Well, it's a new year and time for knuckling down and doing something. I have decided to be more diligent about posting and promoting my mini creations.
My latest mini project is a little garden which came about quite by accident. It started when our Dartmouth mini club had gone from a two hour bimonthly meeting to a four hour monthly meeting. Which means that we can make more involved projects that might actually get completed! Our last meeting, just before Christmas, was a garden themed one and we had the choice of picking which garden themed items we wanted to make. At a previous meeting there was a wishing well as a project so I decided to create the garden and incorporate the wishing well into it. I also had a substantial collection of paper flower kits leftover from a Camp Mini Ha Ha project that I had decided not to build, so I made them up and put them into my 9" x 9" garden.
The base is made from that lovely pink builders' foam we all love so much. I put a second layer of foam over the base layer and carved it so that there was a little path and the wishing well was perched up in the corner at the end of the path. I dug out several flattish shale bits out of my own driveway to make steps leading up to the wishing well and also to the pond in the other corner. The pond was a mini project from my very first Camp Mini Ha Ha (2008) where we learned how to pour resin into a specially prepared blister pack. It was about time I used it. I also had in my possession a little ceramic doll that I believe my great great aunt had found in her garden. It was missing a few limbs but it made the perfect garden statue. I placed it near the well so that it would have some support. I had a lot of landscaping materials from Camp Tidbits and from my own stash. I had made a diorama a couple of years ago for the agricultural college so I had plenty.
Planting the flowers was the most fun, deciding where they should go so that there was an even distribution of colour. The birdbath was one I'd made but it had suffered a fall and was chipped in two places. I hated to throw it out as it was such a lovely colour. I found two little white birds so I painted them to look like chickadees and glued them right over the chipped areas so only I and whoever reads this blog will ever know! The bird house I'd made some years ago, based on a real one I'd had.
The fence is made from coffee stirrers, being the perfect width and thickness. All I had to do was cut them to length and point the ends for the pickets. It surrounds two sides of the garden with a hedge making up the third side.
Since I've made the garden, some creatures have taken up residence in the garden. If you look very carefully, you will find a snail and some worms that I'd gotten as Tidbits from a previous Camp Mini Ha Ha. They were made by Elizabeth Read and this project was perfect for it. My mother, who has developed an eye for finding objects suitable for minis (I call her my enabler!) gave me two turtle earrings. I think they are made from polymer clay so they found their way into my garden via the pond. A butterfly, made from stickers I'd gotten a long time ago flew in and perched on one of the flowers. You never know if other critters will drop by in the future and check out the garden!
My latest mini project is a little garden which came about quite by accident. It started when our Dartmouth mini club had gone from a two hour bimonthly meeting to a four hour monthly meeting. Which means that we can make more involved projects that might actually get completed! Our last meeting, just before Christmas, was a garden themed one and we had the choice of picking which garden themed items we wanted to make. At a previous meeting there was a wishing well as a project so I decided to create the garden and incorporate the wishing well into it. I also had a substantial collection of paper flower kits leftover from a Camp Mini Ha Ha project that I had decided not to build, so I made them up and put them into my 9" x 9" garden.
The base is made from that lovely pink builders' foam we all love so much. I put a second layer of foam over the base layer and carved it so that there was a little path and the wishing well was perched up in the corner at the end of the path. I dug out several flattish shale bits out of my own driveway to make steps leading up to the wishing well and also to the pond in the other corner. The pond was a mini project from my very first Camp Mini Ha Ha (2008) where we learned how to pour resin into a specially prepared blister pack. It was about time I used it. I also had in my possession a little ceramic doll that I believe my great great aunt had found in her garden. It was missing a few limbs but it made the perfect garden statue. I placed it near the well so that it would have some support. I had a lot of landscaping materials from Camp Tidbits and from my own stash. I had made a diorama a couple of years ago for the agricultural college so I had plenty.
Planting the flowers was the most fun, deciding where they should go so that there was an even distribution of colour. The birdbath was one I'd made but it had suffered a fall and was chipped in two places. I hated to throw it out as it was such a lovely colour. I found two little white birds so I painted them to look like chickadees and glued them right over the chipped areas so only I and whoever reads this blog will ever know! The bird house I'd made some years ago, based on a real one I'd had.
The fence is made from coffee stirrers, being the perfect width and thickness. All I had to do was cut them to length and point the ends for the pickets. It surrounds two sides of the garden with a hedge making up the third side.
Since I've made the garden, some creatures have taken up residence in the garden. If you look very carefully, you will find a snail and some worms that I'd gotten as Tidbits from a previous Camp Mini Ha Ha. They were made by Elizabeth Read and this project was perfect for it. My mother, who has developed an eye for finding objects suitable for minis (I call her my enabler!) gave me two turtle earrings. I think they are made from polymer clay so they found their way into my garden via the pond. A butterfly, made from stickers I'd gotten a long time ago flew in and perched on one of the flowers. You never know if other critters will drop by in the future and check out the garden!
I realised that after I'd completed this project, that it did not cost me much money to make it. The flower kits, I suppose would've been some money but I'd gotten them as part of the Camp experience so I didn't count that. So it is possible to create a mini scene without spending an arm and a leg.
Happy Miniing!
Jo-Ann
Happy Miniing!
Jo-Ann