Merry Christmas!!!

Wishing all of you out there in blog land a most wonderful and joyous Christmas! :)

Sorry I haven't been around to post much, I've just been really busy this month, as I'm sure we all have been. :)

I've only been able to pop in now and again sporadically to comment on blogs, I tried to send out as many Merry Christmas's as I could.

So here's one Grand Merry Christmas to you all. :)

May the day be filled with warmth and love and you spend it with your friends, family and loved ones.
Wishing you all the bounty of the season. :)
dale :)

Featured Artist: Yuki of Amatheria

Here are some miniatures I got from Yuki, recently. :)

These darling Ikea inspired end tables, aren't they cute?

This beautiful triptych in my favorite colors.

Too funny, he had them labeled on the back; left, center, right.

I thought oh, I can figure that out, lol. ;)

This is the second picture I had to take, cause the first one was out of order and one was upside down. ;)

Isn't it just beautiful, though? That's all hand painted. :)

I cut off a word here, it says, "Origami Samurai Helmet Inside"

I definitely needed one, as I didn't have one! :)

And, here it is! How cute is this? It's like less than a half of an inch, all folded up so precisely, what a treat! :)

To round it out, for my love of pink and kitties, a bunch of tiny pink kitty cut outs in two shades.

How thoughtful of him. :)

Thanks, Yuki! :)

If you haven't been by his shop, you do have to check it out. He specialises in quite a number of things and he does a lot of research and study before he creates to make accurate as possible, a true representation in miniature.

That is pretty cool!

In his shop, you will find Ikea inspired furniture, Japanese handpainted screens, miniature origami, Miniature Antique Japanese books and books on horoscopes and mythology.

His interests wear me out. ;)

To see his shop, click on the title of this post and it should take you right there. Be sure to let him know that dale sent you. ;)

I have two new followers to welcome and they are; dollmum you can find her blog here, where she shares her love of dolls and  Lúcia Soares, I don't see a blog for her. Lucia and dollmum, Welcome! :)

Lucia, if you have a blog, leave me a comment with your website. Thanks for following, ladies. :)

I've been very busy making miniatures. I must have spent twenty hours last Saturday and Sunday creating. Fun, but, a little tiring. ;)  I've been trying to expand on what is in my etsy shop and include some new and different types of things. Check out my etsy shop here and let me know what you think about the new arrivals. I'm interested in any suggestions, advice or opinions. Thanks!

Today has been a busy and long day, I'm hoping to have a nice quite evening and catch up on my blog reading. It's so easy to get behind, as new posts are always being created!

Don't worry, I have that compulsive urge to look up all of the older posts to make sure I don't miss anything. Of course, if I commented on every post, y'all would probably kick me out of blogland for seeing my name too often. ;)

Here's hoping that everyone's holiday preparations are going smoothly and that you are enjoying all of the festivities and social engagements that come along with this time of year. :)

dale

ps, just a cautionary note to my fellow bloggers, do use google translator before posting messages in another language. I had the most surprising comment today, and that's all I'll say as, I like to keep this rated G, for good. ;)

I'm in a Treasury!

At etsy. :)

It was made by Joyce of mostlyart, she makes the most fabulous, hand sculpted pottery in 1/12th scale (not thrown!). I'm the proud owner of a couple of her pieces, soon to be more, I am sure. :)

Last weekend, I made a treasury and I forgot to promote it. Well, that with the fact that I got it around 3am, don't ask, I won't tell, LOL! ;)

You can find it on beep beep's blog and you must check out her etsy shop here, she makes the most darling 1/12th scale miniature hand knitted cardigans, they are to die for. I know I must get one soon. :)

Sorry, no picture to go along with this post. I'm just popping in via hubby's puter amidst my wild dashing about of the day. Just had to promote some of my girls, lol  ;)

Oh, and if you want to see the treasury, just click on the title of the entry and it will take you right there. :)

dashes back out ;)

Dollhouse Miniature Monogram Pillows

They're all here in my etsy shop.

So, if you've been patiently waiting for a specific letter of the alphabet, it's all there from A-Z plus four coordinating patterned pillows.

These pillows are fun, I've enjoyed making them and sending them all around the world.

Use them for your own initials, or even to spell words.  They have an art nouveau style to them.  Backed with a black and white gingham, the end result reminds me of Mackenzie-Childs or Mary Englebreit.  I guess we share our love of the black and white checks.

Full details and description can be found in each listing, these are 1/12th scale dollhouse miniature pillows.

They also make a great gift for a little something, something for any miniaturist. Quantities are limited, so don't wait to make your purchase or you might lose out. :(

Looks like quite a few new followers have joined my blog spot. Now, I understand why people welcome more to the party, it is starting to have a party atmosphere here. ;)

So, let me welcome you all warmly. :)

From where we last left off, we have glimpse of my world, I don't know too much about her, yet.

