats and there was only one person to ask and Kat gladly took up the task. I think you can see for yourselves from the pictures, that Kat really enjoyed making them, and Id like to say the biggest thank you as Kat made these at the very difficult time for her when her lovely Nan had just passed away. Although I told her to leave them for a while she wanted to finish them and said it helped take her mind off things and cheer her up abit so I'm glad they did that Kat, and you can really see how much hard work, imagination and perfection has gone into making each and every one!

Kat made up the designs, just using a few pictures for the film and from props used in the film as inspiration and her own materials and she then kindly gave some to me to use in the room box. Kat knows how I love over the top Hats, with lots of feathers and embellishments so these were exactly what I had in mind and more!!

The stands were once again ideas from Kat but made by myself. Kat suggested I take apart old hat stands and replace the centre shaft with a longer stem. For this I used bannisters! With the others, I used old wooden wheels and polystyrene circles from Hobbycraft, and for 2 of the others, I used wire and fimo and then added detailing to them, baked them and added fancy filagree feet! Then I just painted and gilded them.
This gives me all sorts of varieties in height for displaying the hats on.

All of the Hats except one will be standing on display in the room box. The hat on the small stand is for my hat table, as is an unfinished hat Kat sent me .

Thankyou Dear Kat for all these special and wonderful creations, and for all the extra goodies you sent me. When you see the table I think you will see just how much I have managed to use on the project and I'm hoping you will love the result as much as I do!!

But before I show off the table, I have more Fabulous Alice goodies to show you from other friends and fellow bloggers so don't go away!!!

Plus the most fantastic new dragons to show off to you which you will adore as i do, just the very best of work from another blogging friend!

Oh My Giddy Hare!!

2010-09-09T14:35:00.005+01:00

With 1 more day this week of some peace and quiet, I can show you my 3rd parcel this week, and the latest in my miniatures that I am collecting for my 2 Alice projects.

Although progress on my actual decor for the Tea Party and Hatter hat room are slower than Id like, I have dressed several pieces for both projects which I will show next week.

I have though collected many minis both large and small for both projects and this is one of the bigger ones!!

I asked Jain of http://giddykippercharacters.blogspot.com/ for a Mad hare as her first Hare sold in seconds at KDF in May.

So here he is and just outstanding I think you will all agree!

Jain dressed him exactly as I asked her, with little stripy trousers, waistcoat and tie and a lovely grey textured jacket!

I will have him stood on a chair throwing a teapot I think, although Emily wants him holding a spoon in hand, she loves that part of the film where he just examines the cutlery saying 'SPOON!!!' in his crazy harebrained manner!!

I think he is very Burtonish, as is Dormouse, but with Jains Giddy twist and we all love him so very much and thank Jain for all her hard work and for getting her mojo back to finish him for me so quickly!!

He is residing in the Hat room at present keeping an eye on my table, hope he dosnt mess it up before I get chance to show you it !

So I now have 3 Alice dolls, which will be next on my list I wonder !

Coming up next, my fabulous new Alice in Wonderland Red Queen Hats , made by..........well, they could only be by one lady of course couldnt they!!! Please come back to see them!

Catch up Number 2, Another US Marvel!

2010-09-09T10:03:00.006+01:00

My second parcel this week is from another fellow blogger , and extremely talented lovely lady, Victoria from http://darksquirrelminiatures.blogspot.com/ from the US

I found Victoria's blog a while back and watched in awe as she builds the most intricate perfume displays with a difference. They are all for fantasy projects, great for haunted houses, for witches and wizards and more!

One of the first posts I found was a large Sin cabinet stacked full to the brim with bottles and jars, candlesticks and much more, in shades of red. It had the great name 'The 9 Circles of Hell'
I fell in love with the cabinet and ordered it on its completion from Victoria's Etsy store. http://www.etsy.com/shop/darksquirrel

Little did I know just HOW utterly incredible it would be. It arrived beautifully packaged and was extremely heavy. The dresser itself is such solid wood, its like a real piece of furniture in itself!! I took ages to take in just how marvellous this piece of work was, so much to look at, such detail and hard work. It has to be seen to be believed really!

Victoria was just finishing another cabinet in shades of greens , my favourite colour and had I had the money I would have snapped that up too as it was just gorgeous but Ill have to wait and save!

But in the mean time I couldnt stop there. Victoria's work is just too precious so I did order more, and found this beautiful little piece in her store, the Black widow perfume display, which will proudly grace the dressing table in my haunted house.

So kindly Victoria also made me a gift of this little green set as she knew how much I loved her large green dresser. isn't it pretty! AND there was a little bag of goodies as I had told Victoria I was working on my Alice in Wonderland project, and had nearly finished my Hatters hat making table.

It was kind of spooky as Id struggled 3 times to make a little pin cushion and gave up. Then in my parcel was this cute little pin cushion on a cotton reel, and it fits perfectly in the gap I had left on the table!! I had room for one more item and used that for the pair of dressmaker scissors that Victoria kindly gave me! And check out this fab Yard stick , perfect for going under the table with all the materials.

Once again I was just so taken aback by the superb quality of Victoria's work, its just the very best!

So a huge thank you and big hug to you Victoria , you are such a lovely lady and I hope to be back for more and more!!

In fact watch this space as both of us got talking about Alice and there IS more to come very very soon!!!

Oooh and I'm trying to get some pics too of my table, all finished and ready to show off!! Has taken me long enough!

Much to catch up on. Loads of Wonderful new Minis!

2010-09-09T09:39:00.005+01:00

Well the children are back to school and I will have 3 mornings a week now all to myself, so this will be my Mini and blogging catch up time. ( After the ironing, hoovering and dusting of course lol)

I have been making some fantastic purchases over the 6 week summer break so have loads to show you, and have also been quite busy in the last week or 2 with some projects of my own to show off.

