This was not a day for minis, nor was yesterday....

I finished off the chair by wrapping the arms and legs...I think that it looks better.

Then IT happened.

Thank goodness! I didn't remember to take photos, or you would be looking at the disaster area that was my kitchen...

I went to put a couple of cans of Cherry Pepsi in the fridge and then it happened.  I had two cans of Pepsi in my hands.  I put one in the freezer and was about to put the other in the fridge when the door hit my hand and one dropped to the floor and exploded....As they say, literally!

My advice to anyone contemplating doing this, is DON'T!

I am still cleaning up spots of Cherry Pepsi all over the kitchen!  That little can covered an unbelievable area.  It got the stove, the counter and cabinet front between that and the refrigerator.  It got the interior of the fridge, the exterior of the fridge, all of the wall beside the fridge to a height of about 8' and a width of about six feet...Then the wall stops.  There were even a few spatters on the rug of the family room and on the opposite counter. 

I mopped the floor three different times.  We won't talk about the wall that I took a clean, new mop head to.  Or the 45 minutes to an hour that I sponged other things down....

This morning I went to get some half and half for my coffee from the fridge...The door was kind of stuck...I went and got a can of Clorox wipes and did more wiping down.

Needless to say, when Walter wanted to go to a movie this morning....I went!

I have managed some more on the rug for the craft cottage.  Yes, I am still working on it.  Don't nag!
I have also been working on some kumihimo.  This one is about half done.

Anyway, I am going to go hide someplace and not think about the kitchen anymore.  I will just keep doing it over and over until I don't stick to the floor, counters, doors, walls, stove and refrigerator....I don't even want to hear the word kitchen until it stops sticking to me...This is enough to make me become a teetotaler.  No, that would leave stains...

See you tomorrow...With sponge and towel in hand!

This year, the Wednesday Witches made Halloween last...Three Wednesdays in a row.

I volunteered for the third one.  As they arrived, they were greeted by the witches that live and work in the Witch's Warehouse.  It sits in the front hall, by the door.
In the family room, Buffy and Spike were watching the goings on from the crypt.

Spike still hasn't convinced Buffy that the cookies aren't laced with arsenic.  Buffy hasn't even tried to convince Spike that she isn't going to use the hook on him....

As for the witches, we had a good time....No miniatures were seen. 

Several of us are doing Kumihimo at the present time....I found my finished ones and brought them out to show.  I tried to find my supplies for making the braids.....No where to be found.  I cleaned out the boxes that they were in a couple of weeks ago.  Put them in another container and immediately forgot which one...I tell you!  It does NOT pay to clean the workroom!
And Tessie?  She spent the afternoon hanging from the pull chain for the fan light! 

She  must have said something he didn't like.  He chased her up the chain from the center of the table and there she was.  Trapped!

Maybe that will teach her to agree with everything that the spider says...

She is still hanging there.  I guess I am going to have to go and chase the spider back to his web in the corner, so she can get down now.

I did get two partial rows done around the edge of the Russian rug last night...All the while I was praying that the new glasses will arrive ahead of schedule.  I think it will go faster once I can see what I am doing....

Gotta go rescue Tessie.  She is now yelling things that are going to just make Mr. Spider madder than he already is.  That can't be good.

See you tomorrow.

Yesterday, I decided that I should finish all,  er I  mean some of the kumihimo braids that I have been messing with for the last couple of months.

Believe it or not, all of these cords were made exactly the same way with the same 8 strand braid.

The only difference is the weight of the thread and color.  Some are done with only four colors, some with eight.  It also depends on which slots on the wheel you start them. Poke the photos if you want to see the difference.

I won't go into all of that, because there are LOTS of websites that tell you about it, that are much more experienced that I am.

I turned them all into pendant style necklaces at little or no cost to me. 

The first one on the left and the third one in the middle were both pendants from the 1.00 bags in the jewelry making department at Walmart.  The total cost of each was less than 5.00, thread included. 

The second one was a large, flat black glass bead that I got in a grab bag from one of the thrift stores.  I took off the stuff that was attached and wire wrapped it with square, copper wire. Again, it didn't cost much.  The wire was about a foot and a half long and off of a larger hank of the wire that I got at the bead show last year.  The same with the black doughnut.  Bead show for a couple of dollars.  The last one is fake ivory from China.  They carve white resin just as if it were real ivory, since real ivory carving is now against the law. Someone gave that one to me. Essentially free.

Now I have one of those "Tessie Problems".  When they were against the wall, they would only sway sideways when she hung on them....Then she zapped one to the cord of the ceiling fan, here in the computer room... One at a time, they keep disappearing from the wall. 

