St. Hilary's Miniature Church

Reunited with St. Hils......

2010-06-02T09:39:00.000+01:00

Dear All
Just to say I have been allowed home from hospital as I await biopsy results and then they will decide on what course of treatment to take. Outcome does not look good but if they do give me treatment I hope to have a chance of some kind of extra life.

At least I can now sit and look at my beloved church and have the company of my husband and pet birds..................................................

Update - I am in hospital missing St Hills

2010-05-30T09:19:00.000+01:00

A quick message to you all to say I am seriously ill in hospital and missing home and St Hills so apologies for my absence. Your thoughts/prayers at this time much appreciated.

A rather Fowl Faux Pas in my Pentecost Preparations ...........

2010-05-18T22:33:00.000+01:00

Dear All
I guess you will have realised that I have not, as yet, managed a full page on "beating the bounds" of the parish which forms part of Rogationtide within the church year. As they say.....best laid plans of mice and men! I am still not at all well and not at work because I am in the throws of various hospital appointments and tests etc in order to get to the bottom of why I have been ill and why I have yet to feel completely "normal" again.

Enough of that sufficient to pray your indulgence in thinking of me especially tomorrow (Wednesday 19th May) because I will be in hospital for one of my many impending tests. That is actually the main reason for my work today on setting up a new Pentecost page. I have always prided myself in keeping St. Hils up to date within a very whisker if I can and tomorrow I will be rather whoozy when brought home............zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Last year I majored in on the celebration of Pentecost as a birthday party for the church. So this year I have been a little lower in key here and as you can see by my new Pentecost page that I decided to let Ambrose and Tom remove the Paschal Candle from the front of the nave of the church where it has sat since Easter Day where it was first lit to represent Christ on earth before he ascended into heaven.

It is funny how things work out. Now Grace is such a versatile girl with her 14 joints that she continues to amaze me with her various poses she comes up with. I am sure she KNOWS I need some inspiration and so, as you can see her above, she happen to "fall" into this position after she fell over by the organ where she had been sporting her walking stick for last week's blog and I had simply sat her on her pew! The fact that SHE suddenly decided to hide her face was certainly not my doing!

Little did I realise how convenient this pose proved to be. I thought there MUST be a story line for her here and yes there was......... All fell into place when I also decided to have Ambrose and Tom attempt to carry the Paschal Candle out of the church because, of course, poor Grace was too frightened to look in case the candle fell on the floor and hurt one of the boys because you have to agree, as above, it does look rather precarious!

I also loved the idea of having birthday cards to the church placed on the altar. I no longer bother surfing Google's images because I enjoy the challenge of producing my own graphics. You can see the three designs scattered throughout this blog. I do particularly like the doves one though because it presented me the hardest of challenges.

For those interested I use an extremely old design package from GSP called "Designworks" and it must now be as old as the hills. However it always does for me! I particularly love the fact that it enables me to export a graphic in various formats. I particularly like the "windows metafile" in certain instances as it maintains the integrity of the graphic but for this blog I have had to export them as jpegs so the quality is not so good.

I guess you are all gagging to find out WHAT my "fowl up" was. Well I will paste the picture in below and you will quickly see what it is......................

No prizes for guessing that cropping the picture on our new page sorted the problem out though. I think it is poor Ernie's bottom but I am not entirely sure. He won't be too happy to see this photo will he? Hooray for computing and digital technology....WHERE would we be without them now?!

I have just realised another faux pas in my new Pentecost page...........a spelling error which I am too embarassed to publicise so I best go back and edit it quickly and leave you all in peace.

Till the next time.....

Beating the Bounds of St. Hilary's.........what is that about?

2010-05-09T21:04:00.006+01:00

Hiya Everyone!

I am back again a week later to tell you how things have progressed in St. Hils even despite my continuing sickness which has necessitated further time off work sadly and two hospital consultations next week (which I hope will shed some light on why I have been so ill!) but I promise I won't bore you with my health woes because I am fed up with them too! Our hand reared cockatiel, Pebbles is losing his feathers which makes him rather dozy and miserable sometimes.............if only I was only losing MY feathers!

Although, therefore, my flesh has been weak, my mind and spirit have both been pretty strong when it comes to further ideas for St. Hils and so, as a result, you may all have noticed a couple of new photos on our home page! Today is traditionally called "Rogation Sunday" and, when I remembered this a few days ago I was almost immediately anxious that our St. Hils congregation and clergy observed this great annual tradition (to find out even more visit Linton Parish Council website which gives a very full account of the origins of this tradition) which includes what is called "the beating of the bounds" of the parish. Every year at this time people of various church parishes meet up and quite literally walk around the boundaries of their church parish and "beat the bounds" using walking sticks. By this they are blessing the boundaries of their church parish and, in rural areas, also blessing the newly sewn crops so that they yield a good harvest in the Autumn. It will come as no surprise that this tradition pre-dates Christianity but Christians adopted it and used it as a way of blessing the church parish and all the crops that were being grown.

