MECO Show and Sale

MECO Show and Sale
2016 Show & Sale will be the Saturday 14th May 2016 held at the Peachland Community Centre in Peachland BC. contact person Barb Janes-Yeo at 250-757-2842 barbandpaulyeo@shaw.ca

Sunday 23 June 2013

MECO Meeting June 23, 2013


This week, of course, heralded the first day of summer. Summer conjures up a lot of images, from surf and sand, to fireworks and barbecues, to picnics and general childish mayhem. Summer is what we wait for,  summer is what we sing about, and summer is here. Unfortunately, a lot of places look like this today ...

 This is low and tame, compared to such places as Calgary, sadly, although admittedly this bridge was closed about an hour after I crossed it and people frantically were sandbagging to save property -  the water did recede a little by the morning, thankfully. There was so much rain in this system, even I (a die hard cyclist) gave pause before I headed out in it. Just pause - I was insane enough to go out in it anyway, and was rewarded with a good soaking and a lot of paddle wheeling when I was supposed to be pedalling. Note to self, in the future if your instincts are telling you to take the bus...take the bus. 

Anyway, I understand that if the flooding gets any worse in Calgary, they will have to evacuate the Tigers from the zoo. Where you ask? To jail, of course, really the only secure place to keep a dangerous "in captivity" animal outside of its zoo home. I personally would like to see them housed next to the drunk tank. Could you imagine someone waking up after an all night bender, turning over, and being face first with a tiger? Talk about a roaring headache! (this is member Rosemary's pun...I was not involved). This could make someone very sober, very fast, though.  Of course, my next thought was, you could line up the following animals in adjoining cells ...lions, tigers and bears - what do you say, Dorothy? 



Hopefully it won't come to jail time for the tigers though, and the waters recede for those in Calgary and area soon. On a serious note, my good thoughts go out to all who are affected by the flooding  this spring, which seems to be very bad indeed, and hope that the water recedes back to whence it came.

In other news, today we had our June meeting of MECO. Once again, I taught a little workshop. You might recall this: 


I designed a little kit based loosely on this piece of furniture.  Workshops can be interesting beasts, always come prepared, and overly so. Me, not so much today - I totally forgot the example piece I was supposed to bring, although I seemed to bring everything else outside of the kitchen sink. This oversight caused no end of fun. I have a lot of genetics in my background that predispose me to hand talking and gesturing, and the more adamant I am, the more wildly I gesticulate  -  which results in a lot of ducking on the part of the listener.

 Aaaaany way...everyone took home a finished project, so that is great, and  of course that is what you hope for in any workshop situation. 

Here are a few pictures of everyone industrially working away on their linen press. 

Right about here, I blinded most of the table when I flashed them. This is strange, because I usually turn off my flash on my camera and set it to the overcast setting (hey, wait a minute...you weren't thinking...! OMG people, mind out of the gutters, please!) but I hit the wrong controls on my shutters for some reason. Oh well, que sera, sera. 

It is quite interesting how quiet people get when in full concentration. It is serious business, sometimes, being a miniaturist! 

This workshop was well received, as everyone took home a finished or near finished piece. Once again, the choices in colour of the linen press was as diverse as the group. 

Just moving right along! That is a really good picture of that little 1/4 inch scale house sitting on the table , and you can see how tiny it is. The little wooden box on the table is a future project, by the way. It is something picked up at Michaels. Member Sherrill showed us a wine tasting room built in one, and of course that generally triggers the "gotta do something like that!" gene that all miniaturists carry in their genetic make up (right next to the Magpie gene which makes us wander over to sparkly things...).

We also had some show and tell. Once again, member Sherril gobsmacked us with some amazing pieces. Sorry for the fuzziness of the photos, right up front. I should have brought my reading glasses so I could see my screen of my camera. Rest assured, they looked perfectly clear when I took them. This is what is known as "time to visit the optometrist's office again if THIS looks clear". 

