I've been playing with minis for awhile now and am slow but sure picking up some sixth sense about it. For the longest time, the scale just confused me to no end. I joined some miniature lists where they do projects during the year, and that has helped immensely. I bought two Buttercup Cottage kits a couple of years ago and just let go on one of them. The other was sent to my daughter and granddaughter who had it built in no time. Mine is made into Nana's Gingerbread Shop and is still a work in progress. I'm learning as I go, and that includes the furniture, lighting, and the graphics and html for these pages. I guess I'm learning, but slowly.

I was just doing a search on some things and was surprised and pleased to see my gingerbread shop linked from Calarmari's Blog at Greenleaf on the discussion of gingerbread texturing.

Before all this came about, I had put together, with lighting, a small Mary Englebreit box. I have yet to make the furniture and other items for it, but I will in due time. If you'd like to go see what I've done so far, click on the above link.

Don't know if you have those Tuesday Morning stores where you are, but they are great. I found this dollhouse cabinet that I thought would be great for my video tapes, but when I got it home, they didn't fit. Guess it was for CD's and I have those all taken care of. Well, to make a long story short, it is being changed into a miniature townhouse, Georgian style (I think). It is half scale though, so that's another challenge. There's a halfscale list that gave me tons of help and now I have it tape wired at least. Working on the rooms. The tenants will be the landlady on the bottom floor, then the piano teacher, with the traveling professor on the third, and the poker playing cad on the fourth.

I'll spare you the tape wiring pictures, but it did go easier than I thought. I did struggle a bit, but finally got it. Here are the poker table and two of the chairs that I made though. They are unfinished for now. I was worried about scale, but I'm told they are just fine. I soaked the wood in hot water and alcohol and then formed the backs around my 1 inch glazing brush with rubber bands and let it dry overnight. The legs are made from the parts you find at the mini store, and the seats are carved from a round Woodl (not misspelled), and the seat shaped with sandpaper. Now that Christmas 2002 is leaving us, I can get these finished up.

I'll be adding more to this page, but in the meantime, please look at my beaded Christmas tree, and my Gingerbreadhouse Bear made from clay. The tree was put together last year, but the gingerbread house was done a few years back. I can tell my bear sure needs a "nose job". I use them both at Christmas time each year.

I had two Secret Pals this year. They are assigned each year. Normally we have one, but one of our gals passed away and I was asked to take hers. She was my secret pal first. These three Santa's were made from miniature flower pots and findings. I sent one to the gal that had me as her secret pal, too. The pattern was in the new American Miniaturist magazine.

To minis page two