Back to Work!

Tomorrow... Kota is mirroring my mood today.

We went to see "Darkest Hour" with Gary Oldman this morning.  Good movie. 

It didn't put me in the mood to work. But it is a good story.

I looked at the tray with the watches on it... Decided that I didn't want to do beadwork.

Need something mini to work on...

 I thought about looking on the IPad for things to do.  Kota stopped me.  He was using it for a mattress.

So I went looking other places...

I got as far as Tessie's cottage.  She seems to think that cleaning up her mess is the most important thing on the agenda.  For some reason, that didn't even ring a bell with me.

I want to start something new or even finish something old. 

Maybe tomorrow.  Today, I am in a NON working mood.  That's what I get for listening to Kota and Tessie... I am going off on my own and pout for the rest of the day... Tune in tomorrow. I am actually going to go back to work on minis!!!

See you then.

Cleaning is a Bad Thing!!!

As of now, I have two of these cabinets empty!

I took out books and other stuff that has been in there way before cancer.  I found some electronic stuff that neither Walter or I can identify!

I am getting everything back in order... I am turning into a scary cleaning lady!

Somebody stop me!!!

But now I will have somewhere to put the important stuff.

For instance, a pair of Halloween socks that I started a long time ago... My guess would be about ten years ago...

I am going to finish them for next Halloween, one way or another.

The new glasses that I picked up yesterday were not right.  The bifocals were way narrower top to bottom than the old ones.  I couldn't do anything close up and it's kind of hard to build minis from across the room!  So back they went and we are going to try again... Until they get them right.

When we got back from the glass shop, Tessie was sitting in the middle of the stuff that I left on the bed.

She announced, "I am putting a stop to this cleaning nonsense!  It isn't good for your health and it certainly isn't doing me any good either! I need you working on MY mini projects and not messing around in the closets! Cease and desist immediately! That's an order!"

Thank goodness! Someone around here has a good head on her shoulders! As soon as I get everything put back into the two cabinets I am going to sit down and do minis for a week!

See you tomorrow, with minis! 

Kind of Floored!

I am very late today.  Wednesday Witches Mini Meeting got in the way.

I did work on the floor of the Forest Fantasy Cottage.

I took along a piece of foam core that was shaped like part of the upper floor of the cottage. 

I proceeded to cut the pieces of theater tray for the floor.  Then I glued them to the piece of foam with Elmer's School Glue Stick.  They come of easily and  I can transfer them to the real floor in just a few minutes.

I am happy to say that the traveling floor worked well.  Now all I have to do is move it from one piece to the other and I will have half of the upper floor done.

To Entertain you whilst I am doing the floor, I took some photos of a couple of Judy's minis.

This is a cabin that she made for her 24 year old grandson. 

Actually, she was making it and he saw it and liked it a LOT.  It will be moving in a couple of months to his part of the country.

She describes him as an outdoors type and I think that he would like to have this one in real life size! 

This is an English manor house that Judy did a few years ago.  I would like to move into this one. 

Too bad that the inside is towards the wall.  The inside is just as beautiful as the outside!

I guess it is time to go glue stones to the floor. 

Back to work.

See you tomorrow.

What's Up?

Since I am down to the finish line on the cottage, I thought that I would show you the possibilities for what's next.

This is not all....Just part of what I still have to do.  Remember.  The more projects you have scheduled, the longer you live...

There are a couple of things up on the plant ledge....I am not going up there to take photos.  One is a wooden terrarium.  Another is a cheese dome(1/4" scale scene).

The inside top of the closet has four projects in the works.  The glass terrarium just has to have something put inside.  It has been used several times.  Behind that, a small corner box, and behind that, a large corner box.  Then there is the leopard skin print gift bag.  It just needs something inside. 

As we move to the right, there is a small Ballhagen box that is also finished.  Periodically, it gets taken out, furnished and displayed....Just depends on when I have a place to put it.

Beneath that is the little wooden slat box that I used to display baskets in, before they outgrew the box.  Again, it just needs filling.  I guess that one could hang on a wall.  It was hanging in the kitchen.

No!  I am not going back to the Clockwork cottage right away.  Not enough room to do it right now.

Next we have four boxes that could potentially be room scenes.  I have my Egyptian Archeologist's office in a curved top one.

Then there is the half inch house.....No.  That's not a tower.  It's a coffee grinder that I use for fimo.

Then there is the Russian Cottage and the Weaver's Cottage...

