New family and winter corner (Sylvanian)

Why koalas ? Why not ! Same story : cheap, kind seller, perfect for me !

They are really cute !

So, as I previously said, I was planning to install a tiny Xmas corner for my Sylvanian village. But the space dedicated was way too small for what I planned. Ok, let's move some shelves, move all the Maple Town to the lower level, and tada, I have the perfect space for my winter corner.

First of all, I installed a snowy ground (to be modified), and then a ... cable car service. I found this toy, not complete, in my ex husband stash. With the silly price it costed, I thought hey, it's time to give it a use. 

So.....

Some trees I bought from Action shop, 2 stalls that need to be decorated (Action kits, too)

Well... lots of work needed but I'm quite happy with the displaying. 

I only have 2 ice skaters, so I'm planning to make a skating ring, I'm thinking about hot cocoa, gingerbreads...I need to find several things like a sleigh, skis, maybe that will be for the next year, it's too expensive and if I look at non-sylvanian things they are too big, too "cheap"... rhaaaa....

Well, I can do with a partly done display !

Now let's see what I can dowith what I have before Xmas

The last cards are done + Sylvanian gift to myself

a cute one, and a more classic (because there are people who might prefer this style)

I also made a "box" type one, smaller, for the case someone is very far and shipping cost too crazy (!)

Aaaaaand....

Ahum....

*get ready for a silly moment*

Do you remember that I bought the Sylvanian beauty saloon JUST because I found it hilarious to have hair curlers for a rabbit ?

I bought a cheap one, and of course there were missing things, and a crack on the front glass but it was the only one matching my budget... It was a : get a dammaged one, or forget the idea.

Got the dammaged.

Wanted my tiny hair curlers...

One of the things missing was the chair hair-dryer.

I do LOVE 70's style, and I was really sad it was not included

I tried my luck a couple of times, but the bidding was way too high

I made offers, rejected...

Rhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

And this morning I sold a doll. I was planning to use the money to buy compost for my garden.

And then, there was this item on ebay.
With a "make an offer" option

I made one. Rejected. Another one. No way.

I tried a last one.

That's how I won the item LOL

Get ready, I want to sacrifice a doll wig to make a wig for one of my Sylvanian girls. Yep. I want a Sylvanian with long curly hair. A diva. LOL

A new family coming ! (Sylvanian)

Not only I received my postman set, but I got a nice surprise 

the description said "no stamping  ink pad and no mail"

Well, I thought I could do without, and there was the stamp so...

I saw there was a pencil and a letter in the little postman bag, so I decided to remove them...

and that's how I found the stamping ink pad in the bag ! Perfect !

of course, I don't have all the mail, I have the box (that's nice !) and a letter, but I guess I can find the scan of the other parts (those at the bottom of the picture) somewhere on the web. Good !

I also won a "make an offer" auction, for a tiny resin set, to make miniature food. I used to have some of those sets, and I really like the consistancy of this resin. Alas I never managed to get my hands on more, as long as I can only get it from places which doesn't accept paypal.

I can no more pay with my credit card, it's a very basic one, so I can't do the "bank email secure checking". Arghhhhhhhh.... I found by pure surprise a set on ebay, the seller stated it's old, so the resin date of use is expired. Well... I offered a flat 5£, I was sure the seller would refuse... and she accepted ! GREAT ! I'm so happy to have a tiny amount of this resin again ! I am no more able to make intricate miniatures because I'm half blind, and my hands shiver too much. But...

And finally a new family is coming too, I hope I can get those before Xmas. As I had nothing to make my "winter corner" interesting, I bought on "Le bon coin" some time ago the 2 ice skaters... but it was not enough to make something pretty. Santa, skiing or skidoo sets are all too expensive for me, I don't even mention the white bears... I had no idea of what to do... and I saw those penguins with only one bid, I tried a 5£ something...and won it !

Ok they look a little bit... weird, with their milestone shape... I even said "NEVER"... but...
why not ?!

I just wish I could get the babies, because the babie are awfully cute !

Maybe, someday....

I almost finished my Xmas cards, I'm thinking about what I could put in some of the envelops to make it more fun... and I'm going to start creating things for my xmas corner of the village.

So : stay tuned, a bunch of pictures are coming :-)

Card again, and a birthday gift

A birthday card for my friend Mariko, and as I couldn't spend money or go anywhere to find her a gift, I decided to offer her my Kiki, it's a totally vintage one, and I even enclosed a rocking horse. It's a small size one.

