* The 2016 Gingerbread House Series *

~*~ The 2016 Gingerbread House Series ~*~

Ha! You thought I wasn't going to get this year's tiny gingerbread houses done, but you were wrong! Here they are;

 I wasn't up for polymer clay and all the baking though, so this year I went up in size a bit and sewed a gingerbread pillow village + 3 gingerbread pillow friends. Brown flannel coated in Polycrylic for the gingerbread. Once again I used puff paint for the frosting and polymer clay was used for the candy details. I doubt the tiny dollhouse people would want to eat these, they're meant to be throw pillows or plush decor items this time around.

No scene at the moment, I just finished these today at home and I haven't quite figured out a good way to sign and date them yet..., I will figure that out after Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, if you missed it on Instagram, my fern buddies have gotten into the spirit;

 And if you celebrate the holiday, I hope you have gotten yourself into the spirit of it too (or at least finished with presents - avoid being that eleventh hour shopper, it does not sound like fun to me). 

As of typing this it is just a few hours until Christmas Eve, and I am officially done working. Time to take a break and spend time with my family.

Merry Christmas, and if I don't hear from you until then - Happy New Year too. ^_^

* The 2015 Gingerbread House Series *

~*~ The 2015 Gingerbread House Series ~*~

I really thought I was calling it quits on the tradition this year. I didn't think I had the time and just wasn't feeling it, but then really early one morning last week I had an idea - I was going to made adorably kitsch Christmas clocks for the series this year! Decision made. So after several days/late nights, multiple bakes in the oven, and lots of gluing/painting, here we are. ^_^

And now I'm going to answer some of your questions;

1. No, the clocks do not work. I did include faux winding devices on the backs of these, because I would imagine they would be wind up clocks, but they aren't wind-able. (I would love to have those kinds of skills though)

2. The clocks themselves are printies glued behind a round piece of clear polymer clay, sealed with Polycrylic. I used a general clip art clock face, added my own hands in Photoshop, and then scaled the clocks down to fit inside this year's house design. The Polycrylic added a glassy shine to the finished piece.

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So far the people who've seen the end results approve. I like them, and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. Really happy that I was able to keep going with the annual gingerbread houses. I think I would've regretted it the next time I wanted to make more tiny gingerbread themed anything (you don't just skip a year...). Switched up the medium a bit, and I think that helped a little, time-wise. I used puff paint instead of tinted TLS. Less baking, more mess, but the dry time isn't bad. The results are sort of the same, so I might keep going with the paint from now on.  

Full list of materials;

Polymer clay - The gingerbread/candies/clock glass

TLS & Elmer's glue - Both pretty much just used as unseen glue

DIY printie clock - the clock

Reclaimed cardboard - The base and roof

Puff paint - All the frosting

And because these gingerbread house clocks are the 2015 series, they are initialed and dated on the bottom.

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Apologies if anyone was hoping to snag one in time for Christmas this year (I usually get these posted late in the season anyway, but this year I really pushed it). As of posting this, 2 are now up for auction on eBay, AND EDIT: I had a chance to also post some on Etsy too.

eBay store

Etsy shop

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This may or may not be my last post for 2015 (not sure), so I would like to end this entry by saying that I hope you're all doing well, I hope you are with loved ones and enjoying the season. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year.

Wrapping Things Up and Starting the New Year

Hello blog readers! How are you?

So, it's been a while. I don't think I ever mentioned it, but I picked up a side job. It's not related to art/design, but the extra paycheck is significantly helping to wipe out what's left of my student loans (hooray!). The set hours also has me sleeping like a normal person for once. My family thinks that's great, I think it's weird. I never realized how much times zones factor into talking to customers online until I stopped being available to talk whenever. It's safe to say between that and the holiday rush, I've been adjusting. Understandably I've fallen behind on things like blogging, but now that it's January - I'm reorganizing and catching up.