Mind you....I didn't show you the various gift bags and other odd containers that are scattered around.

I do have a couple pieces in the bedroom attic shelf.

The round hatbox is one that I used to display hats at  shows years ago.

The black box next to it is something military that my father in law gave to me years ago...I still have not figured out what to display in that one.

Now do you see my dilemma?  Where do I start next...Oh! I forgot the two house kits under the bed and a couple of other containers out in the garage....I think that I need to go lie down now....I am in overload mode.

See you tomorrow.

A Good Book on a Cloudy Day...

Maybe I should say a better book....Since I am sitting more than standing because of my stupid big toe, I am catching up on things that require that I sit.

I was going to do some wicker.  I got out the books and then changed course.

This is the very first book I bought as a reference for wicker back in 1983.  I can't believe that I have been doing wicker that long, but I have.

Anyway, it has been falling apart for quite some time. No fun to try to flip through it anymore.  So, I decided to use one of my favorite remedies for falling apart or otherwise annoying  volumes.

I went and found a small notebook cover, about the right size.  Then I looked until I found the infamous, hiding, 3 hole, hole punch.  It is never where I think it is.

I adjusted the punch to the size of the notebook holes and went to work.  It takes a while, because you can only do a few pages at a time, but now I can flip through it once again. 

I glued the cover to the front of the notebook and the spine to the spine of the notebook.  A whole new book!

I have done this for years.  I don't do it to books that I think may have some value later on. Mostly it is paperbacks that I want to keep in one piece.  

Things like the wicker book were not meant to last.  The values from a 1983 issue of the wicker pricing guide would be next to worthless.

This is the first one I did.  I am sure that some of you have a copy of Mott's Miniatures Workbook.  It is the most irritating miniature book that I have ever seen.  It was bound like a stenographer's notebook, at the top edge.  The people that published it thought that it would be good to make a book that would stand up so that you could read it as you made things.

They didn't think about people wanting to just look through the book.  If you do that, you have to flip and turn it around and various other actions to see each page.

I got tired of doing acrobatics whilst reading so I took it apart.  I lopped off the top edges of the pages, where the spiral was, with a paper cutter.

Then I proceeded to flip and turn the pages until I had them in the right order for a regular book.

After making sure that everything was right, I used the three hole punch that matches a regular notebook. 

This is the result.  Tessie no longer has to stand on her head to read it and neither do I!

This one had a hard cover, so I just put it inside and labeled the outside on the spine with a label maker.

I did this one less than a year after I got the book. 

I bought it at Mott's, when they still had a larger museum at the back of Knott's Berry Farm Park a long time ago. 

I went in early one morning to look and I was the only one there, besides the man running it...He must have been bored and started following me.  We talked about each exhibit as we came to them and he seemed to know just about everything there was to know about each one.  He didn't introduce himself, but was very pleasant and fun to talk to.

I bought the book and took it back to the hotel.  I opened it and discovered that identity of my guide.  It was Mr. Mott, himself.  I have always felt very honored to have had a private tour of the miniatures that he made, by the maker himself! 

I am sorry that I messed up the book, but it had to be done.  My sanity was at stake.  Standing on your head to read every other page is no fun.

See you tomorrow.

The Party's Over....

I have two pieces of Edward's Turtle Pie left.  Anybody want some?

The witches invaded at one today... We ate and talked. Then we ate and talked some more.

All in all, it was a great success.

We have been together as a group for many years and usually have about eight members at any one time.

Right now, there are nine...Seven of us were together today.  We know each other well and there is never a lull in the conversation.

Four of us are doing kumihimo right now.  There are another four that do miniature needlework regularly.  Those two groups overlap.  We all do miniatures.  Two do beadwork.  One is a full time restaurant owner.  One is the founder of the Mini Time Machine Miniature museum.  We all have kids that we have to discuss every week.  Never a dull moment.

This week Anne asked me if I knew how to tat and would I teach her?  I said yes and yes.  There is always room for another tatter.  That got a discussion going on my collection of tatting shuttles.  The one in the center is my great grandmother's pride and joy.  Mother of pearl.

Ginnie got here late and needed help from the other kumihimo people to keep going.  She is now on her way to becoming a kumihimo star.

Judy and I discussed  how to turn a corner in a border pattern on a mini rug.

This is how you do it.  Assuming that you have a straight pattern for the border, find a small mirror.  Hold it on the diagonal across the border.  Look into the mirror and you can see the stitch pattern that you need to turn the corner.  By sliding the mirror back and forth, you can find the most pleasing corner pattern. 