Enough of all that historical stuff and more about how St, Hils has adopted this tradition! Firstly I had one problem.......WHAT do we use for the obligatory walking sticks required for everyone to enact out the "beating of the bounds" of St. Hils' parish? Answer.....EASY..........cocktail sticks! I think cocktail sticks are great for miniature work. (a confession - Pebbles our cockatiel must have been on my mind because I have had to correct "cockatail" to "cocktail" TWICE!)

Ahhhhh.......I can hear you all exclaim in horror that I have included a pair of rather lovely and expensive looking embroidery scissors. Fret not because these are now rather ancient and their bite is not as good as their appearance. I can assure you there is a lovely pair of newer and sharper embroidery scissors now sitting in my embroidery box all ready for any future embroidery. So these scissors above are a great accessory for me when it comes to every day cutting and trimming of tiny things I have included Andrew's wood glue which I did use for a few of my first walking sticks but I soon realised that it is just as easy to make that handle by wearing down much of the cocktail stick with the scissors and, at an appropriate point, bend the stick at the weakness created taking care NOT to completely break it off. However the glue works pretty well if you fail to avoid that break.

Here, above, you can see the results of my efforts..... POOR Magnifi-Cat though! He sat there ever so expectantly hoping that HE too would have a "made to measure" walking stick but have I obliged.........sadly not! I will certainly have to ensure he doesn't miss out before we finish our story..........I promise you all that one!
Now to the walking sticks' story which I have been formulating this afternoon in my head. Ambrose, I have decided, has made all of these walking sticks for the children back on his family farm where he lives with his widowed father. What a clever lad he is and you can see him below arriving with some of his new creations.....

Of course he has not left the animals and birds out of this occasion and so you can see above he has also included sticks that are the right size for them too! Lucky Eric loves his new stick!
I have to admit that I have almost too many photos which I took today which I would like to show off to you so I will have to be frugal here or I will bore you all to death with a long tome!

I had already decided to pose the dolls along the side of the church so that necessitated a good clean and dust of the proper sides which are hardly ever used because I prefer to have the transparent acetate sides so all can be seen inside.

However on this occasion needs must and you can see above the church properly "clothed" with its' proper sides up. Oh dear...............it could look better couldn't it because here you can see both the towels on the top to protect it from our avian resident and also the daylight bulb used to illuminate many of our photographic shoots.

Ah......THAT is better isn't it? You can all see how precarious things are when I attempt to balance the dolls along the slim ledge left once the sides are up.

Now you have all seen the actual pespective and size of the church I thought you would like to see Eric and Sepp with their walking sticks as they pose along the side of the church. How clever of Sepp to hold her own stick to beat the bounds of the parish! As you can probably observe, her "walking stick" is no more than the bitten off pointed end of the cocktail stick but it works perfectly!

The children mustn't be forgotten so here above you can see what I have to confess is my favourite photo of the afternoon........... Gracie insists on bringing her tambourine along as she wants to sing AND beat the bounds of the parish and when she sings she HAS to play her tambourine too! That will certainly liven the event up won't it?
All looks spic and span doesn't it......................well think again............

Oh dear! Yes the inside of the bell tower downstairs IS a mess! Let me explain. Andrew very kindly extrapolated all the standing dolls and placed them there for me before we put the sides of the church up. I wanted to have the full range of dolls which I knew would work well standing along the side of the church awaiting the time the vicar starts to lead them on their pilgrimage of beating the bounds of the parish. However in addition to dolls lying on the floor the display unit had also fallen over in the meantime and I have yet to pick up all my tiny cards and calendars which consequently fell out and on to the church floor... I wonder if any of my "children" will do it for me?

As the children and clergy walk around the boundaries of St. Hils' parish beating the bounds, they will also remember to bless all the people who live within the parish too. However I have to report that they suffer a rather big distraction on their pilgrimage. As you all may remember, Aunt Sal's Tearooms is not far from the church and who should be standing at the door of the tearooms beckoning them in but Archie who is the proprietor. I wonder if they will feel tempted to go in and enjoy a nice cup of tea and piece of cake or not?
I won't let on yet but suffice it to say I am sure that the vicar will know that, after a long walk around the parish, they will ALL fancy a nice cup of tea..........................................
So my new page idea is coming on but not complete so watch this space................................

I must away and leave you all in peace now.................tidying up and placing dolls and wildlife back "in situ" beckons and I will tell you why. I found poor Syd, Homer's pet pigeon, in one of my props boxes yesterday and have NO idea how he got there! More worryingly he was in the same plastic clip bag as my gardening tools.......................arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Till the next time!
Sarah
x

It's quite worrying when your husband finds a mouse on the carpet.....

2010-05-02T16:52:00.002+01:00

Dear All
Well folks I have struggled through my first week back at work after a month off sick. It WAS hard work so it is with great gratitude that the coming week is a four day week with tomorrow being our May Day Bank Holiday - YES!

Not a lot to report to you all this week with regards to St. Hils except to say I have asked my sister, Catherine, of Dollhouse Heaven, to make something for me which will hopefully feature at Pentecost. I won't give away too much at this stage however because Catherine is already busy with two other commissions so I don't want her to feel over burdened by her sister's requests!