As is tradition, I spent some of the holidays making gifts for friends and family, and as is tradition, I waited until January to post photos of these gifts on the blog. Apologies for the not so great lighting, it gets dark really early here in Nov./Dec.

The first gift was for my pint -sized niece. She loves apples, and her grandma has some decorative plush apples that she loves to play with, even though they probably weren't intended to be toys. So I decided to make her a few kid-friendly plush apples for her to enjoy at home. While I was on an online adventure looking for apple inspiration, I came across an assortment of bloggers making happy little PB&J (how cute), and I ended up making some of those too. Everyone thought the toys I made should come in a basket (I agree, apples belong in baskets), but this gift had to be mailed (I feel like baskets don't mail all that well), so I wandered around a few stores until I found the basket-like blue bag everything is sitting on here - worked out really well. My niece loved the red and gold apples, she kept holding them and excitedly talking about Snow White. She also put the two halves of the P&J together and pretended to take a bite. My brother made some comment about how he didn't expect her to get all that excited about some apples, but hey I know my niece.

 

I ended up free handing my own patterns for these, but did some blog reading to figure out the stems of the apples since the ones I had in real life use cinnamon sticks (not kid-friendly). I you want to give these a try I recommend While Wearing High Heels - Amy has some great patterns/tuts available there. If you do some digging, you should cross paths with some sandwich tuts too.

 

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Next batch of gifts were for my out of town friends. A little bit of a back story here - I live in Western New York, which means I'm from Buffalo. Funny thing about the city of Buffalo, it wasn't actually named after the animal (check wikipeia - no one is really sure how "Buffalo" happened) and what Americans keep calling "Buffalo" are actually Bison. (go figure) That said, if you ever find yourself in my neck of the woods, there are "Buffalo" statues everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. Entire herds of them are set up along the highways and everything. Imagine growing up thinking this was a perfectly normal thing to see everyday, now imagine leaving town and not seeing all the ridiculous Buffalo everywhere anymore. A darn shame, right? Well I thought so. And so I made some Buffalo, and mailed them to my friends.

Made 3 of them, and added some string so they could be ornaments

No links for these, I drew up the patterns myself, based off of a public domain photo of a Bison.

 

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Last, but not least, a previously mentioned pint -sized niece had a birthday after Christmas. I wanted to make some owls. There you go.

Man, I am getting good at this making my own patterns thing. Aren't they cute? I have no idea if she'll play with them, but they did get a hug, so I think she liked them. 

 

 

Originally the plan was to make an owl inside of an egg, but then my brother, still being home from school, suggested that I should make a mother and baby set. I liked that idea, so I forgot about the egg and made a baby owl instead.

 

 

And there you have it, the handmade gifts of 2014. ^_^

Now what? Well, if you follow me on Facebook or Tumblr, you can probably guess, but if not, I'll be back with another post soon.

The 2014 Mini Gingerbread House Series

~*~ The 2014 Mini Gingerbread House Series. ~*~ , by Kyle Lefort

 

This year I wanted to make a little bit of everything. So we have one inch scale choo-choo trains, one inch/half inch scale (they should work in both scales) gingerbread houses, and quarter inch scale gingerbread houses. And as you may have noticed, the gingerbread houses this year are all A-Frames. Cute little A-frames, trying something new. Hope everyone likes them. ^_^

As is tradition, all the houses in this series are initialed and dated with the year on the bottom, except for the trains - There was nowhere for me to sign them. (No worries if you purchase one though - I do sign the receipts I send out, so you will have proof of the series)

Normally these are Etsy exclusives, but since my new eBay store is up, running, and doing well I decided to split the lot between the two online shops. 

~ Click here to browse my Etsy shop ~

~ Click here o browse my eBay store ~

As of typing this, roughly half of the series has been listed and I plan to add the rest as each piece is sold off.

You may also find a few leftovers from previous years, as well as other delightful items in my shops.

