Shelly's Show, A Mini Miniature Show

Shelly's wonderful Show started yesterday and goes on until Sunday. I've been having so much fun looking at each of the tables. It is free to view and shop and you don't have to leave home!

Here is a link to get into see the show http://aminiminiatureshow.weebly.com/ Just click on the dealer link in the top header and you can choose by alphabet or dealer by scale.

I have many new miniature kits I'm offering this year at 25% off and since we sell in Canadian funds on our website it offers US customers an extra savings. The new kits are in both one twelfth and quarter scale. My new kit include a mini Little Red Riding Hood Toy Theater, Quarter Scale Memory Trunk and French Sewing Kit. Here is a direct link to our show table.

http://aminiminiatureshow.weebly.com/jean-day-miniatures.html

Hope to see you there! Mini Hugs, Jean

Romantic Rose mini Album digital project and other new digital downloads

Here are some of the new French Postcards that are up in my Etsy shop. I have really enjoy working on these, painting and trying to bring them to life in Photoshop.

Today I finished a Vintage Romantic Rose miniature Photo Album digital download project which is now on Etsy here.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/178999350/vintage-romantic-rose-photo-album
I have included many of these postcards in miniature in the Romantic Rose Project. The frames are cut out and the antique images are placed behind the cut out shape to give a realistic look. The cover was a scanned image from my antique albums but I made the background rose.

Happy Valentines to all of you. Hugs, Jean

2014 Calendar and Valentine Free Printables, New AIM Supplement out now.

The most recent AIM Project Supplement is now available on Scribd.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/205104250/49-February-2014-Supplement
There are so many interesting projects plus the 12 Makes of AIM Christmas are included for handy downloading. For this issue, I designed a miniature Calendar for a dollhouse or miniature scene with vintage images from my postcard collection in 3 scales. I also designed some miniature Valentines from some old Valentine Cards that I thought were so lovely and I used some of the images for Valentine paper as well. You can right click to save these images to your computer.
I hope you each have a special Valentine's Day, always great to treat yourself to something special too, like flowers or other romantic gifts of your choice.

2014 A Year of Choices with free printable

2014 A Year of Choices and Free Printable Above

We have so many choices in our lives and I’m always very aware of these at the start of a New Year! For the New Year I would wish for you joy and happiness. 

Joy and happiness are choices, especially with everything that is available on the web or to watch on TV. This year I’m going to try even harder to just watch TV shows and movies that are filled with laughter and joy. My choices should reflect the best part of who I am.  I would like to be more generous. I like to express this through free projects or printables when time permits for AIM magazine as well as my blog. Quite a few years ago I chose to sponsor two children through World Vision, every time I look at their pictures and wonder how they are doing, it makes me feel good to know that I have maybe helped them in some way.

   

Another choice that makes me feel good is taking time each day to read a good book, a book I have chosen, not because it is on the best seller list but because the author is enlightening and makes me feel good.  Ballroom dancing brings joy to our lives as well both physically, socially and mentally, entertaining, and spending time with our children feels so good too. Going to visit beautiful gardens and long walks is refreshing and so uplifting to my spirit.

Finding more time and ways to be creative is so important too. Designing for my miniatures and digital downloads, sewing and cooking. Last year I tried to take time each day to learn something new about Photoshop that was a great choice that has really had lasting benefits.

Whatever your choices are for the New Year, I hope they make you feel great!!

You can find a higher resolution version of the printable page on 4shared with other images you might like to download. Please note that the download link is near the bottom of the page.
http://www.4shared.com/folder/ILtK6LJE/_online.html

All the very best, Cheers, Jean

Free Printable Page and AIM 12 Makes of Christmas Link

AIM, Artisans in Miniature Magazine has a special 12 Makes of Christmas for miniaturists publication on Scribd. I contributed the gifts and wrap project and printable above. All of the projects in the 12 days are wonderful, you can view them here. http://artisansinminiature.com/photo3.html


Wishing all my friends and family and wonderful New Year!!

