July gifts

Suddenly remembering the time difference, thought I had better put up all my July gifts. A total of 17.. What amazes me is where did July go?

challenge project

Miniature houses

This is our miniature house. DH drew the plans and after a search for materials, proceeded to build. It can be a challenge to find materials here as they don't tend to be where you would normally think. You have to think outside the box and buy when you see something.

All the roof tiles were cut and placed by hand - all 1450 of them, the walls were finished in a rough grain finish and brick. DH hand crafted all the windows and facia boards.


The house on the right is the current model under construction, the ground floor will be a shop and the first floor will be a cafe. We keep changing our minds as to the content of the shop, but as DH makes all the food it was easy to decide on a cafe.




This is our room box, it has a mixture of our own hand crafted furniture and purchased items. The pictures on the walls are miniature versions of our paintings in our lounge.

I have finished a couple more EBCC home decor gifts, this heart garland was from the pattern in my christmas crafting book.

Whilst the cushion was using up spare wool.

I think that will be it for July, now to think of goodies for August.

Miniatures

After a request to see some more miniatures, here are three items DH has been finishing off recently. He makes his own plans from either a photograph or by measuring the full size item then hand cuts and finishes.

This replica camera and tripod has working parts, the camera swivels, raises and lowers, whilst the tripod legs expand too, doesn't take piccies though lol




The grandfather clock has a working clock face and was hand carved



This drinks trolley is a replica of the full sized one in MIL's dining room, again hand cut and carved. DH also made one for MIL for the doll's house he designed and built for her 80th birthday last year.



I have designed and stitched various rugs, soft furnishings, mini quilts, flowers etc and have a very much WIP stitching a miniature 3d embroidered garden. Definiately a little at a time project. Hope you like them

Little by little

Slowing up for a few reasons, its hot and humid but we have also been catching up with a few chores outside, particularly in the courtyard. On the plus side the pool was 30 C so very nice to cool off. The kittens have been quite time consuming too along with regular watering of all pot plants and veggie garden. Still a couple of other projects to be finished.....

A couple more additions to the home decor, this week long wall chart was from ollibird.com so with the help of DH, we laminated it and I put magnets on each corner, then made a pen holder again with a magnet, so both could reside on the fridge, with the view to putting a wipe clean menu for each day or just recording when sell by dates were being reached within the fridge.


I wanted to make a project from my lovely gift book, crafting christmas, I decided to make the reindeer, so here he is. Everyone loves him, although some have queried why think of christmas in July, until I explain.


Till next time

Special gift

Today I received my lovely gift from Judith, thank you so much. It is a lovely book with many different projects in to create and inspire, I am looking forward to trying out some of the patterns.


Although I have some other projects on the go, I have only these two hangers to show as finished projects

Revamping

With Judith's kind guidence, I had a little play with revamping my blog, must admit I did get help from DH when things whizzed away and refused to appear, but mostly managed to do it on my own. I have made a couple of things today, but will wait until I have something else before I put photos up.


Thought you might like to see DH's latest miniature. He took the photos at the museum in Guadalest a couple of weeks ago and after creating drawings, this is his version of a jewellry box stand, all 1/12th scale

.

Have a feeling it might be up to me to make the jewellry

Gecko's and birds

Wednesday - another very early morning 6.30 saw me in my work room and Tammy decided to bring me a gift, a gecko, after a swift rescue mission, I managed to restore it to its rightful habitat without her seeing, hope he runs faster next time.

I harvested our lavender plants and stripped the flower heads and used them to fill these little birds. Unfortunately as there was not enough I had to continue with stuffing, but even so, the fragrance was quite heady. Think I had better keep them out of the gift box, otherwise everything will smell lol.



I also finished my challenge project. It has been difficult to capture on a photo, particularly the gold running through the blue material, as the light seemed to play tricks.





Using gold thread I stitched a sashico pattern called Katabami or wood sorrel on the four corners. The design was developed during Japan's feudal period and the emblem was favoured by the warrior class because the plant was so prolific and it signified their expectation that their decendants would enlarge the family's territory as readily as the wood sorrel took over the field.

Again it's hard to see.

Slow but sure

It's been quite warm here, in the early 30's, so everything seems to slow down, including me. I did make a little holder for table serviettes and also started on my challenge project which I hope to finish tomorrow.

We're back

We lost our internet connection for a couple of days, which has been more than a little frustrating, but with a very helpful engineer, a new radio card and upgraded board software we are back. I put the computer time to good use and have made a few gifts. I have jotted a few more in my journal will have to be a busy bee.



The cafetaire was made using the Japanese folding technique



Using Judith's suggestion, I fashioned the jotter and pen holder using thick card from packaging



Similarly the tissue box, in fact our neighbour came round and decided he wanted it to take away with him, hmmm note to self (or journal) make another for him.



These beaded napkin rings were very quick to make but jazzed the napkins up quite nicely

The hexi placemats have been one of those projects that you take along with you when you have time on your hands away from home, you know appointments and such, then Thursday I pieced them and backed them. Will have to find something else to take with me. I am still wondering what to do for the challenge, hopefully something will come to me (g)