Thankyou so much to everyone who supported me in my Ebay sales, thanks to you I have been able to add some beautiful new miniatures to my collection which you will be able to see for yourselves. I really appreciated you buying some of my furniture and I still have quite a few boxes left to go through and sell so look out for more soon!

Right, where to start!

Ill go from most recent backwards i think.

This week I have had 3 parcels. 2 of these from the States from the lovliest and most talented of miniaturists.

Firstly Id like to show off all my miniatures made for Emily and I ( and a lovely pressie for Lola too!) by Lorraine of http://dollhouseminisbydfly.blogspot.com/

We asked Lorraine to make us lots of different minis for both my own projects and Emily's Merlin roombox.

They arrived this week and we were blown away by Lorraine's talent and attention to detail, everything is just fabulous!

I am showing the pics that Lorraine took herself until I put the minis into our projects and will show them off again once in situ in their rightful homes.

Between us we wanted lots of potion bottles, herbs, skulls, candles etc, and the selection is brilliant. Emily adores the waxy look candles so much and is determined to give her candles another go now to try and make some more! The skull Em wanted was an open topped one for putting scroll, feathers etc, and 1 to have as an ink well and Lorraine designed and made this all herself. Emily also gave her the challenge of an animal skull and I think even Lorraine was chuffed to bits with how this badger skull turned out! Em already has plans for more skulls now!

We also had pumpkins in both plain and with faces on, made to stand next to these awesome gravestones. I will reveal the project they are going into soon!
In the same project will stand my tree. It stands at 7 1/2 inches tall and is just the right size for where its going and came completely intact which is because Lorraine had packed it out perfectly with loads of bubblewrap!

Also for this scene will be one of my favourite items that Lorraine made, and they are the Nightmare before Christmas Jars. I sent Lorraine a picture of the jars from the film and they came back to me, EXACTLY as in the picture, just incredible work!!

Lola has 2 beautiful items that Lorraine's talented daughter made for her made her but wants to show them off on her blog so I' m leaving that to her but we would all like to say a HUGE thank you to Lorraine and her daughter for all this hard work. I literally cannot stop buying now to add to my collection and have ordered some more pieces from Lorraine's Etsy store, so please go and check it out, there are some great minis in the shop and loads more to come as Lorraine's imagination is bursting it seems with all these ideas! http://www.etsy.com/shop/dollhouseminisbydfly

Back later with parcel number 2. Need to see if I can get my poor old camera to work first!

Happy 18th Brithday Emily Claire and a Fabulous Mini Surprise!

2010-08-18T15:23:00.009+01:00

Well the summer holidays are proving extremely unproductive for anything miniature. we all had big plans for doing lots but none of us have managed to get on with anything! With the little ones at home they want all my attention in playing with them or going out, and then when Emily got her University acceptance they also sent her a huge Summer project so even hopes of completing her room box have been delayed!

But Ive bought and made some minis , just dont seem to get the time to photograph and post on them so watch this space come term time in September.....only 2 more weeks!!!

But today is my eldest Daughter Emily's 18th Birthday so HAPPY BIRTHDAY Em Jems!

Only seems like yesterday she was a babe in arms .She was the best of babies,you could take her anywhere, and shes always been that way. Even today when most people struggle with difficult argumentitive teenagers , I have no problems in that department. Shes grown into a beautiful, intelligent, well behaved, polite young lady that we are incredibly proud of.

I just wanted to show you one of the gifts that I bought her. Of course I had to buy her something in miniature and who better to ask to make a personalised gift than the hugely talented Jayne of http://tallulahbelleoriginals.blogspot.com/
I own several of Jaynes fabulous floozies and asked Jayne to make one called Emily Claire with her personality showing through. Jayne did an exceptional job . The flower is done in shades of the dress that Emily designed for her final fashion college project . Jayne made her tall and slim, with gleaming white teeth and even potted her in a high fashion polka dot pot . Her fern leaves are poseable and we love the look of them as they seem to say 'Da da, look at me' in this pose!

Emily loves it thankyou Jayne, its such an original pressie and Im sure it will set a trend as already little Lola is asking for one in her namesake!

We have had a lovely family dinner today, ( see the pic of us all out, ignore John sticking his tongue out at the camera! Lola took the photo so thats why shes not there!) and are going out to the pub tonight. I think she is going to enjoy being able to buy her Mum a drink at the bar! Here is a pic of cake number 1, the real cake is gorgeous but we didnt want to put candles in it its so posh so will show a pic later!!!e

At the moment Emily is a real home girl and happy to be sat with us all in her evenings, but with Uni luring in a few weeks Im sure all that will change!

But for now I can look back at 18 wonderful years of her growing up and feel content that whatever the coming years hold in store for her, she will always be the very best of daughters.

Please check out my Friend Kerry's Great New Blog!

2010-07-20T14:50:00.009+01:00

I have lots of posts coming up, lots of new minis for you to see, things Ive been both buying and making too. In the mean time I just had to direct you all over to my friends Kerry Alexander's new blog cherryberryminiatures.blogspot.com
and check out her fab new Etsy store too at :-
www.etsy.com/shop/cherryberryminis

I met Kerry online whilst shopping on Ebay for sweet treats for my candy store and we became firm freinds as Kerry is the lovliest of ladies! Kerry has made me some gorgeous cakes and chocolates and is extremly talented, always with great original ideas for both single items and also fantastic counters and display cabinets for your sweet, chocolate shops.
Please check out her blog, she also makes the best cake toppers.
Kerry recently added to her family with a new baby girl so is always busy and is working on a tea shop at the moment so i for one will be keen to see the progress of that!
So please go over and say hi, and dont forget to treat yourself from Kerry's Etsy store, she has some beautiful goodies on sale as always!