She discovered that, if the fan is running, she doesn't even have to push.  The breeze keeps her swinging. 

She is gleefully spinning and singing a happy tune behind me as I type. 

I fear that I am going to be bumping my head on the pendants.  And on top of that, I am going to have to arm wrestle her for them if I want to wear them.  I hate to do that....She always wins.  There's this spell that she uses.... 

Oh!  Wait.  I just thought of something.  There are five pendants and only four fans in the house.  Even if she has one on every fan, there will always be an extra....Thank goodness.  I feel better now.

I do think that she has the right idea though. It is not quite noon and already 104 degrees here...It is predicted that it could get as high as 110.  If that happens.  I think that I will suspend a people sized swing under one of the fans and join her...

See you tomorrow.

 This morning I met April and Amare at Target to shop...and shop....and shop some more.  We had a great time.

We wandered around the store for about 2 1/2 hours.  It was fun, but now I don't really feel like moving a lot.  The temperature outside is 99 degrees and rising...

I have about half a headache and not in the mood to do much of anything where I have to move....

About the only thing I have to show for the past 24 hours is a piece of kumihimo about eight inches long.

Colorwise, it looks good with the blue beads from Walmart.  I can't say that I particularly like the thread or the pattern I am using.

I may just have to break down and buy some that will look better with the beads.  I want to make it into a necklace, so that the braid will show between the beads.  As it is now, It just looks like a piece of a blue rope. I am not impressed.

I am using up some of the tons of #5 perle cotton that I have on hand.  I think that the beads call for something more lively.

For now, I am going to go hide in a corner and pout about starting over.  I think that I need an attitude adjustment.  Somebody pass the asperin. 

See you tomorrow.

It's getting pretty bad when I start off on a sidetrack of beading and then get sidetracked from that to kumihimo, but that's what happened.

You see, the kumihimo boxes and the pendant boxs were right beside the beading....And much easier to get to.  Not nearly as messy.

So....I opted for the easy way out.  I had eight or nine cords all finished and ready to go for necklaces.

All I had to do was put the caps on the end of the cords and a closure on those.  The cords are all cotton on these.

The first three are a poly clay snail that I did a few years ago, a fancy pendant watch from Walmart and a composit turquoise doughnut.  Don't ask why I didn't finish these before.  Actually, the watch was finished, but I don't think that I ever showed it on the blog.  The snail was finished, but I always wore it on a plain chain. No excuse for the turquoise.

The next three are a obsidian doughnut, a very old turquoise pendant(Native American) and a coiled and beaded caboshon that I made last year.

The first one is woven with silk cord.  The second one with overdyed perle cotton.  The third one with embroidery floss, all six strands.

You can do kumihimo with just about any kind of thread.  My friend Maureen just learned a couple of weeks ago and is doing interesting things with colored hemp.

Every year, right around my birthday, Tucson puts on a show just for me....Well maybe not just for me....It is the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. Tomorrow will be the kick off for this year.

I think that the powers that be are just trying to help Walter out with his birthday shopping. It solves all of his problems. He simply coaxes me into the car. He makes sure that my seat belt is fastened and off we go.

I get to pick out something that I like and he doesn't have to figure out what to get for me.

Before we go, I always spend a couple of days pondering what I have purchased over the years and why, supply wise, it hasn't been put to use thus far.

Then I start to feel guilty and madly work on finishing a couple of pieces before I find something else at the show that I like even better.

For the past few years, Tessie gets involved in the sorting out process. She seems to think that, if she helps, she will get something from the show too....She won't tell us when her real birthday is and she has adopted mine. That way we will remember it. Sneaky....But not really helpful. Especially when she sits there with a thread bobbin on her head singing, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend"....Diamonds???

This morning she insisted that we go through the kumihimo thread supplies and pair up some of the finished cords with pendants. The theory being, that will free up space for new stuff....

Here are two of the pendants that we finished. The one on the left is a very old piece of Native American silver/turquoise that I picked up somewhere.

The other one is a bone pendant that I picked up at Walmart, of all places!

That's two long cords and large pendants finished. In all I finished four.

Here are the two boxes of cabochons...Real stone and cast resin. The one that Tessie is holding is cast resin. Yes, you have seen it before....No, I haven't finished it yet. I need to braid a cord or string it on beads or something....Sooner or later I will decide what to do with it...And all of the rest...

The point is....I don't really need more stones. I am just addicted to pretty stones. I even like plain old rocks.

April and Seth go on vacation and they know what to bring back. I always get a rock from wherever they went. That makes me a happy camper.

