More Sharing...

Some more sharing!

I received some great stuff from Glenda over at Peppercorn Minis a while back, and it's well overdue for some blogging attention J.

Here are some of the minis that I received (there was a whole lot more in the package than just minis!). My ever so generous friend Glenda sent over not only items that I had ordered, but also included wonderful gifts!

First is this gorgeous mushroom themed rug.

I can't even begin to tell you how soft it is! If it was life-sized, I could curl up on it and fall asleep J. There are many rugs in Glenda's Etsy Shop, I highly recommend checking them out!

Then there is this perfect little bottle. Just look at the netting! And can you see that tiny feather? Just perfect! 

I distinctly remember someone buying these up like crazy, now I know why! These are also available in Glenda's Etsy Shop.

Then there are these beautiful baskets. My favorite Halloween colors! I want to fill these with Halloween candies and treats, as soon as I get a free minute J. 

I remember loving these when I first saw them, now I am so lucky to have 2! Thanks Glenda!!!

 Oh and look at this tiny medieval pouch! I'm telling you, Glenda has got magical fingers!

I think I would have gone crazy trying to keep that perfect bunching while still making it look so good.

Ooooo, and look at all the feathers Glenda sent! So many great patterns and colors and sizes!

Glenda recently did a blog post about trimming feathers, I will definitely be spending some time on that!

And just what a girl always wanted... thin leather!!! I can think of so many uses for these!

First things first, some wand sheaths/scabbards. Maybe I can use some for the interior of my steampunk wandbox... we'll see J.

My husband confiscated all the non-mini treasures that Glenda included for himself so I can't show you pictures of those, but I can show you what is on it's way back to lovely New Zealand....

Among other things that I'm not showing because I don't want to ruin the surprise, are some of my more popular minis and some new items.

Some drippy wax candles.

I accidentally took this picture before I blackened the candle tips, so just imagine that part done J.

Then some of my rustic wands. 

And some of the dragon scrolls that I have been making.  

From left to right: Dragon Classifications, Dragon Anatomy, and just plain old Dragons.

Now these little critters were so fiddly to work on. Barn Owl eggs. They are supposed to be just around 1/8" tall, I think mine went a smidgen over. I think I got the bone color right though. 

Last but not least... Mistletoe sprigs.  I hope these are what you wanted Glenda J.

I was really happy with how they turned out in the end, they went through quite a transformation in their assembly process. These are clay, I haven't tried making paper plants or flowers yet.

Well that's it, the rest is a surprise and you'll have to keep an eye on Glenda's blog to see what it is J.

I'll be doing some posts on some of my new wand designs in a few hours (it's still midday here), so keep your eyes peeled J!

Giveaway at Bearcabinminiatures!

Julia over at Bearcabinminiatures just reached 250 followers and is having a fabulous giveaway of this hand stitched sampler, framed in a pine wood frame.

Julia will be running a series of Halloweeny posts showing bits and pieces that she makes this week for a mini Halloween party on Sunday... and it is rumoured that the winner may get more than the just the sampler!

(As if that wasn't enough Julia!)

THE GIVEAWAY ENTRY RULES

1. You must be a follower of Bearcabinminiatures, new followers welcome!

(If Julia reaches 275 followers between now and midnight Saturday, she will do 2 giveaways and we will have double the chance to win something, so get over there!)

 

2. You must leave a comment on her giveaway post or any or all of her Halloween Posts, they will be labelled Halloween Post 1, 2,3,4.

(If you leave a comment on all posts, then your name will go in the pot each time.)

3. You must put a link on one of your blog posts to Julia's blog.

 

The giveaway is open worldwide and will run until midnight (UK) Saturday 30th October. And the winner will be announced in the Gerties Little Industrious Cottage ~ Halloween Party post on Sunday 31st October.

Julia, thanks so much for giving us all a chance to win some of your stuff!

Sharing time!

This is extremely long overdue! I have lots of things to share from many great artists, and I also have a few of my own things to show.

First my collection of Jamie Moore originals J. You might remember me showing the small one up front recently, he was part of a swap Jamie and I did. Then I just had to buy the two boxes you see in the back, after discussing it with my husband... we both agreed we HAD TO HAVE THEM AAALLL! We're a little crazy about Halloween like that! Jamie has an amazing checkerboard on auction at Ebay right now, ending really really soon.

Thanks Jamie! I love them!

