Look what came in the mail:
Thank you Chelle!
I just love prezzies! Especially when I'm not expecting anything. Chelle sent them for my fishing hut. I have only one question: why are those crabs looking at each other like that?

Ideas

Wished it were slow on my list (of ideas)! Here's what I've spent most of my morning on:
First I needed to google for Persian names ....the reason is really immaterial; I found a lovely site in Surrey UK. Apparently from the look of the small video that plays as the site opens, the shop is in a gorgeous old building covered by some sort of vine. I immediately fell in love. Inside the shop looks marvelous, just like what I remember of high end carpet shops in Turkey.
I wrote asking for permission to recreate his shop & also if it were possible to have jpgs of the first 3 images of the video.
Well, to my great surprise my email was returned.... Upon further investigation the owner died in 2008. Then when I read his obit, I discovered that he had spent the wartime years in Holland (his birth country) in similar conditions to Anne Frank. Now I've got my brain working overtime!
I've written to the site where I found his obit notice, asking if they could forward my email request to his family or perhaps send me photos.

We'll see what comes of it.......

Turning Clay into Faux Wood

CDHM is having a Halloween contest:

CHALLENGE
→ Create a miniature that you feel represents Halloween.
→ It can be anything you want, as long as it relates to the Halloween theme in 1:12 scale or smaller.
→ Entries must be 3-dimensional and created for this challenge.

Remember those rotten apples that I made?
This is where I used them.I put them in a wash tub made of petrified wood with a snake aka garden hose filling the tub to overflowing and then some.
My entry is entitled: "Hello dearies. Have an apple"


I thought you might like to make your own faux wood; so here's how:
Normally you'd use equal amounts of polymer clay in 4 shades of browns, say: chocolate, caramel, ocher/beige and white (or off white). I'm going to use black, dark green, grey and white. Condition your clays. You can do this by running it through your pasta machine if working it by hand is too hard.

NOTE: always condition from lightest to darkest or clean your machine in between colors. And clean your hands between colors as well.

You want your machine set for the thickest level and stack them in the order showing in the first photo.
Cut your stack into a rectangle. Roll your off-cuts into a pencil thickness; you'll be using it to make knots in your wood.
From now on you'll use a roller to reduce your clay stack. (This tutorial will not work using a pasta machine!)
Roll to 2x the original length, then cut in half and restack...
....always keeping to the original order of colors.
Roll again until your "wood grain" is reasonably thin (no thinner than I'm showing or you'll lose the grain.
Slice the stack in half again; use a pen to make an indention near one end. You might need to place a piece of saran wrap (cling wrap, kitchen plastic wrap, etc) on top in case your clay sections stick together.
Remove the plastic wrap & the pen and place your cut-off roll into the indentation. Cover with the other half of your clay stack.
Now as you can see by my photo, there are small air gaps on either side of the cut-off roll. You need to roll your clay stack again to remove the gaps.
Slice your clay and voila!: faux wood.
Now that's really the end of the tutorial ...except I'm just going to mention a few ways to show water

For the water that's in the tub, I used Magic Water, a 2 part resin that remains clear, does not yellow and best of all, once it's hard, it will not soften again. The disadvantage: it takes 24 hours to harden; it is extremely hard to use it to show running water because it just runs off.
The water in the tub is 1/2" deep. My apples all sank in the first tub that I made. With this resin, timing is critical! I was not impressed having to wait longer than 12 hours and having to make sure that the resin is thin enough to insert my apples but thick enough for them to stay afloat! I finally filled the tub in 3 stages and only added the apples during the last filling.

Easy Cast epoxy is also clear but it can stay/become sticky in warm weather. It's what I used to show the water around my fishing hut.

E-6000 is actually a glue that remains clear, flexible & is paintable. If you want to show a drop of dew hanging off a leaf, this is the glue to use!
My running water started off as a piece of clear plastic string (fishing line). Run the E-6000 along the string and position where you want it.

Along the left hand side of the photo is a bottle of Liquitex. Liquitex is the brand name of an artists acrylic Matte Super Heavy Gel that's non-yellowing, remains flexible and can be mixed with additives such as sand, sawdust or acrylic paint. If you use it, paint the surface underneath before applying. Disadvantage is it dries opaque. You can use it to show choppy water/waves as you apply it and it holds its shape.

Letter Writing Portfolio

This is my very first tutorial in this format! Because of the many photos in it, I turned it into a PDF file which you'd be able to hardcopy & I could send out as well ...and then I discovered that blogger doesn't seem to like it, so I had to change each page into a JPG.
I know those of you reading this blog through a reader will not be able to get an automatic translation but with so many pictures, you should have no problem understanding it anyway.
Let me know what you think: can you read/view the pages? does it make sense? Would you have rather had it written directly inside blogger?