I guess from my title you may be able to work out that my husband has been vacuuming and cleaning near to where St, Hils is! I have to be very grateful to him though because, when he finished he came up to see me whilst I was lazing in bed (yep - energy levels still not 100% so morning and sometimes evening naps at home work well!) to tell me he had found a mouse on the floor! My initial reaction was - WHAT mouse? Now before you all worry too much I was not thinking of a REAL mouse! A slight detour is necessary here to explain that we did find something on our lounge carpet one morning some years ago and it was............a beautiful green frog! We had left the patio door open the evening before so the frog must have jumped in without us knowing! Fortunately we returned him to the garden with relative ease. You can see below a photo taken from our baptisms page where two frogs came into St. Hils and thought they could make thier home in the font much to Esther's and the vicar's irritation. The frogs, by the way, were made by my sister, Catherine. As Catherine says - her frogs may not be anatomically "perfect" but they have such character...........and she is right they do! Such cheeky little frogs as they are!

Where was I? Oh yes.......a mouse found on our carpet! After all the last time I checked St. Hils, despite the two dolls that had fallen over, the wildlife and pets were all present and correct!
So initially the questions was - WHICH mouse to which Andrew replied that it was "The brown one". Ah..........now that still didn't quite narrow it down completely because my rat, Sepp, is also brown.

However we soon understood each other.......it was my metalic/solid one, ie Nunc Dimittis. HOW Andrew managed to retrieve poor Nunc Dimittis off our blue carpet I have no idea but I also have NO idea how he fell out either. I do have a confession though. Since my sickness I have failed to bother putting our acetate sides up for the church so anything may have happened if one of us had knocked the church. It just goes to show doesn't it? How easy it is to lose miniature things in your dollshouse........frightening! If you all remember I have already lost one domino piece in one of my previous photo shoots. I never found it again either. To explain further...........we feed the wild birds and also have a free range cockatiel. Either way it means that we almost always have loose seed that has escaped sitting on our carpet so you can imagine it can't you? There's me on hands and knees trying to find one of my most tiny items and pick up what I think is something remotely domino shaped and when I bring it to the light is is a black sunflower seed husk discarded by our ground feeding cockatiel or something similar......arghhhhh

My two tiniest wildlife characters are Percy, my spider complete in his web and also a butterfly.

Both, as you will understand, come out very infrequently and are only in the church for the time of the photo shoot! Above you can see my butterfly! How tiny it is?! Apologies for the rather wonky floral display which was sitting on the pulpit for the day!
This photo was taken and used for our Easter page in 2005 and is no longer on the website so it is lovely to share it with you all again. Incidentally both our spider and butterfly was made for us by Tinytail Miniatures.

As you all my know I LOVE to digitally manipulate photos and the one above is a typical example. I loved the idea of the butterfly flying on to Alice's hand and she decided to let it fly off towards the pulpit where it landed on the flower display on the pulpit. Again taken from our Easter 2005 page. I chose to include my butterfly in our Easter story of that year because a butterfly is a symbol of new life because it begins life as a catterpillar and, after it pupates, it becomes a completely new creature and new life! So a butterfly coming into St. Hils on Easter Day has such significance as Jesus has been raised to new life Himself after he was crucified.

I love including wild life and pets in St. Hils because God made them all too and in the church all of our pets and wildlife are considered so special by God that they have their own patron saint in Saint Francis of Assisi!

I have no boundaries either as to how many more we will eventually include either......bats in the belfry is a most recently mentioned idea......... so watch this space!

I confess my energy levels are a bit depleted now sadly so I will leave you all in peace. I also hear my husband making a pot of tea so that beckons too..............
Til the next time
Sarah
x

Amazing how I find St. Hils inadvertently addresses some issues in its own way..

2010-04-24T21:17:00.005+01:00

Hiya Everyone
It is well over a week since my last blog. However as you will all know if you have been following my blog that I have been very poorly which is taking time and medication to help me get back to my "normal self". I am not sure whether I was happy or sad when the doctor told me last Wednesday on the results of my latest blood tests that things HAD improved and that I should attempt a return to work. Anyone off work for more than a few days will appreciate what a mountain that feels for me at the moment so please everyone wish me luck for next Monday as it will be the first day I will HAVE to remain awake all day! I had to laugh at my doctor though because he suggested that, once you are able to cite each and every programme on daytime tv, you are ready to go back to work. Sadly I obliged and sealed my fate! I have found out the hard way how easy it is to turn yourself into an invalid and expect all to be done FOR you so I suspect my poor long suffering husband is pleased too that I have been declared fit enough to return to work! I can't tell you how hard my first day on my own at home was......nobody to wait on me hand and foot so there I was relearning how to make cups of tea, toast, dinner hot water bottles again.

Enough of my whines and whinges I hear you all cry and MORE about St. Hils.......................

Before I begin another trip down memory lane I have a confession to make..and before I tell you see below for the evidence.........