Here's something I have had for quite some time now and just realized that I never shared (don't worry, I have already slapped my hand J). This amazing white leather set comes from a contest I won on Kat the Hat Lady's blog. I cannot tell you how ecstatic I am that I now own 3 of her hats! And aren't those shoes just precious!

Love them! Thank you Kat!!!!

And yes indeed! My fingers were quick on the draw and I snagged one of Nikki's skeleton bottles :). My first Nikki Rowe mini, it's so well crafted! She was even kind enough to include some extra tidbits that I can't wait to work with! When my kids saw them we all exclaimed together how we didn't know that acorn caps would look so different overseas. They are acorn caps right J?

Thanks so much Nikki, it's everything I hoped!

It's been long ago that I should have shared this one too. I got this great little book from Kaleidoskopic Romance. Kassandra is a doll to work with and she makes great looking dark-themed items, my fave! Sorry I got him a little dusty, but this book has a beautiful velvet cover and that great steampunk-ish thing on the front.

Thanks Kassandra! Love your Etsy shop!

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Now we are on to some of my creations. I found a wonderful person on deviantART. Demet is from Turkey and makes really lovely watercolor flowers. Demet also has started making mini flowers (which are equally as lovely!), and dabbles in some other arts. I liked Demet's watercolors so much that I asked if I could make them into a mini book... and here it is.

Can't tell from the picture but this white flower is pearlescent.

There are many more pages with brilliant flowers, please visit Demet's watercolor flower gallery to see them all. This book is currently on it's way to Turkey, hope Demet likes it! If you would like to purchase a book like this, please let me know. Lorraine@DflyCreations.net

Moving on... I made some more pumpkins with faces for an order. I love these guys! I like to think that they are a little different than all the other pumpkins out there right now J.

These little guys are on their way to Italy along with some tombstones and wands. I hear they will be decorating a witch house, hope I get to see it when it's done!

Since we are on the subject of pumpkins, I made my pumpkin wand design into a pumpkin staff for Grimdeva of Cauldron Craft Miniatures & Oddities. It grew from 1 1/4 inches to 3 inches. Looks good to me, what do you think?

Yes, those are my giant sausage fingers! J My daughter wasn't around to let me use her slender hands.

Well that's it for now, off to see about making this follow-along thing and test some paint.

Giveaway winner...

I almost forgot to post these! So sorry!

The giveaway winner, winner of the display case stand thing....

I did it old fashioned style, wrote all the names down and put them in a bowl.

Shook it up and had my daughter close her eyes and fish one out.

And the winner is....

Morgan!

I will be starting the build really, really soon. I want to do a show and tell, kind of like a tutorial but more of a follow along style since I am definitely no expert and I would love help in the tough spots :), but we shall see if I can hold to that, I am also unreliable in follow through with my crazy plans! Once I get going on a mini it's hard to stop and take pictures.

Congrats Morgan!

Guessing Game Giveaway Prizes....

I finally finished up the prizes for the guessing game part of my hundred follower giveaway. Here they are...

The wands are sort of a new design. I had previously made curly wands, but none with a fancy hilt. It took some creative thinking as I didn't know how I would be able to sculpt the hilt while keeping the curl effect, but I think it turned out okay.

I couldn't figure out what color to make it, so I went with some blues and silver. Felt very magical to me :).

The box is also a bit different. I have a label with the wand info on the end of the box and the shop or retail label on the top of the box.

These were fun to make and I hope those of you that won will enjoy them! I sent most of them off today but I am waiting for addresses for a few of you, I have contacted you.

I'll be drawing the name for the winner of the display thing later today or tomorrow.

Mystery Mini Revealed!

Have you been itching to know what the mystery mini would be? I've been itching to reveal it! I don't know what the exact proper name of it is, it is essentially a display case, but I am making one that is more like a display stand... so I call it a display case stand J.

Here is a picture of one I found listed as a display case.

Here is another display case... but it's tall like a display stand.

And here is another one .

The one below however, is the one that inspired me. Sorry I couldn't find a better picture. It's actually from a video game (hence me getting the time period all wrong at first!). It's got that slanted top that I love (you may remember it from the traveler's desks I made), and it's got a glass top and velvet lining for showcasing your treasures (or other minis in our case J), and it's tall like a stand of some sort (kind of like my bookstands). In the video game it is of dark wood and reminds me of Tudor furniture, maybe it's the feet. It comes in a variety of widths and a variety of velvet interiors.



