My thought for the week (this is aimed entirely at myself!) is that if you need to take time off from miniatures so that you can relax, then you must be doing it wrong!!There have been a couple of additions to the shabby cottage recently.
This week I made a carpet for the bedroom....I printed the image onto my very last sheet of fuzzy paper. Sure enough, the paper folded over part way through the printer, but luckily it wasn't on the part with the large carpet on it.
Fuzzy paper makes a lovely, thin carpet but it can be a bit prone to lifting at the edges after a little while, so I have very lightly glued it down to the floor. I can lift it up easily enough if I want to because when I made the floor, I rubbed a candle all over the painted surface and then polished it to make a 'waxed' surface, so the carpet isn't really permanently stuck down.
This is such a pretty carpet. I thought I would also add the original image here as well so that anyone who would like it can copy it. You can see it below.I am interested in trying out suede paper for carpet making to see whether that would stay flatter. Maybe I'll try that next time.
Here is the image I used to print the carpet. Hopefully you can right-click this and use it yourself if you like it.
Another addition to the shabby cottage is a beautiful little teapot and cup/saucer which have come all the way from Brazil, made by Betinha out of cold porcelain.
They are just gorgeous, and I have put them on the kitchen bench, all ready for a very glamourous cup of tea! 
This week I have been absolutely plagued with headaches/migraines and haven't had much joie-de-vivre, but in between headaches I did manage to finally go out and get some plate hangers and make a real-life-sized plate display for my living room wall.
Here they are, hanging above my rather excessive collection of cookbooks! I haven't been, and won't be brave enough to try and "shabby-chic' my collection of dark wood furniture in my real house....that is why I love the little shabby cottage so much - my husband once looked inside it and commented that he could now see what I would really like the house to be like.