This house was Sherrill's vision. She uses Grandtline windows, and they are quite spectacular. Grandtline has some wonderful things for sale, and I quite encourage people to have a look - if you drool on your computer screen, however, that is your look out.  I love the detailed windows, and the little privacy arbor on the far side of the garden courtyard. She intends on putting some wicker furniture out there at a later date. 

I don't know about you, but I would move in here. I know, I know, a bit fuzzy, but my goodness, I think this house has more square footage than mine. I love the kitchen. Over the table hangs the most exquisite little chandelier, made out of beads and a fish hook, which you would see if I wasn't so ocularly challenged today. The living room sports very realistic curtain treatments. 

So much detail (however fuzzy)! A gorgeous little kitchen island, and I love love LOVE a rounded window like that. Note that this is a kitchen with stuff on the counter and shelves. 


Sigh, next time I will remember the reading glasses, I promise! How fun is this bedroom, though? She always manages to find the most interesting fabrics. 

 A little crisper photo, if only by degrees. 

 The second bedroom, and an aerial shot of the living room. Again, I could honestly see me living there, if I could see. 

 Another piece by Sherrill. Just goes to show, you do not need to do a full on scene with miniatures on every go, nor a full blown house, etc - vignettes and collections are great too. Look at those darling hats on hat stands! Hat stands are an easy make, by the way, just look to earring backings and beads. Earring backings can be used in a lot of different ways in 1/4 scale, come to think of it. And that gorgeous little vanity and chair. And those teensy little hatboxes! Just too darling for words. 

 There was also show and tell from Barb as well, who made this absolutely squee picnic basket. It is a half scale piece. It had the most delicate little red checked blanket in it, ready to accept picnic fare of all sorts. 

 Member Elizabeth also adds her treasures today. You may recognize a few pieces, as she is working out of the same book as I am, but she has chosen to go for more of a country kitchen look. There is an icebox, which is an original piece. She has also taken the table, reduced the size and made it sturdier, which I mused about awhile back. I haven't made the cooker stove as of yet. I just think this is so pretty! Generally when I do pretty, it comes out antiqued - such is my lot in life.

 A few more pieces Elizabeth made from the Broadwood books (with some modifications that really give a flare to the pieces - note the dresser, that was the dressing mirror I have done in the past) , along with a little tester bed that Sherril is designing for a future workshop. Together, what a perfect little bedroom! 

Once the workshop was complete, and all the showing and telling was through, we relaxed back with some coffee and cake, and that was the day. 

Hope your day was good, and weather has been better for you all today. Perhaps even a little sun came your way, and in which case I am glad.  In the meantime, I came across this sweet little mermaid polymer clay tutorial, which I hope you will enjoy.  If it is not summer yet where you are, perhaps the sirens of the sea can call it in for you.

 Until next time, precious souls! 

 

Sunday 16 June 2013

Happy Father's Day!



Ah, Father's Day. The day that tie sales go through the roof. Have you ever pondered the tie? Why is it so synonymous with fathers, even when good ol' Dad may not even have had a job where a tie was strictly necessary? Somewhere along the line,  someone decided a tie is representative of "DAD", I suppose, and in the wake of this judgement, countless elementary school teachers since have had their charges draw out countless ties on  countless construction paper cards for good ol' dad, happy little types are taken to the shops to choose that brightly coloured "designer went nuts and the store purchaser really hates his job and is actively trying to sabotage the owner" tie that wouldn't have been worn by even the most struggling of Vegas comics trying to make up for the poorest material, and drawers fill up with so many ties that Dad can't wear them all in a life time even if he were to wear one a day, with no repeats including weekends, for the rest of his life.

On a side note,  Doctors  - who are thought to shower in their ties, because who can imagine their doctor without one - are moving further away from wearing this particular adornment because they tend to be little germ carry-alls (well, most Doctors, unless you are THE Doctor, in which case .....


