May the Road Rise to Meet You

This week I said farewell and good luck to someone who has helped me dust off my ethereal pieces and start rebuilding. My therapist for the last few years has retired after dedicating a good portion of her life to helping those who need it most.

I wanted to do something special for her, as not only a thank you, but to mark the end of a long chapter in her life and celebrate the beginning of the new. It needed to be easy to transport and not take up too much space since a cross country move was in store.

After I bit of hunting through various shops, I found this little cake plate dome. It's about the size of my favorite teacup, so I knew the size would work.

Then I started pondering and designing. This is the final result.

And here it is inside the dome.

So thank you for everything, Jean. May you enjoy this next chapter and have many happy days.

Cloth and Sandwiches

FH and I spent parts of this weekend trying to clear some of the natural detritus from the yard. After I tore up my shoulder and back, I obviously couldn't do yard work and he was too busy trying to keep up with the indoor chores and working full time. So now we're playing catch-up. One thing we wanted to do last fall was lay down landscape fabric in the beds that didn't have much growing in them to cut down on the weeds. We finally got to start that job today!

The lowest bed is waiting to see where the hostas are going to pop up. Then we'll work around them while they're small. There's a whole other set of tiered beds like this that needs work on the other side of the deck. Not to mention the giant bed of lilies that turns into a jungle come mid-summer. But it's a start!

Remember that air dry clay that wasn't Model Magic? I tried playing with it last night to see how well I could sculpt with it.

It's difficult to see, but there is a crack that goes clear around the tree trunk about halfway up. Methinks this clay's not meant for finer detail.

And then quilt sandwiches. I now have many sandwiches ready to be quilted: 2 large lap/full-sized quilts. 2 baby quilts, diaper bag panels, and 2 runners.

I actually missed the picture of one of the larger quilt sandwiches, but you get the idea, I'm sure.

That's it for this week. Hopefully I'll get finished with some minis in the coming week. I'll probably be inside working on them tomorrow since it's supposed to rain/snow/sleet tomorrow. Ugh. I think Mother Nature must be going through menopause or something. Anyways, ttfn!

Cleaning and Planning

I've spent a good deal of my time over the last week writing. As mentioned before, unless I use a piece of my written work in a project, i.e. 'Paint the World,' I won't be sharing it here.

I did get two baby quilts and a diaper bag sandwiched, but no pictured there.

What I can show you are some interesting cleaning and planning, plus a couple of older projects that haven't been shared yet.

Firstly I did go get real Model Magic at last, so I will have some slice-able white sandwich bread in mini again soon.

Secondly I cleared out the old mini bottles of perfume I was given as a little girl, not that I wore any of it, and cleaned up the bottles for use in minis. The actual perfume was poured into paper bowls and set out to let the water and alcohol evaporate. When just the oil is left, they'll be thrown away. Don't worry about the paper bowls. They're being held in place with rocks.

 The four larger bottles still need emptying. I'm going to have to figure out how to remove the atomizers without hurting myself or the bottles. For now They have a brief reprieve.

Finally, here are a couple of tabletop gaming figure I painted for FH a while back. Technically only the first guy is finished. I only have about 7 hours into the second guy and he's barely halfway done. The pictures don't do either figure justice.

Here's the first one.

And the second.

It's time to get back to work for now. See y'all next Sunday!

Experimental Results

I mistakenly picked up a large tub of Crayola's 'new' (new to me anyway) Air Dry Clay, thinking it was their Model Magic. Having lost the receipt and not being one to waste craft products, I thought I'd give it a shot anyway.

Well I can say without a doubt it does not work well for making cut-able mini breads.

It is rock hard and shatters when you try and cut it. Needless to say I'll be on the lookout for Model Magic again soon.

However I'm wondering what other uses I can come up with for this particular clay. I think it would hold flower/leaf stems in pots well, but it's rather hard... perhaps stone work? I'll have to see about that.

Until next weekend!

In Like A Lion

This is the sight that greeted us this morning. We're expecting even more this afternoon. I'd say this would be a great day to stay in and do minis, but I'm having trouble focusing this weekend. My dad had a stroke on Friday and is in the hospital...200 miles away through crummy weather. My mom was snowed in at the hospital last night.

I did get a few things done during the week that I am happy to share.

More paper doilies! I think I'm done with these until I need a specific color, or I find more colored envelopes that I stashed for the purpose.

I auditioned three shades of green Gallery Glass for my thumbprint cookies. [Bellow, center] Two made the cut... one for St. Patrick's Day and the other for Christmas. I also tried a new-to-me icing recipe for minis. It's from Angie Scarr's Masterclass book. It's smoother and runnier than the way I usually do my frosting.

I really like the way it looks on the iced cookies [Below left], but not so much for this type of cake. [Below, right] It's much easier to mix and tint than the way I usually make frosting, which is a definite plus. And there are many, many more things I can use this type of frosting for in the future so it is a winner... just not for these cakes. Perhaps with some additional tweaking I can find a happy medium.

 Finally I went out and found some more bead organizers to neaten things up around here. This one is just for St. Patrick's Day themed foods/canes. Time to try and get busy filling it up the rest of the way.

That's all for this week. Stay warm!