2 ideas in one post

Recognize these?

They're Monopoly pieces..... crackled of course. I made these to go in the Painted Lady... and I am really happy with how they turned out. The windows and doors are stamps that I carved out of the end of a pencil eraser. These were 2 of the old wooden pieces.... hopefully I can find more, because I Promised the kids I won't take any more of their game pieces. However there are a few sellers on Etsy that have plastic houses... and they work just as well.

Next is where I decided to go with the gazebo. I knew I wanted it white.... and that I had to cut a piece out of it so some one could get in it.... Then I got stuck....

So I googled gazebos.... and realized I wanted somewhere where someone could relax. I loved the long white curtains that made it a little more private. Then I began looking around my stash to see what I had.

And I found this little chair. I'm thinking it needs to painted white, too.... and I have to cut that loop of at the top.

The rug is a cake doily that Minikat sent me.... and the 'planter' is an egg cup- it will get a moss treatment sometime soon.

Poor little thing sits right next to my bed, begging to be finished. Hopefully Jollie gets hers soon, and it will inspire me to finish mine:)

...until next time...

Picture time...

I just got done listing a few heads in my Etsy shop.... I still have a couple of more to list, but they need to be finished. There is only one of each kind being sold, the other ones will be going into the Painted Lady.

I really do love how they came out!

But I think I like them best in the garden! You can check out the rest of the pics on Etsy.

Also wanted to show you my lilies that are blooming.... These are the ones that I had just planted! I really didn't think they'd bloom this year.

The red ones were planted last year.... I Can't wait to have a whole garden of these:)

...And then there's Otis. I looked over the other night and saw this, lol. Too funny what he allows the kids to do to him!

He looks amused, doesn't he, Bah haha....

Almost as intense as the look on the GI Joes face... lol, I had the GI Joes out cause I wanted to do a body cast of one of them... but couldn't find one small enough.

Sorry I haven't been around.... it's been busy here. Hopefully here soon, I'll be able to catch you up on what I've been up too...

Until Next Time......

Homework Help Needed!

My oldest is taking a food study class at school..... His end of the year project consists of him picking a country and cooking something for the class. He decided to go with Wales, seeing as I grew up there... And wants to make Shepard's pie, well.... because it's one of his favorites. However I know the recipe we use is probally not traditional....I use hamburger meat, potatoes and cheese...... And his teacher told him it's an American dish..... ((Personal, I think she's confussed... but then again, I might be wrong?)

>>>>Thought I'd insert a cute pic of me (Yes! I've showed it before... what can I say, it's a favorite!!)... This was taken when I lived in Wales.... And horseback riding was my life! I was soooo disappointed when we moved to the US and found out it was too expensive to ride.

I Loved Wales..... And would do about anything to raise my kids there... Life was just simpler!

So back to the food......

Is Shepard's Pie British?? Is there a 'traditional' recipe?

What is it that that serve custard on? Some kind of pink cake? I LOVE custard!!

I remember Yorkshire pudding with gravy, although I don't think that's an easy recipe for a bunch of 10 graders to cook.....

Not only does he has to do a presentation.... and cook it... but he also has to have loads of info on it.... So I may be back with more questions......

Thank you in advance:)

FYI- Finally got my washer fixed today! I will leave the drama out of it... I'm just happy to wash cloths again..... didn't have the money to go to the laundry mat- luckily we have a lot of clothes.... well.... lol.... Now I know what clothes fit and what cloths don't.... It was very depressing getting to the bottom of my pile cause it was all tooo small for me, this time last year, I was 40 lbs lighter.... Now I'm back to my regular size again:)

And on the mini front.... I'm up to my ears in custom orders right now:) And as usual I have tons of half started projects that need to be finished..... I need direction, lol.

Well Ok then.... I'm off to try and at least get the stuff on my bed done so I have some where to sleep tonight, lol.

Until Next Time......

Wall Art

As usual.... You can tell when I really like what I'm doing, Cause I just can't seem to stop making these.....

I've used different colors....

Here I've used watered down paint to drip down into her crevices.....

