Happy New Years!

2017 was an interesting year. Saw accomplishments and failures... joys and happiness and sorrow and anger... Some significant life changes while life went on mostly as it does out here. A mixed bag of a year that I'm not happy or sad to see pass into yesteryear.


Growbox Hill saw an expansion of property this year, something we have been working on for a few years now. It's our dreams coming to fruition. This years big 2018 resolution is to take over the stable to work into gardening and harvest shed, and securing the immediate stableyard for the larger scale garden plot. Not sure what else comes yet now, some plans changed unexpectedly early this spring.
Lost mom and sis this year- that was unexpected. They are back in our home state now, tucked in for the winter. That was a bit of a dream shatter that I'm still reeling a bit from. Our boy moved out too, also fairly unexpected in the timing of it. Not quite as much of a shatter though, I always knew sooner or later he would figure stuff out and eventually move out. But all in all, quite the tailspin.
The gardens did well this year- but then it was kind of a take it easy on the growing in favor of getting beds in order kind of year. Glad I got that pretty much done, well worth it. A smaller resolution for 2018 is to try to remember not to grow so much, lol. I've already culled out about half my seedstock that I'm going to toss into the freezer to put on deep hold for a couple years while I get worked through the other half. The hopeful seed collection of yesteryears have now stabilized and hit the point of this rotation- a very good thing indeed, 2018 will mark Growbox Hills first seed vault year :)
Was bummed that I completely missed faire for the first time in over half my life. So many dear friends that I miss that I only get to see then. I'll need to get out that way once or twice in the coming year... Heh, need to unpack storage too in the coming year :)
Hurt myself good in July- the kind of hurt that as an adult you know is going to last a while. Been working on it- it's a slow going thing. 2018 resolution is don't make that shit worse, lol.
Gen-con was cool. Done it a couple times now so it was a bit old hat. I heard a rumor that it might be moving out of Indy in the future to somewhere bigger. Also heard they are contracted till at least 2021, so here's to going to more Gen-cons in the future.
My love's computers and printing have come together wonderfully, and I hope 2018 sees some sales starting to happen on the great gardening and surveillance tec he's been making over at KnowESys. The little ninja bots are adorable, and the harpoon a formidible and useful tool :) Ninja Smoke and Cyborgro
Got the opportunity to make a friend and get a sort of part time job this year. Went out to my favorite and only good local bead shop- that also happens to be a fave garden nursery, The Enchanted Bead  The lady that runs the place is great. This spring we struck up a conversation, and now I'm working the occasional day here and there for her through the year. This summers first annual trunk show was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to next years.
My love of Fortune's Turning has been creeping back. Over the year I've slowly gathered together materials on the cheap and started getting into mini making over the last couple months. A lot of learning and relearning techniques. Getting pretty good with the changeouts between the three more common scales. If I keep this up, I think there's potential that my etsy shop might reopen next year with a line of Fortunes Turning Minis. Maybe.
Today I've baked this years last loaf of bread- wheat, packed the last of this years leftovers into the freezer- spicy sausage and orzo ragout. The sun is starting to slant over the snow and it's time to get ready for our New Years Eve dinner.

I hope we all see each other through the year to come, and well into many years to come. Happy New Years!

More mini's- making stuff and scales

So I just made a post that had a ton of pics of stuff I've been making lately. I touched on a bit of rant about cost of things and scales... Because by george a lot of mini's can be expensive, and not right on the scale.
I have pretty much never paid full price for any of my village stuff. Michaels, Joanns, and Menards are usually the only regular stores that carry village stuff, though sometimes I've found things at the local Rite Aid and Walgreens, lol. But I wait till the stuff goes on sale, or I got the good coupons- or best is when I got both going on :) I've gotten a lot of stuff from thrift and resale shops too, a lot of good stuff. And sometimes in the process, I've had to revamp stuff, or fix broken stuff... and that's led into making stuff. Because eff that if I'm gonna pay 5 bucks on sale for something I can make myself for way less. And well, I like making stuff like this. Sooner or later maybe someone will want to buy stuff I make :)

So then scale- I have a bit of range of scale in Fortunes Turning. With American villages in general like Lemax and Dept 56, the buildings are actually small for the figures and details that are sold with the buildings. The buildings are around 1:48-1:64 scale range, people are 1:24-1:32 scale range. While figures tend to be about 2 1/2" tall, doorways tend to be about 2" tall. So there's already some fudging around with the scale there village collectors have to deal with.
When doing the details... 1:6 scale is HUGE- this is often called re-ment size or Barbie Doll size. 1:12 scale is tooo big, that's the scale for regular dollhouses. 1:16 scale is popular among tabletop players- but like all gaming stuff, stupidly expensive for pretty much anything. 1:24 scale can be harder to find and much more expensive than 1:12 stuff is.

What does all of this mean then? Some photos...

