A gifted miniaturist

I was very fortunate at last weekend's miniature show to be given rather a lot of gifts by rather a lot of lovely people.

New Zealand miniaturist Judy Foster heard my Facebook call for Whittaker's L&P mini bars and bought me a couple of bags. Plus two black and white cat coasters she's had for ever and no longer needs, one of which she thought looked a lot like Nibbs (and she was right), a 'Be a healthy Kiwi' poster, which matches the full-sized one I have in my top cupboard, and a director's chair.

Adelaide Cann dropped off this package of coffee and ring binders as I was setting up on Friday night.

 Blog reader Catherine visited with these large printed rugs which she'd made and didn't have a use for and thought I might like. She says she got the canvas from ALDI a couple of years ago: I'll be watching for it to turn up again so I can buy some.

 Adelaide returned on Saturday with these IKEA-inspired bed trays, plus another set of her cars and planes so I had a spare wheel after last year's whoopsie when putting them together.

 And, soon after, local friend Rosemary arrived with a bag of printer's offcuts that she thought I could use for making miniature books.

A group of stall-holders had dinner together on Saturday night and Adelaide gave each of us a tiny koala holding a macaron.

On Sunday the fabulous Jewel Lewis gave me two of her New Zealand cuddly toy kits,

 complete with New Zealand-themed black and white tissue wrapping.

Then my table mate Jennifer gave me the left over clay and tools from the recent Lidi Stroud Italian Courtyard workshop she attended, plus a piece of lovely 50s-style black and white fabric.

And that's not all: I had another very generous offer which I shall keep under wraps until that parcel arrives. I'm feeling very spoilt.

Not-so-vacant possession

Margell Public School has closed (cost cutting, don't you know? The children are now being bused into town.)

So the children, school bags and exercise books have gone home for the very last time.

The desks and chairs are stacked

and the shelves emptied of anything of value.

 The school is quiet, awaiting its new life...

Greetings from Olympic Park

Blimey! How did it get to be May already?

And May in this part of the world means three things: Eurovision! Birthday season! And the Sydney Miniatures Show.

I managed to buy a library while setting up my stall on Friday. And managed to sell it again before the evening was out (or, to be more precise, allow someone more worthy to buy it, as I hadn't actually paid anything for it at that stage...)

The Karma Fairy obviously took note because since then I've been showered with gifts.

And, just before I left this evening, I took a stroll around the displays and admired a small one-teacher school.

 Then noticed a 'for sale' sign next to it.

So this weekend I've bought a library, sold a library and bought a school.

 There's a lovely back story to this building. The owner was a teacher who had always wanted to work in a one-teacher school but had never had the chance.

So when she discovered miniatures many years ago the first thing she built herself was this one-teacher school.

 I, on the other hand, have always had the hankering to have an old one-room schoolhouse as a holiday house (and even, back in New Zealand almost rented one with a group of friends until we realised it was too far down a dirt road for any of us to seriously consider visiting regularly, espcially as most of us were on two wheels.)

 So I plan to sympathetically strip it of many of it's educational items then renovate it to include sleeping, cooking and bathroom facilities (although I may decide the bathroom remains in the adjoining toilet block, which I know is rather a cop-out), incorporating many existing fixtures.

I'm rather excited as this is the first 'play' building I've had since I left New Zealand, almost 20 years ago. I just have to find room for it in the car before I can start playing...

Holiday? What holiday?

Still at it, but trying to make it feel fabulous...

Editorialising in autumn

It would seem that this whole 'editorial retreat' concept for The tiny Times is becoming a regular occurrence around here.

This time round, my Editor came to Canberra. I met her yesterday afternoon (after I finished the final meeting I need to go to at work this week).

It may all look like beer and skittles (or wine and cheese, as the case may be) but we worked fairly solidly from 4:30 yesterday afternoon until 10:00 last night when I fell into bed, only to crawl back out at 5:00 this morning and get straight back to work.

So I felt not at all guilty when we broke for a(nother) planning meeting over coffee mid-morning.

And then decided we could justify a little sightseeing. Of the mini sort, of course. Except, as we were looking for stock for my Editor's stall at the Sydney Show, it was actually-almost-sort-of still work.

Some lengths of these Marimekko-esque mini beauties followed me home:

(where my Editor declared I had the rest of the day off for a job well done. And I realised that, although it's a great thought that the magazine has grown from 16 pages last year, to 20 pages  last edition and potentially 28 this edition, THAT'S A LOT OF EXTRA PAGES TO EDIT AND DESIGN)

Now please excuse me: I believe I'm on leave. I hear the sofa and a pile of not-designed-by-us magazines calling me...