So who wins the guessing game? I count 4 exact guesses and 4 extremely close guesses.

Kate, Michelle guessed Display Cabinet

Mieljolie guessed Display Table

Jaime guessed Display Stand

Lainie guessed Glass Table (close)

Victoria guessed that Lainie might be right J

Sara Scales guessed Cabinet with Leaded Glass (close)

Patty guessed Elaborate Bookstand with Glass to Protect the Items on the Shelves (close)

Great guesses to EVERYONE! Some made me giggle and some gave me ideas, (I feel a Tantalus in the future J). So thank you to everyone for participating!

I have some of your addresses already, Meiljolie, Lainie, Sara, and Patty I'll need you to email me at lorraine@dflycreations.net with your address. I'm not quite done making your little tidbits so I will save announcing what they are until I can finish them and take some good pictures.

As for the grand prize winner... the winner of the display case stand, I will be gathering the names of everyone who posted a comment on the giveaway post and picking one out of a hat. It will be after I finish with the guessers prizes so be patient J.

Again, thanks to ALL my followers, still can't believe there are so many of you!

100 Follower Giveaway!!!

It is such a treat that this is my 50th blog post and I'm announcing 100 followers!

Thank you so much to all of you, and a special thank you to everyone that has left such lovely comments!

♥

For my hundred-follower giveaway, I would like to treat you to a brand new mini that I have been looking forward to making for quite some time.

But before I tell you what it is… I have left hints as to what it might be in previous posts. 5 hints to be exact. Can you guess it? If you can, I’ll give you something special! If you think you know what my new mini will be, just comment on this post with what you think it is. No rules, guess as many times as you want. I will pick out the winners and send them stuff.

Don’t worry if you aren’t good at guessing ☺, everyone still has a chance to win! Just comment on this post and you will be entered to win my mysterious new mini. Those who choose to guess will also be entered to win the new mini, which means they have the opportunity to win twice!

I will close the giveaway entries on October 1st. Then over the few days that follow I will gather all the guesses and comments and pick out the winners of the guesses and announce those. Then I’ll do the drawing of all the commenters and guessers and announce the grand prize winner.

One more hint (although I don’t know if this will help or hinder since I don’t know if it’s 100% correct ☺)… these types of things were mostly seen in Victorian times, usually in castles, palaces, or grand houses.

Good Luck!

Look what I got!

Before we start, I see that I now have 92 followers... welcome everyone! Only 8 more to a giveaway! Like I said before, it will be a new design, something I have been looking forward to making for a while, (Hint - it's not a trunk).

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Now I have to show everyone what I received in the mail, it's absolutely wonderful! I had the great priviledge of swapping stuff with the extremely talented Jamie Moore of Creepy Creations by Jamie Moore. I have been a huge fan of hers since I first came accross her blog, I just love her style! And I am a huge Halloween freak, (we decorate our house in August and then come up with all the reasons we can about why we shouldn't take it down and just be that weird creepy house on the block year round :) ).

Well I sent her some stuff that was (in my view) not worthy of this perfect little gift I received in return. And I can't stop looking at it,  it's so awesome! Check it out:

Isn't it just the best!!!

Thank you Jamie!

Please go check out Jamie's blog, and for pumpkin's sake buy something cuz she makes the best halloween decor that I have seen!

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Sorry, that saying has stuck in my head since I watched a recent gambling/card counting movie. Can't remember the name of the movie but sure can't stop say that phrase! :)

Okay, so I wrote everyone's name down that gave an idea and I numbered them. Then I put the numbers into one of those online number generators and clicked the button to reveal...

The Old Maid from The Sunny Hours 1:12 Miniatures is the winner!

Congratulations Ewa! You said "I would love to see the wand similar to the one Snape uses in the movies and a magical newspaper for him too." Now which movie are you thinking of for Snape's wand? I think some of the wands changed throughout the movies.

Everyone else: you ALL had great ideas, I will contact you in the near future if I also decide to make your idea item (some of them are so great that I just can't resist!). But I'm working on a very time consuming commission right now, so it will be a little while before I can get to that.

I have some great minis planned, just running super short on time... keep watching and I'll hopefully bring out some new and interesting minis soon!

50 Followers!

Oh my gosh! 50 followers!

I still remember the day when I first started my blog and was so sad everyday I checked it that I didn't have any followers. I had resigned to thinking I would never have any... Then little by little, people found me and I started to blog a little better (stopped trying to use my blog as an advertising post!).