Julia's July Gertie Swap!

2010-07-15T14:47:00.004+01:00

I was the lucky one to be chosen by Julia this month for her July Gertie swap! http://bearcabinminiatures.blogspot.com/

Julia made the most beautiful owl cushion to go on the pretty little resin corner chair which I thought would be perfect for my own good witch Gertrude.
Also on offer was this fabulous little red dragon and he has found his perfect place already in the potter conservatory amongst the mandrakes and plants!

Thankyou Julia for the oppurtunity to take part in this months swap and for the wonderful goodies!
Julia very kindly put in wonderful gifts for Lola and Emily for their projects which they will show off themselves, so everyone was happy! Lola has been super busy at school so she is thrilled to get a break in a weeks time to be blogging again and showing off many treats she has got!

On reading Julia's blog recently she posted that she had decided to change the name of her witches cottage from 'Owl Cottage' and therefore had the sampler she had made up for sale!! Yipee, I didnt have a name for Gertrude's cottage and always loved that sampler and frame so I treated myself and bought it for Gertrude and now she proudly has it displayed in her bedroom!

So a huge hug to Julia and hopefully the minis I made for her own Gertie and also for her wizard store will be with her tomorrow. I forgot to take photos in my haste to get them off in the post so hoping Julia can get some good ones and likes what i've made for her and Gertie in return!!

Roll on the next swap and I recommend to you all to take part in such a fun swap!

Help and Guidance from you great Blogging Friends please!!

2010-07-02T19:05:00.004+01:00

Well Emily has caught the bug, didnt take long did it! She decided her blog would be quite eclectic, on her fashions, her designs, dressmaking , and now also on her miniature projects she wants to do so of interest to us all!

As well as some designing and dressmaking in her holidays she would like to do a mini project of her own. After thinking long and hard she has decided on a small setting, maybe room box, or just a background and floor with furniture and accessories of Gaius's chamber from the Merlin BBC programme. This a great room full of the physicians potions, spell making things, lovley tudor style furniture etc.

She loves the look of the actual whole room with balcony etc but this is far too ambitious so we figured best to start with a small setting with a table , wall cupboard and tall shelf . We are hoping to do this with a mountboard setting background with paperclay or stucco walls and floorboards. Similar to settings done by Debie in her work when she showcases her dolls i suppose. So any help with how this can be done easily would be much appreciated as she is a real newby to minis!

Today she spent ages bless her making some candles , insistent on doing it all herself with trial and error!

If you pop over to her blog you can see the setting she'd like to emulate and the types of things she would like to make. Also todays little minis she made all by herself!

As we have such talented blogging freinds we will of course buying some bits and some are ordered already as she just couldnt wait! Shes very excited so come the summer hols we will have a real hub of mini making activity as Lola will have time to work on her project and me on mine!!

Thankyou all in advance for any help you can give to her. any tips would be so great, shed love to hear from you on her blog

http://emilyclairefashions.blogspot.com/

Emily has a Blog!!

2010-06-30T18:01:00.003+01:00

It had to happen didnt it! Emily is now on her summer holidays before starting Uni in September so she thought it would be fun to start a blog and I think a good idea as its something she can show her new tutors in the autumn. It will give her something to get out of bed for !!

It wont be miniature based but on various topics and although fashion is her thing she does want to give some minis a try in the summer so keep an eye out for her helping me with some projects. She also really wants to make shoes like me so we will have a go at that sometime!
So if you'd like to read another of the family's ramblings please follow her at
http://emilyclairefashions.blogspot.com/
She'd love to see you there!

A Fun Day out at the Fair and Emilys amazing Results!

2010-06-27T11:13:00.004+01:00

Just to say a HUGE thankyou to everyone for their lovely comments to Emily on her college presentation . Emily is an extremly insecure girl, dosnt have any self confidence and it meant such a lot to her to recieve such complementary and encouraging comments! We are always telling her shes so clever, talented and beautiful but she dosnt believe us so it did her the power of good!
Her results came through Friday and she achieved a brilliant 3 Distinctions which is just wonderful , we are even prouder now!
She has moved back home with us full time now and has the holidays to learn to drive so she can drive to Uni, and just some time to chill after doing such a lot of hard work. She would love to get a part time job in a stables as her second passion is horses.
Yesterday it was Reillys school fair and one of the mums has a lovely horse and offered to do pony rides if we could pick him up in the horse box with the Landrover. So John, Lolaand Emily went over to help get him to the school and then Emily was in her element doing the pony rides taking all the children round on a lovely walk. She had a good canter herself on him and is now really wanting to get some work with horses, easier said than done!
The queue for the rides didnt subside for 4 hours, poor old Adam the horse , it was so hot and we had to keep resting him and sponging him down but we all had a lovely day and ended it with a celebratory meal at the pub!!
Well Im off to play with my car boot bargain, I got a Wii fit board and game and with just a month to our frineds wedding I need to get into that size 8 dress so the perfect buy this morning, worth getting out of bed early for!
Back with more minis next week and Lola is feeling much better so will be posting too!

A Congratulations Post to My Eldest Daughter Emily and her Fabulous Fashion Exhibition!

2010-06-23T10:47:00.010+01:00

Yesterday we were out all day as it was my eldest Emily's end of college fashion Exhibition. It was a lovely event with all the class's work being displayed, all their sketch books to view, their dresses set out on mannequins, and nibbles and wine too , a perfect day!

The inspiration for Emily's subject for her final project was Medieval armour and dress as its something shes always been interested in . She went up to the Tower Of London with John and they had a great day out and she took lots of photos and sketches for her research.
She used influences like Jen Kao's Fall 2010 collection and Reem Acra's Prefall 2010 collection for her work.

