Cacti workshop

I only have time for a brief update today. Yesterday was club meeting day and a very resourceful member taught us how to make cacti and the planters for them.

I don't have time to go into detail today, but here's a picture of my finished product. I don't know if I will be 'selling' cacti in my flower shop, but I'll keep them here for the time being. The cacti are probably a bit out of scale (although I know there are huge cacti!), and therefore I might prefer to use them with my Adobe house that is still half finished.

It was a fun workshop though and I have enough material for more cacti, so perhaps I will be showing some more later today or tomorrow.

I just remembered that when I started with miniatures, now some 12 years ago, I had made cacti for my conservatory.  I didn't have tutorials at the time and very little help.  I just looked at pictures and tried to copy mother nature.  The picture is probably too clear, but from a distance those three cacti look quite realistic.  I used very finely rolled cotton wool for the dots on the cactus in the centre, pulled out cotton wool for the one on the left and little snippets of an old toothbrush for the needles on the right one.  They were far from perfect, but I was, and still am as a matter of fact, happy with the result. Bye the way, they were made out of Fimo, and I can't even remember anymore what the containers were made of. ;-)

This is all I have time for right now. See you next time.

Back from New Zealand and some more 'brick laying' done

Although I have been back from my trip for over a week now, I haven't had much time to update my blogs.  There's always so much else to do...  However, our local group's get-together was last Sunday and I took my florist to do some more brick laying.  It took me the best part of the day and a sore back, but once you start you'll have to finish, especially in the warmer months when the paper clay tends to dry a lot quicker.  So here are the pictures of the side and front of the shop:

Next step is probably the dormer, but I am not too sure yet if I am going to do cladding or add brickwork.  Building structures often don't have brickwork for dormers, because there wouldn't be a base for the bricks to sit on.  If I can't make up my mind I may start on the paving.  Let's keep it a surprise for the moment. :-)

The other additions for the shop can be found on my other blog: Marion's Miniatures, because that's where I have written about my trip to New Zealand.

Additions to this blog however are six new followers that I would like to welcome.  They are:

Cheryl at A Miniature Place,
Allison at Miniature Allsorts (such striking name),
Patty Clark at Mini Babies,
Sylvia at Lotjes Dollshouse (called after her dog, I believe),
Lorraine at Dfly Creations - Dollhouse Miniatures,
and last but not least Maria at Casitas en Miniatura.

As usual I have visited all your blogs (if I haven't done so before) and loved what I saw.  Well worth visiting, all of them.  New mini friends, a warm welcome from

Marion