When you don't know what else to do go play with boys...

Over the last couple of days I've been thinking about the best way to put a light in a display cabinet without wiring it to the main wiring for the house.

There are two main requirements: (1) a very small power source I could hide within/behind the cabinet somewhere (2) a light source that is bright but won't get hot. That led to two thoughts: (1) watch battery (2) LED lighting - voila here it is! Coin ceiling lights like those shown here in a 1:144 scale bakery and available for sale on a model makers website that primarily supplies "boy stuff". The link to the site is here.


They also have a range of other LED lighting for mini uses, as well as other potentially useful products, so it's a website well worth taking a look at.

And another great thing is that these guys WILL SHIP INTERNATIONALLY, AND they give a 2 year guarantee AND they'll replace the light if you break it during installation! All round good guys - I think I'm in love! ;)

(Photo credit - www.modeltrainsoftware.com)

It's way past time to share the love...

I was honoured to receive this award from three wonderful bloggers I love to visit

Susanne (Miniature Dreams)

Lara (Lara's Miniature World)

Margaret (My Petite Parterre)

- a sincere thanks to each of you.


I decided to wait a while to pass it on because it was bouncing around from blog to blog so fast at the time I thought I'd let the dust settle a little - but I didn't mean to let it settle quite so long that it took an archaeological dig to unearth it ;)

The rules of this award are:

1. Thank the person that gave it to you.

2.Copy the logo and place it in your blog.

3.Link to the person who you nominate.

4.Name 7 things about yourself that nobody knows.

5.Nominate 7 kreativ bloggers.

6.Post link to the 7 blogs that you nominate.

7.Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know that you nominate.

So, the 7 things that nobody knows about me, well there are probably plenty (and for many of them I'd like to keep it that way!! LOL - although it's probably surprising too how much we do reveal, sometimes inadvertently, from time to time) - anyway, here goes...

1 - I can be inclined to procrastinate as I consider a situation from every possible angle before taking action - oh you'd worked that out already and this is supposed to be 7 things you DON'T know - ok...

1a - I'm a research junkie (for example 'normal' people cite about 5-10 sources as references on 2000 word uni essays, I've been known to list 21!) That's one reason I enjoy university and family history so much.

2 - When I was approaching the end of my high school years I thought about doing a course in interior design but allowed myself to be talked out of it - now I get to have fun doing it in mini (and I get to spend HOURS and HOURS trawling decor blogs and websites like Designers Guild before actually doing anything - refer to 1 & 1a above).

3 - In 2002 I won a newspaper competition - due to my superb research skills ;) (refer to 1a above) - the prize was a 14 day European coach tour starting in London, plus Sydney-London return flights, for 2 people of course. Highlights were Brussels, a short Rhine River cruise from Boppard to St Goar, Heidelburg (where I bought a little Reutters set I saw in a shop window in the market place below the castle), Innsbruck, Salzburg, Vienna, Venice, Rome, Florence, Lucerne, and Paris. It was a wonderful experience.

4 - When I was a child I would sometimes go with my father to his to big workshop (he made all kinds of amazing stuff there including a set of swings, see-saw etc, for the local playground although it wasn't his 'profession') and he would sometimes let me open the tins of ingredients for gun powder (yes that's right - the explosive stuff!) and mix them up according to the recipe. Then we'd take it outside and put it in holes in the clay bank, run wicks from it, light it and RUN!! I also liked to put a little in a tin, Dad would throw the match in then - BANG! Of course I wasn't allowed to touch the matches - do you think my Dad would let me fool around with dangerous things???? LOL This activity had to be secret though - I wasn't allowed to tell my mother - I wonder why!!

5 - My mother died before I started high school, I still miss her every day. It is a great point of sadness in my life that I never got to relate to her as one grown woman to another, and that my sons were denied the opportunity to enjoy her as a grandmother. How she would have loved to knit for them.

6 - My mother was adopted. A couple of years ago I managed to track down her birth family (again, refer to no 2 above - LOL) and it was exciting to be invited to meet a whole lot of 'new' cousins. It was a wonderful experience to see where my mother had 'come from' - so many things that were so special about her - her creativity, her intelligence, her ability to write and communicate in a special way - were all embedded in these roots. And of course these are my roots too and even though I was a generation removed from this adoption I had always wondered about that family, and those ancestors, now I know about this important part of me and it is a wonderful feeling.

7 - This coming weekend my husband and I will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary - now before you start doing the math I should tell you that I was a 'child bride' ;) I'm hoping to convince the dear man that a mini Dutch baby cabinet (just like the one that Frederica has ) which retails at around NZ$80 would be the perfect anniversary present - at $2 per year I reckon it's a bargain!!!