He is not in very good shape, but the poor little one had some "hard" times. For those who don't know my story, my parents were monsters. Sometimes I got Xmas gifts, or birthday ones, but most of the time they took  the gifts back, and sell them to get something for their own pleasure. I managed to save some toys/memories : I burried them in boxes all around the building we were living in. When I left home to live with my ex husband, I tried to find back all the boxes. I couldn't find a couple of them, but got most of the others. We can tell vintage toys were sturdy : they made it through a 10 years burrial LOL
I hope this little buddy will find a new happy life with Mariko, who already adopted his big brother (or sister)

3 new cards, buttons transformation, & Sylvanian toys

3 new cards for the Xmas trade. I plan to make the last 3 ones tomorrow, but for now I suffer too much to stay on my chair more than a couple of hours in a row, and it's really too cold in my craft room... so... 

this one is using a wooden plywood tree :-)

this one is made with Tilda's decoupage sheet

ok, now let's speak about buttons.

I have a real obsession for buttons, I had a huge amount of "classic" ones, but I started to give them away, sell them, trade for something else... Who could have the use for more than 20kg of buttons ?

LOL

I still have a good amount of classic ones, and some more fancy, that I mostly use for something else, like decorating cross-stitched pieces... or Sylvanian accessories !

I got those cute ones from a craft shop, too expensive for I get several set, my budget is too tight, it's sad but no choice, I would have gladly take more of those !
So, as they are shank buttons, I decided to cut the back, and they will be used in one of my "Xmas stalls" in my Sylvanian village

And as I told you about Kinder Surprise toys, here are some pictures of things I found in my ex husband collection, that I kept to be used for my Sylvanians :-)

with a kid and a baby, just to give an idea of the scale

bowling time : strike...almost LOL !

all the little toys in mess, that will decorate my shelves

some are plastic, some wooden, some are not even Kinder Surprise but Micro machine !

Edward Mulberry sounds a little bit overwhelmed...

sounds like Santa Claus messed up and delivered a little bit too much items for his little shop LOL

there's even a board game !

and some accessories for the lighthouse, maybe some will be used in the tiny museum Captain Horatio plans to open, to show all the things he gathered from his travels around the world 

;-)

3 cards and some tiny gifts

Along with some of the cards (for the xmas trade) I'm planning to send some tiny things, like xmas ornaments (human size), some scrapbooking stamps, and for the tiny Sylvanian maybe a couple of things like frames, or a cupcake, etc

Here are the 1rst done, there will be some more of the same kind, and then the others will be a different style, I'm planning to do a couple of more classic ones, and some more "dimensional". I'm planning to use all my left over supplies as long as I can't tell if I'll still live here next year, I can't tell if I'll still be alive, so... better have all the fun NOW.

So, here we go for the 3 first, they are done with several layers, with foam inserts

And for the 1rst gifts, here are 7 : 4 stamping sets, and 3 wooden santas

and those are the cutest buttons I've ever seen, they are named "maple town" on the packaging, so it's a little bit like Sylvanian, right ? I was planning to get several sets but the shop only had 2, and they were yet too expensive but....I couldn't let them in the shop ! I bought one to make cute decorations in one of my Sylvanian shop, and will offer the 2nd set to a friend of mine. I'm planning to cut the back, as they are... shank ?... buttons, they would look awfully cute on a shelf , they are perfect to be Sylvanian toys !

As we are speaking of toys for my Sysy, I am having a lot of fun sorting toys from my ex husband collection, he had a huuuuuuuuge collection of Kinder Surprise toys. I've been selling about 200kg of those, now I wish I could also sell the others, but the "series" do not sell at all...

so I have shelves lost because of all those boxes of lions, frogs, crocodiles, etc..

Nevermind...

BUT before selling all those toys (mostly unbuilt, coming into hundreds of pieces) I had fun playing with them, and grabbed some for my Sylvanian toy shop, some to be used in the kindergarten, some tiny boats will be for the Captain Horatio's lighthouse, etc...

Recycling can be fun !

Preparing Christmas

I susbscribed to a Xmas card trade, so... I'm cutting, cutting, cutting...