NOT good enough is it? This is NOT me at all because during my time off sick I have unusually been able to stare at this unacceptable situation day after day with dolls having fallen over and ducks not perched properly.........................

Here you can see better how poor Alice has been lying on the floor for ages as I have so neglected her welfare whilst being so wrapped up on my own. The picture, as with the other one, has been taken "on the hoof" as it were with flash and macro whilst I held the camera.

Here you see more closely in the chancel/sanctuary how poor Tom has fallen over and again, I have been extremely neglectful of his welfare too poor boy! Gloria, our new "duck on the block" is no longer perching on the altar properly either. Even the lily I had Eric holding for Gloria has fallen off his beak too. I guess tacky wax is good but it doesn't always last forever! It really does amaze me how I can have the whole church set up so well with not one thing out of place (well perhaps not - you know how easy it is to miss things?!) and suddenly, without reason, a doll decides "enough is enough" and collapses on me! Such is life.

I have to thank Frances of Buttercup Miniatures for giving me some ideas for this blog. It was, in deed, Frances who pointed something out to me that, although I had given it SOME thought, I had not really considered it a big deal. It amazes me how, in my storylines, I suddenly realise I have addressed an issue that I know is very important within society itself because it has something to do with not only the issue, but also in how it is viewed by society in general.

I realise that literacy is something that many of us take for granted but for some people, particularly adults, it is something of an issue if they either never attended school enough to learn to read or write properly or, for some other reason, they just never "got it". However I didn't really set out to address this issue at all when putting together our Remembrance page last year in which I cite poor Ernest as not being able to read or write but who still wanted his mother remembered in the list of those who had died as she had died so recently and he missed her sorely as does his father, Eric. Of course my immediate thought was - how CAN a duck be expected to read or write? However I quickly realise that a duck would not be welcome in any real full sized church whether it could read or write so the issue would never arise in real life would it?

Now I have a BIG confession to make and anyone who has visited St. Hils over the years are welcome, if they can remember, let me know which page I featured this issue on with our Rita and son. I have just spent literally ages trawling through both current and archived back up folders to find which page it was on and have now temporarily given up. Let me explain................Rita as you all know came to England from Australia. The reasons for her now living on the road are obscure and in that I like to leave the detail to our visitors' imagination. However I distinctly remember having a feature on one page where the vicar actually receives a letter from her son who has finally tracked her down. Rita, you see, must have had good reasons which I never explain, as to why she had to leave her son when he was so small with his father. What circumstances led her to live on the road? Did she have to go to a women's refuge because her husband had treated her badly? However if that was the case why didn't she take her son with her? She may have been the victim of mental illness and had developed severe depression and was unable to stay in the family home and left for the sake of her husband and child.

Whatever the case, Rita would never have forgotten her son and, when the vicar of St. Hils gives her this contact letter from him she is just so overjoyed that he has found her.

I have also included a really old photo here with Rita sitting on the back pew. You see she is quite shy and much prefers to stay out of the limelight.......Rita, incidentally, was made for us by a friend of ours, Rachel Fritz, who lives in South Australia. She is a truly great artist and also provided us with the vicar and in him, she has also set the whole character of St. Hils for me!

Homer too is a man of the road that the vicar is happy to provide refuge to in St. Hils. He came from Germany because he was made for us by Daniela Kiefhaber as was our Rev Ken who was modelled on a real life man of the cloth who is also a family friend. Rev Ken, actually represents our friend because it was he who took us all under his wing when my father died back in 1980. In addition to taking my father's funeral Ken also married Andrew and myself back in 1991 as well as taking the funeral of my mother, the late Hilary Davies. Mother referred to him as "my rock" and indeed, during her subsequent life after the loss of my father, he certainly fulfilled that role for her - thanks for that Ken!

Gosh I have strayed off my original path...sorry for that. Where was I? Oh yes I was really talking about both Homer and Rita. I particularly wanted to have such people in my St. Hils because it so represents what I remember of my childhood days when my father took the family to church. A church to me is not a church if all are not welcome. I will always remember the kindness of my father to one particular old lady who lived on the road during one particularly harsh Winter. In my minds' eye I can still see my dear father lead this lady right up to the front of the church where she would be most visible in order to sit her right next to a church heater to keep the poor lady warm. The church concerned is a city centre church and, as such, was and still is a venue that much attracts people who really have nowhere else to go when things are not good for them.

So it is fitting that St. Hils has at least two people who are homeless as part of the congregation. You see my message is..God loves EVERYONE whatever their circumstances are and with no favour. So in addressing the issues I have chatted about today I feel it is good that people can know that it is "okay" if you can't read, or live on the streets or........well anything really.

Whoops - sorry about the above cos I realise I have gotten all philosophical but hope you all get the gist of my message here! Perhaps you could say I have had too much time to think over the last four weeks!

I have now got to get my head around to Pentecost - any ideas out there folks? If you have any do let me know. I can't promise I will use them all but any ideas are great because it sets my imagination off. So far we have had Pentecost parties to celebrate the day as the birthday of the church..........a lesson completed by the children on the subject of Pentecost majoring in on the fruit of the Spirit............so any other slants on the subject all gratefully received. Even if you have a funny pet story that we could adapt for our own pets is welcome.........