Something worth mentioning here: Normally I say if I run out of these before the holidays end, I'll make more - Not happening this year. I made so many pieces already, I just can't make one more gingerbread anything for 2014. So this is it, ~ Enjoy ~ ^_^

Oh and for the record, one house/train for every yearly series, so far (2012-2014);

Cute Stuffed Animals For Christmas

Yeah, I just used the word, "Christmas", in the title of a January post.
(Happy New Year, btw).

I mentioned back a month or two ago that I had to cut back on blogging so that I had time for other projects, one of which was a Christmas present for my pint-sized niece. I thought some of you might like to see what I made;

Cute aren't they?

I was looking around the internet for some kind of toy that I could make as a gift, here is the blog where I got the patterns from; http://whatmadeleineloves.blogspot.com/2012/05/felt-project-animals-my-very-first-felt.html

I made some changes, of course. Instead of gluing down little pieces and googly eyes, aka choking hazards, I stitched and embroidered in all of the details. And instead of felt, because I don't have/rarely ever use felt, I used printed cotton fabric and treated each piece like it was a tiny pillow that I was making. In sewing, the blanket stitch is my best friend.

I have no idea how well these will hold up against a toddler and her two little dogs, but every other gift I've made so far was a decoration or something to grow into-It was time for some toys. Anyway, my niece seemed to like them, they got a collective hug as soon as she pulled them all out of the box, and she wouldn't let anyone have them until she was allowed to open another present. Her uncle (one of my brothers) somehow got her to give up the pig so he could get a closer look at how I made them. She realized that he had it and got a little upset (so he gave it back). In closing, I'd say Christmas went well.

Special Holiday Offer!

 Just a head up, I don't plan on being online much this week. Working on some handmade Christmas gifts, (would love to show you, but can't until I give them out-It's not a surprise if the people I'm giving them to see their gifts online first) a few other things, and of course-Thanksgiving. So until I post again, please enjoy this mild attempt at online advertising;

For Artisan Miniatures, Art Prints, Postcards, Ornaments, and Jewelry-Check out my Etsy Shop; https://www.etsy.com/shop/KyleLefort

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***Hey Holiday Shoppers!***

From now until December 4th, 2013, Take $1.00 off of your order! At checkout, Just enter coupon code,

HOLIDAYSHOPPER2013

And along with this offer, while supplies last;

Purchase any Digital Art print or postcard from my Etsy shop, and receive a postcard, as a free Thank You gift with your order.

OR

Purchase any miniature, jewelry piece, or ornament from my Etsy shop, and receive a small free mystery Thank You gift with your order. -Possible mystery gifts may include; a postcard, small crafting supplies, and miniatures, (items may be store bought or my own handmade creations not currently listed on Etsy)

(Offer expires on 12/4. Limit 1 per household, Thank you)

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For Artisan Miniatures, Art Prints, Postcards, Ornaments, and Jewelry-Check out my Etsy Shop; https://www.etsy.com/shop/KyleLefort

The 2013 Mini Gingerbread House Series

Here they are, ~*~ The 2013 Mini Gingerbread House Series. ~*~ , by Kyle Lefort

(If you're new, I'm Kyle- hi)

The "Big" difference from the last two years-these are quarter scale.

Here, check out the size difference from last year;

One inch vs. Quarter inch. Neat, isn't it?

So why the dramatic scale change? Well, I sort of made an unofficial promise to some local people that I would give quarter scale a real try this year. And try I sure did. Consider this the official opening of the Quarter Inch Scale Minis section of my Etsy shop. Not sure if I'll have time to make anymore quarter scale anything for a while, but it's a start. ^_^

Wonderful Stuff - Polymer clay, Part 2

>>>>> Click Here To Read Part 1 <<<<<

Welcome to - Polymer Clay, Part 2

After digging through all of my past files and posts online, I present to you examples of my past work, featuring polymer clay;

You can sculpt figures with it.  Just 15min. in an oven for each piece to cure.

Berries and globs of sherbet for mini Halloween punch. Plus a serving spoon so the 'host' can dish it out.

