A small world's big buzz!

IMA items we couldn't resist

My favorite favorite favorite thing about the shows is seeing all the beautiful work that exists in our mini world. Anyone who questions the future of miniatures just has to show up and see the artistry in such abundance to dispel those fears. Luckily for me and unfortunately for my wallet, some pieces were just so helpful or inspirational or fun that I couldn't help but buy them! Enjoy!

These gorgeous pieces are by Jason Feltrope of Feltrope Studios. His pieces are exquisite. The one on the left is a great display piece; the plate on the right I bought for a friend of mine who does full-size pottery. I thought he would enjoy seeing such quality work in miniature. We also brought back a little teapot for Kelly. Also, I love the boxes Jason uses:

Neat, right?

 

Moving on. 

From the lovely Cookie of Cookie's Bits & Pieces, I bought these little veggies. For those who don't know, I'm attempting to take my kit from the Real Good Toys Build-Along 2011 (yes, the one from last year still!!) and turn it into a replica of my second apartment from when I lived in Boston. The top floor is my apartment; the bottom is the Spanish store. Because I am broke but also am terrible with clay, I thought that having these pieces as inspiration and models would help me figure out how to make bunches of mini veggies for the Spanish store. I will let you know how it turns out.

 

And finally, there is this little gem from Jan Patrie of Autumn Leaf Studio. She sat across from us the whole weekend, and her table was so full of goodies that we couldn't resist buying this pecan pie to give to my parents--"so they'll always have one around," as Beth put it. Yum!

Beth and I also bought a gift for my older sister, Sara, and her husband, John, as a thank you for letting us stay with them before and after our trip (and helping us avoid the stress of Park'N'Fly maneuvering!). They both love reading, so Beth found a copy of a Shakespearean play for them. Beth also went on a little spree of her own, finding a box of Thin Mints for our parents (see a theme here?) and a beer box and mug to include in the bar that she and her husband plan on having in their future home. Also pictured below is another pot by Jason Feltrope.

 

All in all, it was a successful show in every way possible! My only regret is that we didn't have time to check out either of the other shows going on at the same time. Perhaps next year we can figure out a way to head to all three! What a miniature dream!

If you are hoping to attend IMA next year, just go to their website to see the details. Thelma is very good about putting all the information up there! Happy minis!

Traci

 

Worlds Collide: AM Facebook contest

Once more, we’re running a contest for our American Miniaturist Facebook fans! If you’re not already a fan of us on Facebook, just head to our Facebook page and click the “Like” button! (You must be signed in to Facebook to do so.)

This contest was inspired by seeing some amazing photos online that portrayed minis in a big world. A few weeks ago, David (our managing director, based out of our UK office) sent us this link:

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/kurt-moses-un-petit-monde

which features miniatures within our regular world. Instead of attempting to create a miniature world as a separate entity, the photos we saw utilized the regular world, whether as a realistic background (similar to the Elgin Park article in DHM), a full-size setting, or a source of confusion or fascination for the miniatures. And what I liked most about the photos was that they are fun! Many of them made me smile and made me look at miniatures in a new way.

And so that is our challenge to you for this contest: Make us look at minis differently. Utilize the larger, regular world with your mini one, portraying all the curiosity and creativity you’d expect when two worlds collide.

Logistics:

1) Post your photo(s) on our Facebook wall by April 15. That gives you one month!

2) At least one item in the photo must be miniature, and at least one item in the photo must be full-size (and used as a full-size item).

3) Entries will be judged on creativity and quality.

4) You must post this on AM's wall and be a fan of AM. Entries posted on other Ashdown pages will not be considered. (Don't worry--you'll get your own contest soon!)

Good luck and, most importantly, have fun!!

Traci

 

Fun surprises in the mail!

I absolutely LOVE getting all the mail we do. It's fun to hear from readers, and though I don't have time to respond to every contest entry or short note scribbled after a sub renewal, I hope you all realize that I read everything and enjoy it to no end.

