Sadly I signed up for a series of texts to help make my blog more successful and then I didn’t blog!

A series of personal stuff took over my life and although I continued to make things, I stopped writing about it.

In March ,I published I am back but guess what it didn’t publish and so I wasn’t. Back I mean.

I am a member of a couple of Facebook groups associated with making miniatures and on the whole they are so supportive and encouraging.

People range from beginners to those who are fantastic artists and yet all offer advice and praise.

But another interesting aspect is how many mention that their hobby is a way of coping with stress and mental health issues too.

Anyone who has a hobby they love will recognise the truth of this. Getting absorbed in the doing of something takes us back to the the childhood days when we could get lost in the simplest of tasks to the exclusion of everything else.

If you have ever watched a child enjoying the act of painting you will know what I mean. The bright colours they mix up, often with their hands bear no relation to the sludge green brown dull piece of work they take home. The joy is in the doing and the resulting paper is a mere by product.

Sadly along the way most of us catch the competitive bug and it is how good the product is that is important.

Except when you find your perfect hobby. Then you can loose yourself in the doing again and if the first attempt is not as you want you have the joy of trying again. And an added bonus is when you find like minded people who support and encourage you and then you have a sense of belonging too.

So to show that I am working on my own hobby, here is a chair that was supposed to be in leather. The latter proved to be very difficult to get to stick, that is on the chair. It stuck very efficiently to my fingers and refused to let go.

This chair is part of a room I am planning as a Christmas present. Don’t groan, it is just that I will be seeing the people concerned in June and will get the chance to deliver it by hand. I don’t trust postal services or any delivery method for miniature rooms.

Anyway, hopefully I have my mojo back.

Happy Easter

Mabs April 2019

Did you notice I was away? For no real reason I lost the impetus to blog about my miniature making.

I think it is because I have overwhelmed myself with projects that I want to do even though I have not finished the ones I am doing.

Totally in character, my ideas are flooding in and my hands can’t keep up. So I get to an impasse and something has to go.

It was my blog and a teeny wee bit of my sanity.

I have now finished Santa’s house, nearly. Like all good miniaturises, nothing is completely finished ever!

I have almost finished my box kitchen and for peace of mind I think I will hang it. I can always add finishing touches like tea towel( when I Yett the right material)

If anyone actually reads these blogs, the title will make sense.

I have not finished the Santa house and I have started on the Nativity stable.

I have started to add to it, trying to conserve the basic idea that my Dad has but use my newfound miniature interest too.

There have been nights when I have lain awake thinking about the roof. How can I make it look thatched without thatching it? Is a thatched roof authentic for Bethlehem? Am I overthinking it all?

I decided to stick coffee stirrers to the walls on the outside and give them a wash of colour to tone down the pine look.

Then I attacked the walls and added tiny bits of tissue paper to the paint to get a distempered plastered look. To get a hand built look I scored the roof to look like huge planks.

Now I am wondering what to do about the floor and bit outside.

I don’t want to use coffee grains, as it can attract mice and I don’t think I can use sand as it might have bugs in it, apparently.

So watch this space as I consider what to do.

It has been a few of weeks since I had some clear time to get back to my minis.

The charity ,I do work for, organises big community Fireworks events and we need over 100 volunteers per show. So I have been a wee bit busy and on top of that a nasty bug got the better of me.

So in short , I haven’t touched anything tiny for ages.

As I contemplate what to do, I am drawn to start afresh, I always have something waiting or to try and complete my Christmas house.

It seems when I get to the fiddly bits, I start to dream of starting something new.

But I am determined to finish the house. Next will be a little stable my Dad made over 40 years ago. He covered it with brick paper which after a number of years I took off as it had got tatty. Now it is just wooden but with nothing to suggest a stable. I am considering making it look like rough stone and maybe some wooden slats on the roof. I have seen some amazing walls make from painted bits of egg boxes. So watch this space, as they say.

This hobby has allowed me to try making and designing things with very little cost and given me a huge sense of achievement too.

The biggest restraint I have is lack of space, just how many dolls houses can you have lying around!

It would seem room boxes will be my future.

Mabs November 6th 2018

For some months we have been planning to build a summerhouse.

Being of extremely impatient nature, I am frustrated by tiny details like, preparing the ground etc. So I have begun to plan the interior, painting furniture bound for the finished room. But we are now almost in November and it will be months before we finish.

