Gifts, eggs and indecision

Gifts!

My lovely daughter gave me these minis for Christmas - she picked them off my Etsy wishlist, and I love them!
The two tiny bowls are from The Helmers - you can see their Etsy shop here. The bowls are made of mammoth ivory. Mammoth ivory is beautiful! It is from mammoth tusks dug out of the permafrost in Siberia and Alaska - since the creatures are extinct, it is an acceptable way of owning and enjoying ivory. The bowls are exquisitely turned.

The specimen jars, inkwell and tiny real bones are from Grace at Honey and Bee on Etsy. Grace's work is fabulous - she has a lovely elegant touch to her minis which I admire greatly :D

And a glorious surprise in the post!! Dear delightful Sans sent me a beautiful set of braids along with a lovely quilled card!! :) What a gorgeous inspiration these braids are!! If you know Sans' work you'll have seen what delightful and inspiring minis she creates from everyday items. Her tribal house is a masterpiece (mistress-piece?)
She describes me as 'elegant, neat and disciplined'. Hmmm, if only you could have heard the guffaw when I told Alan this. He almost choked on his coffee :D Only in my minis, Sans!

Thankyou soooo much, Sans! You are so generous :)

Eggs, Indecision and a Rant

I'm having trouble getting back into doing much - after the flood excitement, the Christmas overeating and the thoroughly enjoyable weeks with my family staying - inspiration is hiding from me.

The muse has left, she's gone away
And where she's hiding, none can say

So I'm searching for her in my stuff!
I've decided to do the Mother of all Spring Cleans :)))
You know, the sort of archeological rummaging where you find UFOs (UnFinished Objects), dead projects, things, pictures, and ideas written on bits of forgotten strangely-filed-away paper, some from decades ago when I could still knit (patterns from the 80s are truly scary!!), or still had a working relationship with my sewing machine (now it's more like delicate untrusting negotiation . . .). I decided at the same time to change around the guest bedroom and my workroom, seriously disturbing generations of dust bunnies!!
Now I'm on a strict rule of looking through every single item and piece of paper in my stash/mess/bookshelves/boxes, and deciding if it is, in the wise words of William Morris, 'known to be useful or believed to be beautiful'. If it's neither, out it goes. It may take weeks :D
This is proving scary and liberating at the same time. Also, moving house last time was exhausting - the more that goes to the rubbish dump now, the better.

It clears my mind, too.
My daughter returned to Brisbane during the terrible floods there last week. Thankfully her house was safe, but some of her friends lost everything. Their house was flooded up to above the ceiling with silty water which had sewage in it :(
It makes me think, what exactly is valuable to me? If I lost it all, what would I miss? This is helping me in my clearance. Attachment is alright, so long as it's for valid reasons.
Enough rant.

I'm fairly sure that I still want to make a mini dragon room next, but it needs stone walls (all that fire), and I like egg carton stones, but eating all those eggs is slow work, haha :) I've found a type of carton that is a perfect base colour and texture, and has a big flat lid with nothing printed on it - yay!!
Anyone know any recipes for really big omelettes??

P.S. - all of the above is subject to change, depending on how much coffee I drink :D

Glenda

Solstice

I'd like to wish all of my family, friends and followers a happy solstice!

This lovely time of year is a time of renewal, joy, promise of blessings to come, family gatherings, forgiveness and fun! Whatever your beliefs, I wish you well, and hope that the coming year is everything you desire!

As a small gift to you I'm going to tell the story of this beautiful church window, as best as I can remember it.

In about the year 1915 a church in Australia ordered a set of stained glass windows from a maker in Germany. The windows were duly made and put on board ship for the trip to their new church. In the meantime War was happening in Europe. There was a high feeling of anti-German sentiment throughout the British Commonwealth, and the dock workers in Sydney refused to handle the order from Germany.

The windows therefore had to remain on the ship, and it continued on its journey. The next port of call was Dunedin in New Zealand. The windows were eventually installed in a tiny but beautiful church in a village north of Dunedin.

This little church is not on any tourist routes, and is tucked away quietly in its green and lovely churchyard. It is a joy to visit, and it must be a source of great solace for those who worship there.

The windows, the rich dark wood of the interior and above all the sense of peace are beyond beautiful. I didn't want to leave.

The windows themselves are of the highest quality with regard to design, colour and skill of making. They are very much of the Arts and Crafts Era.
The colours are superb!

Here are some more photos - my pics aren't the best quality...
And now I am waiting to see if the full moon eclipse here in New Zealand tonight is going to be visible. It's cloudy, so I'm hoping it clears . . .

Love to you all from Glenda

Gifts from Ewa!

A lovely surprise arrived in the mail today!! My friend Ewa at The Sunny Hours sent me a delightful parcel with Christmas decorations and minis!!
The Christmas decorations will be hung on our tree - we have tree ornaments to remind us of past times, family and friends, and these from Ewa will very welcome!!
The minis will find good mini homes too - I have great ideas about the filigrees and frame, and the test tubes are perfect for my next project :)
The little books and French charm are talking to me of an early 1900s scene . . .