Her finished design took her only 2 and a half weeks to complete and I think its absolutly stunning! The fabric is stretch jersy silk and we had a nightmare of a time locating it in the right colour and it cost an arm and a leg but it was worth it as the dress hung and draped so beautifully.

Emily took the photos of the dress modelled by her friend all herself and i think she could even have the ability to do fashion photography as they are superb!

We visited the exhibition and viewed her sketch books, art books etc, and her dress really stood out in the room! I know we are biased but we think hers was the best by far and everyone was commenting on it. Even 3rd year fashion graduate students were saying how wonderful it was, what compliments! Her tutors were thrilled too.
She will keep the dress, she was going to try and sell it to recoupe the money spent but she cant bear to part with it now........and anyway I want to wear it!!!

We are so so proud of her! She will attend Epsom university in September to further her career in Fashion doing a BA in design and I think we could have a star on our hands!!

So well done Emily, your hard work in the last 2 years has really paid off and you are showing all the signs of being a top designer so keep it up, we are so very very proud!!

Here are some pics of the dress both on the mannequin at the show, on her friend and with her and our 3 little monkeys ( who were so well behaved i have to say!!) at the show!

As you can see she had to have new shoes for the show, all near 5 inches of them so as she towered over me and everyone else!

In the background you can see some of the other dresses, the one behind Emily's was an Alice in Wonderland inspired dress so of course we loved that one. The friend of Emily's Jen had designed and printed the fabric all herself and it was lots of tiny images of Alice characters, very cool......but we still loved Em's the best!!

Oh by the way Ive never learnt how to display pictures inbetween my text and can only seem to get it all with pics at the top whch dosnt show it off as Id like, can anyone email me to let me know how to get it so pics can be posted with text that goes with it ? thankyou!!

A very Happy Fathers Day and Welcome to 'Mad Merv'

2010-06-20T15:46:00.006+01:00

Happy Fathers Day everyone, hope all those men are having a lovely relaxing day, I know mine is!!

The children spoilt him with Cd's, Books, and some new Harley Davidson badges for his jacket but I knew what I had in mind for a long time!

I didnt get round to finishing the motorbike room box and didnt want to rush it so that will be for another day, maybe our anniversary coming up soon!

But a long time ago John started planning to do the basement room in the haunted house as a mad scientist room and started collecting bits and bobs to do it. We saw Debie's (http://piskies-and-poppets.blogspot.com/) mad scientist on ebay but wernt lucky enough to win him and have had in in my head to get for john ever since as he was such a special doll and John thought he was wicked!

So leaving it rather too late to ask, I emailed Debie who kindly agreed to make another even though I was pushing her giving her short notice for Fathers day! And the other day he arrived!
I had to have a peak! well my excuse was the parcel was rattling and I dreaded him being broken but when i opened him was thrilled to find what was rattling was lots of goodies Debie has so kindly put in for us and our projects! A huge Hug!!

I wrapped him and John opened him this morning and was so happy with him, he thinks hes a great unique pressie! He has a little test tube in his pocket and stains on his lab coat and his hair is wicked!!! He has a calm kind expression with a hint of madness of course!

Now he can get to work after the summer is over on making Merv a room to be proud of! We have to get lots of glassware for the table and also a table will have to be made as the basement room is only about 5 inches high so anything too big looks wrong. Merv is the perfect size and Debie gauged him just right! He is abit wobbly on the paperclay rough floor but I will have to tacky wax him into position when his table is all set up. For now here is a pic of him with Mable's table. Dont suppose she is too happy, she is a stroppy little witch and he can only borrow it for a moment or she will be casting her own spells on him and making his hair stand on end even more! Please excuse the photo taken by me as my camera did not want to oblidge today buit Debies picture is great and you can see his fabulous features so well!

A big thankyou to Debie for making him so perfectly and quickly for us, he really made Johns day!

My 3rd post of the Day! My OOAK American Diner is Up for Sale

2010-06-19T11:58:00.006+01:00

Well the time has come to really think hard about what projects to keep and what to sell!
I have decided that my Diner I made a year or so ago will never get completed my myself so I am selling it on to hope someone else will have the enthusiasm with it to really make it into the project it deserves to be !
I spent hours upon hours with this diner. I designed itmyself, made it, covered it all myself and then its just sat in storage! Such a shame. i can see it with all the details, a grill, wall cupboards, customers etc looking fab but just never got round to it!
So it is on ebay tonight. It consists of a double diner booth , 2 single booths, 2 tables, a juke box, a counter, and a chiller cabinet and single diner corner chair.

All in stunning pink and White ( Marsha You will like this i think lol!!)

I have listed it with a picture of all the food set up with it that I have for it but all this is being sold seperatly as i know from past sales of projects people like to put together or make their own food and drinks so this dosnt have to go with the sale of the actual diner. So you may like to bid on the food for your own cafe projects?

Anyway please take a look if you get a chance. It was a real labour of love , I was thrilled with how it turned out. I made another in Coca Cola red and White which sold last year but I kept the pink as it was more me and a bit different!

I hope someone can make it into a really stunning project of a room box or shop!
Here are some pics of it and just one of the food lots being sold seperatly. Also some diner posters and menus for sale.

I have had a real downer on my ebay sales with my laptop charger now not working and not charging my battery either so no laptop! Only just out of warranty and the Dell forum tells me it is a wide spread fault with their faulty chargers but they wont give you a replacment as they make a fortune on the fault as they obviously recommend only their chargers at $80 or so! I have looked on ebay to find them cheaper but been warned against cheap ones that can then blow up and blow up the Pc too!! So my fund has gone back down. :-( Looks like its back to the workshop to find more furniture to sell!
Lots of other minis and dolls etc going on this weekend also.
http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/witzend-minis
Only some of the items are listed to show up in the us as it cost more to list in both ebay.com and uk, but if you go to Ebay.co.uk you will see all of them and I will ship inernationally.