Indoor mosaic work. 

Dinner Rolls, Candles(fake ones), & tiny gingerbread houses.

Super tiny chocolates.

mini clay bowls by ~Listener-Liserian on deviantART
mini box by ~Listener-Liserian on deviantART
 (If you're wondering about the weird screen-name, It's an old account)

Bowls and boxes, if you're super patient about sculpting...Like I was that week...




Strawberry Charm Pendants by ~Kyle-Lefort on deviantART

Charms!,

 


Black and Blue Clay Cabochon by ~Kyle-Lefort on deviantART
Tree Silhoutte Cabochon by ~Kyle-Lefort on deviantART
 
(Sold, but the others are still available).


The Steampunk Gear by ~Kyle-Lefort on deviantART

Handmade cabochons, and many other jewelry pieces.

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Of course, there are plenty of other things you can do with polymer clay. I'm just one person with a knack for working small. Hopefully, my work has inspired you (just a little?...maybe?), and now you know a little more about what I use to make it.

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Looking for more Tutorials and other useful info?

Paper Pottery Bowl Tutorial Part 1

Paper Pottery Bowl Tutorial Part 2

Mini Wire Shelving Tutorial

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Wonderful Stuff - Polymer clay, Part 1 

Wonderful Stuff - Polymer clay, Part 2

Undersized Urbanite-Style Decided...Finally

Thanks to the winter storm (a lot of snow-no big if you're from Buffalo) I know that I'm not going out for a while, so now's a good time to stay in and talk about my progress on the Cupboard City Townhouse. First, here's what I did after my last update;

Since my sketches are only 8X10in., but the house is 14.5X23.5 in. I decided to enlarge the earlier grayscale version and adjust it to fit the front of the house,

Which involved a little more cutting/pasting than planned. It turns out that the roof was way off.

Ditched the roof for the time being(it was just a sketch), patched a few spots on the front, and...I didn't like it. Some parts I knew would need adjusting (bigger stone pieces, less grout area, fixing parts that don't line up right), but even when I was sketching it out, something wasn't right(and it's kind of boring).

The colors weren't matching and I was struggling with the style/theme. I kept switching between Victorian & modern, floral and industrial. I knew I wanted brass and tarnished metal colors throughout the house, but my brain was not putting it all together. Hadn't looked at the plans since I packed everything up to make room for Christmas, but thanks to after Christmas sales, I decided to make a few final decisions that thankfully sorted out most my decorating problems.

One store had scrap book paper on sale, so I picked out the first floor's 'wallpaper'. Since I really want the brass fireplace to work out, instead of yellow, I'm going with just gold("brass"), and black. I almost never use gold, I don't even wear it, but I'm up for trying new things on this challenge.

So along with a riveted/brass fireplace, I decided on these modern gold/black stripes & a faded floral prints.

Went to basically every craft & hobby shop in the area and got a few post Christmas deals (sort of unrelated stuff-I'll get to later), not realizing that, by deciding on that brass fireplace and color scheme, I had settled on a style without even acknowledging it. Why? Well I came across these at my last stop:

Turns out that I was just a few gears shy of seeing the whole picture.

I'm trying to design a house around a brass fireplace, with riveted details. I'm combining brass and gears with a faded Victorian-esque floral pattern...

...Duh, it's Steampunk.

I'm making a Steampunk house! No wonder my exterior didn't feel right. It needs metal and pipes, and gears. Not the greens and grayish brown colors I've been sketching in. Thankfully I was only sketching up to this point, now I can just change a few things without having to completely redo anything (see, always sketch out your ideas first).

I haven't really tried Steampunk yet, but I know that normal looking furniture/appliances aren't going to look right, and that I should probably do some research before I sketch out the rest of the rooms. For the sake of finishing on time though, I am going to move forward with the sketches I've already started.

