Over the past week or so I've been watching the Followers number creep up into the 90s, and every day closer and closer to the 'magic' 100... I've been a bit like a rabbit caught in the headlights, not quite able to believe what was happening!
I started this blog in November 2009 after having found the 'blog world' quite by accident. I had bought a UK miniatures magazine and in it was an article about Lea Frisoni's fabulous book Le Grand livre de la maison miniature . I Googled the book title and 'hit on' Linda Carswell's amazingly inspiring blog "Une Petite Folie" - it is no exaggeration to say that that moment has changed my life. From Linda's blog I spent days blog-hopping - I truly thought I'd died and gone to heaven! So much 'eye candy', so much inspiration, so much motivation. And most importantly a community of like-minded souls who I could see were committed to sharing knowledge and encouragement.
My first miniature project I can vividly remember attempting (probably about 8 years old) was trying to make a carpet for the living room of my dolls house by painting a mottled grey pattern on a piece of paper. To my frustration the paper curled up as it dried and I think I threw it away :( About 1984 (when we were living at the New Zealand cottage I've posted about recently) I was excited to find a couple of 'how-to' dollshouse books and launched into the mini world again. It was fun but also frustrating as it was so difficult to get materials and accessories. Basically it meant catalogue mail-order from England, an expensive and slow process and eventually I just gave up and put all my mini things away.
How different the mini world is now thanks largely to the Internet. I can browse online mini shops to my hearts content, and there is inspiration, motivation and fellowship everywhere. I Follow blogs located all over the world and my life is infinitely the richer for it. It seemed appropriate then that rather than just 'take' from the blog world I should make some sort of contribution myself, however small, and it seems that at this moment 103 of you consider it of some relevance and I truly thank you for that.
To show my appreciation I'd like to do a little "mystery" gift draw. It's presently a mystery even to me because your interests and styles are so diverse I've found it impossible to think of something that would suit everyone. Therefore I'll make a small 'tailor-made' gift package for the person whose name is drawn. I've decided to do this draw at my grandson's first birthday party on 6 March, it seems appropriate to mix two special celebrations :) I'll include the names of all Followers of my blog up until the time that I leave for the birthday celebrations. (If anyone does NOT want to be in this draw, please email me at normabennett@hotmail.com - no need to give any reason).
So, THANK YOU to everyone of you for stopping by my blog - I hope you will find something of interest here from time to time :)