Thankyou Lorraine and Kat!

2010-06-19T11:51:00.004+01:00

Yesterday the postman bought a parcel from the US and I hurridly opened it as i knew it was the new wizard minis I ordered from the lovely Lorraine from http://dollhouseminisbydfly.blogspot.com/

They are simply amazing and I love them all so much! Check out the tiny wands and the detail on them! There is a wand box for Dumbeldore and this will go on a new desk I have coming, and the other wands i want to keep as I have plans for a wand cabinet in his room.
The workmanship is truly superb and i cant wait to go back to Lorraine for more goodies as i know she has lots of new ideas of things to make for us Potter mad lot! great eh! Lorraine kindly put in some of her special tiny candles which i adore! The labels are so detailed and I just have to buy some in different colours for Mables house, she loves them!!
Thankyou Lorraine , such treasures!

Then this morning another box, what could this be! I know that writing and as always its the best parcel from my dear freind Kat the Hat!! Thankyou Kat for this lovely leather hat and bag, will look great in the attic room of the Potter house ! Kat also sent me some yellow leather that I was missing to be able to put some more Hogwarts book stacks together. Just perfect Kat thankyou!

I am so luck to have the loveliest and most talented of friends!

Introducting Mable Mc Mildew and her New Broomstick!

2010-06-19T11:38:00.003+01:00

Here she is, my newest Doll, Mable Mc Mildew! I actually named this one myself as the name jumped out at me as i unwrapped her.
Mable is made by the Wonderfully talented Jain of Giddy Kipper Dolls and is the first in what I hope to be a few wicked witches for my new Coven house!
I saw Mable first at Kensington and admired her but didnt have a bad witch project so had to pass her by! However when I found my new Tudor style house that Im going to' witchyfy', I knew shes fit in a treat and guess what? Out of all the witches Jain took ot the fair she was the only one that came home with her, so I thought, meant to be for me then! Jain kindly hung onto her while I made some pennies and I recieved her last week. She has this great dreadlock style gungy green hair and this fab outfit! She fits in a treat and Jain also kindly made Lola a tiny fairy book which shewill put in her Brambly house.
Mable is holding her new broomstick made my the fabulous Nikki Rowe. I bought one from Etsy for Gertrude the good witch but could hear mutterings coming from Mables house and didnt want a nasty spell to befall me so ordered another sharpish!
She loves it Nikki thankyou it fits her so well! I was lucky enough to get the 2 i really thought would suit each witch.

So look forward to more of the furnishing of Mables house to come. Lots to do and starting with the downstairs meeting room for all the witches so I hope to buy another from Jain soon so they can get together and havespell plotting meetings together!

Later today I will post some pictures of other minis I recieved in the post, all fabulous and Im such a happy bunny today to have such amazing work from my blogging friends! Will be back with pics and thankyous later!

For all those who have been kind enough to bid on my dollshouse item auctions recently i thankyou so much, i hope to have enough pennnies soon to order another comission!So you will know that you have kindly contributed to them and have had some part in putting together my future projects thankyou!
I am listing more tonight and a very specail lot is going on so keep your eyes peeled!

More Finds I forgot I had in my Workshop!

2010-06-12T20:41:00.004+01:00

I decided not to go about clearing out my workshop by halves but really give it a good tidy and found another forgotten , not 1, not 2, but over 8 boxes of minis and furniture hiding at the back!
I have decided now to be really harsh with myself and only keep what will fit in my existing houses and thats it! No more saying, 'oh I should keep it just incase'! as I have more than enough houses to work on and cant keep all this boxed up any longer! It deserves to go to good homes and thankyou to all those have made bids or had a look, there is much more to come!
I have listed some more lovely things last night and then will have a break until next week as its going to take me long enough packing all this up and posting. Thats the horrid bit!
Anyway, as an idea, there are more mixed furniture sets, some light, some dark wood, gothic, witchy items including those above, a great apothecary cabinet with loads of drawers for all those potions, spooky bed, wardrobe and fireplace, day beds , shop items , bridal dresses, shop counters and much more.
I intend to get down to just my racks of drawers filled with furniture and materials needed for my own projects and no more, lets see how long it takes to do it!

Today we had a trip to the car boot for bargains, ( I know I need to do my own, and I will as I have 5 houses to sell!) . John got a great lot of Lego , I think he has an alterior motive in buying it to keep the children busy and quiet while football is on!

Off later to the school fair then homebase to get my paint samples as come the good weather I have 3 houses to paint and Lola and I have her walls of Brambly to do. Lola hasnt been well with a nasty chest infection hence her quietness on the scene but we hope to get back into her project soon. In the mean time I have to keep her out of the workshop or she would want me to keep the lot .
I have a wonderful new doll to show you and as soon as I get some good pics I will be introducing her to you, and Ive actually managed to name this one! Shes a beaut!

Needs Must! Furniture sets on ebay!

2010-06-09T16:09:00.006+01:00

Hi all, just to let you know that as well as the book stacks I made new, i am selling some various sets of furniture and shop counters etc on ebay. I have a few dolls Id like to have for various houses and so am going to be putting things I no longer need on ebay from now for the next few weeks.
I have some used and some brand new things going on. I used to buy a lot of furniture with the intention of repainting it, but have not got round to it and need to generate some money.
Please take a look , maybe you could repaint it, distress, shabby chic it etc?
I will send internationally but for larger items like this it is extremly expensive to send unfortunatly and I only send airsure for larger packages also which adds more on. But happy to do so if you are desperate to have it!! Lots more to go on, I have 3 large sets of drawers in the shed full to the brim with things that need to go, including material, trims, laces, beads etc, as its just sitting there being neglected and needs a good home !
Many thanks
Heres the link http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/witzend-minis/

Starts tonight and more to follow this week and next, lots of furniture plus things helpful for miniaturists.

