My last garden swap arrived

With the busy holiday weekend here (it's Thanksgiving in Canada) I haven't had a chance yet to post the fact that I have received my final garden swap from Margaret in Australia.  She sent a beautiful birdcage, birdhouse, wooden crate and the most wonderful dried lavender to hang from the rafters of my shed.  I can't wait to get the items in place.

I am working on Caterina's swaps again because unfortunately the package I sent never made it to her.  This time I will put a tracking number on it to ensure that it makes it to her.  Hopefully I can get this completed this week, because the following week will be a busy one with the wedding fast approaching.  It's less than two weeks now!

I have two new followers to welcome.  Say hello to Alennka & Frederica( I don't see a blog for either of you, but if you have one, just post a comment in this blog!)

Again a big thank you to Margaret!  I love the items.

Until the next time-

Wanda

More Garden Swaps

When I returned home there was a note from the post office informing me of a package waiting for me.  Today I got to pick up the package and was delighted to received my garden swaps from Kim.  What a wonderful collection of potted flowers and loose flowers.  They will be perfect around my garden shed.

Kim had everything wrapped beautifully and ensured that nothing was crushed in shipping, all the pots were wired to the boxes!  Thank you Kim.

I've got to dig out my workshop now and reorganize everything from the recent Camp Mini Ha Ha.  With getting ready for camp and then returning with all my new swap items and purchases, plus the castle room, it looks like a hurricane really did go through the room.

Thanks again Kim, I hope you have received my flowers as well, and they work with your projects.  It's so nice swapping, not only do you get wonderful items, you get to see how others assemble their flowers and I've learned so much from this.  I noticed that you have sprayed or painted the flowers with something, that really keeps them sturdy.  I think I will spray my flowers in the future as well.  Thanks for the idea!

Until the next time
-Wanda

Caterina's Garden Swap

I've been away for several days again, and just prior to leaving Caterina's garden swap items arrived, but I didn't have time to post at that time.  I was so excited, I had to open the packages, and Caterina made that a challenge in itself.  They were well taped, and I was afraid I would damage the items so it took some time.  But it was well worth the challenge!

Once I got everything opened, I had so many wonderful items.  There were fantastic baskets, one of Caterina's water jugs, lawn seed pack, gardening books and seed packages!

 I had to show you a close up of the baskets.  The detail is fantastic.  I absolutely love these.  Thank you very much!

I have so many little items for my garden shed display now.  I am so pleased with all the items.  I haven't heard whether everyone has received their swap items from me yet.  I hope you get them soon, let me know, I am getting a little anxious here myself.  I still have one more swap to receive myself, and one swap to send.  I've just heard from Kim that she is ready to send her swap items now, so I will be sending out her items now as well.

Now that I have my new tools I have no excuse but time to finish my garden shed.  I was booked to attend Camp Mini Ha Ha later this month, but things are hectic at work, so I am trying to at least get all my swap items made for Camp.  Even if I don't get there, I can still send my swap items and get my castle kit and swap items back in return.  I'll show you the swap items at a later date, because I don't want to spoil the surprise for everyone else before they get to camp.

I have a few new followers to welcome as well.  Please take the time to drop by their blogs and check things out.  Welcome to:-

Jolanda, http://jolandasheavenandearthdesigns.blogspot.com/

Joy, http://adora-bella-minis.blogspot.com/

Nati, http://loscuentosdenati.blogspot.com/

Maria, I don't see a blog for Maria, but if I have overlooked it Maria, please let me know.

Also it my welcome posting on Sunday there were a couple of new followers I couldn't find a blog for, but they posted their blog links in the comments for Sunday's posting,  Have a look and check out their blogs as well.

Thanks for your interest!

-Wanda

More mini mail to share

Yesterday I promised to share with you the other wonderful package I had received.  This one was from Monica @ http://puppenstubennostalgie.blogspot.com/  Again I received a wonderful selection of garden accessories.  Thank you to Monica, your garden gifts were just exactly what I needed to jumpstart my mini-making again. 

The pansies are just exquisite.  I love the little hearts.  I've got lots of plans for those.

The little garden carrier with seed packets and garden tool was a pleasant surprise as well.

I am so pleased with my garden swap.  I am going to have one well stocked garden shed!!  I hope you like your garden swap items I have sent to you.
-Wanda

I've got mail!!

It's been over 2 weeks since my last posting.  There's been so much going on in my life, that my miniatures have taken a backseat.  I'm planning a wedding that's happening in less than 2 months.  My worklife has been on overload, business trips and an unfortunate loss in my fiance's family, all have made me diliquent with my minis and this blog.  I have managed during this time to get all my garden swaps out in the mail, except one, Kim, who is anxiously working on her part and will send her address when she has completed hers.  Which is more than okay!

But today I got the needed boost to start me thinking about miniatures again, I got miniatures in the mail!!  The first of my garden swaps arrived and I am so excited.  What a treat.  We have such talented miniature makers out there!

There's so much to share, I'll show one each day, just to keep you waiting!  From Ira at http://merryjingle.blogspot.com/ I received a treasure trove of miniatures.