That's it....That's the only mini that I did all day!

I promise to make a bed tomorrow.  See you then.

Her Maiden Voyage......

Tessie got wind of the TMS Show and Sale that was happening this weekend and when she found out that I was going, she insisted on going too. It was her very first show.

After a lot of her following me around, whining and whinging about it, I finally agreed to take her as long as she stayed in my pocket and didn't talk to strangers....She stayed in my pocket for the most part and made a lot of new friends that are no longer strangers...

The secret of keeping her from jumping out of the pocket? With a great deal of carrying on on her part and a lot of struggling to get the safety pin in place on mine, I pinned the back of her vest to the flap on the pocket.It worked until we got to two tables that belonged to Gloria Bogulas. She is a local woman and I have known her for about the same length of time as I have been doing minis. She always has lots of fun items on her table.

First I took a photo of Tessie with one of her Halloween wreaths. Tessie liked it, but it wasn't edible. By this time it was about time for lunch, or at least a snack....

Gloria suggested that she get a photo holding one of the beautiful cakes that she carries.Somebody mentions food and Tessie is all for posing with it....unfortunately it is hard to keep her from sticking her fingers in the frosting and licking them....To make a long story short, "we" bought the cake that you see in her lap and the one that is two cakes over, white with chocolate decorations. Yup. She tried them both. I got her out of there before she could run through the rest of them barefoot!

If she had gotten to all of them, I would have been in a lot of trouble. Back in the pocket and pinned securely to the flap.

She did talk to a lot of people. Some she knew, mostly Wednesday Witches, some she didn't. She likes everybody.When we got home we had quite a haul. The two benches and table were from the "garage sale table" and cost me a total of six dollars for all.

The bicycle was twice that. It is a working model, but she is too bushed to try it out. She grabbed her second cake and took a nap with it....That is going to be fun to clean up.

Most of the other stuff was lighting and other accessories. I also got some wood that isn't in the photo. It was priced at 25 cents a piece for some walnut, cherry and bass, that are pretty large slices of 1/16" and veneers.

The doily under the cake is one from Laurie Miller Landa. She is an IGMA artisan and I am amazed every time I look at her crochet. I will show you a close up, maybe tomorrow.

For today, I am finished...Tessie has the right idea. Nap time...

See you tomorrow.

Minis, Kits and an Instrument of Torture.....

I took your advice and went out to play for a while this morning. As I had to wait for the antique mall to open, I did some mini-ing to fill the time.

I painted the doors on the 1/144 house green and glued the two layers together. I painted the inside walls white. I have no idea how I am going to decorate the inside. I may just leave that part to Tessie, since it is her house now.

While waiting for paint to dry, I decided to experiment a bit. I have a big Clairebell Brass four poster bed. It has gone through several incarnations. The last one was a bed for Harry Potter after reading the first book....Way before the movies. I dropped the idea when the movies came out and you couldn't shake a stick without beating Harry Potter to within an inch of his life. I took all of the bedding off and it has just been setting on a shelf since. Once in a while, I would take it out and try it for size in a house or room box.

I have never really liked the brass finish on it. Too shiny. Tessie spotted it and declared, "I would like it better if it was mostly wrought iron, with just a little of the brass showing. It will serve in my bedroom at the townhouse if we can paint it." I do believe that was the "royal we". She has no intention of crawling under the bed to paint or even getting her hands dirty.

She is not very good at painting. She helped with the mannequin and I was pulling gesso off of her hands and out of her hair for two days after. She even ended up with gesso on the bottom of her left foot!

I am not sure why, but this bed has always had a problem with turning green and crusty at some of the joints. You can see it on the ends of a couple of the spindles. Very weird. I am going to have to see if I can get that off.

Anyway, I got the head of the bed painted before I left. It will need a second coat and maybe a mat spray sealer.

Tessie is now talking black and white in the bedroom to kind of go with the bathroom upstairs and the kitchen table and chairs. I just hope that she doesn't get it into her head to have the whole house in black and white. I am NOT going to redo her workroom. It is staying midnight blue with bubbles around the upper edge...Period!


I strolled around the antique mall for about an hour. I did find two House of Miniatures kits. One is for a lowboy and the other one is for two chairs. I will now have a set of four when I finish.

Maybe I can leave the arms off of two or them and make them into a dining set.

