Some good..some ba - ABSOLUTELY DREADFUL!

Hello again..how are y'all? Hopefully you've been enjoying the sunshine at the lake, the beach, the cottage or the patio ... in real or miniature. I'm still plugging along trying to get done all the projects I foolishly committed to then promptly ignored till 2 months before our show. Well slowly but surely I'm making progress and as suggested some is good and some is downright ridiculous. I'll show you all and you tell me if I should just give up now :)

The assortment of goods I've made as options for my cart (we'll see what fits :)) I really like how the apple torte, banana custard puddings and cherry crumble in a cup turned out.

My pies generally turned out all right. Here is pumpkin and key lime, strawberry and blueberry..

Cherry turnovers, cherry chip shortbread and strawberry rhubarb love pie.

Peach is one of my favourites...

Macaroons, cupcakes, bunny and Venus shortbread with CAKE POPS!!! These were all fine..here's where I start to go wrong: Fruit and veggies! This is my first time trying all:

  Oranges by LugArt...Peaches and papayas aren't too bad although they both crumbled..(low heat me thinks..) but the cucs and (choke) watermelon is horrible:

So a few steps forward and a few back..Oh how I wish I could go to a guild school or some real mini workshops but here in Edmonton Alberta Canada there is pretty much nothing. Sigh. How am I gonna get better??? Practise I guess. So I'm going to continue trying the f$#@ts and veggies and I'm hoping they will all look better compiled together on the cart..a bit of an illusion..I hope. Wish me luck and leave some advice or feedback, I need it as you can see...

Mini hugs and BIG love. xo

Finally a full days work...

Hi Y'all..how is everyone today? I'm feeling good as we all do with the completion of a project, a good start on something due or the delight of a piece turning out exactly as planned. Today I finished a number of small pieces and made some headway on the three projects I would like to finish by September (have had all year to do it, yet here I am to-do list in hand)...Well lets look at some pics and I'll show you what I mean:

Been trying really, really hard to make yummy, realistic clay cakes. This is my best effort to date, yet of course I only see what is wrong. I'll spare you my critique. :) I had also wanted to do a white and cream with red accents scene..This cake was the first piece:

I have been making bakery items (think red velvet cake and key lime pie..) for the cart I'm making for the Sept. show. I made the cart from scratch using JoAnne Swansons' pattern. The first mini I ever crafted like that for sure. So I will cover this in white and distress it, add a soft green with white polka dot cover, some bunting and all my goodies. For now you will have to imagine; I just wanted to document the 'before' :

..and wheels,yah.

The other piece I hope to finish is a Smoothie Cart entitled "YUM YUM SMOOTHIES and juice bar". This will be shingled and covered with blenders, a scale, wheat grass and an abundance of fruit and veggies in big wooden bowls...That's gonna be a little tuff since I'll have to sculpt so many different items for the first time...Oh well, I'm ambitious when it comes to this stuff!

I made the picnic table from Popsicle sticks during our Edmonton mini group. I decided to finally fill it today or it would never get done. There are alot of things I would have liked to of added but you can only put so much! The apple pie is Kim Saulters and the macaroni and roses are ideas by Cynthia Sperin:

Do you like the Yum Yum drink? Even made it a label!

So that's what I spent all this rainy, melancholy doing. I also am making a Fortune Teller/Psychic tent and I've got all my pieces and plans ready but all the furniture is yet to arrive and I must check the floor plan and that all will fit before I go ahead and attach the walls..Pray for me..she is the only stall that counts..It's going to be amazing but I wish I had better skills to try more advance techniques..unfortunately I have no more time for experimenting. I have to learn to not be so fussy and hard on myself!! I'll for sure post lots of the Tent when it's finished...Probably a few peeks so come back and check it out. Now it's time for candy bars, a good movie and some snuggling.."Nighty Nite...