I did finish one other piece this morning. I bought this "stone" for myself a couple of years ago and a few months ago, when there was a bead show here, I found square wire with an antique bronze finish to wrap it with. All it needed was a chain. I hunted all over creation for chain to match and couldn't find it.

Would you believe that good old Walmart had a six strand, chain necklace in their jewelry department that was the exact match? I tore it apart this morning and used two of the chains for the pendant....Now about the stone....

It is a piece of a fosselized dinosaur bone, cut ground down, and polished.

I had Seth along to help me pick it out. He has a degree in geology. He's a handy man to have around when you want to know about stones. Thanks Seth!

Anyway, I cut down a bit of the inventory and now have a few nooks and crannies for new rocks. Now I have an excuse to stock up.

See you tomorrow after the rock fest!

Yup....Another boring Wednesday. It seems like I don't get a lot of minis done on Wednesdays. Sooo...
You will be stuck with other things.

First of all, I am still short on space in the workroom. Even with all the shelves that I have. A couple of weeks ago I bought the box that you see in front of the dollhouse shaped bookcase... It is going to be built and stuck under the dollhouse one. You know the old saying, "If you can't build out, build up! That's how it's going to work.

After all, I have to find some place to put the contents of those leftover baskets...

Kumihimo report. I am still at it. Who knew that braiding string could be so entertaining? The these are the ones that I finished this week. They are all done with the basic eight strand braid. They look so different because of the different threads used and the different placement of those threads at the beginning of the braid.


Don't forget to poke the photos.

I decided to make some pendants to hang on the braids yesterday. These are the ones that I worked on. They still need a couple of finishing touches and a finishing coat. I am pretty pleased with them, so far.

Lastly, I will show you three completed ones. From left to right: The first one is a half timber cottage in a watch case. Someone was teaching a Victorian cottage in a watch case some years ago....I refuse to follow the rules. I changed houses after the class.

The second one is one of the pendants from yesterday.(It still needs finish.)

The last one is a pendant watch that I got at Walmart a few years ago. It runs like a champ for a ten dollar watch. The bail(the thingy that attaches the watch to the cord) is also from Walmart. There are ten assorted fancy bails to a package in the jewelry making department for 3.00 a package! Good buy!

Anyway, that's my report for a non mini day....Oh wait. The watch in the last photo qualifies as a mini! See? It's impossible to go a day without mini something.


See you tomorrow.

First of all, Tessie with due diligence, finished enough Kumihimo braid yesterday afternoon and evening to make a necklace. Then she lost interest. I am supposed to finish it for her. She did a pretty good job for her first try.

She is now digging through my beads for something to hang on it.

While she did that, I got to work on the room where all refuse goes to die... If I keep at it long enough, it will be, at the very least, livable...

Here you go. Proof of work.


The west wall is in good shape.

I am still straightening.... I was organizing my kumihimo supplies into as few boxes as possible. Tessie was helping by picking out pieces that she wanted...Big help.

Suddenly she started humming....That's always a bad sign of things to follow. She kept getting a little louder and a little louder still. Then she broke out, sounding like Ethyl Merman, into a chorus of "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better!" Some of you probably never heard of "Annie Get Your Gun!". I know. Tessie is dating herself with that one, but you have to remember that she is way older than the rest of us....

I let her sing for a while. Actually her Merman impression isn't bad....If you like Merman.

Then, fool that I am, I asked her why she was singing that particular song. Big mistake.

"I have been watching you do that Kumihimo stuff.", she said. Then she continued with, "It doesn't look that hard. I'll bet that I could do it if I had a disk. Don't you think so?"

I knew where this was leading. I handed her a piece of fun foam, a 1/8" punch, some scissors and a pencil and said, "Have at it!"

Darned if she didn't jump down from her director's chair, dig through the change jar and grab a nickle. She proceeded to trace around the nickle with a pencil and then punch a hole in the center with the 1/8" punch. As I watched, she cut divided the circle into eight sections, like a pie. Then in each of those sections she drew three marks. That made 32 marks in all. She then cut out the circle with a small pair of scissors and clipped about a sixteenth of an inch in on all of the 32 lines. Amazing. She has been paying attention.

She then cut four pieces of tatting thread to about a foot long, two blue and two pink, and tied the center with a slip knot.

She did that with contrasting thread. On that thread(green) she tied a couple of jump rings for weight and stuck that end down through the center hole.

She expertly lined up the threads and anchored them in the opposing slots.