...but I digress. No, I don't, any reason to reference The Doctor is a good reason. )

Anyway, the tie. It had its humble beginnings as a "I wear a scarf but if my nose runs I will use it because I don't have a sleeve" idea back with the Romans in 200 BC (gotta love those whacky Romans) , but evolved into a fashion statement as time went on, and also an indicator of status  - hence the term "power tie".  Barring the occasional fashion trend of women's ties,  this could be part of the reason the tie has been forever knotted to  Dad's neck - Dads are our real first glimpse of power - if mom yelling at us to " just wait until Dad gets home"  is any indication. A tie can tell you a lot about the wearer, about their personality, their wealth, and their style as well. If you don't believe me, go to the office Christmas party and look around - there will be at least one man who enjoys a good laugh, and you can tell because he will be wearing the festive novelty tie - the sillier it is, the less serious he is likely to be. If it is around his neck, then he knows when to tell the joke and when to stop. If it is tied around his head, it is probably time to lead him gently away from the bar, however. You get the idea, anyway.

Long live the tie. 

Still, I do wonder if ties will ever lose their Father's Day appeal. Maybe, maybe (k)not. 

Anyway, what DID I do this week?  Get stressed, mostly. No matter if you go on vacation to an exotic locale or not, you have a price to pay when you get back to your desk - if you can even see your desk for the work piled unceremoniously on top of it. What did I do mini-wise? Well, that is different. 

 As you may or may not recall, I had finished up last week with my shingles half-done. This is because the monotony of it all was making me go cross-eyed. Happily, at a mini-night out, I was able to complete most of the job, and finished up shingling today. 




I was very careful and have very lined-up roof shingles. I am pleased. Even though this was horrendously tedious, the look is effective. 


 The next task was to draw around where I was ultimately going to set the chimneys. PVC glue was added to the shingles, and I added sand to get a roughed looking shingle treatment. You can also achieve this look by using a wet dry sandpaper as well, come to think of it, although it can be murder on your box cutter.  At any rate, the now sanded roof has to dry overnight, to be completely ready to paint. 

 The roof with the chimneys glued down, as well as part of the back roof with its sanded treatment. I just used a decorative sand I had kicking around for ever, bought for a sand project at a time when they didn't have decorative sand in more interesting colours. Now you can find colours such as teal and - wait for it - sand. After I applied my decorative sand, of course,  I found my more standard railroad sand which isn't bright yellow, but then again, everything will be painted - no harm, no foul. 

I sanded my roof over a plate. This meant less sand getting everywhere, and easier clean up/recovery. 



The Washtub, pre-patina of the roof. It is kind of funky with the yellow roof, but as no self-respecting cottage owner would leave his roof so garish - well, maybe one or two, if he really wanted to meet all the more conservative neighbours - it will eventually get painted.  Once the patina is on, then just the inside roofs need to be painted,  a few things glued, and  interior decorating needs to be done.

 As I am nearing the home stretch with the Washtub (literally, I am on the second to last page of the book), and since I didn't have a lot to show today because I have to wait for glue to dry (#*$(^@ glue), I decided to try another little piece of furniture, as above "The Pedestal Table". 


 The pattern called for a washer base. Well, I forgot to go to the hardware store. Well, maybe "forgot" is a strong word. Maybe "you couldn't have dragged me there  today with a team of wild horses" is a better term. I have to admit, going into a giant box store looking for "a" washer wasn't going to happen. I didn't even have any in some of my old tool boxes, which is a surprise,  although I am sure I will find a  drawer full tomorrow when I am looking for something else. As I was too lazy to find a washer today, I raided my "bucket of buttons" instead. This is not my term, it is what is written on the package of buttons I had. Of course, they also call it "beading supplies" when they are clearly buttons, so there is no reasoning with some people. 

 Today I ventured into the dreaded "superglue" arena. Mostly again, because I didn't have much patience with waiting for craft glue to dry (*#&(^@ glue).  This of course does mean you have to work quickly and accurately, and try not to become too attached to your work. The second smaller bead (and actually a bead) was glued into the depression in the button to complete the base. 

 A length of paper clip was cut to about 1/2 of an inch in length, and was glued into the bead base. 