Happy Holidays! Joyous Noel White Christmas Digital Download Project

Such a busy time but I just wanted to share a digital download photo album project I have just put up in my Etsy shop. Here is a link if you would like to read more. I designed this photo album to accompany the my Joyous Noel White Christmas kit. The download contains 16 mini photos from my antique French postcards to place behind the cut out windows. Still time to make it as a gift for Christmas. Thanks for looking.

New "Joyous Noel White Christmas" Kit & Ballroom Dancing

The days are shorter in winter and they do seem to go by so quickly with Christmas soon approaching soon. I'm sorry I haven't been visiting all the blogs I would love to visit. We are busy with my mini business and enjoying ballroom dancing...we even try to find the time to practice during the day. We are taking 3 classes from a terrific instructor during the week. I love all the dances and social contacts as well as the exercise but if we don't practice I feel overwhelmed with some of the moves. Thank you so much for visiting my blog, I appreciate it so much and your comments.

In the photos above I am showing a new kit I have been working on for a while now. As most of you know I have collected antique French postcards for years from France and my favorites are the Noel ones, especially with Pere Noel & toys. They are such fabulous images and such a joy to repaint and fix up, I have spent hours doing this to the ones I sell as digital downloads on Etsy, I thought it would be enjoyable to use a few of the images in a miniature project kit. You can see Pere Noel with toys and children in the pillows, stockings and on the cones.

I have designed this kit on a fabric panel, where I have designed the pillows, cones, hearts and stockings in a paint program using snowflakes and scrolls as accents then ironed it onto very fine white batiste cotton. The edges don't fray so they are fun to cut out and easy to put together with the white bias tape I include for backings and the stars as well. Templates are used for the stars with directions on shaping these. Aluminum wire mesh is included for the trees and stars which are easy to make. Silver ribbon is shaped for the other 2 or 3 trees. Silver medallions are also included as accents.

The hearts and cones can also be used separates on a miniature Christmas tree or as a garland on a fireplace so this kit can be used very creatively. Everything is included in this kit except the wicker love seat and fire place. This would be a fun project for your miniature Christmas scene.

Mini Hugs, Jean

My Mother's Clippings, printables

My Mother’s Clippings

I’ve been organizing all of my containers of miniatures and cupboards full of supplies. It brought to mind my mother’s enjoyment of organizing her hobbies and how much she loved magazines. In one box I found a clipping mom must have saved for me and I have scanned it out for you to see above, cute ideas for Christmas from an old 50’s magazine.

I really inherited my love of old books and magazines from my mother. She would love to sit for hours surrounded by magazines, flipping through their pages and tearing out pages of interest to her: recipes, gardening, hobbies and health issues. She would be sitting in her favorite chair with her legs covered by a familiar mohair blanket that she had for years and a box beside her for the clippings. This was before computers, Google and Pinterest to search for information about everything. Keeping these clippings must have been like a life line to her so she could retrieve information whenever she needed it. She always mentioned she would have to file them one time. I used to tease her about keeping the magazines for so many years and wouldn’t she rather “clear the clutter”. She always said she wanted to go through them first. Although my comments were probably difficult for my mother she probably knew in her heart I would find myself doing that as well when I was older. Each of the magazines I have saved I can remember as though they were friends. Sometimes when I pick up an old magazine it reminds me of what I was doing at the time I bought it or looked through it. Perhaps my son had visited and I had to put it down so I could listen to him. So sometimes old magazines are not just old magazines but are a reminder of times in our lives. She was also very interested in embroidery and sewing so I’m sure many of the clippings were stepping stones to a creative endeavour in those areas.

After she died I didn’t throw out her clippings and old calendars but I kept them and have really enjoyed going through them so much, a little bit of mom is in each clipping. I was quite pleased to find miniature clippings too about different famous miniature houses in museums and articles about making houses using fabric. It was like she knew I would be looking through the boxes some day and would enjoy finding these. Thanks mom so much for your symbols of love.