I especially enjoy mail when we get little surprises! Here are my two latest favorites. First up is another card from Emma. For those of you who don't remember, Emma is the granddaughter of our warehouse guru, Fran. She sometimes joins Fran in the office, and she is always smitten with our little guy, Arthur. Apparently Kelly recently ordered some Girl Scout cookies from Emma, and here is Emma's thank-you note:

(If that doesn't make your heart melt, I just don't know what will.)

 

And now my other fun piece of mail, courtesy of the wonderful Martha Puff, who recently finished her end of the monumental task of two--yes, two!--galleries for our April issue of American Miniaturist. The first features some beautiful spring pieces by very talented artists, and the second gallery has been making my tummy rumble for days on end as I cutout photos of cakes and pastries. Yes, it's a food gallery, and trust me, you will want to eat something before you look through the article, or you will end up making brownies for yourself at night. Anyway, Martha sent me some beautiful pieces from Sue Ayers of Sue's Little Things! This photo is courtesy of my new iPad (yay!), and I haven't played with the settings, so the photo is a bit low-quality. But if you look below, you will see a print-quality photo of some of the same pieces, upcoming in our April issue. Enjoy!

Traci

 

Mini Chair Affair

This weekend, Bailey, Eric, and I had the wonderful opportunity to get together with several local miniaturists and see some of their creations to be donated to the upcoming Chair Affair. 

The Chair Affair is an event that will consist primarily of full-size OOAK chairs by local artisans that will be auctioned off to benefit the Boys and Girls Club; this year, Mary Wallace (a contributor to AM) has coordinated the efforts of these miniaturists to create miniature chairs, which will be donated and hopefully chosen to be auctioned off as well.

With 20 kits donated by Mary Huffer of MJ Miniatures, the artists let their imaginations run wild. It was so much fun to see how one chair could be turned into so many different styles and themes. The group of chairs are truly emblematic of the talent and diversity that miniatures embody! A few of my favorites included "Sonny and Chair," a chair for the Toothfairy at rest (that's the big winged and sparkly one in the back), and "Old Sparky"--an electric chair. Some slightly more traditional ones included a quilting chair, a country-style chair, and "Lefse Day," including all the ingredients for that Scandinavian dish.

The auction itself is in February, and this meeting was a chance for the miniaturists to get together and "show and tell" their chairs to each other. We met at the home of Mary Wallace, and Eric filmed much of the day and I took photos. Bailey donated a chair and also interviewed Mary for our upcoming Dollshouse.TV film, and I took copious notes for an upcoming article in American Miniaturist. Below are a few "sneak peek" photos of the event! Enjoy!

Traci

 

 

All the lovely chairs!

 

Eric taking a few shots of the chairs on the table for our upcoming Dollshouse.TV film.

Several of the ladies during the "show and tell." Far left is Mary Huffer of MJ Miniatures, who donated the chair kits.

Just to Make You Smile :)

Arthur Plays Fetch!

Arthur, our furry mascot of American Miniaturist Magazine, just loves to bother Designer Dustin in the office with frequent games of fetch. Who could resist that face?

And make sure to visit the Facebook page for an exclusive video of Arthur playing fetch with Dustin!

Emma sends a card to Arthur

A couple weeks ago, our warehouse guru, Fran, brought her granddaughter Emma to the office for a couple days. Emma thoroughly enjoyed helping Fran package subscription gifts and assist in other warehouse tasks, but what she really enjoyed was Arthur! The two of them would romp around the office and follow each other everywhere. While all of us really enjoyed having Emma around to brighten up the office, I think Arthur may miss her most of all. And she obviously misses him, as shown by the card she sent him! Enjoy!

Traci

 

Arthur thinks that because they share everything else, Emma will share her lunch too. No such luck!

The card Emma sent Kelly to thank her for letting Emma learn about our office.

Minis with small cousins

A couple months ago--around the time I bought the items to experiment in the creation of a wood floor--I also bought several primary colors of polymer clay in the hopes that I was intrinsically a great sculptor and somehow hadn't discovered it yet. (My senior-high ceramics class should have taught me otherwise, but that was sufficiently long enough ago for me to forget how terribly my creations turned out.)