All Day for such a small project!!

2010-06-08T17:46:00.008+01:00

Thats how long it took me today to complete the Snow White floor upstairs.
The upper floor of the Aster cottage by Greenleaf is all cut out on the left side and only really has one half of flooring.
So today, although leaving in the existing part wood floor I had to cut out a new floor to go on top of it but soon realised that that meant fitting a new ceiling too under the floor part that had the holes so you didnt see them from underneath! So I cut out 2 identical pieces of card mount board and put in a new hole for the top of the stair for the access to the top floor.
Anyway this is how it looks as it is. The new floor has new floorboards which were painted to match the downstairs floorboards very dark brown.
The beds are in, and I made a little extra floor for Grumpys bed so he dosnt have to make the others suffer with his snoring!The picture of all the beds is before i did Grumpys floor and the last pic is of his bed on its own on a little upper floor I made to fit in under thew window. I will make him a little twig ladder to get up there to match the ladders of the bunk beds.

It is not stuck down yet hence why it looks a little uneven! I ran out of floorboards right in the corner and for Grumpys floor and decided as i want to paint the room a stone colour I would leave the floor until thats done and then glue it in place . But you get the idea!

Then it needs new curtains and I think it needs a rug, some pictures and of course their names above their beds.
Then Im doing the fireplace downstairs and the sink unit before I can put all the little touches into the house and really start to dress it. Snow of course is ready to move in of course and Im still tempted to actually have the dwarves in there too at some point!
I managed to buy some great shutters to go on the sides of the windows with heart cut outs so tomorrow Ill paint these to match the windows and try fitting them and will post how they look! They were exactly the same size as my windows so meant to be and really fititng to the style of the house !

I spent the rest of the day ploughing through my workroom only to be quite amazed at so many boxes of miniatures! I have put on some more already to ebay but will continue to do so over the weekend and all next week as now I know its all there I need to start being positive and letting go of whatI dont need but others can make use of!
In explanation as to why I have so much. I used to sell dressed miniature displays on ebay but with5 children, their homework, clubs etc, and all my own projects i found I no longer have the time, and know I wont have for years to come . I want to make real progress with my own projects now so all this furniture etc that is not needed for my own houses can be sold.

Oh No another New House and The Sets for Ebay

2010-06-06T14:09:00.006+01:00

Well you know i just cant resist a bargain and this fantastic tudor house was calling to me so just couldnt say no!
Its really well built, 3 floors, all lit, beautifully beamed, stairs etc, all ready for someone to move in!

I decided if I have a good witch house then surely I HAVE to have a bad witch one! Thankyou Michelle and Janice for inspiring me to make one as yours are both so fantastic I was itching to have my own!

Plus I have the excuse that I have 2 very large boxes of more spooky messy witch miniatures under the bed that just cant fit in the haunted house as thats heaving now! So this way I can instantly move things over to the new house.

I was also inspired by Jain Squires witch coven scene that she made for Kensington and decided this house would be perfect for that style project in larger form. So the lower floor will be an Inn style room with lots of witches gathering to discuss their potion making!
Next floor with be the witches living room and upstairs is a tiny bedroom, this opens by a small hatch in the centre of the top floor frontage, quite ingenious! You can see from the side view the lovely large chimney with all the hidden wiring. my only thing to do is change the wiring to a newer transformers system as the previous owner used only a 9 volt battery to light the wall, ceiling and fire lights! So I think all I have to do is chop off the old end fitments and attach the wires to a new transformer.........she says!!Will take some pics of the interior later when my witch arrives!

John is an angel I know for sure, as I straight away took it off to the conservatory but hes insisting it needs pride of place in the living room and has been himself trying to visualise what furniture can be moved around to make room for it! With all our houses we dont have a house in the main sitting room so I feel quite honoured that hes decided it needs one!

Well as my plans included quite a few witches for this house I have decided I need to start a savings plan for them! So starting this week i have listed some book stacks on ebay in the hope they will sell and give me some pennies to put towards my next doll on the wish list! These dont have harry Potter styling as HP is very copyright conscious and Ive had items lifted off ebay before for breach of using the potter name so just went for plains spell books for any witch or wizard ! I figured if I can make a few things and manage to sell them once a month then every quarter or so I should have enough to put in a special saving up jar just for dolls!
I have the houses first occupant on her way this week and cant wait to show her off. She is very special and the perfect doll for this wonderful house!

Wish me luck, oh and please ignore the car parts if you take a look at all the items selling, poor John, soon there will be little of his garage left to sell!!!

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/witzend-minis in amongst the other 'stuff' that needs to go you'll find the 3 sets of books and some other mixed furniture bits if anyone needs some for painting

Harry Potter book stacks

2010-06-04T21:14:00.006+01:00

Well hav'nt we been exceptionally lucky this week with the glorious weather. I am I must admit an Autumn/Winter person and one of those annoying ones who moans its too hot but we've had some fun this week.
The first part of the week we spent with my sister and her lovely boys at my Mums beach hut, having games of cricket on the beach, picnics by the river. Lots of fun. Unfortunalty the rest of the week went pear shaped with Lola poorly so I didnt get to see my other sister and nephews which was a shame so we've had quieter days at home. With one lousy day of rain that gave me the opportunity to get out some craft things. So while watching DVD's with Lola, armed with my lapdesk, glue, bag of leathers and ruler I got to making those book stacks I told you about.
The mushroom one was colour coordinated with Gertrude's house and style, so I figured the potter ones should do the same.
Here we have Book stacks for all 4 houses of Hogwarts.
Slytherin's stack is silver, purples etc and has potion bottles, ingredients, pestle and mortar and can you see that sneaky snake in there too!
Griffindor's is mainly reds and yellow/golds, again with potion bottles.
The other 2 stacks were trickier as I didnt have the colours of leather needed but the Ravenclaw stack is blues/ greys. All have their crests on the top book and plenty of HP documents in between the books, Marauder maps, Spell books etc.
These will go in both the potion room and Dumbledores study. I have also made a stack for the Potion Master with a skull and the advanced book of spells to pass out to some lucky pupil!

