Paper Mini's Wishes

I've set up a wishlist at paperminis. Can you ever have enough mini books with pages that turn and words you can read, while your daughter says to you....mommy, the children will love the books the very best! And I think she's right!

Break

Taking a bit of a break for a few days and wanted to let everyone know that I wont be blogging or posting. I'm not feeling the greatest and I do have a few appointments. I am grateful for your understanding!! I am going to be organizing the items of mine that I have which I will post for those who may be in need of them, such as fabric (I love remnants!!!), beads, and scraps of this and that. Some things I used to enjoy and no longer do and have items of miniature making potential or other craft/hobby potential for any individual who wishes to donate a project/roombox/home for auction or strict donation such as I am doing. I hope I can help!!

I will also be posting a list soon for two websites that I have up, paperminis.com and paperwishes.com as I have wishlists for those sites. One is, of course, my favorite site and good friend Ann's paper mini's site that boasts brilliant books beaming full of readable words, brilliant smooth pages, and kits that pictures cannot justify! Trust me! And to top it off, Ann is so generous that every single month she has a free project for everyone in the club (and all you have to do is email her! Hello!!!?!!!!) and they are AMAZING projects!! One of my favorites was last Halloween when she had a printable halloween costume and candy!!! Ann's kits are amazingly priced even with the crazy market and the quality is unsurpassed! Don't believe me? Give one a try! I dare you! With $ tight for everyone I can always be reassured that I can do Ann's free project and sometimes that's literally all the items I have!!! I am posting my wishlists to see if anyone can help when they place an order on her popular website by even purchasing a single item to go towards my projects. The other site is a favorite scrapbooking site and favorite only because of the "mom's warehouse sales" and cheap grouped specials. I hope that anyone who knows or is a scrapbooker will help with this or even let others know, or perhaps if you've gone digital like the rest of the world (except me!!) I would love for any scraps, tools, distressing items, stamps, stickers, paper, vellum, how to books/mags, etc, to help me. I use scrapbook paper to wallpaper rooms! I use scrapbook stickers to make things stick together when I am low on adhesives. I use embellishments on my special love....dressing wood, no kidding! Please check out Ann's site if you havent become familiar with it and also the scrap site. I would appreciate any and all help. If you are in a club, tell them. If you have a large or small family, please tell them my story and see if anyone can help. Coworkers? Anyone? Even one kit, one piece of paper, it all helps!!! I can make a ton of things out of one sheet!

I think that my passion will be hobbies and crafts, and a few things I have to keep secret as a miniaturist who wants to sell one day!, as well as babies...all things babies. From making them, to clothes, toys, mommy's with their babies and toddlers, period furniture, modern working toys, modern fashions and themes, and dressing beds. And when I get a plain bed, I totally rip the bed off, make a matress, make sheets (yes, both fitted and plain), a comforter of the very, very small amount of Rattan (I think thats what this fancy stuff is!?) and satin (only feels like the real deal, can't afford the real stuff) and then I sew that fancy by hand, glue on a beautiful bedskirt that I have pleated by hand, and now, on this first dressed bed, I am attaching a beautiful drape over it with tulle and handsewn beads on the ruffle. (This is the first bed I've made, it's not the bed in the pictures you've seen, it's for the women's shelter....an elegant bed to the place that owns a piece of me, a huge piece of the woman who still wonders when I'll be back there with a black eye and they'll welcome me with open arms...a bed to those who've given me more strength than I thought I had, they are the ones who will get the elegant, most beautiful bed I've ever made or ever will make again, my rattan, satin, beaded beauty will forever be a gazing point in a house that fosters not beauty but understanding, not riches but knowing that life means so much more than worrying about $, and THE only house, the ONLY PEOPLE that I can honestly say I've told my story to, my whole story, to the most graphic detail I still recall and smell and fear, they hold my secret, in a file in an office, and to represent that, the office will be in the home, and a letter, a mini secret letter, will be tucked between the sheets on the bed of my dreams. That home will be done one day, not soon, because my heart is put with every stitch, my memory brings tears sometimes when I finish a piece or decide that its not good enough, just like me, never good enough, and then I remember all too well how often I have been that person, and still am sometimes....too afraid, too frail, too alone, too hurt to ever truly trust again, and I start over on a new piece, because truly it has to represent freedom, strange women that had never met me suddenly holding my hands as I collapse and cry, and feeling for the first time in my entire life...I mattered.

