Friends who mini together....

...get to check off their Bingo squares together, of course!! 

Earlier this month Marijke H. offered a full day class in making mini house plants.  Lynn M., Krista W. and Mary Lou W. all took the class, ending up with some lovely houseplants and an opportunity to each fill in their square for "Take a workshop to develop or improve a mini-making technique".

Marijke explains:  "We made the sansevieras (snake plants) in the morning, and the rubber trees in the afternoon. I really hadn’t expected them to be finished, but they were done 30 mins. earlier than I thought. All three of them worked very attentively, and the class was a lot of fun."

Here is a picture of the completed plants followed by one of Krista proudly displaying hers.

So - Krista, Mary Lou and Lynn all tick off that Bingo square. 

Garry R. checks off the same square by taking a class Krista W. taught the FAME group on working with Fimo and embellishments to make unique stepping stones for their mini gardens.

Here are some of the finished, embellished and baked patio stepping stones.

And, of course, Krista checks off a square for leading the class.

While working on the patio stepping stones, Mary Lou W.  also got the opportunity to try out a tool she has never used before - a dremel tool - which helped her shape her stones and smooth out the edges after baking.  (Watch those fingers, Mary Lou!!)  That allows her to also check off another Bingo square for learning to use a new tool.

One of the nicest things about our mini hobby is the sharing of ideas and how generous everyone is in giving of their time and expertise to help others learn new skills or improve the ones they have.  These are great examples.  Thank you for sharing!

So - what is everyone else working on??  Any more entries out there for the Bingo Challenge??  Send them in and get credit for your work.  Maybe you'll win one of the two prizes this year.  Good luck everyone!

Reduce, reuse, recycle...

Materials for mini-making can be found in many places.  We've all experienced the phenomena of looking at something we're about to throw out and saying "Hey - I could use that to make...".  So - following that theme, here we have Jo-Ann's latest entry for our Camp Bingo Challenge:

"This is a coal stove that I made from all recycled materials.  The thick cardboard was packing material from work, the window is made from an orange TicTac container with an orange cellophane wrapper from a Quality Street candy in behind it.  As an aside, it is also lighted (not recycled but anyway...)." - Jo-Ann S.

What a great effect you got with these materials Jo-Ann.  I'll be keeping it in mind for future projects of my own, for sure.  Thank you so much for sharing!  

Don't forget:

- you can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them

- you can see the progress of our Bingo Challenge submissions by checking out the "Completed Bingo Cards 2017/18" in the label column to the right.

Happy mini-ing everybody!

The jig is up!!

Our latest entry comes from the lovely Bridget M. who proves just how resourceful we miniaturists are.  If we can't find something we need, or if the commercial varieties are just too expensive - - we make our own. 

Here is Bridgett's explanation of her newest tool:

"I used a Lego jig when I glued things together (photo attached), but I had trouble with everything except right angles.

Now I have a better jig! You'll see in the photo the lid of a metal cookie tin with a small welding magnet and some rectangular magnets. The welding magnet (very inexpensive at Princess Auto) gives me a variety of angles and corners and is strong enough to hold even if I use a diagram underneath it to place pieces correctly. 

When I'm done, I keep the magnets in the tin and all looks neat and tidy. I even managed to get a picture of myself in the picture!

The only problem is that the magnets are heavy so I can't bring the cookie-tin jig if I am flying to camp. Maybe I'll have to convince Myra to make one the same.

Can't wait to see everyone. September is coming!"

We can't wait to see you again too, Bridget.  Thank you for sharing your gluing jig.  Such a simple and effective idea - I think I'll have to take a trip to Princess Auto! 

Happy Mini-ing everyone.