The Reptile Show

Sorry about having to take a month to post this, work + a small business + life = The blog takes the back seat a lot, but I get to it when I can.

While I'm at it: I would like to thank everyone who's left nice comments under my blog posts - I read all of them, but lately I've been so busy I just can't respond to every comment I receive. I do appreciate all of them though. I love it when someone takes the time to let me know I'm not just talking to myself here. XD

Ok, so now the much delayed post about the reptile show
- The Buffalo Niagara Reptile Expo!
- It was interesting. (I mean that in a good way)

First the setup;

As I said earlier, I was really at this show to help out Nate. I did bring some of my own art/mini work, but it was off to the side and I forgot to photograph it once that portion of the table was set up (oops). Look how many displays this kid made though.

I don't really have much to write or say (other than recommend you go to the one next fall, you will see some some cool stuff, I promise ^_^ ), so here are just some of the odd/fun highlights I managed to also take pictures of;

The table right next to me was a case full of pythons. The people running the table had no problems letting you hold these guys.

Some of the friendliest snakes ever, I've been told. Actually, I've held these kind of snakes before, didn't have any problems. But still, table full of snakes 2 feet away from me all day. I did not hold any snakes at this show (just because), but my mom did, which is a big deal for her since she doesn't like snakes at all.


There was this guy;

I would've tried to get clearer photos, but despite being in this building for hours, after this turtle person walked by once, I never saw them again...

And one thing that I really wanted to bring home with me (but sadly didn't),

Baby Tortoises!

Baby tortoises are so cute because they act like big old tortoises, while still being adorably small. And I do like great big tortoises too, so please no comments about how irresponsible it is to buy a pet when it's a cute baby and forgetting that it will grow. :P Maybe someday when I can afford one I will add a new reptile to the family....

And there you have it, The Buffalo Niagara Reptile Expo!
Honestly, I don't know what else to say - If you live in the area, I recommend you check it out next time, and if you don't live nearby go to the reptile house in your nearest zoo or something - Go see some cool snakes/turtles/lizards and such. Maybe there is even a show like this near you. ^_^

Not So Much Blogging, Very Much Busy Working

Packing things up for the Buffalo Niagara Reptile Expo (May 3rd, 9:00am - 3:30pm); https://www.facebook.com/events/723840184374069/

My main purpose for attending this show is to help out Nathan Lefort ( https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nathan-Lefort/667222623368680?fref=ts ) so if you like riker mounts/display domes/pretty butterflies/creepy bugs (and you're in the WNY area) - Stop by my table.

Along with Nate's work, I will also be bringing this pile of handmade miniature riker mounts, mini hedgehogs, what's currently available from my Mini Patchwork Dragon Series, a few assorted mini plushies, art postcards, and every metallic art print I have in stock - Including the [finally available in print] Yellow Spotted Salamander illustration I've had floating around online for the past couple years. ~ I have a long day ahead of me, should be fun though. Might take pictures, so stay tuned.

My Nice Fall Weekend

I've been working on various art/design projects lately, and this weekend was no different. But after finishing up a week's worth of outdoor painting, in some of the nicest fall weather one could ever hope for, I sort of got a couple days off. And I have photos.

Saturday evening was a backyard bonfire with a few of my friends. It was so warm out I didn't need a coat or even a sweater. It was midnight before anyone commented about being cold. And a screech owl stopped by to say "Hello", which is pretty neat to hear when you're just sitting in your backyard.

Sunday I headed an hour south with my mom and little brother for some volunteering at Beaver Meadow.
Most of my family went to day camp out there during our summers growing up, and clearly we love the place because now we head out there to volunteer when ever we can.