I really hope all magazines in the future won’t just be kept on an ireader, iphone or ipad but remain physical memories that can be passed on to the next generation.

All the best everyone, Hugs, Jean

New Advent Calendar Kit and a biref History of the Advent Calendar

New For Christmas:an Advent Calendar Kit Since this is my favorite time of year, I really enjoyed designing this Advent Calendar.  I looked up the history of Advent Calendars in Wikimedia and  I have written a brief synopsis because I found it really interesting. To find out more please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_calendar. The first known Advent calendar was handmade in 1851. According to the Lower Austrian Landesmuseum, the first printed Advent calendar was produced in Germany by a protestant bookshop. Other authorities say that a Swabian parishioner, Gerhard Lang, was responsible for the first printed calendar in 1908. Lang was a printer who made 24 little coloured pictured that were affixed to a piece of cardboard. Several years later he introduced a calendar with 24 little doors. He had about 30 designs until 1930 when he went out of business. Sankt Johannis Printing Company started producing religious Advent calendars with Bible verses instead of pictures behind the doors. After World War 11 Richard Sellmer of Stuttgart started making the Advent calendars again and this is why they are so popular today. His company maintains a stock of over 1 million calendars worldwide. His company today is called Richard Sellmer Verlag. Since that time many families have enjoyed putting out an Advent Calendar on Dec. 1 to enjoy counting down the days until Christmas with an image related to Christmas, candy, chocolate, or other gifts. Wikimedia mentions that handmade Advent calendar have become popular projects with artisans and we see them including fabric, felt, chipboard and small boxes. The concept of the Advent Calendar has recently broadened to include Countdown Calendars, which I also thought would be great for a miniature scene, including birthdays, Easter, Halloween, graduation, last day of school, retirement and more. It was a real challenge to come up with the calendar design and 24 tiny gifts. Since I have recently finished a Gingerbread House Kit, I thought that gingerbread would be a good choice for some of the gifts. I made various shapes in a paint program and enjoyed decorating the designs. I designed the other stuffed style gifts with my digital drawings. Cutting out one of the designs each day might be a nice way to start the calendar. The calendar includes gifts: 2 crowns, a gingerbread house, star, wreath, 2 teddies and 1 chocolate look teddy, dog, cat, Santa, snowflake, 2 owls, an elf, 2 stockings, doll, snow man, butterfly, 2 candy canes, a heart and a mitten. The calendar part has fabric strips with numbers to glue onto the fabric backing and trim. I hope you will enjoy this holiday season as much as I do.

Wonders in Miniature Show online Nov. 8 & new Gingerbread House & kits & AIM magazine 48

Shelly Norris' Wonders in Miniature online show http://wondersinminiature.weebly.com/ starts today Nov 8 and goes until Monday. So many terrific dealers, I've had so much fun visiting each of them. The 3 Vintage Gingerbread Kits shown above, in 3 scales, I am selling as roundtable kits for $5.00 each during the show. We are also offering a selection of mini Christmas books from my originals and kits in 2 scales at 25% off during the show dates. I have had so much fun designing a few new kits for the show.

The upper photo is a new Gingerbread House and Accessories kit. Designing it reminded me so much of the fun I would have each Christmas making Gingerbread Houses and cookies for my sons, they really enjoyed devouring it too. This will last much longer and would look great on a mantle piece or under a tree. I have designed this kit and printed it onto a fabric panel with the Gingerbread House, Gingerbread and Star garlands and ribbons with gingerbread men. The fabric panel looks less shiny than the paper panel printed on laser that is also included with accessories. The fabric is very forgiving too and so easy to glue. These can also be used to decorate a Christmas tree. There is also a paper kit with wrapping papers suitable for wrapping gifts or rolling for display. Also included are 2 pieces of self sticking ribbon that can be striped into narrow strips and used to make bows and many lollypops and other accessories to add to the Gingerbread House scene. This kit is $9.00 during the sale.