Till the next time........

Of Bonnets, boaters and hats............when to wear them and......when not!

2010-04-12T19:55:00.004+01:00

Dear All

Phew - just over another week has flown by. I have to confess I have been very unwell so I have to ask you all to excuse my lateness in updating my blog on St. Hils. However, although my energy levels are not up to doing great photoshoots again yet (although they are steadily improving.......) I fancied taking you all down memory lane again as I remember times past in St. Hils. Isn't it typical that you ALWAYS want to find a photo or photographs that you can't find? Well that was my position the other day as I mused on this latest blog idea. I wanted to find the photos I know I used for my very first Easter day page on St. Hils because I had put most of my "girls" in "Easter bonnets" for the occasion. Could I find them? NO - I checked my back up drive and no folder was present for Easter Day in 2004 which was our first full year in St. Hils.

However today, whilst feeling brighter, I decided to check out our old PC which still works most of the time. I just hoped and prayed that it would turn on when I pressed the "start" button because that is the main problem with it and why we finally had to replace it.........ie.....the switching mechanism is duff and some days it refused to come on at all. However it has given us a few funny surprises when, suddenly and out of the blue, it switches itself on!

Fortunately I found a copy of the website which I backed up in 2004 after Easter - hooray! You can see one of the photos here with Clara sporting a pink bonnet and holding a lily. Sadly I have failed to find the original sized photos or the folder in which they are stored but at least I do have a reduced copy which was originally on the site so all is not lost. I am sure they are about........SOMEWHERE! My computers reflect me sadly...........very disorganised.

I sadly rather love this Easter photo from my very first Easter page. That chick is SO big it really doesn't fit the scene does it? I have to chuckle at this one though because I so remember that I used REAL chocolate eggs here. Not sure quite WHAT kind they were..........they may have been Cadbury's creme eggs but something tells me that they are not quite big enough... Whatever the case - I do feel they are rather too big for the occasion. I am not sure either what the children were meant to do with them as I am sure their parents would rather they didn't eat them all in one sitting.........

Here above you can see Emily. (the old Emily before she had her hair done!)

I rather like this one above of Poppy and Amelia......they look so grown up!

I expect you all know that ladies are traditionally expected to wear hats in church but conversely, men are not allowed to have their heads covered. I have to say this convention did worry me in the early days of St. Hils and certain photos I have taken reflect that as you can see here with both Tom and Ben again, on Easter Sunday in 2004.

I no longer worry because I firmly believe churches need to move with the times and anyway I have never liked wearing hats anywhere let alone church. The above photo is included in our original wedding page before poor Esther had her bridegroom arrive.

I set it up as a Pentecost wedding and so, as Pentecost IS an up and coming festival in the church, felt it appropriate to show off a photo or two from that original page.

Miss Esther is STILL awaiting her bridegroom as she reaches the altar............poor Miss Esther!

I like this one as it gives you some perspective on the size. and you can see the wedding flowers which I did commission. Sadly the lady, Angie, of A J Miniatures, who created them, no longer has a live website so I am unable to provide you a link to her work which is such a shame as she put so much effort into the work. She made me my bride's bridal bouquet, headdress and all the church flowers including the one on the altar.

I hope you all have enjoyed my walk down memory lane here. I hope, as my energy levels improve, to do more in the days to come but the doctor has said it will be a few weeks yet before I am up to strength again.

Thanks to those who have offered me their best wishes and prayers for my recovery...they are very much appreciated.

Till the next time

Easter Day IS here after at least one faux pas.....

2010-04-04T11:04:00.002+01:00

Dear Everyone
I am afraid I have been a bit remiss keeping this blog up to date but hope you will all fogive me as I have been rather unwell over the last week - very unlike me! So please forgive the fact that my new Easter story is shorter than usual as is this blog as my energy levels are not yet back to full strength.

Despite my low energy levels (and nasty cough - darned Winter colds!) however, those that know me will understand it takes a lot for me to be beaten and so, I have ensured that St. Hils has not lost out this Easter and hope that you enjoy or have enjoyed my new storyline on our Easter Day page.

As per usual NOTHING went quite smoothly! You may all remember in a previous blog that Esme decides to join in the egg hunt in her own way by "sitting" on some chocolate Easter eggs! I was a tad dozy though and Andrew had to remind me that the Paschal candle is a rather integral part of Easter Day as it represents Jesus, the Light of the World, between Easter Day when He rose from the dead and up to Ascension Day when he ascended into heaven. Arghhhhh........I thought! Good job Andrew reminded me so I had to have a little think about who should be responsible for lighting the candle this year in St. Hils. I seem to remember Ambrose lit the candle last year so decided Alice should have a turn this year.

Picture the scene...........muggins finally manage with the wonders of tacky wax to stick the said candle lighter/snuffer into Alice's hand and raise her arm up and bingo........YES......her arm DOES reach perfectly. However you will all understand that she is only practising because, after all, we can't afford a REAL lit candle in St. Hils however lovely it may look.