^^^This is their Nature Center 

They have a fall event called, "The Enchanted Forest", which is really cute and a ton of fun for the kids. Out in the woods, at night, throughout Columbus Day weekend some of the animals become "Enchanted" and start talking. A bit of a spoiler alert here: They're people in costumes. Naturalists and a few really dedicated volunteers take on animal characters to teach people about the nocturnal wildlife in the area. I've only ever gotten to see the show as a "Firefly" (guides that take groups through the event trail-They wear all black and carry lanterns), but even knowing who's wearing the costumes I'm pretty impressed by how into their acts these people get.

Last year I was stuck out in a snack tent and it was so cold and rainy that I had a surprisingly bad night that turned into a terrible cold, which of course I whined about on the blog, but really, I do love volunteering at this thing. To keep it that way my family made sure that we got to spend the night inside for once-call it a recovery year. My brother somehow ended up in the reptile room handling snakes.

My mom and I worked the craft room. We helped the kids make owls out of toilet paper rolls and paper. No idea who came up with the design, but how cute are these?

I named mine Hootington.

3 hours of crafting is not a bad way to spend the evening especially when it helps out a group of people who've been working very hard to make this a great event all weekend. And it was nice seeing a bunch of our nature friends again.

We decided to spend Columbus Day at Letchworth State park again this year, so instead of going all the way back home, we stayed at a nearby hotel.

The hotel is in the middle of a golf course, so the landscaping outside is just beautiful, especially since it's Fall.

 And this is on a cloudy day.

After I was done marveling at the pretty trees next to the parking lot, we headed out for a drive through a very rural portion of New York. Stopped in Varysburg for lunch and then we were off to Letchworth.

My brother started off the weekend with a cold, so we couldn't do as much hiking as last year, and it was much cloudier, but still I got some great photos.

There was a train!

And I'm not saying a troll lives in that little tunnel, but I dunno

...lawn gnome maybe?

We also went through a museum at the park. Stuff behind glass usually doesn't photograph well, so please forgive the image quality of these two.

The original headstone of Mary Jemison.

If you ever got the chance to read, "Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison", in school-This was Corn Tassel. If you didn't read that book, don't worry because it's, "Highly fictionalized", and won't really teach you who Mary Jemison was. (It would be like reading, "The Crucible", to learn about the Salem witch hunt-you get the gist of it, but the details are really skewed) I know enough about the woman to think this was neat though.

And here we have a Mastodon skull. How cool is that?

They dug it up somewhere nearby.

On the way home we ended up driving through the Iroquois Nature Preserve. Beaver Meadow is part of the Buffalo Audubon, and Letchworth is a State park, but as it turns out
Iroquois is a National Wildlife Refuge. So while the lookout spot we usually stop at wasn't blocked or anything, this was tacked onto a railing;

My mom, brother, and I all took photos because an example of what happens when the U.S. government decides to act like spoiled children is worth documenting. Last I heard, the Republicans finally caved before they accidentally ran this country over another financial cliff, but I still felt like I should post this. Never forget, right?

And so ended my weekend. Politics aside, it was great and I had fun. I love the Fall and trips like this are a big part of how I manage to really enjoy it.

Catching Up on Life - And Other Things

In an effort to finally get caught up on blogging, I'm making this one catch-up post about the many of things I feel like I need to blog about, so that I can mention it all and then move on with everything else I should be doing. If you're not into what you're reading, feel free to scroll down until you find something more interesting. ^_^

(I would also like it known that I have just about caught up on my blog reading, but to catch up on my reading-and everything else-I really couldn't leave comments on many of them. I do read them all though)

1. Update on the Market I took my work to;

I'm not saying it went badly, but it could've gone better. Compared to the last time I had a booth somewhere, I think I was more prepared and professional, I even remembered to take photos of my setup this time;

There was some wind, and the tear down had to happen in the rain, 

but it all held together pretty well.

Because I was basically trying to sell my work in the same location as last time, and I already know it's not a great market for my work, I really wasn't expecting much, but the one sale I made more than covered the entrance fee and quite a few people took my business cards, so it wasn't a loss.

