MY MINI DIARY, page 7

21 September, 2003:
Eva from the Swedish Dockskĺp list gave me a link to Úna's Miniature Wonderland, and I e-mailed Úna in Limerick. She replied promptly, and said she was going to be at the Toy & Train Fair in Dún Laoghaire today. So, myself and Daniel headed there, and met Úna! She was selling loads of lovely things, some made in Ireland, and some from DHE, etc.. I spent over €50 - nearly everything I had on me! LOL Here are pictures of things I bought:

One full pint and one half-full pint of Guinness - the pints are 1:12 scale, but the backround is 1:1, the Harbour Bar in Bray = our local!

Half a pint, and DHE's lovely Guinness ashtray, which I've admired in the DHE catalogue for ages.. It was quite dear (€7), but I had to have it..

And another ashtray - I had to get this one as well, since it looked so realistic with all the stains and everything..

DHE toy train! It's lovely, but I was a bit surprised about the quality.. The wheel edges aren't properly sanded, and there were some splinters on them. I did notice this before buying the train, and it was certainly still good value with the €2.30 price, but I would have generally expected a bit better quality from DHE as most of their other stuff seems to be gorgeous.

Daniel had time to look at the other stuff as well, and bought himself these Thunderbirds 1 & 2.. (Sadly, I didn't have time to look at anything else than Úna's dollhouse stuff, since we had less than an hour at the fair.. I blame Daniel!)

DHE laundry basket, and a lovely plastic kitchen set.. I had a bin exactly like this in Galway!

The same set in green, and four coat hangers by DHE - again, I was a bit disappointed with the quality. (I noticed it before buying, and bought them anyway, but the hangers are not symmetrical, and the hooks are not centered)

A mini tin of KiteKat cat food (I had to..), and a set of bottle/tin openers.

Later on:
Right.. I had to take some pictures of all the new stuff in my dollhouse, although most of it is only in temporary places as I need to revamp the whole house anyway, once I add lights and all..

The green bin in the kitchen, where I used to have a 35mm film jar with some plastic..

The rest of the green set (dish tray + little basin).

The pints, and 2/3 of the opener set + both ashtrays..

Kitekat + tin opener..

Someone's been cleaning the wardrobe.. (In fact, I don't have a rail in the open wardrobe yet, so nowhere to put the hangers until I make a rail)

The toy train..

White set, temporarily in the bathroom..

New laundry basket..

20 September, 2003:

Here's one more picture with the soft toy swap items. The nursery is a bit of a mess right now, but as soon as I get my "office" sorted (I'm planning to build some shelves and work space), I'll be able to work on my dollhouse again. I want to add lights, and make proper walls between the rooms, etc..

Here's a little basin I made of a plastic marmalade container (you know the kind you get on planes, B&Bs, etc..). I just painted it pale green with nailpolish, and it looks almost like enamel.

And here's the basin behind my dear toilet.. LOL

My dollies have two new mousemats, but they've left them on the bed - the lazy feckers.. I made these of funky foam and gummed paper. One mousemat is of blue foam, with black paper bottom (same colours than on my 1:1 mousemat!), and the other one's of black foam, with navy blue paper top (looks more like Daniel's old mousemat).
PS, I still haven't cleaned the HTML on all pages (thanks Tripod..), so please be patient.. I'll have the site back to normal a.s.a.p.

7 September, 2003:
I've been working on cleaning my mini site HTML after Tripod (read more under Important notes), but I have some new pictures to show as well. Here are some "moisturiser jars" I made of beads and drawing pins:

And here are the lovely soft toys I got from the Finnish group's soft toy swap:

The tiny bird is also a rattle!

My pom pom teddy is not in the picture, but you can see the whole lot I made, on the teddy bear page, which I've also just added.
And here's some miscellaneous stuff Daniel got/found for me:

Extra bits from our neighbours' new curtain rail.

The lower part of some toy.

A funny walking toy..