I had ordered a couple cheap sets of dishes off Ebay- white plastic, 33 pieces for 99 cents, some gold kettles and clear glasses were similar deals. I wanted to get a feel for what all the range in size stuff was when figuring all this out. I was gifted with a lovely brass set from my sis and mom, bought one of the standard silver mini sets from Michaels, and use various jewelry findings here. Keep in mind all this is laid out on about a 5 inch wide space, with items ranging from Barbie doll size down to the size of the standard figure and table from my village. Sister Mercy is my regular model.

Same setup, different angle. The multi compartment round dish and gold kettle are the regular Barbie size pieces, meant to be a regular big kettle and serving tray. They will end up be parts of street scenes, something like giant soup kettle and dim sum dish, or something.. The rest of the white dishes give scale, note the stacked bowls- the biggest ones are regular Barbie bowls, while the tiny brass one is a regular bowl on the scale I use. The glasses range from the giant beer glass down to little jewelry findings serving as small mugs. In the foreground is a variety of jewelry findings and one of the 1" cutting boards I make.

Utensils. On the left- the gold ones are part of the kettle set, the spoons are Barbie spoons, and the other two are a couple of little jewelry charms. On the right are things, I've made- the spoons are actually little ball bails. I can get 100 spoons for the price of the 4 on the left, heh. On the right are knives I've done with foil and fimo, and pounded wire tiny knives. On the bottom are pounded wire handles- not all dishes need the bottom of the utensil showing, just the handle sticking out. Easy and cheap to make.

A bit more simple now. On the top of the table are the stack of dishes and their right scale spoons. On the seat is an empty finding and two finished platters. On the bottom is an empty board, and two finished boards. If you notice, the white dish on the top is Barbie sized, and the platter on the bottom is only a little larger and holds a whole scene.

A closeup for scale. Same sized bread pieces. On the left is the Barbie sized plate and spoon, in the middle is dollhouse scale, and on the right is Sister Mercy's dish scale. The bread is cut on half to fit on her plate nicely.

Pulling it together...

Standard street scene. You don't really notice how much the people outscale the buildings.

And the difference between night and day-

A random food pic- this shows the scale of the regular food I can get online, vs the scale I actually need...

On the top, the carrot and potatoes on the left are standard, the ones on the right the ones I've made. On the bottom, the standard egg on the right, and my egg on the left.

Time for some mini's

Been a while since I've posted anything. House has been quiet, not much going on. Winter is well and truly here. Amusingly enough, I still have yellow mums blooming in the solarium.

For weeks now most of my time has been in creating minis. My arm still isn't up to snuff for some of the more regular winter labors, but it's working well enough for this. And I've been feeling the creativity flowing, so I work it when I got it, right? 

Been collecting and watching tutorials, pinning a crapton of stuff on pintrest for a while now. Ebay and Etsy have been great sources of inspirations. But whew boy a lot of the little foods and detailings like that are frigging expensive!!! I mean seriously, I pay about 20 bucks max for large buildings that I can't make myself, and someone wants 15 bucks for a couple little pies? Nuh-uh. Some of these miniatures are absolutely breathtaking, but I just can't justify shelling out like that when I can make it myself. And I also have a lot of difficulty finding these on a small enough scale- most stops at 1:12, and I need more like 1:16. So a small dish in 1:12 is a serving dish to my scale. 

Anywho, been making stuff :) I'm going to post a couple posts about this, since they are going to be photo-heavy.

So some of my completed projects first....

 Cheeseboard, this is on a 1inch square board. A variety of cheeses, meats, and olives.

 Another pic of the same board, from a different angle to show all the goodies on it.

 Another 1 inch board, this one has roast beef and swiss with muststard sandwiches being made on it.

 A tasty platter of fish.

 A large bowl of salad with cold meats and eggs, and a Hawaiian bowl of meat and such.

 Fresh sliced lemons.

 A couple griddles of breakfast and lunch offerings with a bowl of broccoli crowns.

 Some various stew bowls and one pot eats.

 A variety of tortes.

 The new bakery stand full of sweets with some savory and "unfinished" pies in the foreground.

 A closeup of the bottom row. Boards of little sweets and toasts with fresh fruits and jellies. Pies of various sorts.

 Top of the bakery stand, with several more pies.

 The new sausage display. I has already had most of the meats made from a few months back, and needed a display for them all :)

 A closeup of a couple of the roasts, buckets of olives, and bins of fish and sausage.

 A spice stall, with hanging scale and full of various real spices.

The other end of the stall. 

 

Detail of stall.

 Middle of the stall.

Counter end of the stall.

Apparently I didn't take pics of the fabric rolls and new cutting table I made. Ah well, that can be for another time. So these are some of the mini's I've been making to go into Fortunes Turning.

I'm going to make another post now, which gets into things like the scales of things, and the materials I've been using to make this stuff.