Honestly though, I wish I had more of a budget for shows. I'd like to try some outside of Lockport, but I keep picking paying my bills over entry fees and other overhead. Stupid me, right? I dunno, I'm hoping that either I finally snag a long term job in my field or this freelance designer/artist/craft-person thing I do starts getting more regular business. Getting to the point where even a minimum wage job anywhere wouldn't be a terrible option, but it's going to take tons of time away from what I actually want to do, so I keep dragging my feet on that one.

2. Every year my church has this sale called, "Trash and Treasures", which I can only describe as a great way to clear all the junk out of your house(donating it to a church) and a great opportunity to get some neat stuff for dirt cheap (other peoples' junk-that you want), because unlike a garage sale, the church is the seller AND they're in charge of donating/recycling/giving away/throwing out whatever is left when the sale is over.

I love going to Trash and Treasures, but I purposely skipped it this year, waaay to much budget breaking temptation. The sale goes on during a yearly picnic/car show that I volunteer at, which makes avoiding it tricky, and wasting money at the picnic really wasn't any better that spending it at the sale, so instead of what I usually do at this thing, I skipped it and stopped by afterwards to help clean up (which went well with the church people because they have a tough time getting volunteers for that).

Well, my Mother did volunteer during the picnic and she spent some time at the sale, where she found and bought me this;

It's a weird little house! (That blue disk is a turntable/base for the house to sit on) I say it's weird because it's a bird house at the top, the front is one big out of scale tole painting, and it's part lazy Susan. I like it. A week before all this I was looking at the Steampunk House thinking about how much I enjoyed Undersized Urbanite and wishing I had another house on hand because, whether or not that Challenge becomes a yearly thing, bloggers are always coming up with things that a spare house would come in handy for. Now I have one. (Thank you Mom!) 

3. Clay-A-Palooza!

This was already a few weeks ago, so I'm going to save some time and direct you to a journal explanation I posted over on DeviantArt >>> Here.

 

Here's the results;

 

Miniature Pumpkins,

micro miniature pumpkins,

 

And micro miniature Penguins!

Out of season stuff, but it's what I felt like making. And look how tiny it all is! It's all up on Etsy now if anyone's interested. (The photos are linked to their listings).

4. After seeing my new micro miniature penguins, someone placed a custom order for some equally tiny charms.

 

If anyone in the U.S. wants to a custom order of miniatures/jewelry pieces, 

Seriously, just ask.

The order was for 4, I ended up making a batch of 7 though. I was planning on posting the extras on Etsy, but the shop's pretty full right now and a friend just reserved one of them. So I guess the 2 left are for sale online by request only.

(2 for $9 USD + shipping, if you're interested-feel free to contact me about them)

5. While I'm talking about Etsy, I'll mention these too;

A year and a half ago I opened my Etsy shop and the first thing I posted for sale were these miniature caramel apples. They sat in the shop, weren't selling, but they got tons of views and brought people to the shop so I kept renewing the listing. They weren't super expensive or anything, more expensive pieces were being bought up, but not theses apples. I guess the right person needed to see them or something, because right before that awful thunderstorm came through a couple weeks ago-someone finally bought them!

Normally  wouldn't just post about a sale, but being the first thing I ever tried to sell online, I dunno, It's kind of a bittersweet sign of progress. :)


6. Pumpkins

They're back again. ^_^

Yay, pumpkins!

(I love pumpkins)

Boo, whatever did this! It can have that one,  

but I'm hoping this isn't the year of the groundhog all over again.

It even ate the seeds this time.

Bonus photos;

City People: This is a field being harvested

This is a slug, 

which of course is crawling across my brother's arm

(Check out that slime trail)

And This...

...was probably a bad idea, 

but hanging out with some friends 

and figuring out how to use this canoe without paddles was pretty fun.