I took loads of photos of Alice in this pose having also gathered some Easter eggs around the base of the pulpit. You see Adele brings some to church because she wants the vicar to find children in the village who would otherwise not have one this Easter which is rather kind of her don't you think?

Can you see my faux pas above..........it IS rather obvious isn't it? You may agree with you but sadly I failed to spot this rather bad faux pas until the photos were downloaded on to the computer upstairs.... Ben and one or two other dolls were lying on the floor in the chancel. I had left them like that thinking daftly that they would not show in the photo....or rather perhaps NOT thinking at all! You would think that, after the years of photoshoots in St. Hils I would now know better but apparently not!

I hope you like our new addition to the family of St. Hils............Gloria! She was made by Aidan Campbell and I just had to have her when we visited Aidan's stall at the recent Miniatura Dollshouse Show. (Just got my cockatiel, Pebbles, on my shoulder for a short time as he "touches base" with me when I am at the computer - what a lovely little companion he is even if he CAN be quite a problem when he gets in the way of my photo shoots as he sadly did yesterday!)

Many thanks to Aidan for Gloria and a particular thank you to his wife for naming her too! My idea here is........Gloria is an auntie to Esme who decides to come and visit and, in the process, she becomes friendly with widower, Eric and wants to keep him company. We shall just have to see how the friendship progresses I guess and see where it goes...........

Thought I would leave you with Eric, as above, in dapper style, offering a lily to Miss Enid.........to find out what she does with the lily you will have to visit our Easter page....................

Till the next time.......

Palm Sunday rolls on.........but worrying times ahead because it looks as if gigantic birds have been living inside St. Hils.....yikes!

2010-03-26T19:20:00.003Z

Dear All
Another week has almost passed us by but lets not dwell on that old chestnut and instead I will let you know what I have been doing today after coming home this lunch time from my last working day of the week.

I have been busy trying to work towards finishing my Palm Sunday page and knowing time is now short, wanted to do some more today and hopefully finish tomorrow evening. I am quite excited though because it is the bi-annual Miniatura Dollshouse Show at Birmingham's NEC tomorrow and Saturday and, of course, I am going as per usual. Andrew always enjoys coming along with me and it is just as well that he does really because he is a good financial barometer when I am liable to get carried away! So it may be I come home tomorrow and Sunday with........well....almost anything really as it just depends what takes my fancy on the day. Palm Sunday, therefore, may have a twist I don't know about yet as a result.

I have had a couple of faux pas whilst photographing this afternoon and evening. See my first one below........

You are NOT imagining it........that IS my big clumsy thumb occupying the top left hand side of the photos. HOW did that happen? I was so keen to get the focus right as this was one that I take freehand with a macro lens and flash I neglected to ensure my fingers were out of the way. You can't see too well but I can let you know that Robert Alexander has brought Georgie, his pet dog, along and so Prince, the yellow labrador, is teaching HER how to make a palm cross having watched Ambrose SO carefully.....WHAT a clever dog he is!

The enlargement above is rather blurred but I think you can see that there is another faux pas. I confess to a a spot of laziness here and have decided not to turn the book the right way up and retake the photographs. I wonder if Amelia was bored with the very idea of making palm crosses and just opened her book whilst it was upside down as a kind of distraction? After all she has been holding that book for rather a long time now and perhaps she can read the words upside down now she has read it so many times? I hope she sets to soon and decides to help the others make the palm crosses.......

Gracie's "Gracie cakes" have, sadly, caught the attention of both Esme and Ernest as you can see. Grace left them for the others to enjoy but only AFTER they had finished the palm cross makiing but the pair of ducks from the village pond had other plans......! I hope you all don't think that the two ducks' beak repairs look too bad.

Ambrose and Alice are ready to help put the tea out for the children here. Can you see two rogue rodents in the frame.............? This is not my best photo and will not be on the actual page but I had to include it here because Nunc Dimittis is on the floor and I have to confess that, when I took the photo, I had completely forgottten he was there! He IS difficult to spot but you will see a something of him if you check out the bottom right of the picture on the floor.

I expect some of you may have noticed that Grace has been missing from the above photos............that is because I had taken her downstairs to include her in the church.

However as I prepared Grace's pose for her to be photographed I had to remove one pew but, in the process, I was made painfully aware that the pew behind the removed one had something rather odd on? I had to pick it up to realise what it was and do you know what it was? Sunflower seed husks. Naturally it was not difficult to work out the culprit because it was our hand reared cockatiel, Pebbles whose most recent habit is to pick up a stray sunflower off the floor (sad to say he is a VERY messy eater but fair play because he DOES pick up after himself.........after a fashion as he does here.....) and fly on to the top of the towel covered church to dehusk it. He will then fly back to the floor and repeat the trick......... It must be something to do with male cockatiels or something. So the husks must fall down but WHERE? Plainly IN the church. I have yet to work out how he manages this trick given that gravity would normally work against him here as they would normally go straight to the floor.