Hope you like them I have made more and am thinking of ebaying some just because I need some pennies for future minis on my wish list and am fast running out of poor Johns car parts and old Maternity clothes to sell !!!!!
Really enjoyed making them even if I did stick just about all my fingers together at one point!
More mini making next week as its term time and Lola hopes to get a start on her house once shes feeling more herself!

Introducing Lily Beth

2010-06-02T10:41:00.006+01:00

Gertrude has a new friend in her cottage! Meet Lily Beth, kind of a Floozy at heart made unmistakingly by the incredibly talented Jayne of http://tallulahbelleoriginals.blogspot.com/
Jayne and I were chatting about her Alice In Wonderland flowers she is making and she sent me a pic of Lily. Being my favourite flower I fell instantly in love and knew she was perfect for Gertrude's cottage. Being a good witch she loves her cheeky little kissing lips!
So a huge thankyou to Jayne as we all love her to bits and the colours , style, and everything about her fits in perfectly. We now anxiously await pics of the Alice flowers as know they will be just as stunning!
There is a complete influx of floozies in blogland right now with Julia and Janice having recieved their own beautiful floozies recently. We are all very lucky ladies to own such treasures.

As you can see I made something for Gertrude too yesterday. Being half term, the days zoom by too fast and we have to take advantage of the good weather when its here so have been out and about. But with yesterdays rain came an opportunity to dabble abit. I made a stack of cookery/potion books for Gertie with mushroom documents and a jar of creamed mushrooms.

I also made several stacks for the Harry Potter house. Some are in house colours. For example I have made a Slytherin stack in silver, black and purple books with the crest on the top book and a bottle of snapes potion. Just finishing off some other stacks and willl take pics when they are made. All to go in the various rooms of my Potter house. Gone book mad! May sell a few of these also once I have them all finished as I wont be needing them all.

What Wonderful Kind Friends Part 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-05-26T09:21:00.004+01:00

This mornings post man bought a part 3 to my blog posts!!

Firstly a HUGE Box addressed to Lola, should have seen her face again, she hadnt even finished getting ready for school , hair all uncombed but she just HAD to open it! The lovely Janice from http://onbeingaminimum.blogspot.com/ had sent Lola a whole range of goodies to help her on her way to getting all her list together for her Brambly House. Full of mini furniture and lots more she was over the moon and will be posting it all on her blog later after school !
Janice thankyou so much for your kindness and for my treasures too. In the box was a tub for me so I wouldnt feel left out full of beautiful little witches perfume/ potion bottles , just perfect for me as its one thing I hate to make, I just get glued up every time so thanks Janice they are perfect. Not only that but also some precious little mandrakes for the conservatory too. SO thoughtful!
Another box arrived with my new Hats I ordered from Kat from her new creations on Etsy. I couldnt resist the new weaved hats and bought the shell sea witch hat, and a similar one with feathers, and one with roses. They are all simply beautiful thankyou Kat, and also Kat had popped in a gift for me of little witches slippers, in leather with little fringes and buckles, OOoh love them! None of my witches have shoes so a great new addition. A bag of fruit and a hat for Lola too, thanks Kat your a star!

Today I'm making something for Lola and also up in the loft trying to get things to sell to save for some mini purchases Im desperate to add to my collection. The loft is heaving with things and although I hate listing on ebay needs must , so off to work!!
Thanks again girls!!

What Wonderful Kind Friends Part 2!

2010-05-25T15:48:00.010+01:00

A Couple of days ago the postman came again! John is like 'What have you been buying now!' and I'm sure doesn't believe its just my pals spoiling us all the time and I haven't actually bought anything! !!

Well this time is was 2 parcels, one for Lola and one for me!! Lola was absolutely chuffed to bits and her little face lit up when she opened u her goodies but you can read about that later on her own blog!
The parcels were from the lovely Michelle http://wwwmichellesmadworld.blogspot.com/ and her super Mum Jill and were packed with lots of exciting minis for us both!

My parcel had the most fancy, witches hats, ideal for my 'Witchy Hollow ' hat shop project. I have loads of Kat's hats as you know, they are incredibly addictive and I bought myself another set last night, my finger just zooms to that buy it now button when Kat starts on a new style of Hat!! So to complement them beautifully are these new hats made by Michelle and her mum Jill. Arnt they wonderful!

Michelle also gave me 2 little boxes and made me 2 fancy books for the Potter house! She knows how much I love books and anything wizardy or spooky! One has a jewelled spider on it and the other a spooky face coming out of the cover! I LOVE them!!

So huge thank you and hug from me to you both for all your time and kind thoughtfulness!

Blogging is such fun and we have made such kind, talented and generous friends and everyone is always willing to put themselves out for you which in this day and age is such a rarity. Its why we love this hobby so much too!
THANK YOU !!!!!!!