Holiday reading

Day four of my time off work and I've been busy with domestics and work meetings. Plus my Editor arrives later today to spend a couple of days with me putting together the next issue of The tiny Times.

So I haven't managed to focus much on mini making so far (although I have unearthed both my work bench and my work table from under the piles that have accumulated).

What I have been focusing on is mini reading. First off the pile yesterday was Joe Fig's Inside the Painter's Studio.

I'm very late to this party but am looking forward to poring over the models within.

And this morning I visited the Post Office and collected a pile of cheap books I picked up in Booktopia's moving sale, including a copy of Frank Kunert's Topsy-Turvy World (which has been on my wish list for a while).

I had a quick flip through over coffee but am being strong and won't start reading it until I've finished Inside the Painter's Studio.

Have you any mini-related book recommendations to share?

An international random act of kindness

There's one sure way to banish a grey mood: good mail!

Especially unexpected good mail, like I received yesterday morning from Kikka N:

I was strong and waited until I got to work to open it

(then immediately facebooked the above image to taunt my Editor, who is a Moomin fan...)

I'd planned to do a gradual photographic reveal for you but got too excited and took the box down to open over coffee with a colleague, completely forgetting to take my camera.

First out of the box was a kitset.... something.

Which turned out to be a miniature Aalto 900 trolley kit, with instructions in Finnish (kindly translated into English by Kikka).

Next were two Marimekko books, made by Kikka, and a pair of red reading glasses to match my full-sized ones.

 Then there was a bottle of Dior perfume (also make by Kikka) and an Aalto vase.

Finally, there was a bag of fabric pieces, which you can see in the background of my photos.

Thank you Kikka, for a wonderful box of unexpected delights!

(And now I have an empty box which I might just have to fill and post onwards...)

A grey mood

I haven't been feeling in the right frame of mind to make minis recently, so the seaside shack sitting room still looks like this a week after I started working on it:

And, when you're overwhelmed with miniature choices, but at the same time lacking in inspiration, the only sensible thing to do is buy more minis (right?)

So I ordered this set from Miniatures by Neu:

 And now I can make booth seating:

 And sofas of many sizes.

Two seater...

 three...

 four...

 five...

 and six!

I have ten days off work starting tomorrow. Hopefully I can coax my mini mojo out of wherever it's hiding this time.

Monochrome miniatures in the May mag...

Thanks to Pepper from Mitchymoo Miniatures for emailing me to let me know we're 'magazine mates' in the May issue of The Dolls' House Magazine:

The newsagents here still have the February issue on the shelves, so I'll have to wait patiently to get my hands on a hard copy. 

Oddly enough, after I'd answered some questions from the magazine several months ago I'd pretty much forgotten all about it. So seeing the screen dump Pepper sent was a surprise end to a pretty blah week.

Seaside shack: sitting room

The sofa that I bought this past weekend reminded me of the one at the Blue Mountains cottage my friend and I stayed at during last month's trip. Which made me wonder how well it would go with the fireplace I bought off eBay in February.

And then I got thinking that maybe it was time to create another room in the Seaside Shack. One more suited to the cooler weather that's approaching.

And so it started...

I pulled out the scrap booking paper I'd used in the kitchen as a guide for colour choice

then rummaged through the other treasure from last weekend's show stash and my unused pieces to add some accessories:

(Cue gratuitous close-up shot)

Next I started experimenting with wall colour choices that would work with the kitchen colour scheme. A dusky blue worked well

(but reminded me a little too much of another scene I did, but I guess recycling a colour theme once in three years is allowed, right?)

But picking up the green from the kitchen paper resulted in a nasty look.

So decision made: blue it is.

Finally, in the early hours of this morning, I remembered a box of Typo cards I picked up last week which included a heart shaped cloud design. And, as my mind is wont to do when awake at such an early hour, it came up with an interesting plan, which I had to get up to try:

I'm still trying to decide if it's too different in style to the kitchen/dining/sunroom of the seaside shack.

Perhaps I'll sleep on it...

It's in the bag

I know you're itching to see what was in the 30 cent bag of treasure I bought at the show.

So, not being one to disappoint my readers if I can help it, here's The Haul:

Once I'd laid everything out I got a clearer idea of what was there and what it could become. The metal vases I already knew about, along with the blue waste paper bin and the cork coasters.

But I was excited to notice these, which I think would make fabulous modern light shades,

and this selection of metal charms. This sort of thing always comes in handy as wall decoration or popped into a group of collectables on a shelf.

I think I got my 30 cents worth, don't you?