I will just give you this U tube site for beginning instructions. It's easier than having Tessie demonstrate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RNbFjvZycs

She has been quiet all afternoon! That's very unusual...She hasn't even grumbled about the task at hand!

Tessie was following me around like a hungry puppy all day today. I started with painting some of the windows to put into the quarter inch house that I was messing with yesterday....No. I didn't get them painted at the meeting yesterday....Can we say sidetracked? Again?

OK, I confess. I was roped into working on the Kumihimo...Get it? Roped in....Please stop groaning.... No more puns, honest.

I did find a photo that will add to the atmosphere of the house and can easily get all of the windows that I need from it.

Now back to the kumihimo. I tried out some of the silk cord. that is the braid that Tessie is holding. She keeps petting it and murmuring, "Smooth and soft. Smooth and soft." Then she throws in a "Shiny" once in a while for good measure. The other core is interesting....I used a variegated yarn and it keeps changing color from an orangy red to blue green. That one is done with "Watercolors" over dyed cotton thread from a regular needlework shop.

I am having a good time trying different combinations. Each one turns out different from all of the others. Poke the photos if you want to see them up close and personal.

Now the good news....For Tessie anyway. I actually started working on the townhouse a little while ago.

I am cutting trims for the interior.....With her help it is moving kind of slow.

She is whistling a happy tune.

I am listening to rolling thunder outside. I am thinking that it might be a good idea to cut this short and move away from the computer for a while. I still have a work room to clean. Back to the grindstone.

See you tomorrow.

I realize that I promised you photos of the trailer all cleaned up and ready to live in....Who knew that the party wouldn't wind down until at least 48 hours had passed...?

Yup! They show absolutely no sign of stopping any time soon.

Oh well....Another 24 hours to put up with this? Not me. I left! I couldn't get anything done with all of the noise.

So Joan and I went to the "Best Bead Show". She is the one that got me into trouble with kumihimo.

We found out that Karin De Souza was going to be there....She has written several books on the technique and has lovely "strings" to do it with.

Joan is one of the Wednesday Witches. I found the bead show and she said yes when I asked if she wanted to go along....Therefore, I guess that you could call us "Partners in crime". We are both, the owners of new string, beads and findings for jewelry making.

As soon as we walked in the door, we found a couple of beading magazines just setting in piles by the door, free for the taking.

Hey! At least we didn't have to pay for those....It was all of the stuff inside that we spent our money on.

Here's a photo of my new stash. I got a lot of strings for kumihimo, some square wire for, what else?....wire work, various beads,some findings for finishing off necklaces and some more bobbins for the string.

Tessie stepped away from the party long enough to see if there was anything in it for her.

Yes. I did buy her something. According to her, it wasn't enough. She found five sacks of Italian seed beads. They are all size 15 or smaller....

I had to put the black ones on a piece of contrasting paper just to make sure that there were actually holes for stringing! They are about the size of a grain of salt....Fine salt.

I know it's not nice to say that you hate something....So I am just going to say that I greatly dislike and despise Mondays. Laundry and housekeeping get hugely in the way of miniature making.

I keep sneaking in and taking mini breaks every once in a while.

At one point this morning, I stuffed stuff in the washer and ran to the trailer. Something was missing from the plan...I realized that I had done all of the stone work, but forgotten the front steps.

I marked around the trailer and marked where the front steps should be. Then I took the trailer off of the board and got to work with some egg cartons.

Note to self....Three egg carton tops left....Eat MORE eggs!!!

I finished the paving. Officially, again....Now all I have to do is run the ball stylus over the cracks and paint everything. Where I started painting before turned out to be too dark....Here I go again...

Time to change the laundry from washer to dryer and clean the bathrooms. Bah Humbug.

No minis to show you, so I will show you the cut up flip flops from yesterday. I have got to stop doing kumihimo and get serious about finishing the trailer. But it was so much easier to sit and braid yesterday, because I tripped over a brick and sat down hard in the back yard Saturday.

Sunday was a day for ease taking, so I kumihimo-ed.

I haven't touched it today. Honest!

Tessie took one look at the latest braid and said, in a huff, "This will never do. I think that you need to try tatting or sewing thread. I can't wear a belt made from this one. It will make me look really fat!"

I wasn't making that one for her anyway. I am now wondering if I can do mini on the big discs or will I have to make a tiny disk to do it?

Before I do anything else, I need to do this again....

I can barely get into the workroom, once again and it is getting deeper by the minute. Hey! Just a minute! There are minis in there. Sorting through minis qualifies as cleaning...Right?

If I stay in there long enough, maybe someone will invent self cleaning houses. They did it for ovens. Why not the whole house?