Susan from Between Naps on the Porch, yeah, she just has a couple of followers, LOL! I've been following her blog for a while now and it's filled with lots of eye candy and decorating/table scape ideas.

Begonia, she's a relatively new miniaturist.

callsmall has really sharp images of her minis, often modern and often quite colorful. :)

sabiha and she blogs about her mini projects.

Birgitta is Swedish, and I don't know too much more about her, she's a photographer.

And finally, Ose who is not in any way least. ;) She seems like a really nice lady with a good sense of humor. I've been enjoying her blog Room by Room for quite a while and she has a second blog as well, here, it's a mini barbershop.

Whew! That was a lot!

Just click on any of the colored words for links and say hello if you have the chance. :)

Welcome everyone, and thank you for following my blog. :)

Until next time... ;)

Drum Roll, Please!!!!!!

Yup, it's giveaway time. :)

Hmmmm.... wonder who won..... ;)

Oh, look, there's new followers to welcome!

There is ~MiniMaker and her blog is here. She's having a giveaway right now, too. :)

The Whittaker's Miniatures and their blog is here.

Caseymini, has The funniest blog about Tessie's antics and good tutorials. A laugh riot right here.

And Asencion, her blog is here.
Thank you all for following my blog. :)

Hmmm,.... what was I going to blog about....

OH, Yes, the Winner of a $20 gift certificate to my etsy shop.

And the Winner Is......

Oh, Sans!

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hit join my mailing list over there to the right and send me an email. :)

Let the Shopping Begin. ;)

Big thanks to all that have participated and actively follow my blog, it touched my heart writing all those names down. :)  I'm a loyal person, so to see people loyally following my blog, really touched my heart. :)
So, Thank YOU! :)

Let's Make the Beds :)

Shall we? lol ;)

First we'll need comfy mattresses and soft pillows

Then, we'll need some crisp white sheets and pillow cases.

Now we need some warm snuggly blankets.

A couple of towels for washing up.

All ready for bed time now. :)

Happy Thanksgiving! :)

Here's hoping all who are celebrating, are enjoying the day with family and loved ones and full bellies. :)

The Men of TeamMIDS

I thought I would share with you all, the men of our team on Etsy, TeamMIDS.

There aren't a lot of men on our team, but, they are all really great guys that give a lot of attention to detail to their miniatures.

This is an acrylic turning by Bertie of BertiesMiniatures.

I think his acrylic turnings are my favorite. :)

This is a wonderful little accent table from Ray of minibuilder. Ray makes all kinds of fine wood furniture for the dollhouse, we collaborate on some items from time to time.

This is a turning from Mike Rowe. He also makes very realistic looking guns in 1/12th scale.

This is a turning from Tom (turning seems to be popular among the men.) of turningsin.

Tom has a really great sense of humor and he's working on making up a website where you can view him at work making turnings. Very cool. :)

This is a modern dining room set by Richard of minibydesign.

He makes modern furniture and lights, as well as deco furniture. Right now, he's busy making an art deco bar for himself and it's going to be fabulous!

This is a wonderful custom made screen, just for me, from Yuki of Amatheria.

Yuki is one of our youngest members of the team, he's an architecture student, a tattoo artist as well as being a miniaturist.

We also have another guy on the team, Jason, but, he's just joined recently and I have yet to acquire something from his shop, he's another turner of JasonsWoodworking.

Welcome to new followers Josje, you can find her blog here, and Papillon Bleu and her blog is here.

Giveaway, I know the 22nd came and went. My bad! I wanted to do it the Sunday night after Thanksgiving, so until then. ;)

Adding Contemporary Elements to Your Period Dollhouse

Yes, you can! :)

If fact you can do anything you want with your dollhouse. There are no rules that you have to abide by. Do what you want! lol ;)

You can take that tudor dollhouse and turn it into a shabby chic cottage if you want!

You can add modern design to Victorian dollhouses.

Collect what you like, design and decorate as you see fit. It's your house after all. :)

A touch of Asian in any room, lends an international feel, like a world traveler.

Contemporary and antique furniture can be mixed to form a classic traditional style.

Large scale pieces add a modern look to spice things up.

Go ahead, mix as many patterns and colors as you like.

You might just find that all of the things you like, end up blending together to show your own signature style in designing your dollhouse decor.

Hey, but that's just what I think. ;)

The chair is from minibuilder, the table is from turningsin, the blue and white china are from my private collection and the rest is in or will be coming soon to my etsy shop. :)

Now that I can see my followers again, I can welcome the new ones! :)

They are; Julie Old Crow who blogs mostly about mini food and has another blog here.

Deborah posts from the Netherlands about small stuff

elminimundodevane I don't see a blog or website listed

Anama who's coming back to blogging about minis after taking some time off.

