SallyMinis

My sister, Sally, is a talented painter and has always been interested in various crafts, but she didn't get interested in miniatures until a few years ago, shortly after her husband's death. She has always been "another mother" to me because she was 18 when I was born and I am only 2 years older than her daughter.

I thought she always figured I was a little nutty because of my mini "bug," but when I won a Mary Englebreit dollhouse (I already had the one I made into a Raggedy Ann & Andy House), she said she wanted it because she never had a dollhouse. So, in her late 70s she developed her own mini "bug" and has been taking classes at the shows sponsored by the Miniature Museum of Greater St. Louis and we have had a lot of fun making minis together. My husband says that we "play nice together." Here are some pictures of her miniatures projects.

I've put her latest projects first and they go in reverse order to her first projects.

This bag my sister put together for a friend's daughter soon-to-be-born baby girl.. We had the floral painted Dollar Tree chest and high chair already in our stash of "stuff" my sister and I collect for projects. She picked up the crib at the museum's "miniatures only" garage sale for a couple of dollars and she then painted the floral spray on the crib to match the other furniture. The picture of the bridal couple is of the expectant parents and the picture over the high chair is an older daughter. The dog under the high chair looks like the Boston Bull that they own.

There is a framed poem about "a daughter is ..." over the crib and the top view shows the baby book, a rocking horse, baby bottle and pacifier and a tiny tiny bear. There is a box of diapers sitting on the floor.

This giftbag commemorates Sally's friends' 50th wedding anniversary. The picture is of them on their wedding day and the 2 pictures to the right are of their family. The cake says Happy 50th Anniversary Carolotte & Merrill. The champagne glasses are tied with little gold bows.

Sally saw the project in a miniature magazine using the Michael's hutch and these are her version. She chose not to glue them back to back, but made two of these hutches for Christmas gifts. She used the brown plastic furniture to furnish these little houses.

The 1/4" scale cabin was a class in October 2004 taught by Scarlett & Gary Frayser. She used some of the bubble pack furniture that was painted, and some little resin furniture we found at the Garage Sale sponsored by the Miniature Museum of Greater St. Louis. We painted the plastic furniture to match the resin.

The fireplaces were made using the breakfront from the bubblepack brown plastic furniture covered with little gravel. The chimney breast was a piece of cardboard cut to shape and covered with the same gravel. The braided rug was a tote bag favor from a NAME convention. The chest and dresser were resin pieces. The bathroom is the bubblepack set.

The living rom area of the cabin uses the resin couch. We painted the little "poured chair and hassock that I had in my "stash" to match the couch. The side table was a round table at a NAME convention. The phone, desk, clock are the bubblepack furniture. The little desk has papers in the cubbie holes and a pencil on the writing surface which you can see in the closeup below. The green rugs were just printed on paper.

In he kitchen area of the cabin has the bubblepack chairs, sink, stove, and icebox. The table was created by Jan Be Nimble, Jan McCandliss, and was bought at the silent auction at the Gateway Miniature Fair. The table is set with a ham dinner (closeup below). The china cabinet is a resin piece. The stove has jewelry finding pots and pans. I made the little cherry pie sitting on the icebox.

My sister liked the Christmas Wreath that I made a couple of years ago and so I bought a wreath insert for her at the museum auction in October 2005. It is much bigger than the one I made and we couldn't find a wreath large enough, so she bought 2 garlands which we put lights on and then wrapped around the insert. Iturned out pretty cute. She couldn't find a Santa she liked and she already had the little dolls, so she decided to use them instead of Santa. She also made the little mouse house in the bottom using some ceramic mice that we found for sale at the museum gift shop. She used the brown plastic furniture in their room.

Sally got this cottage kit at the museum's garage sale in March and over the summer worked on it at my house. It turned out pretty cute -- but a lot of work to make over this inexpensive dollhouse kit.