This past weekend, Melissa and I (Traci) attended the May meeting of the Midwest Miniatures Guild. The format of the meetings runs pretty much the same way--in the morning there are coffee and snacks at registration, sales tables, tables with displays and pieces out for auction or to win, and various workshops; then comes a fabulous catered lunch, and the conducting of official business afterwards, with announcements and Guild changes and the winners of the various auctions and displays; and then afternoon sales and workshops. Pretty basic, but lots of fun! In addition, this meeting had garage sales going on in the entryway, which they only do once a year. There were some great finds!
Melissa and I arrived right before our morning workshop was about to start, but first we had to choose a table. Each table in the room had a centerpiece that would be given away to a random drawing winner, and these centerpieces were gorgeous!
Ruth Hynes of Hanky Panky Crafts had bought the containers at Michaels, decorating the inside with various pieces--she'd painted and attached the shutters, found cake pedestals and painted them, added butterflies (from scrapbooking pieces) to wire, and just generally made them gorgeous. There were various peacock-themed ones, like above, as well as ones that were themed with butterflies and maybe even another kind--I honestly don't even know, because as soon as Melissa and I saw the one above, we made a beeline for that table and claimed it as our own. If we were going to win one, we wanted it to be that!
So anyway, we went to our first workshop. It was called A Window in Tuscany, and was taught by Pam Rouleau, who is just a sweetheart of a lady and so patient with everyone. Below are some step-by-step photos Melissa took with her phone.
We used "an old technique," as Pam called it, to stucco the walls. I'd never done it before so it was definitely new to me. Basically, it's like decoupage with paint and tissues. Put some paint down, add a single layer of tissue (just the cheap kind), and paint over it. The right side of my wall ended up looking REALLY stuccoed, with some mounds of stucco here and there (apparently you don't want the tissue to fold over on itself), but the left side and walls ended up okay.
Melissa's now-wired basket and now-painted barrel.
Melissa has now placed her image in the back, with the little foam posts to keep the wall at a distance from the image. Eventually, in the top left, we also put wire covered with some green material to create a tree branch.
Melissa has filled her basket with grapes!
Melissa's window has been placed, and the window ledge added on.
Melissa's finished project!! Now she just has to find a picture frame that she likes and that will cover the parts she wants to cover. It looks fabulous and so, so quaint! I wish I was there in full-size right now!
So then there was lunch, with all the drawings I mentioned. For the centerpieces, we just count off around the table. Melissa was 1, I was 2, etc. But then it was discovered that since Melissa was my guest and not a full member yet (that will be at the Oct meeting), she couldn't win! So then I was 1. AND 1 WAS CALLED!!!!! *squealofexcitement*
WINNER!
I was going to bring it home to display on my bookshelf, but then my conscience overtook my greed, reminding me that technically Melissa would have won, so now it's in our office where we can all enjoy it!! :-)
In the afternoon, we took the Fun with Faux Fineshes class with Carol Sherry, who is spunky and energetic and really fun to take a class with. Due to needing time for the paints to dry, we hopped around from marble to crackle finish to verdigris back to marble to verdigris to crackle to granite to marble to verdigirs.....but it was so much fun! We did it all on scrap wood, and our hands were covered in paint, so we don't have any photos--maybe I'll take some tonight of the finished wood to post tomorrow. But either way, it was LOTS of fun!
And that was it! We also did some shopping after lunch, finding a few good things; Melissa bought a little piano for her mom, and I got an entire set of artist's chalk for a dollar! All in all, it was a fabulous day. Special thanks to Carol Blanchfield (MMG President) and the entire MMG team for putting on another great event!