Of course there are way more than 7 bloggers I would like to pass this award to but 'rules are rules' - my nominated bloggers are

Catherine (Kilmouski & Me)

Ana (Arts and Miniatures)

Frederica (Frederica's Little World)

Chadina (Visionary in Miniature)

Latchkey and Jonquil (Latchkey and Jonquil)

Carmen (Minishabby)

Roelie (La Petite Sofie)

Krin (More Than Mini)

Oh heck, that's 8 - well, rules are made to be broken aren't they ;)




I have also been honoured by my friend Jody (Peach Blossom Hill) with the Premio Amigo Artesano award. It's probably against the rules to pass this on (not BACK! - there's a big difference, you understand) to the person who gave it to you but how could I make a list of blog friends and not include Jody?? - and I think it's already pretty obvious that my favourite thing to do with rules is bend them ;)

The other four blog friends I'd like to pass the award to are

Annie (Obsidian Hall) and Susanne (Miniature Dreams) both of whom have had this award before I know, but heck if you can have more than one friend why can't you have more than one friendship award - especially since they have champagne on ice waiting for me to fly into Denmark on my witches broom.

I'd also like to pass it to Ira (Merry Jingle Crafts) who is hopefully making "nadas" for me in her mini bakery this weekend - if you have missed the 'nada' joke here is the post from her blog that explains it. And besides Ira is a great 'real world' cook too and a girl like me who hates to cook but loves to eat needs all the foodie friends she can muster :)

And last but by no means least to Sans (The Dollhouse Diaries) who has been a loyal and generous blog friend since the beginning.

I couldn't end this LONG post without mentioning that I appreciate all the comments, advice, encouragement, and friendship that so many of you have shown to me over the past months, you are ALL great blog buddies worthy of the award :)

Products for printing on fabric, and transfering images to wood etc

I'm definitely "in the zone" for printing at the moment! If you are too please read on........

Jody (Peach Blossom Hill), who's a quilt artist as well as a mini-er, told me last night that she has successfully used fabric printing products from Printed Treasures. They have an interesting range, for information click here.

Then this morning I received an email from "Cloth Paper Scissors" magazine - the feature project contained a link to fabric paper products in their online store, to go direct to that page click here.

But they don't just have cotton sheets for printing on - they've also got organza!


Woo hoo - this may be the answer to my prayers, I want to make some 'filmy' curtains and was puzzling last night about what I could print it on.

But wait - there's MORE


Could you ask for more than a product that will transfer onto wood, polymer, canvas and glass??? Click here to go direct to the webpage.


Also a note about Cloth Paper Scissors - I love this magazine and their website is fabulous. It's free to subscribe to the website and you get access to all kinds of project information, etc. To go to the subscribe page click here.

Softie pillow for Shelby

I can't show you the little pillow (13x9 cm - 5x3.5 in) I made today for Shelby because I've just done something to my camera that's caused it to have a heart attack! I'm hoping I can resuscitate it later... However, this is the image I used, printed onto fabric which was first treated to make the print waterproof (ie washable), then ironed onto freezer paper to make it possible to load it into the computer printer.

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POST AMENDMENT - TUESDAY 13 April

Oh yes I can!!

I had to reformat the memory card which meant losing all the stored data :( - but at least the camera is now working again.

Here's the little pillow....

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It's the first fabric printing project I've done in ages. I use a product called Bubble Jet Set 2000. You can get info about it and related products here (I see that they now have a pretreated fabric available by the yard on the website). I also use their 'freezer paper' which comes in a pack but I know a lot of other people just use the regular product you can buy at the grocery store.

Printing your own is a great way to produce small amounts of fabric, in the scale that you want (you can scan an original piece of fabric, scrapboook paper, etc that you like or download from the internet, there are plenty of websites where you can access images of swatches). I used this process to create the "patchwork" bed quilt on the girl's room in the 1:16 house. The fabric I used for that was a fine cotton (lawn) so the printing looked a bit 'washed out' which was suitable for a quilt that had supposedly seen a bit of wear and wash :) Today I used a piece of sturdier cotton. The crucial thing is that the fabric must be 100% cotton or 100% silk.

Scooby and friends will fly off to America tomorrow, hopefully on arrival they will make Shelby smile.

100 followers mystery giveaway prizes revealed at last

Manoli (El Costurero de Manoli)and Paky (paquicheli), both Spanish bloggers, were the winners of the mystery giveaway prize draw held on 6 March to say "thank you" to 100+ Followers who had joined Make Mine Mini. (Original draw post is here.) As I mentioned at the time the prizes were a mystery even to me as I had decided to wait and see who the winners were before choosing appropriate gifts because of the diversity of interests of MMM Followers. Now that Manoli and Paky have received their gifts and posted about them on their blogs I can share them with you all here.