7. County Fairs

I usually go to two of them. Niagara County (Remember this?), where I mostly just hang out with the 4-H members I know, and Erie County, where I spent all of yesterday enjoying dorky things like the pig races. ("Swifty Swine Racing Pigs")

Winner gets a cookie. They're so cute.

And that my friends, brings us to today. There all caught up, woo-hoo. ^_^

 

An Interesting Week

A list of things that happened last week, worth mentioning;


1. Not long after I posted the latest riker mount set on Etsy,

I got a request for a custom order. Which I gladly accepted.
On the left is a 1:12 scale tiger swallowtail (see above photo for size reference), and on the right is the custom version;

Apologies for the unfocused WIP shot,
but it wasn't photo-shoot time and these are really small.

No cases, but I'm still in the middle of water proofing them for terrarium use. I enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how to make these work for my new client, but, with the exception of custom orders, I think I'm still sticking with 1:12 for regular shop items. (I like my comfort zone)

2. I won a giveaway on Monique's blog, Fabulously Small, and then another giveaway  at The Shopping Sherpa blog a day or two later. Two wins in one week, after months of not winning, I must have had a lucky streak. :)

3. I have a friend who has an aunt that's into miniatures. Every once in a while she'd make the comment that she needs to introduce us, but since I'm in the U.S. and her aunt's in Australia, that probably wasn't going to happen. Well, thanks to an off-hand comment on Facebook, I at least got to talk with her online. (Hi, again) As it turns out, online she knows some of the other Australian mini bloggers that I also follow and talk too. Its surprising that we haven't run into each other online before this, but who knows maybe we have. It's not like we knew eachother already, right?

4.  I'm always on the look out for type boxes, shadow boxes, or really anything that I can use for future miniature displays. Well my friend's mother (different friend than in #3, btw) found me this at the salvation army;

Can I use this? Yes, I can.

 5. My little brother showed up the other day with a terrarium for one of his spiders, cork wood, and some moss. After repeatedly insisting that I drop everything and make a mock environment for his spider, I did;

We've made one of these before, with a rock ledge, so the cork wood setup really didn't take that long. Supposedly, the spider has since moved in, but hasn't calmed down enough to build a web yet. If it looks cool when it does, I'll post a photo. :)

6. While out for a family birthday party, my little brother, one of my older brothers, and I ended up spending most of the day wandering through the woods. Out in the woods, in the middle of nowhere people tend to dump junk that they can't easily dispose of. So, it's not surprising when you come across a steep slope covered in old tires, broken glass, metal, and other random junk that looks like it's been piling up there since the 50's, which is what we ended up walking through. This wasn't my idea, can't say it was fun, and at one point I slipped and the only thing that stopped me from sliding down a pile of broken glass was the thorn bush I grabbed onto. But it was memorable and the whole scene was pretty cool looking, in a sci-fi wasteland sort of way. Didn't have a camera, but I did pick up this small piece of scrap iron,

I feel like this somehow needs to find it's way into a dollhouse

And I'm pretty sure that the thorn pricks on my hand will stick around for a few more days, so I'm not likely to forget that birthday party. XD

7. I blogged about my interesting week. The End. ^_^

Miniature Riker Mounts

More progress on my entry for Undersized Urbanite, but first a bit of a context;

Nathan, my little brother (he's been taller than me for years, but still) is really into 'Creepy Crawlies'. I have no idea what his online rep. for this is, but I know that people with doctorate degrees sometimes ask him questions, so it would not surprised to hear a lot of people know him. Anyway, he's been obsessed with Entomology (the study of insects) long before he could even correctly pronounce the word, "Entomology". To be fair, he is also really into spiders and reptiles, and small mammals. When alive, these creatures tend to be pets, but when they eventually die, well, he has a lot of display cases full of preserved specimens. And it's not surprising to see him recieve dead animals as gifts. Yes, he is an odd one.

