Fallen in love with a book

You may have seen this photo before...it's a little afternoon tea party scene in my shabby cottage.  The gorgeous cake and the cake slices were made by Kim Saulter (It's a Miniature Life)  .  I just love Kim's miniatures - I've always been a huge fan - she is one of my blog heroes.

So......

Oh, wow!

I know that those of you who are better than I am at keeping up to date with your blog reading will probably already know this, but I didn't!  I just stumbled upon it last night!

Kim has written a book!!  I am such an admirer of her beautiful work.  It's not just that she makes such delicately pretty cakes and baking....I just really admire the way she puts a scene together.....everything is so charming - I want to shrink and live in every room.   And never grow big again.

And then to top it all off, there are some of my little dollshouse plates in her book.   There is my little damier rouge plate on the right hand side.  So that completely made my day.

If you haven't already had a look, you can read her post about her new book here.  Of course Kim has no idea I am writing this rather effusive blog....I was just so excited that I had to let off some steam!!

I've been having fun making some little bits and pieces lately.  When I went to visit my lovely sister last year, she had a gorgeous old ballerina print in her bathroom.  (She is going shabby chic - full sized style!).  So I thought it would be nice to have a dollshouse sized version....here it is...isn't it cute?

I also have a new favourite vintage sign....even my other half thinks we should have one in the garden.  Hope the fairies have a sense of humour. 

And here are a couple more that I like. 

I need a new project now....I have a room box sitting around unloved and incomplete.  I think it's time to start something new.....

What I have been doing

My poor abandoned blog has been sitting here, unloved and un-updated for such a long time!  I've been missing all my blog friends and, after a terrible year, during which it seemed as though everything went wrong, 2013 is looking much better, so it's time for an update.

I must admit I got quite distracted from miniatures last year, so I thought I would let you see some of last year's distractions.

First of all, we decided to get chickens.  They live on a chicken dome in our front garden for part of the year, and in a permanent chicken run in the back yard for the rest of the time.  On the left, you can see Bella (a blue orpington) who is definitely my favourite.  During the year we have lots of adventures with the chickens, including having a chick (just one chick from a clutch of five eggs, which just goes to illustrate the saying "never count your chickens before they hatch").  Mallow and her chick Marigold are pictured on the right.

The chickens were part of a new plan for our garden.  We dug up the front lawn, planted it all out in vege beds and have been growing as much of our food as possible this year.

Hubby made me a lovely shabby-chic garden bench  and we've had a wonderful summer - here are some of last week's tomatoes....

...don't worry....

....there will be some dollshouse miniatures in this blogpost....

Another reason I haven't spent much time on miniatures is that I have been learning to play guitar.   I still have a long way to go and I'm too shy to play in front of anyone yet, but it's been a lot of fun learning and it just goes to show that you are never too old to start something.  I wish I had done this 25 years ago....I could have been quite good by now.

And finally, I also managed to get distracted by soapmaking.  I have had a lovely time learning how to make soap and am never short of a gift for family and friends now....haven't had to use any bought soap for ages either!  I have to admit I also got distracted by cheesemaking.  It's been a busy year.

I did actually make some miniatures last year....     .... I made this little soapmaking miniature.  I thought it would be good to have some soapmaking going on in the kitchen in my shappy cottage, since there was so much soapmaking going on in my real kitchen.  Just like real soapmaking, the miniature soap didn't turn out quite as wonderful as I was hoping and I didn't get around to blogging about it. 

Something I made last year of which I was quite proud was this cute little tin of marshmallows.  I have made the tins before, but this time I made some tiny marshmallows in pink and white, made from polymer clay and dusted with miniature "icing sugar" - they were very cute and I enjoyed making them.

The chickens prompted a bit of a "chicken" focus for a while and I also made a cute little vintage sign, which has yet to find a home....

Here is a photo I am really proud to show you.  Lisa Riley took this photo and sent it to me, to show me the dresser she had arranged, including some plates she had bought from my Etsy store.  I asked her if I could use the photo on my blog and she kindly agreed.  If you would like to see more of her gorgeous work, you can check out her blog - Design Inspirations - it's so pretty!!  Thanks, Lisa, for getting me inspired again and all excited about making more little plates.

I was really touched, after having a really awful year, to receive a whole heap of emails and messages via Etsy asking about whether everything was ok, when I was going to start blogging again, and also when I was going to start selling miniature plates again.  It motivated me to get my act together, and I have made a new shop banner and restocked my Etsy store.  I'm all excited about making miniatures again, and now that the New Zealand summer is coming to an end (although it's still massively hot here and not a sign of any rain any time soon), I'll hopefully have some time to try out some of my new ideas! 

Thanks for reading this blogpost.  This is a photo taken yesterday - our family of four plus the dog went out for a tramp into the bush - we took our wetsuits and spent the day walking, climbing and swimming down one of the local rivers.....it was just gorgeous.  Here are Matthew and I posing for the camera, not realising that Ella was finding the water quite cold!!