This one cracked as I pulled it out of the mold, and I liked the look, so I left it.

When I was taking pictures of them, I took this 'candid' shot...

Here is another 'metal' sculpture... with white dripping down her sides....

The clay must of not been smooth when I cast this one, cause it caused a big crease across her body.... Again it was something that I liked... so I rubbed black paint into it to make it stand out a little more.

The black wholes are from the sea salt I used before I baked it- You can read about it in the last post:)

See how shinny this one is.... I used copper paint as the last layer.

So.... which one is your favorite?? I plan one using one in a roombox I have envisioned.... along with a few of the doll heads I've been painting....... No, I do not have a room box for it yet....lol..... But oneday.....

Hope I'm not offending anyone with my pics..... But the female body is one of my favorite things to paint, draw, sculpt...... And now that I've found a way to do that in Mini.... I'm one happy girl.


Until Next Time.....

How it all began..

Do you remember me telling you about my parents coming down... and the fact that the kids and my Dad found a Barbie on the beach......Well...... this is what became of the Barbie. Turns out it is Mulan and not Barbie, which has made it rather hard to cast a mold of her face. Her face is squishy so when I pushed her head into the mold, her face became flat..... I thought it was funny, so I went ahead and made a cast from it.... The cast is on the left....

In between things last week, I also received this in the mail- The silver man coin:) And so I have made a mold using him, too....

You can see what happened to Mulan's body here..... the first few casts I made I did not include the neck and I really didn't like them, so I went back and made another mold including her neck...I'm using scrap polymer clay for both the molds and the casts. (Hope I'm using the right word, or I'm gonna sound like a big dummy! lol)

I used salt to create the textures.... With the mold I pushed regular salt into it before baking it... and when it came out of the toaster oven, I washed the salt out. Then after I made the cast I pushed big salt(sea salt) into the casts and baked them. When they came out of the over, I just plucked out the salt. Some times you can't get the salt out, which is fine, just run it under warm water and scrub it out with an old toothbrush. By using 2 different kinds of salt, at 2 different times, you create texture that sticks out and some that is pushed in.... You'll understand with the next set of pictures.....

Here's the man coin again.... and the mold I made, and a cast from it.
All of them got one coat of Gesso.... and then were painted with the first coats of color.

Oh.... and I just use regular water as a release agent....

Next post I'll have the finished 'Art pieces'!!

Until Next Time......

Found Something to keep me busy..

....I'll be back with more later:)

Until Next Time

Who Knew- The Sand Trade

Well...... I learned something new this week.... Did you know it is against the law to ship 'dirt' which includes sand. :( I can't even begin to tell you how annoyed I am with this! I finally come up with a good idea, and I can't do it! It's something to do with the 'bacteria' that could be transported.

So.....I've been trying to come up with an alternate idea..... and .... well.... I'm just not thinking of anything good. And it's quite frustrating! I was excited about this trade- Dang it!

And then on top of that.... my outside cat came home the other day with what looks like a bite mark behind his ear. So he was coned and I've been cleaning out the wound 3 times a day.... And believe me when I saw he Hates being inside.... All he does is cry, cry, cry....... And of course the other cats want to check him out, and he doesn't want them anywhere near him- There's been lots of growing and hissing- noise as I call it.... Needless to say.... He's keeping me busy, and making me mental!

Oh.... and the washing machine died..... It almost deserves it own blog post. We bought it from East Coast Appliance- And I can honestly say that we will Never buy anything from them again. When we bought it, we also bought a 3 year warranty.... But Man do they give you the run around about that..... Took us a whole day of phone calls just to get someone out here to look at it. Then while the guy was here, he left the front door open, and a lot of the cats got out. Took the bf an hour to convince Otis he needed to come out from under the trailer. Our washer needed a part... and that was last Tuesday.... Today is Wednesday.... and if the bf hadn't of called them numerous times yesterday, I don't think we would of heard anything until the guy came back. The lady that the bf talked to yesterday.... said that the guy was off Wednesday and Thursday last week, so the part didn't get ordered until Friday. And they're still waiting on the part. Nice.... I worked in customer service for a long time, so I feel like I have the right to say there's sucks!!! When the bf first called, the lady he spoke with tried to walk him through trouble shooting the problem....and as he said.... why did we pay for a warranty if they expected us to fix it?! When it was delivered the guy told us, that if it broke down, don't touch it or it would void out warranty.... and that if we had any problems, to call them and they'd just bring us a new one.... Yeah Right!!! I'm 2 weeks deep into the laundry pile and it's not getting any smaller....... so yeah.... I'm stressed!

