Hutches and pottery

I have a lot of extraneous minis. I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing, but recently, I was going through the extra pieces I had (which I keep displayed on a shelf in our living room) and decided to reorganize and maybe even pare down some of it.

I don't know if you remember that shadow box display of pottery I put together a while back. (It's here.) Well, the hutch in that shadowbox has two matching pieces. Interestingly, I got all three of them from different places, but they look like they were made by the same person/company. I decided to put all three of them in the shadowbox, with the pottery, and I even added a small enamel pot with forsythia, too.

Someday, I will hang this somewhere. For now, it sits on the table in our foyer.

Room box idea

Hello everyone! I hope those in the Northeast US are safely digging themselves out of this blizzard! Here in Albany, we only got about 6 inches, which is rather minimal compared to what I've heard has been going on in coastal New England. Lots of friends without power and some serious coastal flooding in Massachusetts.

I have not been posting much as I have been very busy with my job and haven't had much time to think about, or create new, minis (except, of course, for filling any Etsy orders that come in!). I've also been indulging another hobby for the first time in a couple years: playing the guitar. Thankfully, I just need to get my tough fingertips back, but I look forward to playing music again.

Not to worry though! I am thinking about minis and I do read your blogs to see what you've been up to! There are so many wonderful creations and new designs and just simply amazing things being created by miniaturists everyday!

I did want to share with you one thing. I have those Carolyn Curran pottery pieces that I have blogged about before, and I wanted to display them since they are simply amazing. So, I went to my local Michael's and found a hinged, unfinished shadowbox. I built a floor inside of it and wallpapered the interior (adding moulding and a chair rail). It's simple but is a nice piece to hang on the wall. (It does come with hanging hardware, too).

This is the back of the shadowbox. The hanging hardware is pre-installed, but on the short end. I am going to remove this and reinstall it on the longer side so I can hang this on the wall.

The shadowbox is just wide enough for shallow pieces of furniture (e.g. hutches and shelves). This is perfect for displaying or more miniature collectible pieces.

Here is the interior with the lid open. I added a floor inside...

...so that you could easily see the hutch when the lid is closed. The little framed picture was given to me for my birthday, but came from Memoriesnminiature's Etsy Shop. It has photos of Paris and tiny hooks to hang miniature hats, umbrellas, etc. on them!

Here is a closeup of the hutch and pottery pieces. The hutch came from an antique store in Maine (which I had blogged about before) and these are the Carolyn Curran pieces that I bought from Sutton's Marketplace antiques shop in Queensbury, NY last year. I love these pieces! The toile wallpaper is from Hobby Lobby.

New mini goodies and some stuff for sell. :)

I picked up two more Carolyn Curran pieces last weekend and want to share. I love these things! I talked to one of the nice people at the shop in Queensbury, NY (Sutton's Antique Marketplace, if you're ever in the area) and they told me that the dealer who sells these also collects life-size pottery. A lot of these minis were copies of pieces of his collection. I love hearing background stories about these items! Anyway, here's a pic of the two newest pieces added to my collection:

Behind the pottery in that picture are some goodies I just placed on etsy: a framed print of a lighthouse and a basket full of knitting goodies. Here's a link to my shop and a pic of all the stuff that's up for sell as of tonight (except for the table, which is only for display)!

I also have a little Reutter Porzellan Beatrix Potter tea set (dollhouse mini size, of course) up on eBay here. :)

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend! I have a lot of grading to do this week, so my posts may be minimal, but the crafty gears are always turning. ;)

PS: Linda's Minis has a facebook page, too! Check it out here. :)

2 stories from the mini hunt

1. I was digging through an antique store in Fort Ann, NY today and found two Dollhouse Miniatures issues which I purchased. The awesome thing? One of them was once owned by the very same Carolyn Curran whom I blogged about yesterday. What are the odds???

2. In that same shop I saw an unopened Brimble's Mercantile. Tempting, but I already have a shop and don't need anymore dollhouses. Really. (Not until we move into a bigger place, at least. ;) ). Anyway, on leaving the shop, I said to Jay, "Well if that were one of the dollhouses on my wishlist, like a Westville or Harrison, I would have totally picked it up."

Fast forward to about half an hour later, we found a small flea market-type shop in Whitehall (Carol's Collectibles and Antiques). From the front of the store, I spied what very much looked like a dollhouse in the "taped-together-but-unfinished" stage. And...it was a Westville. Even more interesting, there was a Westville still in the box on the ground, though it looked like it had been opened, but taped back together. I came SO CLOSE to bringing it home. Also in the same area were boxes upon boxes of old dollhouse kits (Walmer, RGT, to name a few) as well as building supplies, and how-to books. I did pick up some books, but I was very good and didn't grab any dollhouses (again, little room, little time).

I have been on the ball lately with finding exactly what I've been looking for...whether or not I buy it.
 As we got out to the car, Jay says to me, "Okay, from now on you need to either dream about or talk about finding cheap Godzilla collectibles when we go antiquing." :)

Unfortunately no pics of the goodies this time, but I have a lot of stuff I need to unload from my camera that I will be posting on the blog (including some inspirational home pics and other things!)

Pottery from Carolyn Curran

I noticed I have 101 readers. Welcome new folks!!! I am going to announce the blog giveaway on Sunday, so stay tuned!

This weekend, I am treating my significant other to a weekend in the Lake George area for his early birthday present. We visited a few lovely antique shops and had a lot of fun today.

One particularly awesome find were these lovely little stoneware miniatures created by IGMA fellow Carolyn Curran.

Apparently, she used to live in this area (Warren County, NY) but has since moved down to North Carolina. I found her autobiography on her eBay page here: http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=carolyn-aka-cncpottery

Apparently, her work has been sold by the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City and the Smithsonian. I am very excited to have found out about this artist and her work as I haven’t heard of her before. I love this kind of stoneware pottery in 1:1 scale, and finding it in 1:12 scale was pretty awesome. There were many more pieces of pottery like these in the antique shop but my bank account would have hated me for picking up everything! :) 

However, I am tempted to go back and pick up a couple more pieces and do a display...

Would anyone be interested in getting one of these pieces for themselves? I am here until Sunday and could pick some more up…