A Rainy Day. The Miss Mouse Story cont.

 Today has been a rainy, gloomy day. I have been working on Quarter scale furniture all day and have accomplished, "not Much" Oh well, I did make a tiny rolling table for the kitchen. It looks pretty good.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/DollHousePrinties


 Ramblings
 As she sat on a twig with a leaf over  her head trying to keep the rain from soaking her. She heard a strange noise. Ker-plump, ker-plump, thump, thump. Miss Mouse turned her head so her ear was turned to the sound but she couldn't figure out what the sound was coming from. The sound stopped for a moment then continued. Ker-plump, thump. What could it be. It was pouring rain. The rain made a hissing sound as it hit the ground and the leaves. Her leaf was soaked and no longer protecting her so she looked for another leaf, preferably a dry one. She found one under a
large fallen branch and placed it over her head. It helped a bit but she was quite wet. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a bit of shiny green, an almost glowing green color. Then the thing that was colored the glowing green moved into view. A frog. It was Mr. Frog, her old friend. Howdy Miss Mouse, he said. I saw smoke from over yonder and wondered what it was. Oh my, he said and his eyes grew large and round. Your house burned. Oh my. Mr Frog was always saying oh my. He said oh my about everything. Oh my, he said again There is almost nothing left. Miss Mouse faced with the the complete realization that her house was gone started crying. Large fat tears dropped from her tiny mouse eyes.
What will I do she cried. What will I do. Mr. Frog tried to comfort her. There, there he said, it will be okay. I will get all the forest friends together.
In a little while Miss Mouse saw Tommie Turtle and Horace Mouse come along the path to what used to be her house. They both comforted her. We will help you they said.
The next day her three friends, Mr. Frog, Mr. Turtle and Mr. Mouse went on a long trip through the woods gathering all their friends. All the small animals had a meeting and decided what to do. They went to the peoples town dump and looked all around. Then Bill Mole found a wonderful old Tea Pot. It wasn't new but it could be cleaned up and they all pitched in and cleaned it up. Bill Mole scrubbed and scrubbed it. Soon it looked shiny and new. Mr. Turtle was working on the inside and soon had it spotless. When they finished they all stood back and looked at this Tea Pot. It was a very large pot. she will love it they all said and they rigged up a wagon with several of the friends pulling it with old shoelaces. Through the woods they went. Bumpity, bumpity bump, went the cart. Soon they arrived at Miss Mouses burned log.
To be cont.

My Miss Mouse Tea Pot House. The Miss Mouse Story

 The Miss Mouse Tea Pot House
 
To purchase The Miss Mouse Tea Pot House go to
 https://www.etsy.com/shop/DollHousePrinties

The Miss Mouse Story
There is a story to my Mouse House.  Many years ago I began to have a fascination for Mouse Houses. For a while about 35 years ago I made them and sold them. They were made of scrap wood and looked very rustic. People actually bought them. One year I made a Gingerbread Mouse House. Real gingerbread to bring to my mother-in-laws Christmas party. It had two stories and the upstairs was an attic. There was a bed and dresser, a little mouse curled up under a quilt on the bed and other things that you would find in a Gingerbread Mouses bedroom. Downstairs there was a table and a couch and other furniture. All made of real gingerbread. Everyone loved it and one of the aunts took it home to save it. Sadly it didn't last and after a few weeks the icing melted a bit and everything started sliding apart.
When I married my second husband and we bought a house, I decided to make a real mouse house. I choose half scale because it wouldn't take up much room. I had been thinking of a story of an older lady mouse that lived in the woods so I decided that it would be her house.
This older lady mouse lived in a hollow tree trunk in the Green Woods. She had made quite a little home in this hollow log. There were a few pieces of furniture from an old dollhouse that she found  in a deserted house and dragged to her log. She had two rugs that were from an old tee shirt and a dish cloth. She found those in the dump. Her name was Miss Mouse. Miss because she had never married. She had been in love once and engaged but he left for the Great Mouse War of 1876. He was never seen again. He was declared "missing in action" and given a medal for mouse bravery. She had the medal on her matchbox dresser. His name was Marvin. She often thought of Marvin but it had been so many years that she could hardly remember what his face looked like. That made her very sad. She wished there were such a thing as a mouse camera so she could have had a picture of him but sadly there was not. One night as she sat in her rocking chair listening to the wind howl through the knothole window. She saw a bright blue light. Lightning she thought, very afraid. Then she heard a very loud noise, like a crack followed by a crackle and she smelled smoke. Oh, my goodness. She was so afraid. She knew that her hollow log was on fire. She scurried around trying to collect some of her things. Her warm shawl, the medal, Marvin's old cap that he had left when he went to war. Then she saw flames and she knew she had to get out of her log very fast so she ran through the kitchen knothole door and into the woods. It was raining very hard but the log was dry and old and burned very brightly. She took shelter under a large leaf. She tried very hard not to cry but the tears came anyway. What a horrible night this was. All she had in the world was burning. What would she do?
I will try to continue this tomorrow night.
Perhaps if someone reads this they will comment.