Thankyou so much, Ewa - you are very kind, and a good friend!! :)))

xxx Glenda

The top of the Tower

After working a few unsuccessful samples of thatch :( I decided to make life a lot easier and use wooden shingles on the roof.
The roof isn't glued down yet, as I'm not happy with the way it sits on the top of the walls. I'd like to make another roof which reaches the very outside of the eaves, but that will be on the five year plan :)
Another reason is that I messed up when I was gluing it together, and the front and back sections don't fit neatly into each other :( Using ten-minute setting glue on such a complicated and mischievous roof proved too much for this girl!
And here is the inside. Since I was small I've always wanted a ceiling with stars, and finally I've got one :D
The ceiling sections are lined with paperclay and stippled with diluted blue acrylic paint - beautiful rich dark mysterious twilight blue! Then I glued on varying sizes of Swarovski flatback crystals. I wish I could photograph the way it sparkles as your eyes move over it! I'm very pleased with this :D

Glenda

No internet for 5 days - what to do . . .?

Waaah!! No internet! It's incredible how often I use it, and being without it was a real test :)
I did find something to occupy me, though, as you see.
I can now show you the (almost finished) tower.

The beams are stained veneer, glued on to the paperclay walls. This dealt with the difficulty of 1. not having enough suitable wood for solid beams, and b. the corners on this tower are on a tricky 60-degree angle, and my woodworking skills are abysmal.
Do come in - welcome!
The lower floor.
The floor is made of paperclay. The fireplace is made of egg carton stones - general instructions for doing this can be found here and here.

The painted strip around the walls is based on a design from an Anglo-Saxon enamelled brooch.
The scrolling to the left of the window is a copy of a medieval illumination, and the scrolling to the right is my own, including the leaves of my favourite trees.
Now to go upstairs, or rather up the ladder :)
The whole floor is covered in rush matting (hatstraw), an idea I got from the 'Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry - Janvier' (here).


Thankyou for visiting! I hope soon to be able to show you the roof :)

Glenda

iMagery in the tower

For a while I wasn't happy with the tower. I'm doing it as a learning experience, getting used to using different materials and stuff like that. A bit boring . . .
Then I had an idea of decorating the walls, and it has taken over my life (in the best way) for the past few days! I'm loving it - I can have images of things I love, and of course my enchanter loves them too :)
These are for the upstairs room - I want this to be a light and airy room, so I've kept it pale and simple.
First is a dragon. It's medieval enough as an image, but for me it has become the Green Dragon which the pub in Hobbiton was named after in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Because it's a hobbity, friendly dragon, I found one which isn't too scary and copied it as best I could.
Next is a tree. The Tree of Life, the Spirit of Nature, the seasons, woodland beauty, and finally a representation of the mallorn trees of Lothlorien. Tolkien again, but I do love his Middle Earth!!
And now a rendition of a medieval border. This was copied from a book on DIY calligraphy and illuminations.
A window border. I made this one up.

BTW it's nerve-wracking drawing straight onto the paperclay walls, mistakes can't be fixed easily, smudging happens, too much coffee makes the hands shake, there are interruptions like sleeping and eating, and the cats love to sit on whatever I'm doing.

I used colouring pencils for these, and watercolour pencils for the dragon. I realised I have to remember not to use a wet sealer on it or it will be dragon-smear time and a very unhappy me, haha.

I'm working on the walls of the lower room, now. Having fun!

Glenda

Floor test update

The floor test I did in a previous post had interesting results.

Because the tile sheet was dried unattached to anything, it bent slightly, but held together. The gaps between the tiles widened as it dried - hopefully this would eliminate any cracking. You can now see a little daylight through some of the gaps, and the whole thing is slightly flexible and forgiving.
The problem is that the underside is not flat, as you can see in the second photo, with ridges where the gaps are - difficult to glue down :(
The extra separated tiles, however, each warped as they dried - again, difficult to glue down! :( My advice is, don't go there!!

So I did another test, using Jovi (as in the first test) and Paperclay. This time I glued them onto a board while wet, and tried three methods of marking the lines.
The top third is marked with a piece of veneer (less than 1mm thick).

The centre third is marked with veneer, but with a (loose but flat) layer of cling film on top of the clay. This smooths and rounds off the edges of the clay, and gives a type of bevelled effect. This also enlarges the gap a little more.

The lower third is marked with a piece of extremely fine brass sheet. I was hoping to give the effect of flagstones, where no mortar is needed (oh please, yes!!). The gaps still widened a bit, but are very crisp.

I have also tried painting the Jovi - it has a smooth surface, more like polymer clay, and shows every brush mark, and would not take a wash very well at all. If anyone can tell me what DAS is like, I'd be grateful :)
For painting I prefer Paperclay because of its absorbency - takes a light wash beautifully :)

For this technique I'd advise that you tidy all the intersections with a pin or fine toothpick at the leather-hard stage of drying. The more careful you are in the marking process, the less you'll have to tidy later. And make very sure that the marker is exactly the right length between the pinholes.

I'd also advise placing a flat layer of clingfilm between the wet clay and the paper pattern, and pricking the holes through both. The paper pattern buckles on the damp clay.

The gaps made with the veneer would need to be grouted - not my favourite activity!!
The gaps made with the brass sheet could pass for flagstones, not needing grout. I say this hopefully! :)

The Paperclay shrank more than the Jovi - the gaps were wider after drying.

So there it is so far. I hope it may help - sorry I get too pedantic in my explanations, it's a bad habit that I can't throw off . . .

Glenda