I am also showing a new Christmas baby outfit kit for both a newborn and larger baby. These can be adapted to fit Heidi Ott dolls as well. You can also see the tiny doll I enjoyed designing I called Candy Kiss which is included in the Newborn Kit. You can find these in the sale page on the link through the sale banner on the top of our home page, they are $9.00 during the sale too.. http://jdayminis.com

In October we enjoyed a terrific Mediterranean Cruise and visited Aix en Provence, Florence, Rome, Venice, Greece and Turkey. We were going on tours each day from 6 in the morning until nearly 6 at night. It made me realize how much I missed waking up really early so I started waking at 5:30 each day since we have come home and designing. It has been so energizing and I seem to be getting so much more done. Aside from a cold I brought back I've been feeling very invigorated but I do feel like going to sleep much earlier and nearly fall asleep in ballroom dance classes in the evening. I hope to put up some photos from our trip soon.You can also find the wonderful and free new AIM magazine here http://www.scribd.com/doc/181358539/AIM-IMag-issue-48-pdf

Too Connected, my apologies for the 20 or so blog posts I posted by mistake!!

Hi Everyone,

I would like to apologize to those of you who might have seen all of the blogs that I accidentally posted one day. It took me ages to find out why it happened. I've been enjoying designing in Polyvore and you can clip to Polyvore just like in Pinterest to make designs with the items you clip.

While designing in Polyvore that morning John noticed that certain clothing and jewelry items were going up in my Facebook page and I also found them in my Facebook business page as well. They took ages to delete and I immediately thought that they had come from the website where I had been saving them. I thought that there was something wrong with the website.

Later that evening I saw the images in my Rebelmouse site and wondered how on earth they got there. Then I looked at my blog and it was so embarrassing to realize each of the items I was saving was showing up as an individual blog.

It took me a while to figure everything out. The little box to share on the bottom of the page when you clip to Polyvore had finally started working!! I was to uncheck it to have items not be shared on my blog since I had shared previous blog posts related to miniatures. This is how it all worked.

1.I found items I wanted to use in Polyvore and clipped them to my Polyvore
2.Since I didn't have the share link clicked off, it posted each as a new blog post.
3.Because my blog is connected via Network blogs it posted each blog as a Facebook item in both my facebook accounts.
4. Since my blog is connected to Rebelmouse it put all the posts up there too.
5.Yikes, I just thought of my twitter account...haven't looked there yet. Oh my Goodness!!

I think I'm too connected, LOL. Not to people but to Social Networks.

All the very best to everyone. Hope I didn't offend too many followers.

Hugs, Jean

Update: Checked my twitter account and everything I posted on Polyvore and posted to Pinterest is showing up as a tweet!!! Sheee! Just deleted each of those and must get to the bottom of this connection too!

Thrilled to have a Project & Article in July Dollhouse Miniatures Magazine & Shelly's On Line Mini Miniature Show Aug. 14 to 20

http://aminiminiatureshow.weebly.com/index.html

I was delighted and honored to be included in a wonderful Miniature Bookmakers article by Deb Weissler in the July 2013 issue of Dollhouse Miniatures. I'm included with 7 other fabulous bookmakers. For this issue I worked on and included a free printable project of a reproduction shaped book from my collection called Your Dolly. It is a little difficult to cut out all of the shapes but I thought readers might enjoy it having it in their miniature library.

From August 14 -20 we are pleased to be taking part in Shelly's fabulous Mini Miniature Show. Shelly has been doing this for a number of years and there are so many fabulous handcrafted miniatures for sale. The beauty of the show is that it is on line so you can shop for sales in the comfort of your living room.

Here is a link to my show table where I am offering 25% off all of my fabric kits.

http://aminiminiatureshow.weebly.com/jean-day-miniatures.html

You click on the dealer link in the top of the page and a drop down menu appears of scales or an alphabetical list of dealers. There are Roundtables and Workshops too.

I hope you are all enjoying yourselves whatever you are doing. Hugs, Jean