Last, but not least, I found a Birthday present for April. April, if you are reading this, stop now!!!

No April, my daughter, beyond this point!!!!

This is something that I don't remember seeing before. April kind of collects old 60s and 70s kitchen items now and then.

Here it is.....Mint in the box....I have a theory that the former owner was a bit afraid of it. It looks like a lethal weapon of sorts.

The surprising thing is, the name on the box. It is called a "Food Glamorizer".......???? What is that, you ask?

It seems to be a combination potato peeler, zig zag blade for running along cucumbers to make the sides fancy, on one end. You slip(tug, pull and struggle with) the handle off and under that, is a tool for making fancy, pointy edges on melons. I wish I had the original directions. I am sure that there were a million or so uses for this little gadget. It was put out by Kitchen Magician.....Aren't they the ones that used to have all of those weird infomercials with strange gadgets?

April had better appreciate this. I practically had to fight two of the shop people for it. Everybody within hearing distance was laughing. "Food glamorizer"???? I think that they were just jealous that I found it first....Maybe....(I just looked this up on the net. I found out that it was from 1963 and is now being sold for 7.99. Boy did I get a deal! I paid 2.oo for this one.)

April may have to fight Tessie for it. She sees it as the start of a really great torture chamber in the basement of her next house....Just for show. She would never use instruments of torture. She has too much fun just doing the torturing without the benefit of instruments of any kind.

Now I am going to go do something constructive. I will not play with the food glamorizer....I will not play with the food glamorizer....I will not...play....

See you tomorrow.

Old Witches......

Today, I thought that you might like to see some of my earlier witchy friends. One year the Tucson Miniature Society had a show that landed on Halloween....Our Wednesday group members were also all members of TMS at the time. It was decided that the theme of that year's show would be "Things That Go Bump in the Night". Our group all decided that we would wear pointy hats and black clothes. We didn't tell the rest of TMS that we were doing it....Upon seeing us, they immediately started calling us the Wednesday Witches....That's how we got the name of our group. It was at least ten years after we started meeting.

As usual, I am sidetracked. Back to the witches in the photos. Also as a group, we decided that each of the Wednesday group would do some kind of shop or house with a witch theme.

I apologise for the quality of the photos. They are some that I took way back then and this morning when I decided to do this, I couldn't get the scanner to work. So.....I took pics with my Canon and got them into the computer that way.

The first one is Carol Bergstrom's witchy beauty shop. Both of the witches are mine.

Its hard to see, but the redhead has rollers in her hair and the witch has hairpins sticking out of her mouth.


This one is a witchy exercise salon....Note the sweats and legwarmers on this one. Again, I am sorry that it is hard to see. Alicia Duncan used fabric on the walls of the bottom floor and carried it up to the pillows on the couch on the second floor.

I did the witch, the couch and the draped table in this one.

The next scene is a kitchen in a ten gallon aquarium. I taught it to the rest of the witches and this was the prototype. I no longer have it. After we finished building them, we donated the box to the NAME National convention as a raffle item. I contributed the box and the witches the rest of the furnishings were supplied by other members of the group.


Here's a closer look at the witch on the right.

I was into more witchy looking witches back then.

I no longer feel that you have to have a beak for a nose and a pointy chin to be a witch.

Now all you need is sharp fingernails with a different mini house painted on each one.....I spent an afternoon painting houses on false fingernails one year for the show.

Unfortunately in moving, I lost most of them and never talked myself into doing it again...Maybe some day I will waste another afternoon with a tiny paintbrush....Maybe.

For now, I am too busy to mess with false nails. I think that I will stick to arguing with Tessie. It's much more fun.

See you tomorrow.

A Birdhouse and Other Things Mini.....

Last week I ordered a birdhouse from my friend Nikki at Witch and Wizard Miniatures http://nikkinikkinikki72.blogspot.com/ She had the cutest gourd birdhouses on her etsy site and I couldn't resist. I should also say, I am glad that I didn't. I saved a frog from death by dissection! We got a bottle for Tessie to keep her gourd juice in. Tessie has three new felted blankets that will keep her warm in the Russian winters. A bird that will be hanging around the new birdhouse and a miniature dome and some marbles were also in the package! I hope I didn't forget anything. Oops! I forgot three candles dripping with blood!!!It was quite a bonus day!

Nikki, Tessie says thank you so much for all of the goodies. I am sure that you knew that she would grab the whole pile and run with them. She did!