How odd exactly? Several years ago, he had a Praying Mantis egg sack (an "Ootheca", btw) in a little container, which he carried around everywhere for weeks until the eggs hatched (he even hand braided a strap to keep the container attached to his arm), WHICH I HAD COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN ABOUT until he brought it up the other day, because in the years after this egg hatching venture of his, there have been soooo may other weird experiences that my brain decided it wasn't so strange that it has to stick in my memories.

I have a couple of friends who are shocked by how calm my family and I are about all this, my parents have always been encouraging when it comes to our interests, and honestly after years of babysitting Giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, getting in to arguments that started with, "I told you to keep you Scorpions away from my Laptop", and a parade of strange creatures handed to me over the years- I think I'm just used to it. Btw, I've seen, that weird spider thing from Harry Potter, in person.(completely harmless)

And putting up with it all, does have it's benefits. Like say, I decide that my Steampunk dollhouse's observatory room really could use some Riker Mounts along the back wall;

(still WIP, but already pretty awesome)

Not only do I know what they are called and how they should look when they're done (these still need some acetate and paint), but I also have free access to several perfectly displayed bugs to photograph and scale down. And since they were already the dead ones I didn't even have to touch any of them. (woohoo!)

Well, my brother did tell me that the size ratio isn't quite 100% (it's close enough though), one was a gift that hadn't been properly pinned (made a point of saying that wasn't his fault), but otherwise I didn't do a terrible job.

I can name about half of these...

I cut out the photos and folded their legs/wings before gluing them in place, so that they'd look more like real bugs. To make my life easier, I stuck with the bigger bugs. How big? I roughly measured the larger ones at around 5 in.

Told you so.

And to give you an idea of how small my little cut outs are;

Real butterfly vs. My mini version.

And while I was looking through my brother's bugs, I found an Egyptian clay Scarab Beetle bead that I had loaned him for a project (it had gotten lost in the shuffle), which reminded me that I had a mummy bead that might look good in this house;

 I also found a broken metal flower pin that might work as decor, 

and did I show off the new skull beads yet?

I bought/found all of those at a rock & gem show that my family goes to/volunteers at thanks to one of my other brothers.

So for future reference, weird family = awesome resources, and one more thing crossed off my Steampunk house to-do list.

Which is good because while I was working on the roof this week, I heard a small *Thud*, which turned out to be the basement ceiling;

Again.

It's not even that heavy. Looks like I need to re-glue it, and remember to leave the clamps on overnight his time (I knew I rushed through it last time).

Day Trip - And I Took Photos

Thanks to an unintentional coincidence in the timing, the end of The Curious Concepts Project Campaign and the deadline to complete entries for Undersized Urbanite are  both May 4th. So starting after this post, this blog is going to be nothing, but stuff related to those projects until May. I say, "after this post" because, well, did you read this post's title?

My mom, her friend, and I went antiquing on a Monday. Do not go antiquing on a Monday, most antique stores will not be open, but it was just meant to be a wandering around looking for cool stuff kind of day, so it actually went really well for us.

First photo worthy moment, driving through the Alabama swamps (Alabama, NY, btw). It's a great birdwatching spot this time of year (migration birds), and after pulling over to look at the third Great Blue Heron on our way, we pulled into an observation area.

We saw at least five herons, most of them were flying around and catching fish, this is the only one that stayed put long enough for me to grab my camera and get out of the car.

Poor attempt at a close up-you're welcome

Probably the most heron I've seen in an outing that didn't involve a kayak.

So then we went driving around the middle of nowhere, which led to the next photo-op;

Ah, alternative energy

First time I saw wind turbines, it was at night, during a snow storm, just creepy. Up against a blue sky backdrop though, kind of pretty.

That and several country stores, was my day. Ended up with some dime-sized mini Cardinal birds,

Probably too big to be 1:12 scale birds, but home decor pieces, that could work.

And in a world where who you are and what you do can always be defined by a clever sign or two, my mother gave me this;

That sounds about right.