National Dollhouse Miniature Month - Day 6 - catch up on projects

Well I promised an update yesterday so here goes.
HERE are all the projects up to and into 2008   That would be 26 projects

HERE are the projects during 2009 - up to 36 projects

HERE are the projects during 2010 - up to 62 projects

HERE are the projects during 2011 - up to 106 projects

HERE are the projects during 2012 - up to 129 projects

HERE are the projects during 2013 - up to 145 projects  144 on list plus two more projects that I forgot to mention.

On October 8, 2014 I listed 2014 projects.   You can see that HERE   That gets us to project 158.

Moving on to 2015.

Last year during National dollhouse Miniature Month we had a very sick dog that took away lots of time between trips to Miami and Marathon to see various vets etc.   Benny, the Jack Russell, is doing fine and I'm oh so happy.   He will be 12 early next year and he is doing great.

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But first the last two months of 2014.   You have the Name House party Office 1 Inch scale, Number 159.

160 is the Name Day Pub
161 is the project that was teased that year and it was the Street Fair.
162 is a shop entitled "It's all about ME" for Mary Englebreit
163 is a large antique shop in a lantern.

Red Reading Room

 Fred Cobbs Antique Shop

 Blue & White Store Front

 Get your Buzz On Liquor Shop

Main Street Civic Center

 Raggedy Ann Cake Dome QS

 2nd Raggedy Ann Cake Dome

 Beach House

 Second Hand Rose

 Two QS Gift Boxes

 The Enchanted Child

 Two Shops

In 2015 we start out with
164 Red Reading Room
165 Fred Cobbs Antique Shed
166 Blue and White Porcelain Storefront
167 Get your Buzz on Liquor Shop
168 Main Street Civic Center
169 & 170 - Mini Cake Domes decorated in Raggedy Ann & Andy Theme
171 - Beach House
172 - Second Hand Rose Antique Shop
173 & 174 - QS gift boxes for gifts
175 The Enchanted Child
176 - June & Jewels
177 - The Gypsy Palace

Raggedy Ann Decorating Shop

 Nautical Shop

 Raggedy Ann Guest Room

 Raggedy Andy Guest Room

 Barbie Hutch Re-purposed

 Christmas market

In 2016 we continue with
178 Raggedy Kingdom Decorating Shop
179 Nautical Shop Window
180 Raggedy Ann Guest Room
181 Raggedy Andy Guest Room
182 Barbie Hutch re-purposed
183 Christmas Market Stall



Lots of Projects.   Tomorrow we will deal with preserving for the future.

National Dollhouse Miniature Month - Day 5 - What will happen to all this stuff????

Well, I know this will come as a shock to you, but I am a COLLECTOR!   Not a hoarder, but a collector.   You know I do miniatures and tomorrow I will give you an update of exactly how many.  

The house we have in Key West is much smaller than the one we had in Leavenworth Kansas and I have more stuff - age does that!!

When people started looking at my collection, the question that came up was "When something happens to you, what will happen to all your stuff?"    Well, I generally am not at a loss for words but I must admit that the first few times, I was speechless.   I really didn't know what to say.   Now I have the perfect answer "It won't be my problem".   And it won't.   I have one son and I told him if I go before my husband, don't let him just pitch all this stuff because there is a market for it and my collections can be sold or donated to a miniature museum.   With all my other collections, I told him to take what he wants and sell the rest.   I collect things because I like the things and I love collections.   

Here are some of the things I collect.

RAGGEDY ANN AND ANDY ITEMS;

AND I COLLECT ELEPHANTS

AND I COLLECT SNOWMEN.

And I collect and DO paintings!

I won't go into the smaller collections, but I do love my stuff.   Come back tomorrow for an update of my mini creations and the day after, a way to preserve them.  

National Dollhouse Miniature Month - Day 4 - Hunter's Den Tease

I do lots of miniature scenes and I have even made some that I gave as gifts.   I am a bit possessive of my minis and don't sell them or even think about selling them.   Well my husband works out of the home and I get lots of feedback from his customers about my miniatures.   One of his clients has absolutely loved them and asked if I would make him a hunter's den.   Well why not.   We talked about some of the things that would be in them and I am in the process of finding the right things.   He hunts wild boars.   Well even pictures of wild boars have been a bit challenging to find but I think over this month you will see a finished scene.   I love a challenge and this is one that I think will be fun.   