Thanks to everyone for their comments on the Swap with Ara. Yes i can make things when I want to but for 3 reasons i tend not to as much as I should!
One, I have little time with 3 little ones and 2 teenagers to run around after!
Secondly, Im lazy, one of my many faults!! and Thirdly, as i've said before it gives me so much pleasure to include my friends work and talent in my projects and not just things Ive made myself! Its abit like cooking a Sunday roast! I can cook a lovely one and everyone else eats it up and loves it to bits but I dont enjoy my own meal and would much rather get taken out for dinner! lol!!!

Also just to say apparantly some peoples dashboard arnt updating my blog posts as they go on, so you may have missed recent posts as they arnt all showing up.

What Wonderful Kind Friends Part 1!

2010-05-25T15:17:00.008+01:00

A while back Susan AKA Tabitha Corscia http://tabithacorsica.blogspot.com/ posted she had a load of material and when I left a comment of how great the colours were she kindly emailed me to ask if Id like some for my Alice table cloths! Well I got them the other day, Susan I do hope you got my email as alot have been going astray, let me know if you didnt Ill resend it to you to thankyou! The bright colours are perfect as Im doing the picture I have on my blog, not the darker table scene from the actual film . I have also discovered a fray check product so it means no sewing yipee! I have got a couple of lacy smaller cloths to go on top but still need to buy more as I have a few table to set up.

Thankyou Susan for thinking of me , so kind and now I can get to work on those tables and really get into the project.

I would also like to thank Nikky Cooper http://nickycc.blogspot.com/ for my fabulous set of 4 kingfishers. Do you remember I posted a picture of the 2 I won on ebay , but alas my minx of a 3 year old Lacey decided one day to rearrange all my Snow White garden when I wasnt looking! She has a thing about lining things and I found the blue birds I won,and other things all out of the garden and lined up outside the house. BUT the kingfishers were nowhere to be found so goodness knows where they have gone!
I emailed Nicky to ask if she had any more and she so kindly sent me this beautiful set of 4 Kingfishers for my pond. as with the others they are beautifully made and really suit the house so thankyou and hugs to you too Nikki!

I have now moved the Snow house as with my new beautiful dolls I do not want to take the chance of her playing around with it again so it has a new safe home in the conservatory.

Back later when the camera allows me with more wonderful pressies !

Another Fantastic Sweeney / Adams Swap!!!

2010-05-20T15:48:00.010+01:00

Yipee it came! I have been virtually stalking the postman all week as I knew Ara's swap to me was on its way and it arrived all in one piece and even more fabulous than I could have imagined. I got the parcel 2 days ago but have been busy helping my eldest Emily get ready for her Fashion exhibition so went to post this last night but then my camera konked out on me!! I then got dragged to a motorbike evening by John and woke up this morning to find Ara got her parcel yesterday and beat me to it with her post!!! So glad it came Ara and that you like it!! Great too, that we can show them off together!

Remember Ara and I did a swap way back , and Ara made me a fantastic Sweeney Barber chair and I made her a Adams Family Potion cabinet? Well we got in contact again as i saw a crib on ebay exactly the style I wanted but it was too clean and perfect and i couldn't bring myself to buy it and rip it up and make it all grungy so I knew the perfect person to ask to make me one from scratch!! Ara kindly agreed and when I asked her what she needed in return she told me to surprise her again with something to cheer up the Adams family who she felt had been neglected lately :-(

So, we both got started. I really wanted a crib as in the movie Sweeney and his wife have a child before his bad luck befalls him and when he returns to the Lovett Pie shop he is taken up to the their old apartment to find the old crib, all eaten away and rotting , very sad!

Ara captured the haunted creepiness of the piece perfectly. It is made of a wicker look with wooden legs and tatty grungy drapes. The crib has rotten areas and the little cover inside is really gruesome. ( In a great way of course!) She has figured out to do do a wicker look perfectly and I bet it was difficult for her to have to mess it all up and put holes in it as it was so beautifully done!! I really want to keep an eye out now for an old porcelain type doll to put in it!

It is so perfect thank you Ara, I love it so much as you know!

Both Ara and I really enjoyed this swap and neither of us could quite bear to part with our creations but knew that they were only suited and perfect for each other's particular projects . We both knew how much the other would appreciate all the hard work and love gone into them.

With a HUGE hug to Ara, Sweeney and I thank you very very much for such an awesome addition to his Barber shop!!

I apologise for the fact it is not in situ in his shop, but I have photographed it in the haunted house for now as my walls and floors are still in bits as I'm tiling and flooring still!! When its all up, Ill take another pics so you can get the whole scene and look! I just couldnt get good shots last night so will replace or add new ones later and for now Ara has taken a great couple of pics that show it off much better than mine!

Here also is the swap I made for Ara. Lola and I were watching the Adams Family Values film and 'Cousin What', ( Cousin Its Son!) in his coffin pram just lept out at me and I knew I HAD to make it for Ara and the Adams's. I do not do woodwork well so the coffin was a major challenge and as I said to Ara dont look too closely as its just roughly stuck together , filled with glue and painted!! Then I made spider web wheels ( I was inspired by Jamie Moores fabulous bigger pram she made and her wheels so thanks for the idea Jamie!!) and put on a couple of spooky spiders and a dagger rattle! Cousin baby 'What' has his little dummy, . Then I figured I should have someone to push the pram ( though not sure how with no arms!!) so made Cousin It too!
I wish I had taken pictures of the steps of how I made it but I was so enjoying it, I got carried away and just got into it and the next thing it was finished! Oh and to get the leather stitched look i just put on peel off in a patterned line and then painted over with black paint.

I do love swaps they are such fun and cant wait to do another !!
Ara also was an absolute treasure and included a little Texas pin badge and pack of Texas playing cards so all the family is happy too thankyou!! Now I just have to play them for money ha ha!!

Check out Ara's post at http://afminimansion.blogspot.com/ to see how at Home the 'It's ' are at home with Morticia and the others, !