Nikki, your felting is amazing. Very delicate and the colors are beautiful. The poly clay pieces are some of the finest I have seen. The shading on the gourds is amazing.

Just so you will know, the frog has already been named Delbert and Tessie is keeping him in sight at all times so that he won't come to any harm. As I said before, Nikki said he was headed for a dissection table......Bad Nikki! LOL

We had to take Mookie to the vet this morning for a check up. He has gained 2 3/4 pounds since his thyroid problem was first diagnosed. Walter and I both are very impressed with his progress.

Before the vet, I painted the side of the cottage with Ceramcoat Victorian Teal and then washed it with a light green glaze to make it look a bit weathered.

I went back to the site that I listed a few days ago and decided on the color scheme. The trim will be mostly Old Parchment with a touch of sage green here and there.

I found a pierced sandalwood fan to do some of the gingerbread panels. After all, this is a very inexpensive kit and I want it to look good, but I want it to be a fast project.

I cut some 1/32" walnut for the panels. Walnut doesn't warp like the softer woods. It will save more time.

Here are the first two corner panels. They are just in the basic color and not detailed yet, but I think that they are going to look pretty good when I finish.

I am going back to work now.....Real laundry is on the list of must dos for today. So that and painting panels is in my future.

See you tomorrow.

"Move Over! I'm Coming Through!"

I was in the living room putting up new curtain rods in the "big people house", as Tessie calls it, when I heard the above, title words..... When you hear Tessie yelling some thing like that and her cottage whooshes past your ear, you know there is going to be trouble.

I was at the top of the step ladder and by the time I got the rod fastened in place several other small houses whizzed by! I went down the ladder as quickly as I could and followed the Basketmaker's Cottage. It was like watching a house shaped helicopter. It spun around back to front and settled gently atop the bookcase in the family room.

That's when I realized that three shops that had been up there, weren't. There was the Buttercup Bookshop, right where it should be. Nestled next to it sat Tessie's cottage, not where it is supposed to be. Beside that was the basket shop, settling nicely on it's foundation. As I watched in amazement, the Spiritus Frumenti , a gentleman's bar, perched on the end of the shelf.

Logic would dictate that whatever had been there was shifted to the chest in the living room where Tessie's Cottage and the basket shop had been before. I went in there and the quilt shop, the teddy bear shop and the miniature shop were sitting, as nice as you please, on the chest.

I guess that my rearranging furniture is catching. I went back and looked in the family room again and asked, "Tessie. Are you quit finished now?" She and Zar were in front of her house. He didn't look at all comfortable. It's a long drop to the floor and he can't fly!

Tessie disappeared for a minute and then she was back. She said, in a snide tone"Yes. I am quit finished now." I went in the bedroom to see what else she had disturbed. A room box that had been in the living room in a corner was now sitting on top of the tall chest. It was positioned so that a small person.... witch.... Tessie could watch TV.

She zapped Zar back to his workspace. Then she motioned for me to come into the bedroom where he couldn't hear.

"There is an explanation for the moves. I wanted my house where I could keep an eye on his doings. Where it was, I couldn't see around the corner. Where it is now, I will be able to see everything that goes on down there!"

I said "But Tessie, that's spying and infringing on his privacy."

She stomped her foot and said" I don't care! He is not going to get away with hypnotizing me and keeping me out of the workroom again! I don't trust him one bit. And besides, it makes shopping at the book store so much easier. Next door is a good place for it."

I bit my tongue and didn't mention the castle just the other side of the bookstore......I caught her eyeing it a few days ago. Sorry Tessie. It's already occupied.

For now, I am going to leave things where they are. I don't feel like getting up on a stepladder to move everything back. I don't have the mad skills to zap things around like she does.

I may just have to move the one room that she put in the bedroom to watch TV though. She is one of those people that has to comment on everything that is happening. And when she's not commenting, she's asking questions. I keep having to shush her. It is most annoying.

Anyone know a good, non witchy moving company? See you tomorrow.

105° and Rising......

With that temperature, you would think that Tessie would be sitting on an ice cube in the freezer!

I thought that you might like to go look at the article that appeared in yesterday's paper here. As you know, we will soon have our very own miniature museum here in Tucson. This gives you all of the latest information. http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/303280.php . I don't know how long this will stay on the net so go have a look as soon as you can. My friend Pat has 30 years worth of the best miniatures around almost ready to look at. This is where I worked restoring antique miniature houses for several years. That was until there was no more room in the room reserved for those. If you come to Tucson, be sure to go look! As they say, it's the best ticket in town!