In case you don't know what a wild boar looks like.   Keep this in mind.  

National Dollhouse Miniature Month - Day 3 - Getting a handle on your miniatures

I have gone thru lots of different ways of sorting and storing miniatures.   Most work for awhile and then they run amuck again - Yet Again!!!!!  

1/12 items take up more room but plastic bags work very well for soft items. 

You can see that Rugs are in one bag, Pillows and bedding in another.   These items are soft, work well in the plastic bag and hand on a skirt hanger.   Easy to stay out of your way when you don't need them but oh so easy to find when you need, a rug for example.

Furniture items are better if you put them in shoe boxes.

 Now for quarter scale - they need more protection.  They are small and quite fragile.

Here is the current method I am using.

This container was available at Office Supply.   I like them but don't find that they stay shut as well a I'd like.

So I am in the process of moving to little plastic containers from lunch meat.

This basket holds 20 of these plastic containers.  Once they are labeled they will fit under my desk and close at hand for future projects.   Plastic is saved from a land fill and the basket is one of my many baskets.

It doesn't matter how you sort your items, but when sorted, it's easier to find when you have a need for it.   I'd love to hear how you sore your stash of minis.

Hope to see you tomorrow!!!!

National Dollhouse Miniature Month - Day 2 - How do you go about sorting these items

Before you can sort these items, you need to think about how you think of room settings and scenes.   Some of the swaps I've participated in are color themes.   I've had boxes of 'red room', 'yellow room' items and for the life of me - I don't use them.   I think more in terms of  rugs, dressers, nautical, antiques etc.   Even more than that, some themes are really so close that the items are interchangeable.  Think about it for a minute.    You don't need to sort the following items into separate containers.    It goes without saying that you need to sort size of swaps.   I do two, 1/12 and 1/4.     I've already sorted those items in the last blog.

Here are some of the sort categories that work for me:

Antiques, Curiosity Shop, Flea Market, Yard Sale  (The items you find at these events would be interchangeable and you don't need 4 boxes, only one per scale)

Christmas

Halloween

Other Holidays

Food - appetizers, main dishes, side dishes

Food - desserts 

Den, Man's Cave, Family Room

Nautical, Beach Cottage, At the Shore

Cabin, Mountain Retreat

Raggedy Ann and Andy

Mary Englebreit

Clock Shop

Accessories (mirrors, pictures, clocks, books, boxes of Kleenex, candles)

Now if you are gathering items for a specific scene, you can be more specific.   I have ones labeled Garage, Clock Shop, Camping and the items in those boxes are rather specific.

Now what to store them in.   Shoe boxes (plastic works great for me), small plastic containers (recycled ones from the brand of lunch meat that I buy) and plastic bags.  

Don't be so rigid that you are making this more difficult and more time consuming than it should be.   

National Dollhouse Miniature Month - Day 1 - Does your minatures look like this???

I have been doing miniatures for somewhat over 25 years.   Doing swaps for over 20 years.   I have tons of, and I mean oodles and gobs of miniatures.   They are so very hard to store and find when you need them.

At this point you are probably amazed that I can complete any miniature scene.    I have tried various methods of sorting and find that sometimes that doesn't always work.   

I work in two scales.   1/12 scale and 1/4 scale.    My first course of action was to separate the scales.   I found these neat little drawers at K-Mart.  My first step was to sort between scales.   This did a couple of things.   It got a lot of things out of drawers, off my desk, out of shoe boxes etc.

I have 4 drawers full - the first drawer is quarter scale KITS, the 2nd drawer is quarter scale completed projects, and the last two are 1/12 scale completed projects.  I rarely buy 1/12 Kits, so there is no drawer for that.

Lots of things off my desk and at least the first step has been taken.

Think about how you think of room boxes - are they by theme, by color, by period etc.   

Come back to tomorrow to see the next step..