Lest I forget Reisl Today, who got neglected the other day when I couldn't find her blog.

That's all for now, glad to be able to "see" my followers once again.

Hope I've given you some food for thought. :)

They're baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! ;)

My people have returned. lol ;)

What a pleasant sight! :)

Help! My followers have disappeared!

LOL! I know they are not gone, as I can see them on my hubby's puter.

But, they've disappeared from view from mine! :(

My people, my people, I can't see my people, lol. ;)

Does anyone know what to do?

This happened once before and I cleared my cache and they returned.

I've cleared my cache, history, cookies, restarted the computer and nothing has worked. :(

Bumming! :(

Favorite Dollhouse Books :)

Wow, I just releasized that I haven't been blogging. ;)

  I was hoping to have some exciting news to report last week, but alas, it is on hold for the moment-

 New followers to welcome, they are; evelien and you can find her blog here and Reisl Today, which I thought there was a blog... but, I'm not finding it listed... Reisel, if you're around, leave me a comment with your blog site and I'll put it in my next post. :) Thanks for following my blog.

 I thought I would share with you, my dear readers, my favorite dollhouse books. :)

This book showcases 35 dollhouses from the 1600's on to present day.

Focuses on the interiors, primarily furniture building.

A unique mix of design styles; from Egyptian, Shaker, Bauhaus to Victorian Gothic

Everything having to do with textiles, my favorite subjects. :)

All Victorian, all the time. ;)  I love the richness of this time period, the pattern on pattern, the ornateness and all of the "stuff" that Victorians loved to hang on to.

This has a lot of specific projects for dollhouses in different time periods.

I just love these books. I'm sure you can probably find copies of them on Amazon or Ebay.

 I used to just pour over these books and dream. :)

Now, I find I am getting more and more interested with contemporary and modern traditional designs as opposed to period designs, though, I still love them! :)

Books are such precious things, they are like old friends, so good to have around to enjoy.

After reading up on other people's blogs, I'm seeing that, there are a bunch of new gorgeous books are out there.

Must ask for a gift certificate to a book store for Christmas. ;)

Philadelphia Miniaturia Treasure Trove! :)

Wow, just wow! The show was so phenomenal! :)

I was so excited to go, I almost had butterflies in my stomach, lol ;)

Of course, the first person I encountered was Betsy Niederer. I have to admit, I was a bit star struck! A celebrity, lol, she's been on Martha! So, that was really cool. I bought six of the tiniest croissants from her. I went to put them in my purse, then I worried they might get broken. She said, "Don't worry, they're bomb proof."

Well, after that, I pretty much was in awe and the camera never came out of my purse.

But, I can show you the rest of my goodies! :)

The four matching plates just say shabby chic to me, the mirror is darling, I'm sure I'll find a good place to put that, and of course some mismatched plates featuring flowers and birds and fruit.

For my love of roses! :)

Okay, apparently these items are mass produced, but, I didn't even notice that the pattern was the same. Hubby pointed that out to me. ;)

(I'm going to have to look around in my stuff and see if they match anything else!)

Trims!

I said I wasn't going to, cause, I haven't used the stuff I bought last year, but they were half off.

And I still had some money left! :)

So, there's my big purchases. lol

The show was just utterly amazing, the talent in so many different arenas and in the various scales.

Almost overwhelming! There were furniture makers, dollhouse makers, stitchers, glass blowers, miniature painters. Oh, I could go on and on. It was just a lovely show and so cool to get to see all that is out there.

 I've surpassed 100 followers, cool! :)

Let me welcome; Lize, CasitaMini which consists of three friends Nuria, Rossana and Norma, Asuka, who has just joined teamMIDS on etsy recently and finally Jean. Thank you all very much for following my blog. :)

Okay, so I guess I have to follow through with my give away now. I think I'm going to run it through to November 22, I'll announce the winner that evening. The giveaway is a $20. gift certificate to my etsy shop and all you have to do is comment on any of the posts since the last giveaway to be entered to win.

Easy peasy, but, I think it's going to take me a while to write down all of those names! ;)

Guess I better get busy ;)

Dollhouse Miniature Tablecloths and Fancy Folded Napkins :)

I made these table cloths and napkins for a custom order. I love the fabric that I was able to find, it really resembles a damask, which was important for this Victorian setting.

Some plain folded napkins, too. I thought about doing a tutorial on how to fold miniature napkins, but, it's really the same as in real life, just a wee bit tinier. The fancy folded napkins depicted are called Crown napkins and you can see how to fold them here.

and a plain table cloth for the butler

My client has been busy working on her dollhouse and you can see the updates to her progress here.

Well, last week was busy with creating, this week was quieter, but, I'm already on another creative jaunt with more things in progress. I hope to be showing you some totally new creations shortly.

Tomorrow is Philadephia Miniaturia and I am so excited to be going, I can't wait to see what is out there!

