I had to put another picture of the room in.  We went to see the latest Star Wars movie this morning.  BB8 figured prominently in this one.

Now I know about him... I feel like I know him a little bit better...

When we got home, Walter rented the proceeding one from Amazon.  We had a double feature.  Therefore I didn't get a lot done.
I did do a bit more cleaning.  This little greenhouse was a plain white one that I got from Walmart several years ago.  I painted the trim on it and fancied it up.

It never looks like I cleaned it. The finish on it is antiqued.  I could probably scrub on it for a week and it would still look the same.
The burglar's living room doesn't get very dirty. It is a closed box, so I have to do very little to it.

If I stay there too long, the burglar tells me to get out and stop interrupting his thievery.
This is also one that looks about the same. Clean or dirty.  I basically just use a feather duster on it, to get the big pieces. 

Zar keeps it pretty clean most of the time.

Anyway, I am going to have to make a couple of more pieces for Amare's box tomorrow and then it will be done...I am not adding anything from the movie.  It is just about full enough as it is. I am off to watch TV for a while.  Then I am going to turn in early.

See you tomorrow.

I should have gotten up earlier.  Maybe I could have stopped all of the silent zapping that went on during the night... Or maybe not.

When I got up this morning, Tessie and Zar were happily ensconced in the conservatory... That's what she is calling it now...

Collectively, they looked like the cat that swallowed the canary...
 After I made the bed, this happened... Tessie zapped a lot of stuff for making plants and flowers... Right to the middle of my bed.

Then she announced, "Make yourself comfortable.  You may be here for a while.  I am NOT going to wait for all of those plants to grow.  Get to work."

She is getting really bossy!
I asked what happened to the work area.  Tessie said, "I cleaned it up. Look in the workroom."

This is what I saw... The worktable now stands in the center of the room.

I will have to go around it to get anyplace in the room... Not a good arrangement.

According to Tessie, that was the only clear place to zap it.

So... I am now going to have to rearrange the workroom, finish the conservatory... and watch out for what Tessie is going to do next.  She is getting altogether toooo pushy!

I am either going to go figure out what to do with the antique shop or make a lot of plants... Tune in tomorrow to see who wins this argument.

Back to work.

See you tomorrow.

Last night I worked on the rug for the craft cottage...It doesn't look like much more, but that was a couple of hours work, considering that there are 484 cross stitches to a square inch.

Fun and games....Tessie watched and munched cookies.
 This morning I went to Walmart and found some new fun tools for minis in the nail art section. 

They are short handled, very nice brushes and stylus.  One liner. One angled.  Both those and the stylus will work well for getting into small areas of tile, etc.  It came with a couple of sheets of stencils for nails...Small fun bonus for me.  I just really wanted the short handled implements. 

The real fun and games came at a garage sale at a neighbor's house.

I found another piece of green glass in which to house a terrarium.  It's almost an exact match for the desert landscape.

The fun was watching Tessie try to balance on the lip of the jar for photos...She kept falling in and I had to fish her out.

For some strange reason, her zapper doesn't work inside that kind of glass....Nice to know... Now where did I put that big cork that would fit the neck of this bottle? 

The kids are coming today to celebrate Father's day.  They were up in Phoenix last weekend.  

I just made bean salad and apple pie....The bean salad is fine, but the apple pie has tiny bite marks around the edges...from both a witch and a dog....Now about that cork....

See You tomorrow.

As soon as the mail arrived yesterday, Tessie was out of the workroom in a flash.

I made the mistake of saying aloud that there was something for Tessie in the box.

This witch is still down, but making progress.  That witch is off and running again.

This is what was in the package.  Tessie's very own terrarium.  We have to fill it with plants, but the bubble part was in the package.

I had to temporarily fill it to show you.

This one, I just put some of the rain deer moss inside and stuck the bottom in a gold jewelry finding that I had in my stash....It is, by no means, permanent.

I bought two.  The second one was for me.  Just for fun.  Probably a one time wearing to witches and then it will also become Tessie's.

