Painting by Kay Burton

Some time ago I saw an article written about Kay Burton who makes lovely paintings. As I was searching for something over an overmantle in my roombox and no mirror that I saw would fit ( usually too big, or too small and wrong shape) I contactd her and asked whether she would de prepared to paint something for me ( "romantic lady in blue ";if you are an opera lover, you will know the Zefirelli version of La Traviata).To specific size, like the gent who buys 300 meters of book at the auction house to fill the library !

As you can see, she came up trumps!

Here is the pic she sent me 

                                                and here it is in its new home

                     ( yeah I know, roombox is rather empty as yet, will get better by time :-) )

Witches grunged and done

Petra ( who is a  wiz at knitting and crochet ) made two nice shawls for the old ladies. I did warn her that they would not go easy on their new clothes , but Peta did not seem to mind...

here are the shawls as I received them :

The I gave them to the old biddies , and oh dear

 GRUNGY !!!

I also grunged the clothes and added some bangles from a bracelet I happened to see in a shop when checking out buying some knitwear. The bracelets were horrid, but the bangles contained a five-pointed star, keys (big)  a lock, etc. So some of them were nicked by them , too .

Anyway, here are the gals in close-up

No 3 wiill be finished later on !

Last down !

And here is gal # 3 , she is heading for the pub

Wot she , ugly ? Don't let her hear that ,you will be for it!!

Two down, one to go

 Remember I had recently ( finally) started on the doll kits made by Nancy Cronin?

This was on Sept 27 when I had given them shoes, stockings, and pants ( after having put them together).

Two of the gals have now been dressed. They will get a  shawl, once I have located a sock I can vandalize for better use.
The dresses don't look much, but I can assure you that a lot of hard work was put in! Esp as I tend to sew whatever I can.
the hats are leather, btw

Elga wondered where they were going to live, so for her benefit I am adding a pic of this "room". A nice kitsch-y wooden lantern. which has to be dressed up , of course.
Elga, it will live in the guestroom.... :-) Hope you are not afraid of witches having a teaparty while you are trying to sleep!

A great story & Miss Havisham and Saoirse

About 7 weeks ago I bought ( at the Miniature on line show) two dolls from Jain Squires , Miss Havisham and a lady called Saoirse. The dolls looked both as if they would fit very well into my grisly Vic Newey pub ( the grisly story is told here ). Maybe Miss havisham would need a room of her own in the future , but in the meantime I thought she could do very well in the pub.

Alas, time went by and no dolls. So Jain, sweetly , promised to make me a replacement .She was already working on it, full steam ahaed.

And then teh miracle happened : the wandering dolls did turn up, after all !!! Both of us very happy.

I wanted to tell this story because I was very happy with how Jain handled the problem ; I owe her big time for the nice way she took it.
The new Miss Havisham will probaly travel to Kensington ( she looked great, btw )

This is Saoirse ( right hand, to the back. The innkeeper is doll by Jamie Carrington) :

...

And her is Miss Havisham, sitting by the fire, among remnanrts of forgotten guests...

( the whole front, ground floor & first floor)

Working on Witches and a Wench

I am currently workimg on dressing some wqitches made by Nancy Cronin )  actually they were made for a MSATminidolls project in 2010 or so  , but I simply did not get to it, m0ostly being sucked up by the BBB, I am afraid.
Whatever, here we are and after several days of hard work, this is less or more where I have got

You can see that a lot is still to be done, trims, wigging, draping , etc. Still, they have their shoes on, and all of them have hats waiting for them ready to wear. I made two witches´hats

( this is actually both from a tutorial on Gina Bellous site and a tutorial placed into Dolls House Miniatures  issue 215 by Kastle Kelm Miniatures.

Off now, as I will stop again for two days, due to festrivals coming up !

Tiffany has been here one year

                                           and she has developed from a very scaredy little kitty

into a quite happy relaxed gal, that just loves to play and is open to the whole world! And Fluffy, I am happy   to say, has got over his depression .

She actually knows my aerobic routine so well, that she comes near as soon as I get into the stretching routine, which she likes, as I will be able to stroke her. Of course, she is very careful while I am hopping up and down :-). She also happily sleeps on my bed, like the other two cats and loves t big time. Each morning I am awakened by a little smiling kitty face ( she does have a smile, I assure you).

I actually did a lot of miniwork ( for me, that is) today, but not much to show for it yet. Pics will come up in the next days, I hope!