Last year I blogged about it for another blog in two postings you can see them here and here.  Now I have my own blog, so, I'm sure I'll be highlighting the fair here. :)

My friend Richard of Minibydesign has started a blog wait till you see what he's making.

Until next time ;)

Okay! ;)

I was going to post today about some of the custom work I was doing last week.

But, my laptop over heated and now, I'm sitting at hubby's puter, with no links to pictures. :(
I think every blog post ought to have a picture, don't you?

It's okay, I've managed to fill up a lot of time reading up on blogs. I really enjoy it, hope I haven't become a blog junkie, lol ;)

Since, I spent so much time last week creating (read myopic frenzy) I have found myself catching up on the house, laundry, etc. this week (boring!). ;)  Not much creating at the moment, but, in bits and drabs. More to come later about that. :)

I want to welcome two new followers (yes, closer to 100 followers, lol) Cleer, who unfortunately doesn't have a link to a blog and Carmen, you can find her blog here. I so love that we miniaturists can connect around the world, there are so many of us out there, all over the world. Of course, the translate bar across the top helps a lot, but even without it, you can look at others' work. Does anyone know how to get that bar across the top of your blog?  I know I'd love to have it. :)

Still trying to find my way around blogland at this point, sometimes, I post a comment and it doesn't come up and I don't know why! lol

Well, if you took the time to read through all of this without pictures, I share this with you.

It was sent to me by someone that was thanking me for just being kind to them along the way, which really just touched my heart so much. :)

Later, I heard the artist on pbs and then again on npr. If you want to see another really cool artist, click here.

If the stars where mine, I'd give them all to you..... :)

More Furniture from Minibuilder in my Collection :)

This is the first piece I bought from Ray.

It is so darling, it sat on my desk for weeks as a source of inspiration for mini making.

Then, I got this table, actually, I got two of them for end tables for either side of the couch in the living room.

I'm not really a light wood kinda person, but, I wanted some diversity in what I use to display the minis I have for sale. This is a cute set and it has a country or cottage appeal to it.

I love these chairs, of course, they're not upholstered yet, as I can't decide what I want on them.

Maybe, I'll make several different seats so I can play with them a bit more.

Ray had sent me this dining room set for me to upholster the chairs and I knew immediately when I opened the box that I had to have them!

Here's just the chair. Again, no upholstery. lol ;)

Ray sent me this as a gift. I love it!

It's going to look great with a plant on it. :)

In real life, I have a thing for tables and footstools, I'm sure it's going to be the same thing in the dollhouse. That and stuffing it full with as much stuff as I possibly can. ;)

I was really busy making miniatures last week. I'll share some of what I was working on next time. So busy working, that I'm behind on keeping up with my blog reading. Hoping to get to a bit of that this week, it's always so interesting to see what other people are up to with their minis. :)

Welcome to new followers, Angela, Kiva, who makes miniature food and has a funny sense of humor (I found her through Tom's blog) and Richard another team mate from teamMIDS, who doesn't blog, yet ;) but, you can find his etsy shop here.

So, three followers away from 100 now. I'll be celebrating you followers soon with a giveaway!

This weekend is the Philadephia Miniaturia, I'm going! Anyone else out there in blog land going to be there?
I am so looking forward to it. :)

Mission Couch

It was a busy week of miniature making in dalesdreams studio. ;)  Since sunshine couldn't be found outside, I turned on all the lights and made my own sunshine inside. :)
This is a mission couch I upholstered for Ray of minibuilder on etsy.

His work is so incredible.

I used to work in an antiques shop and after a while, your hand knows what the good stuff is by the way it feels in your hand.

Fine glass, you can tell when you hold it, same with fine china. A strand of real pearls, I'll never forget the first time I held a strand of real pearls, I absolutely know why women love them so much! ;)

That is the same with handling one of Ray's creations. Fine detailing and craftsmanship, this couch feels so good in your hand.

I love this fabric, it looks like aged leather in 1/12th scale.

Last time I looked, it wasn't in his shop yet, but, I'd keep an eye out for it. It's a wonderful compliment to the mission chair and ottoman he has in his shop now.

Not many trick or treaters this year. :(

Could have been the damp weather.

Hope you have an enjoyable Halloween. :)

Oh, some funny thoughts before I go. What unusual things turn up in your work room? This week, I had a pot lid and a large bread knife in my studio. Hubby was afraid to pick up the pot lid, he thought there might be a mouse trapped under it. Not!

The pot lid was a template for a circle to make a pattern for a table cloth. By the way, did you know most plates are around 10" in diameter? I needed a nine inch circle.

The bread knife, I used to shave down a piece of half inch foam into a piece of 1/4" foam. Not an easy task I tell you. ;)

Alright, until next time! :)

***Update, he's listed the couch, you can find it here.***