A one-legged toy soldier.
The toys had been dumped behind our garden wall, where Daniel found them and brought them to me, in case I would want to use parts of them for something! I might take that barrel at least, and put it in a mini cellar or something.. And I might make a FIMO flower to come out of that soldier's rifle... (I hate weapons)

31 August, 2003:
As if Friday's shopping trip wasn't enough, we did some more material shopping here in Bray yesterday! Here's what I got this time:

Balsa wood from W.Owen's..

Misc. useful bits and pieces from Anvil..

Self-adhesive borders, which could be used for dollhouse panelling, or something..

FIMO!! Wanna see what I made? CLICK HERE

29 August, 2003:
I'm thinking of maybe moving this site to our UTV space as I'm not happy with these horrible Tripod ad banners (the top banners were just about OK, but now they've added ugly white uncentered blocks, which just ruin everything). Also, since my previous hard drive crashed and I haven't recovered data from it yet, I had to download my mini site from Tripod to my laptop, and Tripod had raped my code with their ad banners, which sucks so much that I might as well move the whole site one of these days.. At least there's no adverts on UTV! But meanwhile, here's the latest news:

Today I finally got some of my money out of the worst bank I know; Ulster Bank (seriously, if anyone's planning to open a bank account in Ireland, DO NOT open it with Ulster Bank! They kill people's accounts without notifying the account owner, they send your private bank statements to addresses you haven't lived in for years, they send your big cheques out to a)old addresses, and b)as an ordinary (=not registered) letter, so anyone could potentially grab your money.. And, if you don't have a current account in your name, the only way for you to get YOUR investment money cashed, is to lodge your cheque into someone else's account - do hope you know someone you can trust enough! Yes.. I am going to make an official complaint, I just felt like venting..)
Aaaaaanyway, I got some of my money out today, and we headed off to Dún Laoghaire, for some shopping.. The first picture above: I bought these fake plants from a pet shop that sells fishtanks, etc.. They're perfect for little houseplants!

These (above) I bought from Marks Models. Hornby "city people" (for those extra small rooms / dollhouses), and two kinds of green stuff, for making tiny plants, etc..

And this lot is from Eason. Some fixative, paper fasteners, and colourful drawing pins.

Not really my colours, but I might someday use the blueish adhesive stuff for kitchen or bathroom floors, and this was the only wallpaper I found that might be suitable for dollhouse use, although I'm not really into pink.. Maybe I'll use it for a roombox, and swap some of it if anyone's interested..

This pebble bag is from that pet shop as well. I know I already have lots of sand from here and there (more is always welcome), but it looked nice, and.. LOL

Lawlor's Pharmacy in Bray had these different colours of nail polish, €2 each.. I wanted them for mini use mainly, but now that I have all these colours, I'm actually kind of tempted to do my nails as well! Ha ha.. I rarely use nail polish on my nails, and when I do it's usually clear.

Close-up. Am I going to make some nice flowers.. Heh..

Aaand the rest of them..

Some mini stickers.. (Everytime I see these, I think of Gale's miniature scrapbook store! And I'm not complaining, it's gorgeous! Unfortunately, I don't have the link when editing this page, but if you haven't yet seen it, check out Roomboxes Yahoo group, and you should find it through their search - the link to that group is on my right menu, on the Left of this page, mind you!)

My dolls are going to have the smoothest skin possible, with the jars of moisturiser I'm about to make of all these beads! LOL

Coloured and natural lolly sticks..

And match sticks..

Scrap booking scissors, gummed colourful paper, glue stick, and "funky foam". The foam bits will become small mousemats, etc..

I finally got a roller for clay! The Art & Hobby Shop in Dún Laoghaire had priced FIMO at €3.50, whereas in Bray it's only around €2.70, so I only got black and chocolate brown as they didn't have those colours in Bray. I usually paint my FIMO items, so it doesn't really matter what colour it is, but I thought I'd try something with the more "traditional" FIMO method.. Also, I got this air drying Jovi terracotta clay, which I'm dying to try out! I might try and make some flower pots, since I got all that material for little house plants...