I have not gotten even a smidgen of miniatures done in the past 24 hours. I spent the morning cleaning bathrooms and doing laundry. I am not even trying to multi task. It is too hot. I just want to get everything done.

After you left yesterday, Tessie and I had a terrible argument. She filled the rest of the basket with my favorite bed and a tub of Mini hold so that she could fasten everything down. I let her have the Mini hold, but I finally retrieved the bed by saying that I would make her a new one just as good IF she ever found a decent place to keep it. It was not going in the wall!

She also tried to talk me into emptying the larger basket in the back of the photo so that she could use that one instead.....It was a much nicer basket(much nicer meaning much larger). I won that round. I told her she could only use it if she put the things in it in their proper place without spells. HA! She is just like the rest of us. That would be too much like hard work!

Saturday I finished a pair of socks and noticed that I had a lot of leftovers from other pairs that I had made. I started making a pair with the leftovers. You know my favorite saying. "Use it up wear it out. Make it do or do without." I have enough leftovers for at least two pair of socks!

They won't be a maternal pair, but fraternal is sometimes more interesting. Mostly alike, but not quite. Anyway, Tessie crawled into one of them when I was taking a break and asked if I was making her a sleeping bag.....Another argument ensued. If they weren't for her, why was I wasting my time when I could be working on a new house for her. You know how that goes, so I won't repeat it. I did wrest the socks away from her. She kept using the pointy sticks to keep me away. I finally just walked away and waited for her to leave.

Remember the first sentence in this entry? Tessie read it over my shoulder. I went out to the kitchen to check on her because it was so quiet.

I should never let her read what I write. She grabbed a paper plate that was left over from Wednesday's meeting. She then proceeded to zap herself a chair and a chunk of ice from the freezer. She can get into anything that isn't padlocked! The last I saw of her, she was sitting on the chair trying to figure out how she could con someone into standing there and fanning her with the Chinese fan she has in the basket. Hey! At least she isn't going to drip all over the place when the ice melts.

I am trying really hard to ignore her now.

See you tomorrow, hopefully with minis.

Missing an Entry!

Did you ever have one of those days? I did. Just now. I finished writing a blog entry and pushed the wrong key. It totally disappeared! GRRRRRR I will now perform a feat of magic. I will remember some of what I said. Hopefully it will make sense.

I did a bunch of yard work this morning. When I came in at about 9:00AM, I needed a lot of liquids and a large fan. As you can see, in the top right corner of the screen, when I took the photo it was 100°. It is now 105°.

This is my new wallpaper. I found it at Brass Goggles. When I look at the screen it has the effect of looking into the inside of a strange machine.

I was hoping that it would inspire me to work on the Clockwork Cottage. It's not working. Tessie has gone off somewhere to pout because she can't remember how to get into Zar's cottage. Zar is off working on some mysterious project and I am left to clean up the mess.

As usual on Monday, I am trying to get the big house in order. Laundry is laundering. My next job will be to clean out the fridge. I am stalling as hard as I can.

When I went to look at what had to be done in the cottage, I felt like taking a page from Tessie's how to manual. I wanted to stomp my feet and yell a lot. I am really stretching my six year old's limits. I want to do something else for a day or two. Hey! I just remembered. I'm the six year old boss. I can do something else if I so wish.

I decided to work on something completely different. Remember the perfumery that I did early this year in a gift box? Remember that my dear daughter stole it? I have more of them! Ha! I can work on one of those if I want to work on one of those! I want to work on one of those.

I kept looking at the shape. It was saying "Stone Arch". Who am I to fight with a gift box? That would just be ridiculous! I pulled it out and painted the rim gray.

I am not at all sure what it is going to be. All I know is.....It's not going to be a clockwork anything!

I haven't painted the body of the box yet, because I have no idea what I want to do with that part. It could be stone or it could be stucco.

I started cutting up egg cartons and gluing them to the rim. I only have about a third of it done, but you can see how it is starting to look like solid rocks. I cut the edge so that it folded to the back and glued a piece the same width on the other side of the corner.

Now all I have to do is actually finish it.....OK so I am not as much a finisher as I am a starter and leave it for later-er.

I am going back to work now. I have a refrigerator to clean, laundry to do and dinner to cook. Alas, the real world is encroaching on my mini world.

See you tomorrow, hopefully with a better attitude......