Beads were then added to the pole, and glued as they were added. Again, I just found it easier to use the superglue today. 

 To me, this could very easily be converted into a lamp base for 1:12 scale. 

 A few days ago, I came across the circle punch that I had purchased specifically for this project. I put it down somewhere. The Borrowers seem to have gotten hold of it for reasons only known to them, and quite possibly they will return it soon. So, without the tool I purchased, and not wanting to cut a circle by hand, I had a more interesting idea. A few months ago I bought some stickers on sale with an interesting pattern. They had little sparkles (mmm sparkles) on them, but I figured the shape could be useful. Today, they were. 


Again, this is reminding me of a lamp base in 1:12 scale. I glued two of the stickers together, and the stickers to the base, for a "fancy" table. I went about painting it to finish things up. 

 I will probably give it one more coat of paint, then distress it  and varnish it as I have with my other pieces. Depending on the beads used, this table could look very different indeed. 

Hopefully you have enjoyed my update, and also thought about your dad, and treated him to a nice day should you be lucky enough to be able to spend the day with him. Perhaps you should make dear ol' dad a salmon steak to celebrate...?


 (Check out this lady's fab nails, by the way, too cool!). 

Until our next chat, my fabulous friends...

Sunday 9 June 2013

The Staycation


I had a lovely "Staycation" this week. If you have never run across this term, it was originally coined by Brent Butt on the show "Corner Gas", a rather hilarious show about a small town in Saskatchewan and the eccentric characters who lived there. Well, hilarious if you don't know similar characters in your own life, I suppose. I do have a relative who assures me that "Corner Gas" was less of a whacky sitcom and more of a documentary (having lived in that town and went to school apparently with Mr. Butt's uncle or some such) , and I do admit it kind of scares me that certain  characters from that show are running around loose in real life, but I digress. 

Anyway, I am quite taken with the word, "Staycation". I find that - for some bizarre reason - when you take time off of work, it is expected that you will be jetting off to some exotic locale - be it the Mayan Riviera, Greece, Paris,  or the local fishing hole - anywhere, really, just as long as you aren't home. I have to ask, what is wrong with home?  I don't have to worry about passports, my luggage, bugs, illnesses, or being hopelessly lost (which I seem to manage on every vacation).  Just as long as I am away, isn't that good enough? Well, not enough for some - sadly. I have been "vacation-shamed" on more than one occasion.  "Staycation" tends to sum up the sentiment that, yes, I am rested, but no - I gave Hawaii a miss this time around. I imagine when I return to the daily grind, I will still have to  apologize for not exploring the 7 hills of Rome this week, but generally they shut up when I let them know I would happily go elsewhere next time, all they have to do is buy my the ticket and pay my way. That seems fair, right? Good, because I think so too.

I found lots of things to do this week to keep me occupied, and actually didn't do all that I intended - the weather was good, so I rode my bike quite happily (discounting one bad bus driver who tried to  run me down and about 100 bike racers who thought I was going to get out of their way this morning so they could actually go faster, the bums. )  I caught the latest Star Trek movie, painted the water colour picture above,  mucked out the fridge, and worked on my Washtub Cottage. I was quite content. 

Ah, yes, the Washtub Cottage. I am hurtling towards the finish line with the structure. Last week I left off with me just finishing my entry way, which was not painted. This situation has since been rectified. 

Again, I am doing muuuuch better with the stone work. Just in time not to do any more.  In the left hand corner, you can see the front walk, which is happily drying.



Above and below, the chimneys with their chimney caps on (not quite all snug in their beds). 


I could have left the chimneys like this, and painted them as I have painted the other stone work. However, the clever authoress suggested that one use "de-pinned" push pins as the chimney pots. I went out and bought a lovely package of them from the dollar store - for $1.50 Cdn (about 100 count in a package).  The pins were clipped with heavy wire clippers and much care that the pointy bit didn't get away from me.  The now flattened pins were glued to the chimney cap. To make it easier to attach the pin tops, I first drilled pilot holes with an intact pin. That gave me a divot where the pin could sit and be glued (I could not completely excise the pin from the base unfortunately). I used a combination of "Crazy" glue and white glue, and the chimney pots will not be going anywhere too soon.


