Here I am ...

Long time, well, very long time no see. Had some health issues, but now have decided to take early retirement. Lots better!

Still doing real miniwork wasn't that easy; everything I tried turned out a disaster. Then , during my holidays I read an article in an old DH magazine about making a bunka rug. Thunk : I can do that ! So went to the website of  Little Trimmings (UK) , then to this page ( scroll down ) and ordered some kits.

Tadaaah, here is the first result :

Not exactly your Great Master work, but it looks nice enough! It is 16.5 x 10.5 cm.

A nice online tutorial can be found here ( Casey's minis ).

finished the AA

And cannot wait until I have some halfway decent pictures to show, I am so happy I got through it after all problems I came upon sttching it :-) ! I really hope to do some better pics later, in real daylight etc.
The design is by Nicola Mascall ( the  problems were NOT due to her, honest, it was entirely me. Breaking an arm is definitely not a good plan if you want to do stitching, and getting mojo going again afer operation , rehab , took its own sweet time )

Anyway, here goes :

                                                    This is it, glory be !!!

And this is where it is going to live for the time being :

Kitty landed

This is going to please Elga : this morning a nice big Maine Coon came to live here :-) .Has actually landed on the table. Should I lay the chandelier down on the floor next to it as , given their weight, s/he must have taken down the whole lamp ???? 

In case you wonder , the cat was made by Reve , she sells on ebay.

Arjen's little table

During tthe Rheda fair I bought two kits from Arjen Spinhoven and this week I put together this little table kit. The kit is well made, easy to do . Painting was a different animal , though. Still, I did my bestest and came up with this (not as neat as he does, but it does look nice ) :

It looks like this  if you look from the ceiling ( have a vision of a doll hanging in the chandelier..)

I think this is one of the first kits I did not mess up big time after my re-entry into miniworld!

Arjen has actually written a tutorial about painting this baby in DHMS # 251

Here is the table with a centimeter, just to get an idea:

Cobweb rescued !!!!!!

Hurray ! after my sad Cobweb story Josje was so kind to offer her help ( now SHE is a  builder, which I definitely am not :-) ). So last week I drove there, house on board - one of the best things about smaller scales is that you can easily take houses for a  spin or walk, if they like to - and she did some cosmetic surgery.

This was what had happened - don't laugh so hard you!!!! I did , actually, but it was a shame as I had spent so much time on the dear little cottage :


HUH ??????? Chimney over the frontdoor ? What about Health and Safety rules????

But now it looks like this :

What she basically did, was removing the tabs atttachments and replacing them on front. And it works !!!!

So THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Josje !!!

Some more ebay.... :-)

Yesterday three cuuuute little witches arrived here. I bought them off ebay from this seller (Andrea)

Here they are together. They will get a stone wall to sit on later on!!

I also recently purchased some 1/24 canisters by Dave Williams, also from ebay:

Adorable, arent they? They will go into my Herdwick Landscapes cottage .

some new ebay adventures....

Back from holidays, in one piece  this time , thank you for asking :-).

I was able to do some stitching in the evenings, will show that later on.Right now I want to show you two additions to my minipopulation that I received from ebay !

Here is a lovely little girl , from this seller :

She is actually too modern to fit in my miniature settings, I simply fell for her ! So will think of some nice setting to find her a home, maybe a  garden ? I do have  a dome  where she could go and play.

And here is QUITE another guy : the grim reaper !! No guesses where he went- he is living in my highly disreputable pub, of course... :-)

Bought him from this seller. ( see that index finger??)

Flowers and more flowers

Hi all, long time no see. Well, the problem was mainly  that, after that nasty fall I had back in August, my shoulder kept making trouble. Trying to keep on top of job (even though I just worked for 6 hours a day) and household chores, plus having pain nearly all the time , which did not exactly help if I tried to do anything with my hands, I simply let go.

I hope things are going to change now, though! Two weeks ago I got an implant instead of that useless shoulder; big thanks to my orthopaedic surgeon, who did an excellent job . Of course, I am still recuperating and in a strap, but that will be only one more month.

But I want to show you some things I recently received:

from my dear friend Pat in AZ, USA , these two wonderful bouquets , made by Era Pearce, IGMA fellow. Beautiful paper flowers, I am especially enamoured of the daffs, as they have such "full" trumpets. The tender irises and nearly diaphanous tulips are miracles in themselves.

And today I got this lovely surprise from Pim Sukkerd in Thailand , who works magic creating cold porcelain flowers ( you may remember having see her work before on my blog, try following the tag "fair

O M G !!!!

I will try to add another pic  tomorrow to show you how tiny they are, that lily of the valley is to die for!!!

Wot, me crazy cat lady?????

Recently I saw this trio on ebay and I could not resist....

they were made by this gal .They  have fun animals!! ( and also other items, if you are accidentally looking for a  miniature oldtimer car?)