Here's the original layout;

And here's how some of my 1:12 scale furniture actually fits;

I am planning on a smaller fridge and a smaller counter/island instead of a table, so this could work. I might have to rethink the door if I can't get everything to fit, but I'm OK with that.

My current to-do list;

Finish sketching out the house
Re-work exterior
Look up how to make a Steampunk refrigerator.


Now I just have to find time to do all of this. ^_^

Merry Christmas ~ 2012

I wasn't planning on a Christmas scene, but since the Billy, happens to have a tree now, it's small resident decided to put it to good use and throw a Christmas party.

He invited his cabbage patch friends, various other random dolls, a penguin, and the Catrina from Halloween (she's been sitting outside the house since October, so he invited her in). It was a modest celebration.

Props used;
The tree, if you're not following along, is JS Miniatures.
The cabbage patch dolls are old McDonald's happy meal toys from my childhood.
Everything else is misc. gifts from friends, garage sale/ebay finds, recovered items from the Van Buren, and/or my own handmade originals.

Speaking of which, if you've had your eye on one of my mini gingerbread houses or any of my other works currently available in the Etsy shop, they will remain posted until January (unless they're sold, of course). After that, some of the listings will expire, and I'm not planning on renewing the seasonal items until those holidays roll around again(that includes fall and winter holidays).

New things are in the works for after Christmas, including progress on my entry in the Undersized Urbanite Contest (I hope), but until then,

Merry Christmas everyone!

The JS Miniatures Christmas Tree

I was lucky enough to be the winner of the Christmas giveaway over at the JS Miniatures blog. I've never won a blog giveaway before, so I was pretty excited. Jennifer, who is very nice btw, has a couple online shops, so I'm going to try and promote her work a little.

First, what did I win?

The Decorated Christmas Tree Kit with tinsel & baubles

I set it up inside Billy's kitchen/living room. The house's (still unfinished) resident was surprised, he didn't know that he was getting a Christmas tree. Here he's taking a break from hanging baubles on the tree, so I could take a photo. (I would love to make a Christmas scene, but I've got a deadline this week. So it will have to wait.) I like the natural wood color, but I might paint it if  I decide to keep using it in this house (it doesn't go well with the floor...maybe I should try a rug).

The tree is perfect for 1/12th scale and it's surprisingly sturdy. Little trees have the habit of falling over on me, that's not a problem with this one. And the baubles are pretty.

Jennifer also included fool-proof assembly instructions and tips for finishing the tree. All you have to do is slide two pieces together, but I could see a novice miniaturist running into trouble with paint and glue without that info.

This is a Christmas decoration, but she makes and sells beautiful minis year round.  
If you aren't following her blog yet, you can find it here.  
And here's her Etsy shop. (The fireplaces are gorgeous).

Thank you for the giveaway Jennifer! The tree was a nice Christmas surprise and I appreciate it.

 

 

A Small Surprise

Last week was St. Nicholas day. Wikipedia has a pretty accurate description, so I won't waste your time poorly re-explaining it. I'm in the United States where it's not an actual holiday, but since my ancestry is a mix between German and French, some European traditions are still kept up within my family. I always liked getting a visit from St. Nick when I was little. It gave me something to look forward to in-between Thanksgiving and Christmas (that's a long time for a little kid)

Since it's Christmas time, yes there are stockings hanging up in the living room, but I'm in my 20's now. I thought it was safe to assume that I had outgrown the tradition.

Nope, I was wrong, "St. Nicholas" showed up. I was doing some design work when I noticed that the stocking with my name on it had something tucked inside. Guess I was good this year;

It's furniture made for mini outdoor/fairy gardens, a local garden store carries them. I don't have a garden, but I was at this store a few months ago with my mother. She knew I thought these were neat, and that Billy has no outside furniture. But how St. Nicholas knew these things, I do not know...

The 2012 Mini Gingerbread House Series

 I made a couple mini gingerbread houses last year for a contest, and they ended up being one of the most popular things in my DA gallery. So I thought I would try and make it a yearly tradition.