Hang on.....Andrew has just come up to see what I am up to and he reckons that Pebbles also drops them as he flies and, if one of the pews is outside for any reason when I am doing some photographs, the seed husks drop neatly on to them..........clever Pebbles! I have to confess that we do have our friends comment that they always know if something has come from us because there are a few stray seeds in the bag!

I hope you like the picture as above. I am pretty pleased with it really because it was a "one off" for a change using the tripod, daylight bulb and delay timer with my Ixus 980. That is the joy of my latest camera. It does hold the possibility of occasionally taking THE perfect photo on the first attempt. I am pretty pleased too that Gracie agreed to stand without too many arguments with her 14 different joints. (slight exaggeration there!)

Gracie decided she fancied practising for the Palm Sunday procession because she was determined to hold her palm leaf AND play her tambourine whilst singing AND processing. I think you will agree she is doing well here? I do admit to a little bit of cheating here because I have used the pew just a tiny little bit in order to balance her. I have to say it.......I ADORE her socks and sandals and the way that the ankle joints enable me to tilt her little feet up and down as well as side to side. Of course that means you have to ensure her feet are flat enough to stand as well as having her waist joint set so that the centre of gravity for the doll is correct too.

Well wish me luck at the Miniatura tomorrow. I have got it in mind to seek out anything that is remotely Easter related but whatEVER I bring back be assured....you will all be the first to find out!
Till the next time.........

A little more on Palm Sunday to come with an interesting egg hunt twist for Easter..

2010-03-19T21:21:00.005Z

Hiya Everyone!
I can't believe a week has almost passed since my last St. Hils' blog.
I have to thank Dollmum for her advice when it comes to making palm crosses because she suggested we soaked the palms first before the children made them up. So there I was this afternoon soaking my "mini-strips" of palm leaves cut from the full size variety ie a pair of old palm crosses given out to Andrew and myself some time ago now as I mentioned in a previous blog. I even found a website with instructions how to make up palm crosses but have to confess I was not entirely successful in my attempt but at least I got enough idea in order to set up a few photoshoots which suggest I DO know how to make them............well almost......

The picture above has history! As those who have read a previous blog will know, I have decided that Aunt Sal's Tearooms is an ideal venue for the children to learn to make palm crosses.

I was initially really set on having our Gracie standing up as Ambrose shows her how to make a palm cross. However, for some reason, her 14 joints just defeated me because IF I managed to have her in a standing position I would pose her and as soon as the camera was ready I noticed the "ping" and she was on the floor as one of her knee joints buckled......arghhhhhhhhh.

So after more than a few attempts which, when upstairs in the bedroom where the dollshouse is, I have to use the ironing board as my props storage place as well as working area, I gave up and decided that Gracie was too tired to stand up so she was put on a chair instead. However you would think having Grace sitting on a chair would be easier.........well yes it IS...............up to a degree. I tell you she is pretty clever when it comes to falling over EVEN when sitting on a chair. My only way in the end was to remove the hand made matching seat cushion which I made for the chair.

I then thought that Tom would like to find out how to make a palm cross too so would you believe it but I took quite a few photos of him only to realise that his trousers were starting to fall down! That is one of the worst problems.

I also had trouble because Sepp the rat had fallen over too and again I had failed to notice and carried on taking photos blithely unaware of my faux pas. Apologies here as Sepp had not only almost fallen over but she is quite blurred too!

I rather love this photo with Prince because he also fancies having a go making a palm cross. I am sure that he has already taken everything in when Ambrose was showing Grace!

I have mentally been moving on to Easter because, as you all have probably gathered by now, I am always in the process of forward planning with St. Hilary's and this year I quite fancied another Easter egg hunt. I have to apologise though because I quite fancied using Aunt Sal's Tearooms again for all or some of the egg hunt.

I was having fun discussing this matter with a work friend this morning and, together, we had quite a laugh and I will try to explain why. I started the ball rolling with the idea that Esme may have been laying some eggs because she was a little broody. However I then realised that there was NO WAY that we could have any of those eggs used in such a thing as an egg hunt because we all know what happens to eggs that are found on Easter egg hunts don't we? I would be hurting Esme's feelings quite badly if I say any more on that one. So we moved on to the idea that Esme joins in the egg hunt in her own very special and unique way. My story has started to evolve and it involves Esme missing the lovely times in the past when she was able to relax whilst brooding her eggs and then chicks when they hatched. It was a great time because she could sit for hours in peace and quiet because she always chose a really quiet spot to build her nest where the noisy geese, moorhens and coots never frequented.
So this Easter she decides to join in the Easter egg hunt and you can see how in the photo below.......

See here above how careful she is not to sit on the eggs too hard...................she doesn't want them to melt before the children find her with them does she? Of course it IS lovely and quiet sitting on some little Easter eggs in a basket under one of the teashop tables! Shame Priscilla Jane has found her so quickly isn't it......?
Sadly as you can see she has had to accept her plastecine beak as permanent after we had to, in the name of tidyness, vacuum up the area where the broken bit of her beak most probably had fallen and we failed to find it.
I took all the photos here using the macro lens and flash on our Ixus 980. The photo with Priscilla Jane is actually a cropped version and I will explain why. I attempted close up photos and ones using the 3x zoom but, with the action of the flash, the background was too dark and unrealistic. So a distance photo in good focus and then cropped seemed my best way forward here. I am sure you will agree.....