Well.... I'm off to see if I can't get at least one thing done around here........ If I don't choke the cat first...... *sigh*

Until Next Time....

What I've got done so far....

I've been painting heads all weekend, and just wanted to show you what I'm thinking. I took one of those columns used for cake decorating, and spray painted it with a coat of the stone spray. Then I went back and layered the colors on to give it some depth. I still want to add a piece of something under the girl to give the piece more height, just haven't found anything that would work yet.

Here's an up close of the paint treatment I'm doing...

I just love the crackle effect. I'm using a different brand crackle medium, and I don't think I like it as much as I like the Folk Art brand, but it's what I have... so I'm using it....

This lady is probably one of my favorites...

Her nose was already broke... so I painted around it, and left it to look like it had broke off years ago. I also added some ink to this to dirty it up a bit.

I'm still working on these... I tried painting one green and it just didn't look right, so they're either going to be white or cream-sand colored. And a few got the stone treatment. Waiting for the paint to dry in between coats has been the hardest part.

So..... as the saying goes......

Until Next Time....

A Little of this and that..

Awhile back I bought this with the intentions of hanging one up in Cora's Gothic room.. I ended up with four of them..... So I did this to two of them: Whatcha think?! I think it's really neat- One will be going into The Painted Lady... the other will go up in Etsy.


Next is a picture of Rufus and Otis.... They can't stand each other when they're awake! But not today..... So cute! Don't tell anyone, but they're touching each other and don't even know it.


Next is a new Project:) I found a listing on Etsy for 13 doll heads, and knew I had to have them. And when they came last night, I totally got side-tracked and spent the next 5 hours sanding them down.

I started with an emery board- I use these to do almost all of my sanding jobs, but I soon realized I wasn't getting anywhere.... So I broke out the dremel! And you'd be proud- I didn't even hurt myself. LOL!! After I 'dremeled' all of them down, I went back and did the detail sanding....

This next pic shows you what I started with and what I got it to look like when I was done.....

Now they just need a coat of paint. Some will get crackled, some stoned- lol, and some I just want to paint white.

And then there's these......

Another find on Etsy. They are some kind of game pieces. I'm going to repaint them and a few will live in MarshMallow Manor. ((My Dad flies for a living, and I've been trying to find something that would be totally his in the house. In their real house, they have a few models of the planes he has flown on, and I plan on using those as my guide.))

So needless to say, I've got my plate full again, or should I say my bed, the coffee table, the end table.... LMAO- It's just everywhere, lol.

Until Next Time....

The sand trade update...

If I read it right, there are 8 of us(including me)
*Plushpussycat
*Lataina- See Lataina, You need a blog for me to link back to.
*Jollie
*Ana
*Susanne
*Margriet
*Sans (she doesn't know shes particpating yet, lol.... but she sent me sand when I first asked, so she's included!!)
*and little ole Me:)

that want to particpate... So.. this is how this will go. If you email me, I will give you my address.... All sand needs to be in the mail by August 1... And I will have them ready to be shipped back out by September 1st. If everyone can send me about a half a cup of sand, I will divide it up, and rebag it, and that way all of us will have some sand from all over the world. I don't know about you.... But I'm excited:)

(If I'm missing anything... just ask, please! I want to make sure this works for everyone:)

See.... I have the beach on my mind.. All of these are listed in my Etsy shop...


Drew and I went back down to the beach again last night, we LIVE about 10 minutes away from it. I wanted more shells, and my son wanted to try out his new skateboard on the boardwalk. Poor kid.... Came home all kinds of banged up. We really got to work on his balance issues, lol.

