Goodies Galore!

Here are a few of the purchases I mentioned.

Ahh..the perfect little nook to curl up with a good book! "Leather" club chair from miniatures.com. I lightly sanded it down to add some wear and take away the shiny appearance. Side table came from the old house. Mug of coffee from Hobby Lobby.

I bought a cute metal little bistro set from miniatures.com. It was white and came with a "glass"-topped table and four chairs. The table and other 2 chairs will end up in the Villa- (double-duty-bonus!) White seemed too stark for the bookshop so I painted them green. I'm not sure if they will stay that way though- maybe brown? I'm also thinking of adding some "tiled" flooring to delineate the cafe area.

Bakery case also bought from miniatures.com. I added some paint to darken it up a bit. Cherry pie and plates came from Hobby Lobby. Great cheap finds! How do you think my cookies look? Hoping to fill it up with more goodies soon!

Metal cash register (with working drawer) from miniatures.com. Lamp swiped from the old house ;)

Trying Out My Creativity..

Time to start furnishing the cafe for my bookstore. The store is not big enough to fit a huge cafe, but I still wanted to convey the idea. I had in mind a cute little bistro set.

Yesterday I was at Michael's and found an awesome metal pendant sort of in the shape of a compass. Viola! A table base! The top of the table was made to look like a Formica overlay. Chairs to come..

While looking at miniatures I have been in awe at some of the food I've seen (Kiva's Miniatures- amazing!). I swore I wouldn't even begin to attempt food. It just seemed so daunting. Last night however, I found a little "discovery" that I couldn't resist. I hadn't exactly cleaned up my table from my last adventures. There were little hard globs of Liquid Nails glue left over. Hmm.. a light bulb went off. What could I do with this stuff?

I laid out some intentional blobs on wax paper. This morning they were dry (and didn't stick to the paper). The result- chocolate chip cookies! Not perfect, but not too bad for a first attempt. I have a few more ideas up my sleeve for making the media more workable for my next attempt. Fun!

I also made my first major purchase last night from miniatures.com . Can't wait to get the package and share my goodies with you!

Here are  some miniature paint brushes I thought I would share. They were purchased a few years ago at Dick Blick. As I've said before, I think miniatures have been in my blood for quite awhile and I just didn't know it ;)

Designer Fabric Samples Rock

Today I made a trip to Jo-Ann Fabric store with the sole purpose of finding a simple green canvas fabric to use for awnings for the bookshop. That part was easy. Not getting side-tracked by the myriad of other fabrics, not so easy.

I managed to restrain myself from buying several until I stumbled upon a clearance rack of designer home interior fabric samples. These were intended to be special order fabrics, but I guess they had been discontinued or something so they were selling all of the samples for two dollars each. The samples are about 20" square, so that is plenty of fabric for miniature making.

I chose three really cool fabrics. They will all go in the Villa eventually. I am thinking of the striped one (Waverly) for accent chairs, the green satiny one (richloom) for pillows and I love the woven one (Phifertex- a vinyl coated wicker weave retailing for $49.99 a yard!) as an area rug.

While browsing a French Interior Decorating magazine I found these cool chairs. They look like they would be fairly simple to reproduce/modify in miniature. I love the clean simple lines. Who knows, they just may end up (possibly with the striped fabric) in the Villa someday...

Simple green awnings coming soon..