First

As I was tidying The Room of Shame today and putting mini things back into the various places I'd plundered them from in the heat of the scene-making moment, I realised that I haven't really shown my first modern miniature creation properly: the Mickey apartment, which I made in the late 1980s. (And brought to Australia, albeit a few years after I arrived...) As I took this photo I remembered a photo I have in my files of the first stages of this piece. After a little digging, here's a picture of where it all started for me:(Me made bed and bedding, cat, and leather sofa. Coffee table and shelving unit from patterns in Venus and Martin Dodge's excellent book, and other items bought from the nearest dolls house shop to my home: Pat's Miniatures, a 4 hour scooter ride away in Wanganui

(There was no internet back then. Well at least not accessible to the general public, and certainly not used for such fripperies as buying dolls house furniture...)

Belated

But done.

Reflective

A shot I snapped of the new exhibition in CMAG's Gallery 4 on my way to meet a friend for a catch up this evening.

I'm waiting to hear the outcome of the interview.

And, for the second time in six months, I find myself poised to have to move countries at very short notice*. Or not.

So the weekend will be spent catching up on things and sorting and cleaning and planning. Just in case...

(*Did I mention I own 17 dolls houses?)

Unexpected opportunities

(which only a couple of people, and Edward Bear, know about at this stage...)

I have an interview tomorrow afternoon.

And then my life may change completely.

Or not. Fingers* crossed.

(*Or paws, if you're a bear)

A Sunday scene

This scene started with the circular piece on the wall, which Taph spotted while we were out op shopping on Canberra Day. It picked up the colour of some paper I had in one of my paper stacks (which is a much more aubergine colour than it looks here: I've discovered purple is a very difficult colour to photograph correctly.)The shelving unit is a fairly new acquisition from Dolls House Emporium, and the table base and chairs unearthed from a box of AG Minis I had stashed in the bottom of the cupboard. The purple bag is also AG Minis.

The table top is one of a set of metal coasters I picked up while op shopping months ago for $1. Flowers, bag, biscuits, and file boxes from my Advent Swap and blackboard, monkey, pot of moss and misc beads from my recent Call of the Small Swap. Here's another new addition to my collection: a cart very similar to the one I use in real life as a coffee table:It didn't always look like this, though. Yesterday it was an out of scale, quite ugly Re-ment piece. Until I attacked it with the saw and some paint. As you can see, there's still a little touching up to be done, but I'm feeling quite chuffed...

That wasn't fair was it?

Showing you a pile of swap packages and then going all quiet on you...

Day two
Customised vintage play hut

Day threeReac Medrazzo stool


Day four
Three yards of black and white fabric

Day five
12 clear plastic mini boxes filled with treats

Day six
Assorted craft items

Day seven
Vintage Lundby, redone

Day eight
Letterpress "A", a moss pot, a monkey and zebra shoes

Day nine
Some op-art wall decoration (and other wall art)

Day ten
Ten chocolate squares... of carpet!

Day *
Mini zipper pull ornament

Thanks for the generous parcel, Call of the Small: I promise to make some scenes using them very very soon, now that life is returning to normal around here...

A fair weekend in Canberra...

Starting with the Lifeline Bookfair yesterdayand the ACTME Miniature Show todaywhich included lots of woolies as we head into autumn... (Inlcuding an entire woollen 1970s lounge room!)More photos on FLICKR...

Quiet time

Barcamp on Saturday was fantastic.

I came home with an unexpected house guest.

After somehow finding myself volunteering to be on the committee for 2011's Canberra TEDx, which meant I spent Sunday afternoon at the first meeting.

Followed by a visit to friends, where I was honoured to be the first person to see their new digital animation for the upcoming Craft ACT Embracing innovation exhibition.

After which the weekend ended with a five course dinner party for five of us, using lots of home grown goodies and leftovers.

Monday's dinner, after a long day at work, stretched to three courses. Tonight's (with a girlfriend who came to help deal with leftovers after my house guest left), only two.

I'm exhausted. My brain hurts. My kitchen is a disaster zone (even after plenty of house guest-initiated dish-washing). I may be missing from round here for the rest of the week as I assess all my stationary plates and decide which ones need to start spinning again...

What a weekend!

I got time to photograph Inchies in decent light, but not post them...

Sat 12 Mar 2011
Lunch at the Botanic Gardens with Cycling S, followed by the opening of Michael Le Grand's sculptures at CMAG, and more bubbles (and discussions of Julian Roberts' subtraction cutting method for dress making, which rather intrigues me, and informed my Inchie)

Sun 13 Mar 2011 Spent the day finished i few last pieces for my January Mini Swap parcel and wrapping up lots of tiny packages...

Mon 14 Mar 2011A public holiday in Canberra, so Taph and I headed interstate to Goulburn and Queanbeyan to update the listings for I Op Therefore I Am - ACT. And buy stuff, of course!

Tues 15 Mar 2011
...say no more.

Weds 16 Mar 2011 Making QR code badges for Barcamp.

Thurs 17 Mar 2011
Cataloguing at work (and playing with the bits between the stickers.)

Fri 18 Mar 2011
My January Mini Swap parcel arrives!

Excitements and disappointments

As it became clear that some things weren't going to arrive today (or ever), other things did... A trip to the Post Office at lunchtime today saw the swapping of my (very overdue) outward package to Call of the Small and the inward package from her.

Yes, the January Swap finally happened!

I was terribly restrained for a couple of hours but, by afternoon tea time, could no longer bear the suspense...My colleagues were most impressed and grilled me thoroughly about the concept of a swap parcel and how it all works. I explained about restraint. And then I opened packet number one:
Stay tuned...

My creative space

After last night's badge making efforts (friend's fabric QR code badge with embedded photograph), lunchtime today saw me start to knit my QR code badge for Saturday's Barcamp.(As if I don't have enough on my To Do list already...)

Night class

I have a Gen Y friend over, teaching me the joys of QR codes in return for use of my badgemaking machine...I think that's a more than fair swap.

No time to blog...

been busy.

So it's now officially a tradition

(Bother)

Wed 2 Mar 2011 I have friend over for dinner. She's just moved into a place and needs pretty much everything so we load up the car with spares from my place to set her up.

Thurs 3 Mar 2011The plumber comes to change the washer on my leaky tap. It costs me $120. I can think of many other things I'd prefer to spend $120 on...

Fri 4 Mar 2011
A spot of late night shopping.

Sat 5 Mar 2011 Making miniatures, including a little something for Janine at Uppercase.

Sun 6 Mar 2011Watching Mardi Gras night Rage and working on a new knitting (and very overdue) knitting project.

Mon 7 Mar 2011The Snot Monster arrives and I spend the day in bed sleeping, occasionally waking up to rejoice that, for the first time in years, I'm being paid to be sick in bed...

Tues 8 Mar 2011Dinner with some top Canberra girls

Weds 9 Mar 2011

Say no more...

Thurs 10 Mar 2011I have a meeting with the Curator at Tuggeranong Arts Centre to discuss an exhibition of my inchies next year.

Fri 11 Mar 2011
More late night shopping, this time online. My Dad rings in the last minute of an auction I'm trying to win and so I accidentally bid $4567 instead of $45.67. I spend the last 13 seconds of the auction with all extremities crossed but fortunately no one else bids against me.