So, as I cry here now....sorry about that but I cannot explain that house too much as this is how I get...it's going to be a truly emotional day the day I walk in and give the home to the women and children who are there today, only remembered by staff because I retold my story, and to leave the house in a different way than I left it last time. This time I leave I think and I pray and I hope that I feel I've only just begun to repay what they've done for me, things they will never even know. That is what life is all about.

Nursing Home Dedication Completed!!

The Humane Society House (which I've posted recent pictures of) is nearly finished, the Women's Shelter house needs much more of my love and attention (as this home is the very most important to me!) and the Hospice donation is only waiting for a doctor's office but the conservatory is done and filled with flowers!!!!, then it's finished!!

I'm posting my Stewartville Nursing Home Dedication Donation - this one I did in one day (and I'm new, so criticize accordingly!!) while my furniture dried outside on the house projects. So, one of four projects is complete. As I write this, I am slipping on my shoes and will be delivering it in nearly a half hour!!

I hope you enjoy the pictures...I do hope that you leave feedback to help me learn, and enjoy! One out of four projects (plus the two dozen requests I have had since being in the paper on October 11th, 2008) is done. I have the website set up and will be taking a bit of a break here and there as I have been ill recently and have to be run thru a gammot (correct spelling? Not sure) of tests for M.S. I have in total so far, seen 15 Neurologists but recently had a bad CT. Don't pity me, I just want you to know that I'll be slow moving for awhile and apologize these homes have not finished much quicker....but again, I'm new. My foundation is in the works, and that's my dream! I want to help everyone I can! Today is Earth Day too...and my grandfather (whose dedication this is for) loved the earth!! He taught me about rocks, collected them, made miniatures!!! (I now use his tiny tools and wear his hat, knowing he's proud of me!), and was a carpenter and farmer all his life. He passed when I was four. This box is what I remember of him, and the wood, the box under the bench, candy, and rocks are all items he had in his posession. So, very fitting to have this be a bench where he worked, a rock collection, cactus (thanks helpers!) to represent Arizona where he lived for a short time, the box in the left hand side is a representation (and a poor one indeed!) of the tool boxes he made himself, and a wrapper on top as I used to sneak in and eat his old candies (they were OLD! but I loved them!), and all rocks are his own. As we dwindled everything down last year when grandma went to the nursing home (same one), certain things nobody wanted I took. He is with me as I build, with me as I nail in an impossibly small sized nail that he had for his mini's, with me as I use the very tools he loved, hold and collect the very same rocks and love for them just as he did, and best of all, put my heart into everything I do.

Grandpa, this one's for you. (Only the cactus was used from a group who sent me wonderful cactus's (which you will see in the conservatory!), everything else was his, mine, or I bought. My dream is to help donate what I make of my own "ideas" and kits to help someone make the walk I'm walking today, a reality.

Thanks everyone for listening and viewing a very special box for a man that words would not justify!!

One House

Hello everyone!! I'm just posting more pictures. I've been working on alot of kits and repair of furniture. Soon, very soon, this home will be filled!! : )

The landscaping in front I'm working on too so expect pictures soon!!

Thankful

I just wanted to tell everyone here that whoever sees the pictures and has helped me in any way to donate these homes, I greatly and truly appreciate every ounce of help! It's hard to spread the word and I hope that what this site will do is show everyone that the homes are slowly coming along, that the time is being well spent, and donations for causes are few and far between but I'm ever grateful for all that those who've helped have done! Thank you all, and here is to many more years of building, inspiring, giving back, being selfless, taking criticism for what it is, showing the truth, being the truth, and knowing that those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind!! I'm grateful today to have this site working, running, and most importantly,.....free! I nearly paid to have a site built but that's crazy talk! I will next be working on reinstalling flooring and somehow try to figure out what my foundation will become. My hopes for having a foundation is for all those who use miniatures, hobbies, crafts, etc, as a way to give back a resource to help, tried and true ways to turn wood scraps into a sink!, and any advice I can lend for someone who hopes to help others, pay forward, and leave a legacy behind as a lifetime filled with honor, duty to others, and less being so much more!

Pictures of Miniatures!

Here is a photo updated. I hope that you notice how long its taking me.........this stuff is so much more difficult than I ever imagined!! I hope everyone enjoys~