It is a very large ring.  I don't know who, in their right mind, would really wear it.

I got both from another Etsy shop.  I couldn't resist.  I got a gift card for mother's day and had to do something with it.  I love those as a present.  There are so many different kinds of shops on Etsy and you are bound to find something that you like in one of them.

Anyway, back to the Tessie sized terrariums.  I happened to have some woodsies just the exact size to fit in the ring base.  I took one of those and covered it with sand.  Then I glued some dried and live scraps of plant materials and a few tiny rocks to the base.  Pretty cute.
While I was doing that, Tessie tried hers out in her bedroom....Yes.  In the townhouse.  I am so confused.  I am never sure where she is living at any given moment.

She had the audacity to pull the plant that I made a few days ago and stick it under the dome.  Actually, it looks better than what I did.  And the extra added advantage is, it will come out and be replaced at a moment's notice.

For those of you that want to see the shop where I got these, it's called "Ingredients for Lovely".  This is the first time I have ordered from there.  Seems like a good place to go.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/ingredientsforlovely?ga_search_query=jewelry&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_ship_to=US&ga_vintage_rewrite=jewelry+supplies&ga_original_query=2&ga_page=4&ga_search_type=supplies&ga_facet=suppliesjewelry&page=1

I am going to go do other things now....I am behind on cleaning and laundry....One day at a time.

See you tomorrow.

The large terrarium is now at home by the kitchen sink.  It was the only area that I could think of where it would get enough light.

Even there, I had to put it on a cake stand to get it high enough.  I am pretty sure that it will be happy there.

Terrariums need about 6 hours of indirect sunlight, each day, to grow. 

Tessie found out what I was doing and is not at all happy.  She keeps banging on the glass, trying to get inside.  No..I am not going to open it. Let her pound her little fists. If  I let her in, I may be tempted to keep her there...
These are like another "betcha can't do just one" kind of project.  I still have plants left over....I have to do something with them, don't I?

Yesterday afternoon, I found this empty apothecary jar in the closet....I can't stand an empty anything...It has to be filled.

And besides.  The baby giraffe needed a place to be.

Not bad for a Walmart cheapo piece of glass.

Today is the Wednesday Witches' meeting.  So instead of working, I will be playing...But....I did go in the workroom and find a couple of other candidates for gardens...


The wire one is a terrarium that I found at Walmart years ago...It goes in and out of the closet when need be.

The white one is one that the people in the Tucson Miniature Society bought at least 20 years ago....It has been sitting on the plant shelf, in the workroom, as long as we have lived here...

I don't think that I am ever going to use it for a mini room box, but it will sure make a nice terrarium.

The way I see it, I am cleaning the workroom still more.  These are four less containers that will be stored there.

I am going to have to figure out something for the bottom of the wire one.  I think that it had a terrarium type bottom....Not too smart...I discarded it shortly after I bought it.  I didn't think that it would ever be used.  Darn!  Sometimes I should stick to that rule about never throwing anything away...Oh well.  I will think of something.

See you tomorrow.

I have been seeing a lot of dish gardens and terrariums lately.  It seems that they have been revived because of some clever people that are doing fairy gardens.

I did some terrarium gardens back in the 80s.  Loved them.  They didn't have to be watered every day and were easy to take care of in general.

I had a large glass "cookie jar" type container in the workroom that just held a bunch of copper wire...

One thing led to another and this morning, I got even with Tessie.

Terrariums are very simple to make.  There are all kinds of instructions on the net, so I will just give you the general idea of what I did.

First I put a layer of dried moss in the bottom.  Then a layer of rocks and charcoal went in next.

Mine is a bit thick.  An inch or so is all you need.  That part is for drainage and to keep it smelling good.

On top of that, you get to work and put in plants and dirt.

I got the roots as flat as I could, by dividing them and laying them to the sides, instead of going straight down.

I have some Scottish moss and various succulents in the mix.

It will have to be opened about once a week after it is established and sprayed with water.