I think I am going to rehome them with my dear old cat lady , but not sure yet. Oh , did I hear someone say that I am the crazy cat lady??? Errr, well, it is possible..:-)

And finally, thank you all for your wishes for a  happy new year and the same to you all !!!!

Long time no see

But had nothing fun to write about, sorry! I was unstrapped, have been busy trying to coach my shoulder to work nicely again and get back to work . Shoulder, unfortunately, is not listening to me, so I will probably be in for an operation ( prosthesis). But we will see about that later on, I am due for an appointment in 3 weeks.

I did stitch a bit on the Aubusson, not very much , though.

BUT , to show something....

Yesterday a friend ( Helma) came along to adopt my second Kendrew house. It is wonderfully built, but somehow I did not get any inspiration and I finally decided to look for another home for it.
Helma was the taker, she is over the moon and I am very very happy that , instead of sitting dejectedly in a corner of my house, this house is going to be loved. She has lots of plans with it.
She sent money to an animal shelter as a payment ( my usual fee ...)

However , she also made me these lovely presents:

One stitched kitty cushion ( neat , eh?? I love it!!)

And a wonderful open book of Alice in Wonderland

It is beautiful!!!

Later on another friend came to see my collection, she also brought some presents


Two open cans of kitty food for my cat lady

Kitty litter and a litter tub ( sorry, clearly in use :-) )

And some herrings with onions for the lady herself:. Well, if the cats won't snatch them, that is.

She also made a tin of sardines, but they refused to be photographed, the light is hopeless now. Gabriëlle makes the most inventive and fun miniatures.

Some more pics and update on the Aubusson

Anne sent me several of the pics she made during her stay here , this one I snagged from her blog , though :-)

You can see why it is preferable to view the canals either in autumn or in spring ; in summer the trees tend to screen off the view of the houses.

 These were some she took in the Rijksmuseum :

               These two she made for me , as they irresistably reminded me of Marsha's porcelain!!!

                                         These she took in the Willet Holthuysen museum:

(that gigantic fireplace was reproduced in miniature by Sue Cook , I think, but I cannot find it on her website now)

                            And now for the update : my Accursed Aubusson! It is still slow going , as I                                        cannot really stitch for long periods of time , but there is SOME progress....

the Rijksmuseum

This week I had a guest staying with me, Anne, Lisa's daughter. She wanted to visit the Rijksmuseum, so we went!

It had been closed for years for renovation, was reopened this summer. I did not fancy going there in summer, though, as Amsterdam is a tad busy with tourists , esp these places, so I hadn't been there yet.
We saw a lot of things- well, it is not exactly small. Fortunately , like in most museums here, photography is allowed (although preferably without flash), unfortunately though, I had forgotten to take my camera and ever tried holding an Ipad steady with one hand ? It won't do !

Anne took several pics for me and I hope to put them on here next week when she will be able to send them.

I downloaded these pics from the Rijksmuseum site. One can register there and happily download to one's heart's content.


(We also saw a lot of other "olde friends" in chest, silver , porcelain , etc....I had seen many of them before- in miniature ! Esp several inlaid "Barry Hipwell"chests :-) )


Here are some things we saw at the Rijksmuseum :

If you follow the links, you can zoom in wonderfully.

The Simplicia chest ( a collector's chest , actually, looking very much like a  miniature apothecary!)

Of course , the two Petronella houses ... 

The Petronella Oortman house

The Petronella Dunois house 

and something I saw at Jens Torp recently - he just made a very limited edition of these! ( yessss, I do know where one of these went, gal)

Bookcases in place :

Made it to the Apeldoorn fair

Well, this time I did not have the energy to browse much and find surprise things, something I always love to do at fairs, but at least I could take home some things I had ordered . Since, however, hoisting around an arm  which feels like a piece of unwanted luggage (should have left it at home?) is rather tiring, I left early. But, got some glues etc , too, which I do love.
Alas, no rats this time, no other funny things, too, sorry :-(

Here are the things I snagged:

Two bookcases for the Kendrew House, made for me by Gradus Ulfman. Yes, the doors do contain glass . I will fill them up later, maybe today ( first want to see if they fit around the existing mantle, which will come in the centre)

And a David Booth table , brought by Karon Cunningham, to go with my NM chairs. The chairs themselves were made by David booth, as well.

When I came home ( the joys of public transport!), kitties were ready for me!

Try again !

So here are the pics I promised :

Here is the little kitten , he was obviously bored , so set out to explore the dining table ( yep, silver must be cleaned, sigh) .Glad there is no tablecloth , or the whole caboodle would be sent crashing to the floor. Don't ask me how I know!

                                                   and here is the small plate :

In the meantime my RL kitties enjoy me being at home ! These are the two little friends as they were on the sofa this morning. I had taken some pics of Jojo ,too, so as not to leave her out, but those weren't any good, so will add one later on . But these are so sweet :-)