Ira has sent beautiful roses, daisies, peonies, hyacinth and some great loose leaves.  I love the roses, I am definitely going to make a rose bush for the garden trellis I had made!!  There is a tree ready to plant!  (It took a little beating coming across the ocean, but it's an easy repair to get the leaves and fruit back on).  I've also got some of Ira's gardening containers, garden tools and beautiful garden plaques.  She also sent some wonderful printies.  I've got so many wonderful new accessories for my garden shed.

Thank you so much Ira, I am so pleased with everything.  I hope you like the items I have sent you.  Everything went out in the mail 4 days ago via air mail.  So hopefully it won't take too long.

I've gotten so many new followers during my absense, and to each and everyone of you thank you for taking the time to read my blog.  I appreciate the interest.  I promised to list all the new followers, there are so many since my last listing, I think I have close to 30 to list, so it will have to be a posting in itself.  So now I have promised two postings.  In the next one I will show you all the wonderful things I received from Monica at http://puppenstubennostalgie.blogspot.com/

I was so far behind in my blog reading, but I was determined to catch up before I posted again.  Yesterday I finally caught up, even though I still have to read today's posts, but I feel so good about catching up.  I love what I am reading.  All of you do wonderful work.  You should be so proud.

-Wanda

Gardening Swap

Recently Ira @ http://merryjingle.blogspot.com/ suggested a gardening swap. I jumped in to volunteer immediately. With my present garden shed project, I need lots of gardening items, including flowers for the outside. I've made and collected lots, but I would love to have a bigger variety. So today I am offering up duplicates of many of the things I have in hopes that one of the other swappers would be interested in these items.

These are the items I have to offer:

Hyacinth stems. I still have add leaves to most of them, only the front two stems have the leaves attached yet. I made these myself from instructions I found in Miniature Collector magazine. I have about 4 dozen stems made so far.

Vintage wood sign. I only have one right now, but I can laminate and age more if required. It was made from a printie I found online. I mounted it to a wood backing, and painted and distressed it.

Wooden "Clay" pots have have been aged with moss. These are about 1/2" high.

Potted fern:-

Or just fern leaves, here's an example of how I used the fern leaves on my dollhouse window box. I am not offering up the window boxes, just wanted to show you alternate ways to use the fern leaves. I made the fern leaves myself from floral tape. They are extemely time consuming, but I have lots from a previous swap I was involved in last year.

Fushia stems. This is for individual stems, depending on how many you need. You'll see in the above window box, I used stems in between the fern leaves. Vase is not included in swap, just needed something to prop the stems in.

Here's a close up shot of the stems:-

I have two styles of crates, labels do vary. I have lots of the lower flat crate, just have to attach the labels. The double crate, I would have to make more if more than one swapper is interested of if they need more than one.

I also have two sizes of seed flats. I think I will add a little greenery and a plant stake in each of the flats showing some early plant growth.

I also have lots of garden signs. The three shown below I only have one of each. These are about 2.5" wide and 1.5" h. Some of these signs have bowed a little with the glue and paint. Depending on how they are used, some weight may need to be applied to them to flatten them down.

These are two smaller garden signs I have. Once again I only have one of each. These are a lot smaller measuring approx. 1" wide x 3/4" high

Lastly I had another idea for garden swap items. I hope it appeals to the interested swappers. Over the years I have collected a lot of silk and plastic flower stems in full size, that have individual blossoms that were suitable scale to use in 1/12 scaled settings. Even when I purchased one stem or in some cases one bunch, I had more blossoms then I would ever need in all my miniature projects. I don't know if there are others that have collected these floral stems over the years and may want to swap some of these blossoms, and even if you haven't you may have other garden items to offer up as swap items for these blossoms. Some were floral blossoms, and some are just leaves. I have photographed all of them in the smaller crate to show you the size of the blossoms and leaves. So hopefully this is of interest to others as well.

First there are these pink and light green five petal flower blossoms. These are about 6 blossoms on each section I pulled off the flower stem. Each blossom is about 1/4" inch wide.

Then there are these yellow cluster flowers. Each cluster measures about 1/2" acoss. Great to use as babys breath.

I also have these clusters of flower stems that look like delphinumns. Two colours dark rose and light orange. There are about 20 blossoms on each cluster that can be cut individually.

Next are these purple blossoms. I don't know if they look like any full size flowers, but I really like them. Each blossom is about 1/4".

I also have these white clusters that are also perfect looking clusters of babys breath.

Then I have lots of greenery pieces. Great fillers in the garden. They are variegated from dark green to light green from botton to top. Each stem measures about 2-2.5" inches.

I also have these leaves that are either green or burg. Again they are great garden fillers, and can possibly used for Hostas if cut and glued together appropriately.

Lastly I have these other greenery fillers that look like little bushes. Each piece measures about 1" across. I am showing about 6 bushes below. Three are in each section.

Outside of these items, I have printed and partially cut lots and lots of printies from seed packages to seed bags that I will throw in with each swap since I got so carried away with my printing!!! Great opportunity to move these items.

So that's what I have to offer for the garden swap. If there are any interested parties, let me know what you have to offer in exchange.

-Wanda