My plan was to follow Ericka VanHorn's lollipop article from AM95 (March 2011). If I was successful at creating lollipops, and had time/talent to create many more, I was considering making my wood floor a lollipop store. Or making my Real Good Toys shell kit a candy store (this was before deciding to re-create my apartment).

Instead, my three little cousins were at my house. In an attempt to corral them into something less destructive than their perusal of the numerous storage items in our basement, I desperately tried different distraction tactics. "Do you want to watch a movie? How about we read a book?" --but these were to no avail. Then the plastic bag caught my eye, and I knew what I had to do.

"Do you want to play with clay?" I asked tentatively, and their eyes grew wide, and they began sifting through their items to see if they'd come across any clay. I put some newspaper over a card table, got on my knees to be at their eye level over the table, and we began creating.

At first, they just smushed colors together. My heart broke thinking of the few hopeful dollars I'd spent and my dreams of a mini lollipop wonderland. Pleads of "Hey, let's use a little less clay for this, okay?" fell upon deaf ears as they delighted in smushing and pulling and twisting and smushing again, while on my side of the table I was using a very dumbed-down version of Ericka's tutorial to create a small blue and red lollipop (the middle one in the photo below).

When my seven-year-old cousin Jayda saw me doing this, she became interested in my method. Eventually, her smushed-clay gray became half of a (slightly larger) lollipop as well, and nine-year-old Kaylee's chunks molded into a candy cane. Three-year-old Tori didn't make any item that could be identified, but at least she enjoyed rolling the clay out like we'd been doing and hadn't run off to get clay all over the basement.

And while my lollipop creations haven't really taken off, I still have this photo from the day minis saved my basement from destruction. My mom baked them one day while I was at work, and the girls had made me promise to give them the items as soon as they'd been baked. I was true to my word. And I like to think that years down the line they will still have these items and think of what a cool cousin they have and how they hope to be just like me someday. :-)

Traci

 

 

Photoshoot with Ric

While I like to think that I have a wide variety of talents, I really just dabble in different things. Maybe I just lack focus (pun intended). Either way--I enjoy taking photos, but as you can see from the ones I posted below, my photographing of miniatures leaves a little something to be desired! (Nevermind that these were taken with my phone camera...) So last week, when Richard (the Dolls House World editor from England) was visiting our US office, he was kind enough to take some time and teach me about getting the right setting on our office camera, adjusting the lights, hooking up the camera to the flash, and all sorts of other little tips and tricks that I was in dire need of. So now, as I progress more thoroughly on my Real Good Toys Build Along project, I'll be able to give you guys some better photos!!

Below are just a few photos that we took. Nothing is to scale; we were just playing around and testing the equipment. :-)  You can see the full photoshoot in our Facebook album.

On another note: this week, Sara and I will be traveling to Chicago for the IMA show! I'm so, so excited to see this whole other side of the miniature world that I've been missing out on. I can't wait!! I'll try to give you guys updates from there :-)

Traci

 

Richard's photo of a chair.

 

I was trying to get fancy with more than one item. :-)

 

 

I think I like the pink background for the chair!

Traci's First Wood Floor!

Hi everybody,

I'm proud to say I've done my first official experimentation with wooden floors! In preparation for the Real Good Toys Build-Along for the month of March, which I am participating in, I decided to try out some techniques in a setting that wouldn't ruin an entire project if they failed. I ran out of time and only tried one project this past weekend, and this was it!

I took the setting idea from Angela Schiavone. Her article in December's issue (and her upcoming one in April) begin with a foam board setting that creates just a basic floor and background. So simple, so effective! Also in the April issue, she made a background of a wooden wall by just pasting craft sticks to it. I thought it looked great, and said to myself, why not do that for a wood floor?

So as my parents watched Mamma Mia, I took over their kitchen table and spent two hours cutting craft sticks and gluing them to foam board. I'm very happy with the result, and hope to have more pictures for you soon! Happy miniaturing!

Traci

 

My technique was to line the sticks up from left to right and cut the stick where it hung over the edge of the foam. Then I used that extra part as the first section of the next row. That way it has a sort of layered pattern that I've noticed most floors have.

 

Finished project!! I know it looks like some sticks are warped, but I think that's just the photo. In person, it looks quite nice :-)