I'm still working on blogging better. I'm not a very social person, difficult for me to carry on a conversation. If we've emailed, you have probably noticed ;).

I can't Tell you all how happy I am that you like my minis enough to look at my blog every now and again! I have tried to keep up with all of you and follow your blogs too, but I know I have missed a couple. If I'm not already following your blog, please comment and tell me what it is and I'll go check it out!

Okay, now to the goods! I know you've been waiting for this since you saw the title of this post... Let's do a GIVEAWAY! This will be my first one, so go easy on me :) Oh, and I'm not going to go easy on you! :).

I always need ideas for what to make next, but I'm scared to death of copyright infringement so I like to mimic real life items, especially magical and spooky things (does that count as real life? do movie items count as real life? I love movie items!). I also have to be able to see a picture of what I'm making, it comes out really bad and cartoony if I don't have a reference :(. Sometimes I collage things from several references and end up with a sort of hybrid or new creation, basically a different take on the item. So tell me your favorite magical or spooky thing that I can easily find pictures of (or find a picture of something close to it) and what you like about it. I will look over the entries and select the top 10 that I think I can do, then I'll throw them all in a hat and pick one. If yours gets selected I will send you your idea sculpted in mini form and maybe some extra stuff too depending on what the idea was.

I know this is a crazy and convoluted giveaway, but I don't want to give you something I just have laying around, and I want to give you something that you will like :). So, to get into the top 10... if you have read my blog, you might have noticed the kind of things I like and the kinds of things I can make (I'm not a master sculptor, please think simple!). I also absolutely go crazy over anything Tim Burton-ish! And steampunk stuff, even though I haven't created anything like that myself (can't seem to find the right inspiration and I don't want to copy anyone). My favorite inspirational movies are: The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, Alice in Wonderland, Igor, and Coraline (but I am open to others!).

This giveaway is open to anyone that doesn't mind it's madness (Michelle is your madness contagious? he, he, he) New followers as well. And I won't be at all offended if you want no part of this, everyone has time constraints and brain farts XD. It's Saturday where I am right now so let's give it until next Saturday, I'll announce the winner on the following Monday (Sunday would be Father's day here).

Happy thinking everyone!

(Don't forget to tell me your blog if I'm not already following it!)

Look what I got in the mail!

I finally have one of Kat the Hat's fabulous hats! No wait, I have TWO!

I just happened to catch a glimpse of this beautiful spiderweb hat in one of Kat's blog posts and after a few weeks I just had to ask if she still had it available. She did still have it and offered to make matching shoes and a broom along with it, what a spectacular set! Can you see the little leaves on the broom bristles?! And the little skulls, and the buckle, and oh you can't see the bow on the hat from here but it's perfect!

I also did a swap with Kat and received this really cool mushroom hat. I've been wanting one of those since she first made them not to long ago. She got the idea for this hat from Nikki's lamp at KDF. What a treat! And that's not all that was in the package, Kat also sent me a really cute book stack with a cat on cover of the top book. Aren't they great!

I just can't get over how great everything looks! I have no where to put it all but I couldn't live without it! (come on, you know what I mean)

If you haven't already, visit Kat's blog at: http://katthehatlady.blogspot.com/

And her Etsy store at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/katthehatlady

THANK YOU KAT!!! I love them!

Check out these amazing blogs!

I have had serious writer's block... or whatever it's called for miniature artists :). Anyway, I needed a break so I've been surfing the net, reading blogs and looking at pictures for the last few days.

I ran across this really great blog not too long ago and this was the perfect time to really sink my teeth into it, actually I read the whole thing from it's beginning... a bit obsessive, I know. It's just that it's so full of great little creations and tidbits of information! I know most of my few followers (thanks for following!!!) probably already know about it, but I highly recommend 'Witch and Wizard Minitures by Nikki Rowe'. She is really amazing at this stuff!

Now I just have to hop over to one of her good friends blogs (Tiny Treasures) to see what that's all about :). I think Debbie was my first follower, thank you Debbie! Thanks a lot! I like the potion bottles, they are very whimsical!

Nikki started a new blog today for mini artists to get together and ask and answer questions. I think it's the greatest, these people make such lovely miniatures that gleaming any knowledge from them is a priviledge! Its called Miniature Question and Answer.

Well I think I've got my mojo back now, I'm working on a small cabinet for some witchy supplies and some altar tables. I'll post pics soon.