I am going back in there now. String tied to ankle? Check! Someone call me when they make the announcement about self cleaning houses. Slip a pizza under the door once in a while....

"Zar? I have an invention that I want you to work on!"

See you tomorrow.....If I can find my way out of the mess.

Well. I did make just one of these, but it was flimsy and needed reinforcing. This is the underside of the lot for the trailer. I spent the morning cutting slats and pieces of packing foam to strengthen the board. The problem is, it was so long that it went a sidewise when I picked it up with the trailer on it. Now it won't do that.

I do have to cover the styrofoam with something. It squeaks when I slide it on the table...Nails on a blackboard come to mind...

I finished the first Kumihimo cord after writing yesterday and it was plain to see that the little loom that I made wasn't going to stand up long.

It was about done for when I finished the first rope.

This morning I made two more looms. I had one of those "aha" moments in the middle of the night last night and this morning I went looking for flip flops at Walmart. I found a pair of gigantic, men's black flip-flops on sale for 1.98.

I stopped next at K Mart and found a couple of solid cork hot pads. Another brainstorm. I am on a roll this morning!

I took a pair of utility shears to the flip flops and cut the widest part into a circle. I pulled out the thong that goes between the toes and cut it off from the bottom. I shaped the piece into a circle. Then I poked a hole and cut a one inch circle out of the center. I marked of 32 evenly spaced places around the outer edge and slashed them with the scissors. Then I got fancy. The commercial looms have a v shape cut where the slits are. If they can do it, so can I.

For the cork one, I simply poked a hole in the center and sanded it, cut slashes on the edge and glued four dowels between the two cork rounds. Oh! I did reinforce the legs with small brads too.

Needless to say, I trashed the first loom. Tessie and I have had several discussions about the 25 pennies that I am using to weight down the cord in the larger loom. She wants to spend it....

I have two cords for pendants finished and a third one started. This is great for when I have to wait for glue to dry. Much more fun than housework!

Another "aha" moment last night. I have decided that this lady is going to live in the radio. I have had her for several years. She came assembled and for some reason the person that did it made her close to six feet tall(in mini).

She really looked strange with other mini people. I think, since the radio is a 20s style re pro, she may just have to let her hair grow out to the natural gray and be an older woman living in the past. She has the "pouter pigeon" bust line of an earlier era.

Don't worry. I am not stopping work on Zar's place for her. I just thought that you might like a look at what's happening.

I have to go back and take the pennyweight bag away from Tessie once more. Maybe I should just give her the pennies and go collect some rocks from the back yard to weight it down instead.

See you tomorrow. Back to minis, I promise!

OK.....I am sidetracked once more....

First, after the five drops or so of rain that we had last night, Tessie and I found this on the back patio this morning....Her very own rose. People brag about growing roses as big as their heads. Pure exaggeration....Tessie brags and it's true! She is complaining that it's too big. The heat is getting to the leaves, unfortunately.
Now about the other subject of the title...Yesterday at Wednesday Witches, Joan was doing something that I have wanted to try for a long time. Kumihimo. It is a Japanese way of making braided cords. As I watched her try it for the first time, I decided that I had to have a go at it myself.

She had a circular loom that she had purchased at the Gem and Mineral Show in January. She has much more willpower and a lot less free time than I do. I wouldn't have been able to wait all those months to try it.

When I got home, I started searching the net for information and photos of work. It is really fascinating what people can do with this. I put the word in flickr search and got hundreds of photos of jewelry and other applications that people are using the cords for. http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=kumihimo If you go here, be sure to grab a cup of coffee and a couple of muffins to sustain you whilst you look...I never did get through the whole thing.

I won't explain how it is done. There are websites all over the place with information and instructions.

Since I didn't want to go out looking for some place to buy a loom, I made one. There are also all kinds of instructions on how to make them. Some people even make them from round stools, by drilling a large hole in the center of the seat....I didn't go that far....Yet....

I made mine from a layer of cardboard for stiffness and two outer layers of fun foam glued together with white glue. It probably won't hold up long, but it will hold up until I get a real one.


Here is what I produced so far. I just used some old over dyed Perle cotton that I had lying around. It really didn't take long to do it and the learning curve is very fast. By watching Joan and then watching a woman on You Tube instructing, I got it right away. At least the simple 8 cord version. It can get much more complicated by adding more cords.

Tessie grabbed the end and started whining...."Can't you make it smaller?" I want some."

The learning curve will have to extend to smaller and smaller....For now I am going to practice some more in big.

This is like potato chips....Never just one...

See you tomorrow.