As Soon as the Snow is Gone!

This is a really fun project to make! I did this several years ago with my grandson and we both enjoyed it. This is what you do...
When the snow is gone and the ground is no longer frozen, pick up a few handfuls of small rocks.
Put the little rocks in a colander and wash them. Tip them out onto a towel to dry and begin to sort them and pick out your favorites. Transfer the dry stones to a flat box where you can easily see them.
The fun part (especially if you're doing this project with a child) is giving them names! Our choices for names were things like "Holes", "Beauty" and "Strange". Children think of the best ones!
Print by hand or use the computer and a printer, the entire set of names with space in between each of them for cutting.
Find a cute little frame that will house all of the little rocks. Cover a piece of foamcore or card board with white paper to match the paper on which you wrote or printed the names.
Glue on the stones as evenly as possible. I used Tacky and it worked just fine, but if your rocks are heavy you might want to use something like E-6000. Add the names under each rock as though you are creating an actual rock specimen. It's the most fun when the names get mixed up and you rename!

A Blast from the Past

This is going to be a new feature on my blog. I'm photographing some of my older miniature pieces and am trying to date them as well. I hope it will be amusing. Some of you might own some of these early pieces and could shed some light on my fading memory. This memory thing is why it's so important to sign and date your work!

Easter Dress Shelf

This is one mini that I can date. I started making miniature dresses and dress shelves in the very early 80's. This is part of a holiday line that continued through 1994. This photo shows the 1" scale Easter dress shelf, but I also made some of these in 1/4". In fact, Emma's Dress Shelf from the Lydia Pickett Cottage Collection was inspired from this earlier piece.
Some of you may remember the NAME convention in Orlando, Florida in the 80's, I can't come up with the year. (A friend just emailed me that the date was 1993, YEA!) The theme was something about a closet and I was one of the souvenir artists. I made 1,200 of this style dress in three different fabrics.

I have a little shelf where I gather my little goodies. Some of the things pictured here are from other miniature artisans like Mustard Seed and some things are just the junk I like to collect. I know the push pins are tacky, but they do help illustrate the size of the dress.

That's it this time for "The Blast from the Past".