This is a picture of the kitchen of The Miss Mouse Tea Pot House. The furniture and the house are for sale on my Etsy site.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/DollHousePrinties

The Kitchen of the Miss Mouse House

A one inch scale Mini Dress free for you.

I don't have a picture of the dress as I haven't made up the new design. I only have the picture of the old one that was taken back in the days of old with a Poloroid camera. Since then I am on my third digital camera and what a difference there is in the photos.

This is the hanger. You can trace it right from the screen onto tracing or thin paper. If you have any problems let me know and I will post a link for it.

You can download the new design here.

 http://printies.homestead.com/dress-1-download.html

 

Ramblings

I apologize for not getting to this last night. I actually had the file done and was so tired I fell asleep at 7:30. It is raining today and I love rainy days. I guess I just feel grateful that I have a warm, dry room to be in. Now that I sold my house five years ago, I live with my son and his wife. They are very good to me. I have a small room and all my things are in it. My computers and printer and all my craft things. Well, most of them anyway. A good bit of them are still in a storage unit. Luckily I just got my winter clothes yesterday. It is getting a bit colder and I will need them. I don't know where I will put them but there is always a way to organize things. I hope!!!! LOL
The tide is high on the island now. The bay is just a hundred yards away. Lately I haven't been able to walk that far. I went to the little grocery store a few days ago with my oxygen and hardly made it back. Before I came here and this allergy I could walk quite a ways. I used to walk all over the flea market that I went to when I lived in VA. I am now on Smith Island MD.
I am hoping now that it is cool, to be able to walk more. Now I shall take a break and "listen" to the rain. Actually I haven't heard the rain in many years as I am quite deaf even with a hearing aid. I can imagine it though. The last song I ever heard was about ten or more years ago and it was with earphones. Elton John's, Goodbye Norma Jean. I still can hear voices on Skype with very sensitive earphones. Not well but somewhat. These are  just my everyday thoughts and I don't suppose anyone is interested in them but I guess I just feel like writing.
Please always remember that there are so many, people out there that are so much more unfortunate than we are. I can still make my minis. I can still see the rain. I can watch TV and Netflix because there is close captioning. Until there were close captions I couldn't "hear" the TV at all. There are blessings everywhere. You just have to look for them.  I will close now and "listen to the rain".
Barbara Del Duco

What I am working on tonight. Monday 10/07/13

Tonight I am working on a new revised freebee for you guys out there. All of you mini-lovers.
A tiny little girls dress in one inch scale for your dollhouse closet.
 It is an older one from my website and I am updating it and reworking it.  Hopefully I will have it done by tomorrow night for you to download. I will also try to make a pattern for a 1 " scale clothes hanger made of wire. I can't promise but I will try for tomorrow night.
Tonight I am a bit down. Nothing new, just everyday life and a bit of loneliness.  You see I am now 74 years old and I live on an island in the Chesapeake Bay. There aren't many people on this island and there is just about nothing to do. It is a tiny town and is quite quaint and in many ways wonderful but sometimes I get bored with the ocean and the Pelicans and the little golf carts zipping up and down the roads. Sometimes I love it. I am waiting for winter this year as an allergy is driving me nuts this year. I am hoping the cold weather makes it go away. No, I don't know what I am allergic too. Oh well. Wait long enough and anything goes away.
So I work on my computer and  make my little minis and post to my Blog.
Goodnight all.
Barbara