The catch is the part where the roots take hold.  That will take a few weeks.

The house is one that I got at Pic'and Save years ago....It's a made in China, David Winter type of cottage.  Much more interesting than the craft cottage in layout....

Now all I have to do is come up with that shrinking potion that Tessie hid, before she does. 

I do believe that I will leave the lid open if I ever get in there....Tessie might decide that I should stay...

But then, maybe not.  Who would build all of the things that she still wants if she did that?

Anyway, that's the mini for today.

See you tomorrow.

Tessie zapped herself from the bedroom to her cottage yesterday afternoon. As she did, she somehow let go of the wand! She is NOT happy. It is nowhere to be found. She borrowed a mini vacuum cleaner from the Witches' Warehouse and is going over the big rug. She has to empty the bag about once every five minutes. Hey! If she does a good enough job I won't have to do it. I doubt that she will cover any areas besides the area between where I was working and her cottage.

Today we are getting our heating and air conditioning replaced. For those of you that don't live in 100° weather, this is not a happy occurrence. It was funny when the guy that came out to look at it apologised for the fact that we wouldn't be able to turn on the furnace until the unit was fixed. I wasn't too worried about having to use that!

Anyway, I decided to do some "instant" mini-ing. I have some pieces of wicker that I made a few years ago that still need a home. As you already know, I also have lots of containers to make into rooms. It took all of 20 minutes to do this one. I had to make a floor and clean the glass.




The floor is the only actual work that I had to do. I am showing you the back side. I cut into the corners at a 90° angle and then cut across that at a 45° angle so that nothing overlaps. Unfortunately I didn't have quite enough to cover the back and put a rather sloppy piece in the corner to cover the foam core. Oh well. No one is going to look at the bottom. If they do, they are being way to nosy!

Here's the finished garden gazebo. The terrarium is just as I got it from Wal Mart. It came without a floor. I simply cut a piece of foam core to fit inside.

I went and hunted down a few accessories. I stuck them on the floor and plopped the terrarium on top. See? The floor looks just fine if you only look at the top.

OK. Back to the heat. See you tomorrow. Hopefully I will have some air to breath by then. It's HOT!

Today I am finishing up the outside of the house. Photos tomorrow.

Did you ever have one of those days? I worked all day and nothing got done. All I have to show for today's work is the trim that is finished on the outside of the Rusty Needle and the rough design for the sign that goes on the front. I'm not going to show you that. It might change by tomorrow.

Oh! And I do have about 2o miniature balls of crochet thread. Those little things take a long time to wind. I wound them on drinking straws as I described before. I am not showing you those either. It would be like watching paint dry......Bored yet?

Here's something to take your mind off of the Rusty Needle for today.

About 3 years ago they were selling these little terrariums at Wal Mart for about 15.00. When I got it, it was plain white. I immediately thought "Garden Tea party". I got out the paint and started to fancy it up with embellishments.

The sides are Plexiglas and the roof lifts off so that you can get inside.

I popped in one of the Chinese cross stitch rugs that I designed. I painted some metal furniture that a friend gave me from a dollar store. I added a few plants and something to eat and drink. The painting of the vines and other embellishments took a while but after that, it was an almost instant project. Not bad for Wal Mart!

I seem to have an attraction to terrariums and birdcages. I have several that are finished(to be seen later) and several others waiting on shelves to be dealt with.

Here's one that I pretty much left as is except for the floor and the back wall. This time the find was at Big Lots. The floor is brick paper on mat board. The back wall is a piece of mat board with mini wallpaper. The chair is one of my wicker ones with matching footstool. The planter in the back is a ceramic one that was purchased as bisque ware and painted with acrylics. The small table is really a hand carved stone candlestick from India. I made the afghan from a real sized pattern and mercerized cotton sewing thread All of the plants are made of paper and wire. My cat George is made from Super Sculpey and painted.

This goes to show you that you can make a miniature from and in just about anything.

Back to the Rusty Needle tomorrow.