This is the 2012 Mini Gingerbread House Series, by Kyle Lefort;

Everything is hand sculpted. The houses and tiny candies are polymer clay and TLS. The base is re-purposed cardboard, covered in paper-clay, and painted with acrylic paint.

They took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to make (started in September), but I'm pretty happy with them.

I just posted them all separately in my Etsy shop.
I don't like being a salesman, but when they're gone, they're gone-just sayin'.

Happy Holidays. :)

Cubebot Challenge-The Subtle Sleepover

It turns out that people like playing with Cubebots. So much so, that the first three times I tried working on this challenge, one of my brothers would come along and mess up whatever pose I had the little guy in. First time was fine, but after the next two incidents, I decided to work on my set up in secret.

That's reason #1 for why this took so long to finish. #2 is the Etsy shop (tis the season), and #3 would be that I needed to figure out how to make some semi-decent looking twin beds...for a clubhouse...a nice clubhouse.

Before I get too ahead of myself:
The Cubebot Challenge. <-For those just tuning in.

How did I get a Cubebot? ...Internet.

Why? Uhhhh...Last summer I was reading the blog, Mini Modern, and in one of her posts involved a small Cubebot. Loved it, looked it up online, and found that I could actually afford one (yay!). So I bought a small Cubebot, patiently waited for it in the mail, and guess what? He was just a bit too big to live inside my little 1:12 scale house (although he's welcome to stop by anytime). I really love it though, and was looking for more excuses to take it out the box when Call of the Small posted this challenge.

Previously listed excuses/reasons notwithstanding, this is my response to the Cubebot Challenge;

"The Subtle Sleepover"

To big to play in the house, the children thought it would be fun to build a club house with (well, out of actually) Cubebot, so that he wouldn't be stuck playing outside this winter. And since they're just across the yard, the parents don't mind the occasional weekend sleepover. Especially when the, mostly responsible, aside from eating a few crayons now and then, Cubebot is keeping an eye on them.

Happy to have participated. A big Thank You to Call of the Small & David Weeks/Areaware for the challenge.

Ok, Now I'll talk Christmas

If you regularly read my blog, then you  know that I was trying to decide how long to wait before hopping on the Christmas train. Turns out, my out of town family, that supposedly couldn't make it here for the holidays this year, did manage to come home for Thanksgiving. Since I wasn't about to pass up family time, I suppose the decision was made for me.

Long story, short-It was great, but now that I've come down from the pumpkin pie rush, and managed to avoid Black Friday mob hystery for another year, time for Christmas.

Because it's fun to stagger things, and I've still got a row of unfinished minis & other work drying on the table next to me, I'll be posting new Christmas items up on Etsy throughout the week.

Right now, ornaments!

I love mosaics, it must be all the little details.

I've also been trying my hand at primitive style, hand stitched designs.

Bold colors, anyone?

If you want the most up to date...updates on what's new in my shop, "Like" me on Facebook.  

Also on my to-do list: Call of the Small's Cubebot Challenge. Entries have to be in by Dec. 1st, so I should probably finish mine soon. I really did not mean to take this long on it, but legit actual freelance design work and Etsy shop stuff has been occupying most of my time lately. I'm busy in a good way (seriously I've spent months trying to make all this happen), but something was going to get pushed aside now that I've got real deadlines again and this challenge ended up being it. Planning on spending tomorrow working on finishing some things, mostly tying up some loose ends and taking a break from my laptop, because today I was using it from 1-6pm & and then 11-well it's 2:30am right now...Yep, tomorrow I'm staying off the laptop for a while.

So remember, Etsy/Christmas, all this week. My Cubebot entry-coming soon. Next post.

Some WIP & a Made Up Holiday

I've got some family that lives out of town, and as it turns out, we won't be together on Christmas or Thanksgiving this year. The solution to this problem? A Pseudo-Christmas celebration, like right now.