 I bought clear pins, because I think I will eventually have more uses for them. Just looking at this picture, I could easily see these being useful for a table base. 

 
The finished chimneys, ready to be attached to the roof. I mucked them up quite a lot with blacks and greys, as I am going for very old, very sooty cottage. 

 
This is the walk outside of the house, before it is dry. I made tiny little clay stones to line the front of the walk, as one does. 

Here are all the bits, in various stages of paint. My next step was to build some windows for my house. 

The window was quite interesting. I built it right on the pattern in the book (the acetate sandwiched between, otherwise you have a whole host of new problems), and the frame was done with computer labels  trimmed to fit - this took care of that nasty little problem of having to glue on acetate, and kept the pattern accurate without having to fuss with it - I would recommend even if you don't have a picture in front of you, draw your template out, as it will save many hair pulling out sessions later on. The frames were then painted. Surprisingly, the label glue held on like a champ, even when I painted and later  "cleaned the glass" later with a damp cloth. 

 The first window in. Only 4 to go! I did scrape the window openings out a bit, which is the beauty of using an air drying clay. Just don't breath in the dust <cough>. 

All of the windows in, the window sills in place (which were just lengths of matboard cut to fit and painted), and the door is lodged in the frame. When I built the door, it didn't seem to want to stay in the frame  where I wanted it, so I built a fake frame (as I did with the interior doors) and I was able to mount the door with less hassle. I put the door handle on the left. I wanted to mention that before I get many angry letters that it should be on the right. Actually, where the door handle is on an exterior door seems to be personal preference. I walked around the neighbourhood and was shocked to find examples of both left and right-handed doorknobs, so I am quite happy with mine (okay, fine, I did glue my door in the wrong way initially, but once again, it all works out). Still, I imagine in an old cottage, the building codes might have been a little lax anyway.

Initially the door looked like this. It is a piece of rectangle matboard, which has been scored vertically to make it look planked, with two "heavy" pieces to use to secure the planks, then painted and a patina was arranged. Once again, it is a surprise in how simple something can be, yet how effective, and how inexpensive as well. 

I felt confident enough then to glue my roof to my entry way. I noted later that there were some gaps - this is one of the downsides of the clay, it tends to mess up pieces that fit so nicely together before they were "clayed" with. I will do something about that later on. Maybe.

As the glue set up, I set about cutting my roof shingles. Again, simple elegance - these are strips of heavy card cut into 1/2 inch strips, which are cut again at about 1/4 inch intervals to the half way mark on the long side to make the shingles. These strips are then glued to the roof. 

This is the entry way roof before I trimmed back the shingles. They don't look like much now, but they will once they are painted and aged. 


While I waited for the glue to try on the above, I  assembled and started shingling the front roof.  The roof actually has 3 pieces to it - it is designed to have part of the roof in back as a permanent piece, but the front is removable, as is the front facade, for access. When one is not looking in to the structure, then one can pop it together and presumably avoid dust issues. I shingled about 4 before I said "ENOUGH".  The problem with shingles is ... well... they are boooooring. A total snooze. I find myself rushing through the process, and unfortunately rushing can be fatal. So I think I will do a little bit of shingling as I go, when I have more patience, and by next week you will see the completed piece (don't you hate cliff hangers?). 

As we are flying ever more towards summer, I thought maybe you would enjoy a little tutorial I found on how to make flip flops (we used to call them "thongs" when I was a wee little thing back in the more innocent days of my childhood - sigh). This pattern is actually made with Babs of the Plastic Fantastic set in mind,  but remember Babs is twice the size of 1:12 - take this lovely lady's pattern, and half all your measurements, and you are golden. May you have a moment or two for your own "Staycation", and be happily rested the next time we meet!