This is the way the dress looks now.
Lets see what I can do with it

New Things!!! How you can make your own Printable Boxes.

I am working on some new things now, along with the Shabby Cottage which is almost done. I decided that  La Petite Maison needed furniture. It just looks so lonely without furniture. So I have been working on some. One of the pieces is for the bedroom and this is 1/4" scale. So tiny.
A folding screen.

I will be giving away one of the pieces of furniture on this blog and selling the whole set on Etsy when they are done.


www.etsy.com/shop/DollHousePrinties

This is a picture of the Quarter scale furniture in progress. Many changes are still to be made before it is finished. I have already printed this out twice and assembled and then back to the drawing board to make changes. Then print it out and cut them out again and assemble and perhaps on the fifth try  if I am lucky everything works right and looks good. I still have more pieces to do so that the house is fully furnished. I would love to hear your suggestions of more pieces and changes in these.      Thanks Barbara

Another thing I am working on to sell on my site are Printies Gift
Boxes. You just print them out and assemble them.
If you want to make them yourself and you have a graphics program. You can!
Just do a search for "box templates". There are tons of them on the web. You can use them if you are just doing them for personal use. If you intend to sell them you have to make sure they are your own design or different enough to make them you own. The graphics you can download by going to a site like Pinterest.com.
A wonderful place for everything. Do a search on Pinterest for Printable graphics and specify the kind that you want. For example, Christmas graphics. Wow!! You won't believe what you can find and download. Watch out for copyrighted material. Most of them you can use if it is just for personal use and to give to friends as gifts.

There are many shapes and sizes to choose from and many flower shapes, paper bows. You will be amazed.

http://www.easypapercrafts.com/free-templates-slide-show

This one is my favorite.

http://www.auntannie.com/BoxesBags/

The graphics on my examples are purchased on Etsy.com.
I make a collage of different pictures assembled in back and on top of each other.
I wanted something that looked Christmasy but could also be used on other occasions. I also wanted to get away from the general Chrismas look of Santa's and Trees.
They are sort of Victorian Shabby Chic. 


Goodnight for now and have fun with graphics. If you want more information on graphic programs or working with graphics you can write in the comments and I will answer you. Don't forget your email addy.
Barbara

Life goes on !!!

Hi everyone,
Yes, Life goes on. As we all know the days of our lives, (soap opera!!!!) LOL are not smooth and do not always go the way we want them too. I have finished the two new houses and I realize that The Petite Maison "needs" something. I searched my mind and finally decided that 1/4" scale furniture is hard to come by.  I need to make some furniture for it. Well, I started and Wow!!! is it tiny. My big hands are trying to cut out these little pieces. So, back to the drawing board and simplifying these tiny pieces. I think I have it!!!! I am starting to cut them out now. They will be made of poster board and card stock.
Now back to LIFE. Since I had cancer my life has been bumpy, very bumpy. Health crisis after crisis. I am left with one lung. (Don't misunderstand, I know I am not unique. Many others are in much worse circumstances.)  This is just my story.  I was in a relationship for almost four years. We got along great and had a great mind connection going. The problem. I was always sick. One lung left. Can't breath. Need oxygen every time I exert myself. How pathetic I am. Sorry, a little bit of self pity there. LOL
Well, he just couldn't take it anymore. Can I really blame him?
Now I am back living with my son and daughter-in -law. They are great to me but I am down and I work on my houses to keep sane and try to make a bit of money. This is what keeps me going.
What keeps you going? I would love to hear.
Barbara