Manoli is an arty crafter who paints lovely flowers, has a collection of thimbles, and wishes to make new friends through her blog. With these things in mind her gift package contained an artist's notebook that I decorated using friendship as a theme, a Sydney Opera House souvenir thimble, and an Australian wildflower pen. After what seemed like a very long time 'in transit' Manoli received her package a couple of days ago. This photo of the contents is taken from her blog



Paky is a popular miniaturist with projects featured on her blog that include a small shop, a pub and a big house, all full of great minis so it was quite hard to think of something to add. Eventually I decided to make a nightgown and boxed underwear set and a small travel case to add to a bedroom. Also included was a small corked bottle of very tiny Australian seashells, and a pair of little sandals (thongs/jandals/flip-flops) for her house outdoor setting. This pic of the gifts is from Paky's blog



Congratulations again to my Spanish blog friends Manoli and Paky. Now I'm starting to think about the next giveaway....

Inspiration galore!

This pic is from one of the Room Seven websites where you'll find the most gorgeous pics of kiddy clothing, bedding and bags to get you/keep you inspired. I found this website thanks to Frederica at 'Frederica's Little World' who has recently posted photos of the cutest kid's stuff, including some little jackets that she's made which she says are inspired by Oilily, a Dutch brand I'd never heard of but I couldn't resist checking it out. Their website is fun but I think the best eye-candy is at Room Seven. The founder of Room Seven is the daughter of the couple who created Oilily.

Now I'm off to do a bit more work on some minis - you think I spend all of my time cruising around cyberspace I know but I've got a couple of projects underway that just aren't 'camera ready' yet ...

(Room7usa.com is acknowledged as the copyright holder of the above pic.)

Transferring ink-jet printed words and images to wood

I've been trying to work out how to do this for ages. This morning I found a tutorial on it via the Modge Podge Rocks blog. To go to the tutorial click here.

A note of caution - if you try it remember to print the words as a 'mirror image' (ie back-to-front) so that they are correct when they are transferred. Have fun!

An additional note: if you can't get Modge Podge which says on the label it is a 'waterbased sealer, glue and finish for all surfaces' and which I've used for decoupage and to seal and strengthen papers I think you could try anything similar. But maybe try it on a scrap first and see what you think.

Here is a link to another technique you might like to try. It uses waxed paper made for transfering images onto t-shirts.

(Acknowledgement - image sourced from www.countryliving.com)

The mailman's been to my place again... thanks Jody!

Recently I got all pouty about how the availability of mini stuff, especially the often blogged about Michael's hutches, seems so much greater in the US than way down-under here in Australia. Click here to read the original post.

Dear Jody at Peach Blossom Hill took pity on me and kindly offered to send a mini 'care package' of a Michael's hutch and some other goodies - how could I refuse?? After some back and forth chat Ira at Merry Jingle Crafts and I both arranged to do a swap with Jody. This is the wonderful array of goodies that I received from Jody a few days ago...


Not just one hutch but THREE, two Eiffel Tower charms (sooooooo cute!), two lovely pieces of fabric, and two pretty floral printies - thank you Jody!!

Also included in the package was a beautiful hydrangea arrangement handmade by Jody that I purchased from her Etsy store, I'm so pleased with it. You can see one of these hydrangea arrangements on Jody's recent blog post -


The gorgeous little fuzzy peaches and the sofa, as well as other wonderful minis (including beautiful upholstered pieces) and lovely (top quality) fabrics, are also for sale at Jody's Etsy store, click here to visit and see them for yourself.

Bless you for your big, kind heart Jody, you're a very special lady :)

Thank you Ana!

Amazing artist Ana of Arts and Miniatures recently offered a giveaway of the most beautiful little silver filigree jugs and I was one of the lucky recipients. Ana's generosity didn't stop there though, she included a lovely little handworked doily


AND a tiny oval box with a selection of Decopatch papers. I'll post about the box and the papers later when I've had a 'play' but click here to go to the Decopatch.com website, it's fascinating stuff!

Thanks again for your generosity Ana :) Click here to visit Ana's blog, there is some truly fabulous art and photography to enjoy there.

Using Photoshop for minis - tutorial

Carol at true2scale, a fulltime graphic designer with a love of miniatures and dollhouses, has published Part 1 of an ongoing tutorial about how to use Photoshop in miniature making. So if you're like me and you don't know your GIMP from your Elements 8, but would like to add some skill with digital graphics to your repertoire, check out Carol's blog. She's planning a 'how-to' that will cover producing a design like the Paris stencil I posted recently. Who wouldn't like to know how to do something like that!!??

While you're there scroll down thru her other posts, I'm in love with the seamstress shop at the bottom of the page :) And don't miss a recent post entitled "A Printie for your Easter Basket" which uses a cookie box design of hers. There's still time to add one (or two) to your dollhouse Easter scene :)

See you in design school! ;)