A little hostility and a slice of pie

 Hi y'all ... *sigh. I am definitely having one of those days ... problems no matter what I'm trying to do today, feeling incredibly anxious and irritable; and that's no mood for fiddily miniature work. Finished a couple of pieces but as usual all I'm seeing are the mistakes:

Pie crust looks to orange for my taste ... I have found it really hard to get that nice golden brown 'baked' look with my pastels. Also wondering if my pie is too large for 1:12 ? Hmmm?

Next up: my first try at a table spread:

Like this for the most part, but the apples I made so carefully (stems are perfect size...yay!) have too much translucent. Oh well, lesson learned.

BTW really tired of all the dust around while I'm playing with my clay..anyone know what kind of filter or such works best?? How do you guys avoid it?

Okay that's it for today cause I'm feeling too out of sorts to write, probably shouldn't of even posted today but I wanted to show this work and move on. Gonna have a hot bubble bath and read the latest Jackie Collins, then bed. I'll start fresh tommorrow ... Mini hugs and love .. 

Okay Here we go...

Finally ready to show you guys some pictures. First I'll show you a few finished pieces and then I'll show you what I'm up to today:

These breads are my first ever, (I just started with miniature food 6 months ago) made from a tutorial by Pei li. Definitely need to work on my white layer. I had never used acrylic paint on my clay, always aoft chalk. Also this was the first try with air dry clay as I'm a polymer-holic..lol.

This is a table I'm working on. Decorated my cake stand with instructions from Cynthia's Cottage Design. Many more will soon be for sale at my as-of-yet-not-set-up Etsy shop. If your interested in something before the shop is ready,  just let me know in the comments, on Facebook or my email. 

Here is my take on the Market basket. I made everything except the bottle and the 'book' by Roxanne Fern. Bread is polymer clay and pastels.

 In the Easter spirit! Next I will make some eggs and lollypops, just collecting supplies. So loving my cupcakes. Might as well tell you now that they are my favorite thing in the world. Cupcake anything makes me happy. Waiting to put easter bunny handles on the drawers, metal pieces will soon be here for molding...

Just another shot of my pansy cupcakes. I am just so pleased that they turned out exactly as I had in mind..that's been a rare experience with this stuff. :)

So today while doing laundry I have 3 or 4 mini projects on the go (nevermind all the pieces/ ideas I am really working on..). Here's a shot of the frames I'm making, obviously did not make the big white one, that's from Micheals', 49 cents. These will be included in the tables and cabinets that will feature my food for sale. Don't know how I'm going to sell anything with my crappy photography; anyone have any advice or tutorials about miniature picture taking???

In between loads these chairs are slowly becoming ready to distress. Did I mention that shabby chic and cottage design is what I'm all about? Well I am, hope you love it as much as I do. I love pieces that are really overly distressed with two or three colors showing, natural wood mixed with lace and tons of roses and vintage whites'n'creams...ah...sigh...

Lastly, I really love antique cream and linen whites but I really wanted to play with some color so...this $1.50 Micheals hutch looks like nothing now but with some turquiose paint, some mesh and a few roses and you won't recognise it!

Okay I think that's enough for a good start..I can't wait to finish more stuff so I can show you more pictures. I don't dare show you my earlier work but I'm growing in leaps and bounds..and soon we will be fast friends. Mini hugs and Happy Monday to y'all!

                                                                                                                   XO Tasha

A slight introduction...

Hi y'all! First post! Well...my name is Natasha and I'm living in Edmonton Alberta with my 16 year old son, Ramses. Life has been hard since I came but I've found something that delights me on a daily basis,dollhouse miniatures and miniature food! So that will be the focus point of this blog but I'm quite sure you will learn a lot about me personally too. I'm really looking forward to making a few friends on here, mini and non, so please say Hello or ask me questions cause I really love feedback. I wanted to show you some pics but my son has the laptop so I'm blogging from my iPhone and I can't add photos so you'll have to wait till tommorrow, but then I'll have lots to show ya! Minihugs and Happy Sunday to all of you! XO Tasha.
PS. I'll do up my background tommorrow to so we'll be all pretty!! ;)