.

If you click each picture, it should enlarge....
Enjoy!

This n That ....again

Thanks very much everyone! I made some big sales on eBay last week so rolling in dough I thought I'd finally treat myself to a pair of hip waders from the Dolls Cobbler. I'm still trying to flesh out my Greenleaf Fishing Hut.
I've had one listing for waders on my watch list for months. It was relisted once already! The cost: $34. Location is NY state, just across the border from me in Ontario. Shipping is worldwide except ...Canada, Africa, Asia, Central America and Caribbean, Europe, Middle East, North America, Oceania, Southeast Asia, South America! I think that leave only Antarctica. I'm not sure where Oceania is; maybe a new continent/country has been discovered somewhere in the world without my knowledge.
So of course with great disappointment, I wrote to the seller and to my surprise I actually received a response:

For eBay purchases, the only way I can ship this package to your country is Express Mail.
The post office price for Express Mail to your country is $26.95 USD for a package weighing up to 8 ounces.

I don't think so! I won't even spend $60 on a pair of waders that fit me!
Now I realize that postage everywhere is up but even so express mail has to be one of the most expensive options there is. Don't people want to sell and make money? Did I mention this listing has been up and relisted for several months? Obviously it's not a big mover!
One of my chairs sold to Holland. The box it fit in was 15 x 7 x 6 cm; it weighed 200g. To mail it at that size would have cost the buyer $34. Incredible! She only bought it for $10!
In order to bring her price down, I had to pad the original box with styrofoam packing material to bring it up to 15 x 15 x 7 cm. That brought the postage down to $8. Now how stupid is that!!
I wanted my buyer to be satisfied.

I opened a search option for Dolls Cobbler hip waders and with heavy heart (I hate when I set my sights on something that I can't have. Must be the child in me!), I was set to forget about it and turned to my emails where I found one from a lady selling off some of her books. What are the chances! Must be fate! There among her list was "The Doll's Cobbler: A Guide to Shoemaking, by Sylvia Rountree" Very good condition, 26 pages.
I immediately wrote to her; then I went to Amazon where the cheapest book was $17; to eBay where the only listing had a price of $160! This lady's price: $4!!

The other thing I looked at doing was anatomy or sculpting classes. Unfortunately no anatomy and the sculpting class is already full but I've submitted to their mail list. So maybe I can get in next semester.
As if I didn't have enough to do already!

OMG!!!! I'm Cilla Battersby!

If you've never heard of Coronation Street or have never watched it and have no interest in soaps, just ignore this entire post.

I've been watching Coronation Street for more than 30 years. In case you've never heard about it, it is Britains' longest running soap. It's been on TV since the 60s!
Ken (my DH not Bill Roache who plays Ken Barlow) is on the Street's Facebook page just about every day. So when he read about a quiz called: "Which Coronation Character Are You", we both took it.
Let me hang my head in shame. I realize I did it tongue in cheek. But really!! Cilla??! This is obviously going to mean nothing to you if you're not a fan. Cilla was a fun loving, big mouth character who left the Street to seek fame & fortune in Las Vegas.

Which Coronation Street character are you? Your Result: You're Cilla Battersby!   Gobby, thoughtless and spiteful- thats you. Like Cilla, you tend to put yourself before other people, even your family. Though deep down you love them. Be careful, you dont want to loose what you've got.
You're Sarah Platt!
You're Gail Platt!
You're David Platt!
You're Richard Hillman!
You're Steve McDonnald!
Which Coronation Street character are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Ok! So then I tried it again; giving answers that the real me would do & this is what I got: Sarah Platt.

Which Coronation Street character are you? Your Result: You're Sarah Platt!   You're very caring, although you might get yourself into some tough spots. Like Sarah, you have to stay strong to get through some of the hard times, and you dont have a problem with speaking your mind, though you usually fall for the wrong kind of men.
You're Gail Platt!
You're Steve McDonnald!
You're Cilla Battersby!
You're David Platt!
You're Richard Hillman!
Which Coronation Street character are you? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I think I'll quit before I turn into one of the Croppers.

World Travel Swap

Just thought I'd show you what I made for the travel swap at AllThingsMini:The portfolio is made from scrapbook card stock with the insides from regular paper. They can be made to open and close. The pencils are the ends of toothpicks, painted to look like lead pencils. The notepad can be taken out. The only thing I didn't add was stamps.

Here's what I received in return:From Ara came the packing crate with a monster inside. I had to look really closely at the crate to see that it's made of cardboard & not wood. The lamp is from Laura and obviously comes from India as there's a tiny elephant at the base. Airline tickets, US Passport, the globe & the map are from Kim; not sure if you can see but there's a tiny hot air balloon, a biplane and an airliner flying around it. Truly imaginative. Thank you all.