JDayMinis, 1:48 & 1:12 Scale Minis, Laser Cut Designs too.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

My Mother's Clippings, printables




My Mother’s Clippings

I’ve been organizing all of my containers of miniatures and cupboards full of supplies. It brought to mind my mother’s enjoyment of organizing her hobbies and how much she loved magazines. In one box I found a clipping mom must have saved for me and I have scanned it out for you to see above, cute ideas for Christmas from an old 50’s magazine.

I really inherited my love of old books and magazines from my mother. She would love to sit for hours surrounded by magazines, flipping through their pages and tearing out pages of interest to her: recipes, gardening, hobbies and health issues. She would be sitting in her favorite chair with her legs covered by a familiar mohair blanket that she had for years and a box beside her for the clippings. This was before computers, Google and Pinterest to search for information about everything. Keeping these clippings must have been like a life line to her so she could retrieve information whenever she needed it. She always mentioned she would have to file them one time. I used to tease her about keeping the magazines for so many years and wouldn’t she rather “clear the clutter”. She always said she wanted to go through them first. Although my comments were probably difficult for my mother she probably knew in her heart I would find myself doing that as well when I was older. Each of the magazines I have saved I can remember as though they were friends. Sometimes when I pick up an old magazine it reminds me of what I was doing at the time I bought it or looked through it. Perhaps my son had visited and I had to put it down so I could listen to him. So sometimes old magazines are not just old magazines but are a reminder of times in our lives. She was also very interested in embroidery and sewing so I’m sure many of the clippings were stepping stones to a creative endeavour in those areas.

After she died I didn’t throw out her clippings and old calendars but I kept them and have really enjoyed going through them so much, a little bit of mom is in each clipping. I was quite pleased to find miniature clippings too about different famous miniature houses in museums and articles about making houses using fabric. It was like she knew I would be looking through the boxes some day and would enjoy finding these. Thanks mom so much for your symbols of love.
I really hope all magazines in the future won’t just be kept on an ireader, iphone or ipad but remain physical memories that can be passed on to the next generation.

All the best everyone, Hugs, Jean

Thursday, November 21, 2013

New Advent Calendar Kit and a biref History of the Advent Calendar

New For Christmas:an Advent Calendar Kit


Since this is my favorite time of year, I really enjoyed designing this Advent Calendar. 
I looked up the history of Advent Calendars in Wikimedia and  I have written a brief synopsis because I found it really interesting. To find out more please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_calendar. The first known Advent calendar was handmade in 1851. According to the Lower Austrian Landesmuseum, the first printed Advent calendar was produced in Germany by a protestant bookshop. Other authorities say that a Swabian parishioner, Gerhard Lang, was responsible for the first printed calendar in 1908. Lang was a printer who made 24 little coloured pictured that were affixed to a piece of cardboard. Several years later he introduced a calendar with 24 little doors. He had about 30 designs until 1930 when he went out of business. Sankt Johannis Printing Company started producing religious Advent calendars with Bible verses instead of pictures behind the doors.
After World War 11 Richard Sellmer of Stuttgart started making the Advent calendars again and this is why they are so popular today. His company maintains a stock of over 1 million calendars worldwide. His company today is called Richard Sellmer Verlag.

Since that time many families have enjoyed putting out an Advent Calendar on Dec. 1 to enjoy counting down the days until Christmas with an image related to Christmas, candy, chocolate, or other gifts. Wikimedia mentions that handmade Advent calendar have become popular projects with artisans and we see them including fabric, felt, chipboard and small boxes. The concept of the Advent Calendar has recently broadened to include Countdown Calendars, which I also thought would be great for a miniature scene, including birthdays, Easter, Halloween, graduation, last day of school, retirement and more.

It was a real challenge to come up with the calendar design and 24 tiny gifts. Since I have recently finished a Gingerbread House Kit, I thought that gingerbread would be a good choice for some of the gifts. I made various shapes in a paint program and enjoyed decorating the designs. I designed the other stuffed style gifts with my digital drawings. Cutting out one of the designs each day might be a nice way to start the calendar. The calendar includes gifts: 2 crowns, a gingerbread house, star, wreath, 2 teddies and 1 chocolate look teddy, dog, cat, Santa, snowflake, 2 owls, an elf, 2 stockings, doll, snow man, butterfly, 2 candy canes, a heart and a mitten. The calendar part has fabric strips with numbers to glue onto the fabric backing and trim.
I hope you will enjoy this holiday season as much as I do.

Friday, November 8, 2013

Wonders in Miniature Show online Nov. 8 & new Gingerbread House & kits & AIM magazine 48










Shelly Norris' Wonders in Miniature online show http://wondersinminiature.weebly.com/ starts today Nov 8 and goes until Monday. So many terrific dealers, I've had so much fun visiting each of them. The 3 Vintage Gingerbread Kits shown above, in 3 scales, I am selling as roundtable kits for $5.00 each during the show. We are also offering a selection of mini Christmas books from my originals and kits in 2 scales at 25% off during the show dates. I have had so much fun designing a few new kits for the show.

The upper photo is a new Gingerbread House and Accessories kit. Designing it reminded me so much of the fun I would have each Christmas making Gingerbread Houses and cookies for my sons, they really enjoyed devouring it too. This will last much longer and would look great on a mantle piece or under a tree. I have designed this kit and printed it onto a fabric panel with the Gingerbread House, Gingerbread and Star garlands and ribbons with gingerbread men. The fabric panel looks less shiny than the paper panel printed on laser that is also included with accessories. The fabric is very forgiving too and so easy to glue. These can also be used to decorate a Christmas tree. There is also a paper kit with wrapping papers suitable for wrapping gifts or rolling for display. Also included are 2 pieces of self sticking ribbon that can be striped into narrow strips and used to make bows and many lollypops and other accessories to add to the Gingerbread House scene. This kit is $9.00 during the sale.

I am also showing a new Christmas baby outfit kit for both a newborn and larger baby. These can be adapted to fit Heidi Ott dolls as well. You can also see the tiny doll I enjoyed designing I called Candy Kiss which is included in the Newborn Kit. You can find these in the sale page on the link through the sale banner on the top of our home page, they are $9.00 during the sale too.. http://jdayminis.com

In October we enjoyed a terrific Mediterranean Cruise and visited Aix en Provence, Florence, Rome, Venice, Greece and Turkey. We were going on tours each day from 6 in the morning until nearly 6 at night. It made me realize how much I missed waking up really early so I started waking at 5:30 each day since we have come home and designing. It has been so energizing and I seem to be getting so much more done. Aside from a cold I brought back I've been feeling very invigorated but I do feel like going to sleep much earlier and nearly fall asleep in ballroom dance classes in the evening. I hope to put up some photos from our trip soon.You can also find the wonderful and free new AIM magazine here http://www.scribd.com/doc/181358539/AIM-IMag-issue-48-pdf

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