As long as I sent an amazing number of cards all over the years to get almost none, I decided to give it a try on a forum. Let's see how it's going to turn...
 I'm planning to enclose a little gift, like a scrapbooking stamp, and something for the Sylvanian figures like a hand made tiny cake, or hand made tiny book, a hand-made clothing, etc... maybe not in ALL the envelops, but some will get an extra gift :-) 

Sheep challenge (sewing - felt - cross stitch)

I've been searching high and low to get the magazine this pattern came in... no success... but I finally discovered you can buy it from a website (pdf pattern) so I went for this solution. I just replaced the brown background with purple, and all the buttons (bobbins and such) by very simple ones (found those on a very old shirt). I also repaired my sheep measuring tape (wind-up one) and added my floss bobbins (by Just Another Button Company)

Tone Finnanger (Tilda) pattern, I already made several in the past and offered those to ex friends or charity sales... I was regretting deeply not to have kept a set, so... here they are, and it's great because I finished my "towel type" fabric stash (I am in a major stash reduction)

same for this one, I made so many, and none for me. Now I have one !

:-)

and a last one, Fanci that design :-)

Don't forget to have a look at the other sheep of the challenge, it's right here 

http://augustinebobine.canalblog.com/

I'm always so excited to discover the creativity of other stitchers/crafters !

Sylvanian tiny addition + dollhouse improvement

I totally forgot to show you the last addition (the last, I promise LOL) to my Halloween diorama, so here it is : the weirdest plant I could think about. 

And about something totally different, do you remember the 2 dollhouses my ex husband almost destroyed by putting them outside of the house ? 

I'm getting closer to finish the first one. I still have no clue about the lightening I wanted to put inside, but maybe I'll just give up on it, nobody sounds able to explain me clearly how to do it, and with the triangle shape of the attic it's not really easy to figure out what to do...

Not that bad !
The tiny wooden furniture from Lidl looks great (to my own taste), and all I need now is some decorating, the fence outside, a sink for the bathroom. And it will be done :-)

Major deception/venting...(Sylvanian)

I got a nice email telling me I can renew right now my subscription to the english Sylvanian Club. I wasn't much happy with this year (the 1rst for me) subscription, I had to ask twice to get my mags, it wasn't really funny, and I gave up on it.

But when I got the mail, they said I can renew for a much lower price, that would have been great, something like 10£ only.... So, I asked my friends who said it's quite a good deal. Ok. So I went to fill the renewal... And then they asked me to enter a security code my bank was sending by SMS. Ah ???? Last year, they didn't ask...

Those who know my situation know it's very complicate for me, as I'm not divorced yet, my husband left home and I have no clue where he is, I only have a very basic card now, as he left with all the codes/access to any administrative or bank thing.
So, basically, I can't renew... GRRRRR

I asked 2 of my friends, who tried to enter their card for me.... FAIL !
I'm fed up.
I give-up

WHY the hell do they refuse paypal ? It's secure for both, even if I have to pay a fee or so. I have the same problem with Amazon, everybody is asking me why I don't order from them... SAME !
How frustrating it is...

Well... I have to forget the idea to get the silk cat figure. I can survive I guess LOL
And the mags. I can survive too.
And the card for my birthday... Pretty sad as they were the only ones to send me one. Ok, sounds pathetic. It is... Pffffff

I had to comfort me a little bit.... So I went to ebay and bought a set of 3 damaged sylvanian horses, and a partial postman set (missing the stamp pad but with the postman, the bike, the postbox, the stamp and some of the "mail"). Not reasonable, but I had to compensate LOL

Sylvanian Halloween - Final settings

As I no more have free shelves, I'm using those old boxes to create tiny sceneries that could not fit really well with the rest of my village. They used to be showcases for when my ex husband was planning to participate to fast food and Kinder Surprise toys exhibitions. Let's recycle !

I have several, and for now they are under my future seaside corner (I start to wonder about it, I might have another idea and want to give it a try)

I added a little bit of spider web. It's not showing that much in true, I don't know why it's like this on the pictures...

would you like a bleeding cupcake ? Or maybe a carnivorous "charlotte" with teeth and eyes...maybe you'll prefer a portion of this marvelous rotten one ? Or... just some freshly served eyes ?

I was a little bit contrary that the pumpkin wagon had nothing to tract it... This little zhuzhu pet is doing the job ! and the best part is to hear it squealing, squeaking...hehe

with the gloomy blue lights

You maybe noticed some strange things, just at the bottom of the box. It's something not showing up on the pictures, I'll show it next time, it's a weird plant in a pot...

I hope you enjoyed sharing my "making of" 

Now it's time to work for the "build a sheep" web gathering, some sales, and then I'll be back with my winter scenery, that's going to be something quite simple, I only have 2 Sylvanians that can fit in, the ice skaters... I hope to find something to enhance a little bit the whole thing, but sounds like prices are totally out of my budget... Nevermind, the background will be ready for the day I maybe find something matching the theme...