These are the shells I was looking for... There's not a lot of them, and you really have to walk the beach to find them... I still need a few more, but I'll worry about that next time. Some of these are soooo tiny.


I also brought home these shells. These are easier to find, and are really pretty! And there's a few that are so tiny, you can barely see them. I do plan on sending a few of these out with my sand samples, too:)

I hope I've included everything you need to know.... My brain is a little duh today, and I feel like I'm forgetting something! Thanks again to everyone who left a comment:)

So Until Next Time....

Now these are some Big Roses

My roses have opened up so I thought I'd show you how big they are. And OMG... do I wish my computer had smell-o-screen cause I don't think I've ever smelled anything like it!


I even took a ruler to it, so you could get a better idea of it's size... I have 3 blooming right now:) And do you see the small roses in the back- those are the bfs roses... See I told you mine were bigger, lol.

His roses are pretty though!

And they're so bright... Most pictures I have taken have just washed out... I took these late in the afternoon, when the sun wasn't really shining so you could see them.

And there's so many of them...

Hope you've enjoyed the roses... I know I am:)

No minis today, yet.... I did however find a nice collection of thimbles from the thrift store today that were only $1.35! I plan on using one in Marshmallow Manor, and it was cheaper to buy the bag then it would of been to buy one at the craft store.. Not to sure what I'll do with the rest of them yet...

So.... guess I gotta go find something to keep me busy for the rest of the night... Oh, what to do....what to do, lol.

Until Next Time

The International Sand Trade

Awhile back.... I had talked about doing a sand trade. I'm not really sure how to go about doing it, so if anyone has any suggestions, I will glady listen:) But I would also like to know if anyone is interested??

At the end of summer, my family is going to be staying at a beach house in North Carolina, and I plan on getting sand from there, too.... So there is No rush here... And don't stress if your not near a beach and want to be a part of this... I'm sure there's something around you that you can collect a 'sample' from.... lake, river, dirt... a playground...

After I brought it up the first time..... Sans sent me some sand from a playground in Singapore... and some sand from the beach in Sir Lanka... I put them in a couple of bottles, and put some labels on them.... and I still have 2 whole bags of sand left:) My labels are starting to come off... so I need to figure out a better way to do that... But I still love them:) Thanks again Sans!!!

And then this past weekend, my parents came down and stayed at the ocean front... so while the kids were dipping their toes in the water (Why is it when you tell your kids the water is too cold to go swimming, they never believe you.... Until they get in the water, lol... Mine lasted 5 minutes, before they were back out, shivering mind you, asking if they could go swimming in the hotel pool instead..Duh!) .... I was bent over, searching for the tiniest shells I could find:) And this is what I did with them.... Each jar has some sand... and some tiny, tiny shells...

I still can't believe how freaking small some of the shells we found were, my youngest even found some:)

And.... I still have a whole bag of sand... and more shells:) I even found some odd pieces... a tiny green bear, the top to one of those safety pins that you use for cloth diapers... And my Dad found a Barbie:) The kids brought it back to me for parts:) LOL

oh... and Cora found a big rock.... Which I put in my purse.... Later in the day, I had asked my bf to hand me my purse, and he said... 'My god, what do you have in here, Bricks?' .....took me a minute to realize I still had the rock in there....lol

Do you see how tiny these shells are?! Perfect for miniatures!

So.... anyone interested in trading sand?? If a couple of people are... I will find a way for everyone to get sand from everyone that participates.

And while I'm talking about Virginia Beach.... I got an interesting email this morning:)

Do you remember the post about the murals.. the kind of mural I want on the side of the skateshop... Well, I got an email from one of the artists today. He just wanted to thank me for the post and sent me a link to his website where there are better pictures. I was so shocked that he emailed me:) His work is just amazing! If you get a chance, you should check it out:)

Well, I think I've included everything..... Except for plugging my Etsy store:) You will see some beachy themed things going up due to the fact that summer is almost here..... Hopefully this year, I can actually go the the beach and enjoy it!!

So..... Until Next Time.....