Then eureka, I found a miniature corner unit, identical to the one that I painted for the summerhouse.

I painted it and put it inside it’s bigger brother. Then I started to reproduce(if you can reproduce a scene that you have yet to produce) the interior of the summerhouse.

Then I needed a fire but couldn’t afford to buy one. So, I simply measured the one I own.

Made some plans and biff baff boof I had a log fire .

This is so much fun.

Mabs October 2018

I have become obsessed, there’s that word again with mini caravans.

At first I looked at teeny tiny ones that come in a kit but I watched a video on YouTube and now not so sure. There are hundreds of bits, instructions in Chinese and all the best ones are customised and use hardly any of the bits that come with them. They are also a much smaller scale than I usually use so I have visions of glue covered fingers sticking to tiny bits that I couldn’t identify where they went. No , definitely not for me.

Then today I found a Trailer made by #Greenleaf, a dollshouse manufacturer in USA and only $20. I contacted them and they explained all I had to do was pop it in my basket and then it would calculate my postage costs.

By now I was really excited, how bad could it be? Maybe double the price by the time postage was added? Could I ask Santa if I could buy my own pressie this year?

So I popped it into my basket , added the postage details and waited. What do you think it was? $20, $30,$40? NO! $68 on top of the $21 once tax added too. So instead of £19.99, I would have to pay $89.

This isn’t their fault, they get none of the postage costs and were lovely when I said I couldn’t afford the costs.

So no caravan. I don’t even have anyone travelling. FromUS who could carry if over for me.

So back to dreaming!

Mabs October 3028

If you have read the last blog, I may have sounded like I had lost my way.

Well I suppose I had a bit but it was more because I was flirting from one thing to another and never seeing anything coming together.

So after a wee rest(you can tell I am Scottish, can’t you) I have begun to look at one room at a time. Santa’s bedroom is almost finished and so is his office.👏👏👏

Next I will remake the kitchen sink and declare the kitchen finished for now. I can always revisit on another occasion.

That leaves the workshop which has all of its furniture but needs more bits and pieces to make it look like a workshop.

Then I am going to take photos and put it to one side.

I do believe I have begun to grow up.

Who am I kidding? Everyone I have been in contact with who enjoys dollhouses is never quite grown up again. Thank goodness.

Today I have made some decisions, I need to get some sort of order into my hobby.

The latest project of Santa’s flat and workshop is basically at the minutiae stage. It looks good but has loads of wee bits to do. I am lying awake at night with them all whizzing through my brain and I mentally complete them all.

But I am also a trying to check a novel for uploading for Amazon and have certain responsibilities elsewhere too. I am also painting a summerhouse ready to assemble (a full sized one) and am halfway through a baby blanket for a baby due soon!

So it means I am achieving very little and feeling stressed by the very thing which usually reduces my stress.

So back to my decisions. I am going to go through the project room by room. Tidying them up and listing what is still needed.

Then I am going to tidy up everything that is lying around and regroup my drawers and stash. I need to have some peace from all the gubbinge that is whirling around in my head.

So folks watch this space and maybe I can get back to enjoying my mini world.

Mabs 23 September 2018

I have only recently realised that even a simple thing like shopping had been infected by my new obsession.

I have already said that I enjoy the thrill of taking something you might throw away and turning it into a miniature masterpiece. What I have not yet said out loud is that I now look for items to buy, just because their tops might be useful, one day.

At first it was charity shops that I went to , browsing their shelves for cast offs I could transform.

Then I began to haunt Ebay and Facebook and Gumtree, eager to pick up bargains. I joined an international Facebook group, where Americans brag of amazing finds at someone’s garage sale or a local flea market. These people display their goodies like pirates showing off their treasure.

Actually it is an amazing group of supportive people who make you feel like Leonardo Da Vinci when you glue a few bits together.

Anyway, to return to my theme, having severed off the path. Today I was in perfectly ordinary shops and was checking out the packaging, not the contents.

Like I said, I may have a problem.

18.09.2018 Mabs

Yes I lasted one whole day, almost. I just did a wee bit tidying up honest!

But I have so many unfinished bits and pieces I am lying awake at night thinking about them.

So I am going to finish off all the teenie tiny things that are lying about before I allow myself to start anything else.

And there are many projects that are swirling about in my head but I will resist! 😬

14 September 2018