OK, I did get a two week notice, but let's see you try to both buy and make a handful of Christmas gifts in two weeks when you normally would have a couple months ( *Mmhmmm* ).

And, while I'm typing up this post-I'm also working on throwing together an adorable table top Christmas tree for my mother. Basically, after my stint at a craft show last year, she thoughtfully bought me a faux-tree better suited for a show table (sadly, no shows this year though), which I then volunteered to use for Pseudo-Christmas. First, I was told not to bother, but any other tree we might have would need to be dug out of storage, along with all the ornaments. I've still got some leftovers from the show, a couple experiments I haven't quite figured out yet, and some new ones that should be up for sale on Etsy this week. Plus, let's face it, I'm a crafty person (So I got this).

And while all that can be summed up rather quickly, I have been a little pressed for time, making a few gifts (for my niece again) along with an assortment of Christmas items for the Etsy shop. On Friday, I was hoping to have all gifts made, bought, sealed, and wrapped, but then I got caught up in running errands. Was I annoyed? A little, but some of it was kind of fun. And I came home with some remnant bin finds, which led me to my fabric stash in the basement, which is when/where I decided to post some teasers about what I'm working on right now.

Since Billy has a semi-permanent table to sit on now and it looks terrible as-is, I decided to add a yard(or at least some sort of ground cover). No budget, but I had this gray, liner type fabric (Billy's upstairs carpet is the same stuff-in blue) that I thought could work...if I paint it maybe... I tried it out with the Halloween scene and then left it there, hoping it would grow on me. It didn't, that's OK though because my remnant find of the day was that same material in, "Outdoor Green", 30% off (ha-Ha!...I'm such a dork).

 

Didn't have time to work on it, so I just rolled it out to see how it looks 

(already much better than brown beat up table).

So that's WIP 1.

WIP2.  Maybe it should be #1 because I'm currently working on it, but...Christmas stuff!

Been working on these since September, I'll let you guess what they are.

Mixed Media Ornaments 

The bottom one is a gift, top right still needs paint, but the other two I'm hanging on the tree tonight. More on the way. I keep looking for excuses to do mosaic work, sort of as practice for some ideas I have about the Van Buren. Speaking of which...

...No that's not the Van Buren. It's a neat little shelf/cabinet I picked up at an antique co-op 2 summers ago. It's not really an antique, but I got it for $20. From my understanding, front open houses are pricey, so this really was a find. I'm mentioning this house because, like the Van Buren, I want to do exterior stonework siding of some sort. So I think I'll use this little guy as practice. Better to have to redo a botched siding project on the small house instead of the big one, really though I can handle mosaics. How hard could faux stone siding be?
This isn't gong to happen for a while though so, oh hey, did I ever post about my type set drawer?

I got this one last summer at another co-op. I've been wanting one for a while now. They're neat because: A) If I were a graphic designer and/or printer, "Back in the day", (like before I was born) I'd probably use a printing press, and would have a bunch of these filled with letter blocks. And B) I wanted something like this to display my mini work. I had to glue together some spots, and clean it, and seal it (because there was so much smeary ink/grease in the sections, I couldn't use it otherwise), but I still think I got a deal on it. The WIP part is that I'm still considering adding some scrap paper to a few sections for color.

If  you're keeping score, I think this next one is WIP #5...

Progress with what I'm doing with the lamp shades, and some other house accessories. I like where it's going, but it's slow work, so it might be a while before any of these make it to the shop. Also, I think I made more lamp shades than I will use for a while, so maybe I'll start selling batches of lamp shades? Or DIY lamps, what do you think?

Lastly, (I really need to go finish decorating that tree) WIP #6,

Wood and vinyl...hmmm, What am I making?

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this, and are intrigued. Will I finish it all? Maybe...I'm also working on a couple challenges too, we'll just see how it all goes.

I'm going to finish decorating so I'm not up ALL night (and then it's family time).

 So...Happy Pseudo-Christmas!