Illuminating Additions

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! FH are heading home today and it can't come any sooner for me.

I'd hoped to make this week's post about the minis going into the storefront, but that didn't happen.  Too busy getting ready to travel and we had company over Monday evening for FH's birthday. I did stumble across a quick project whilst cleaning on Monday and set it aside for Tuesday.

It's nothing fancy... and silly me forgot to take a "before" shot, but here's an aged brass candelabra that used to be bright and shining.

The destination? The Attic Corner Lamp. I also unearthed a tiny lamp made from a plastic "turquoise" bead as I cleared off the buffet. It had been living on top of the real lamp, but someone (probably Artie) knocked it down and it became lost in the clutter. Both pieces are safely tucked away now.

The candelabra is behind the old chair. Someone has knocked it into the chair leg. My money is on the squirrel that's in the fake Christmas tree. Check the picture above to see him. ;-)

Here's the tiny lamp. I'm not sure if it's going to stay there or not. I might re-position it.... or perhaps the squirrel will.

That's all for this week. Hopefully I'll recover from the holiday fast and can get back to work on the store and its contents by tomorrow.

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Projects

In this case, it's even a miniature project.  Before you ask, no, the craft room is still a natural disaster.  I've been blissfully ignoring it in favor of taking a few things upstairs to the dining room table.  The weather has been too nice to spend all day in the storage room, storing fabric to de-stash.  That has to happen before the craft room becomes livable again.

Anyways, back to the minis!

Remember when I showed you my lamps?  Well I was given a really good reason to finish one recently, bumping it ahead of the Panda Nursery in my queue.  The Peoria Area Stitchers' Guild General Meeting always consists of a fun program in addition to sweets, show and tell, and the business portion.  Three of us have been asked to do the program on miniatures and miniature stitching.  My part of the program will focus on "Miniatures Aren't Just Dollhouses," and will feature a bag room, a converted trophy case, and one of my lamps.

I could only finish one for two reasons.  One, the second lamp's metal bits have fallen apart.  Remember the toy animals made of plastic that only stood up when you pushed a button and they fell over again?  Yeah, well the lamp's metal bits looks like one without it's button pushed.  The most important reason for not getting both done is I'm still looking for bits to fill the second one.  I had everything to fill the first.

So here's the finished lamp.

The bottom picture doesn't do the inside true justice, as there are layers upon layers of "stuff" stacked everywhere.  For some reason my camera didn't like trying to get photos of this scene.  For example, that big teddy bear is sitting on two old maps and there are books and records under his chair.  And behind the old Christmas tree is a croquet set an old cigar box filled with Confederate money.  Just some of the oddities and odds 'n ends found in this particular attic. There's plenty of room to stash other little things as I acquire them as well.   If I can ever get better interior photos, I will post them.
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Also for those of you keeping up with news about my dad, he's being released from the hospital to a nursing/rehab facility for two weeks or so.  Then he will be doing outpatient rehab.