Now I have not yet decided whether Esme will appear as above in the egg hunt on our Easter Day page. I may recreate the scene under the altar instead................because that may be, in reality, a more peaceful environment for Esme to sit any kind of eggs if that is her mood............You will simply have to come back soon to find out what I choose to do on the day.................

Till the next time.....
PS: Sorry to include a close up of Prince as below with his very own palm leaf but he is such a photogenic dog it has to be done...........................but don't let him know that will you?

Palm crosses for Palm Sunday...but put together in Aunt Sal's Tearooms?

2010-03-13T14:30:00.007Z

Hiya Everyone
The "children" have been busy.......or, more accurately, should that be ....the "children" will soon be busy?.......making palm crosses for Palm Sunday. So why, I hear you ask, is there a picture here with Gracie's cakes plus some "infestations" of the rodent kind in the form of Sepp, Snowy and "Nunc Dimittis? All will be revealed...............read on..................

I have been busy in my mind trying to think of something "a little different" for this year's Palm Sunday page. I was therefore very inspired by a recent blog I found to be linking to our home page ie Gadget Vicar blog where a group of pastors are cited to have met in Starbucks for a bible study. I've long heard how church folk have sometimes decided to meet in a secular place of gathering like, for example, a pub........but Starbucks was kind of novel. However I am sad to report that Daffodil Green is but a small village with a small population so we doubt that Starbucks have yet to hear about the idyllic little place let alone set up shop there. However Daffodil Green DOES have its' own tearooms in the form of Aunt Sal's Tearooms so I thought it would be an interesting idea to have the children (under supervision......well of course!) help the vicar by making some palm crosses out of some palms in readiness for the morning service on Palm Sunday IN Aunt Sal's Tearooms for a change. The advantage of course is..........Archie is a very kind man who is always happy to offer a free cup of tea or drink of juice and a cake to the children!

As you can see above, Ambrose brings the palm leaves along to the tearooms. You may wonder where these "palm leaves" come from. Well they are actually cut from real palm crosses which Andrew and I will have received from a previous year's Palm Sunday service. I love the fact that, as these "palm leaves" have been cut from real palm crosses that were distributed in a Palm Sunday service, they have actually been blessed too! I just couldn't resist adding Prince to the "mix" here. Sarah Schiff of Pocket Pets makes such splendid cats and dogs and Prince, who was bought from Sarah back last October is such a beautiful and realistic looking yellow labrador he HAS to be shown off regularly!

Now on to my rodent infestation. I love the idea that my church mice have hidden inside the tin of Gracie's cakes. If you all remember I did include a picture of the same on a previous blog. However the idea has yet to have hit St. Hils so I just felt it HAD to be included in my latest Palm Sunday story.................... I think that Alice is NOT too happy about this though as you can see................and Sepp didn't help by hitching a ride with Gracie too because Alice is plainly telling Gracie off here because she has been just a little complicit in allowing this to happen........................You can see a good close up of the "infestation" at the beginning of the blog........................................ Grace WAS only trying to be helpful though in cooking some of her favourite cakes to share with the other children as a reward for making the palm crosses..............

I think the tearooms look lovely here..........all set up now for the others to arrive and start making the crosses for the Palm Sunday service.

I will now have to leave you.........but I can tell you that Gracie is keen to have her tambourine with her this Palm Sunday morning.........................................she just LOVES to sing and play her tambourine in church and Palm Sunday will involve a procession too...........................how WILL she cope with the holding of a palm leaf AND her tambourine whilst singing a chorus too.................. However - you will all have to pity ME far more.................I am planning not only to make sure she is hanging on to both tambourine and palm leaf.......but also to negotiate her not insiginficant 14 joints in order to have her stand convincingly too............................wish me luck.......................
Til the next time.......
PS I keep meaning to tell you all that it was I who embroidered that "Jemima Puddleduck" picture on the wall............on 32 count linen.........................not sure my old eyes would cope with that anymore but..... It was Catherine, my sister, who embroidered the little house picture on the left hand wall........

Esme poor girl has a terminal accident.........well almost........

2010-03-08T20:45:00.006Z

Hiya Everyone!
Gosh I didn't think I would be back again so soon but here I am with yet another tale of calamity to tell..... and this time it is poor Esme. I fear that we may NEVER find the lost part of her beak ever again and for that I am mortified as it was 110% MY fault!

To explain I will start at the beginning.......I wanted a nice new photo for our home page to reflect the soon to arrive Mothering Sunday this coming week. I am compelled to ensure that the beautiful Spring flowers box my sister made for me on a "special birthday" a few years ago now (don't ask me when...I try to forget!) is shown off each year if possible!
I built up a possible pose as per usual but this time my setting was more risky as it was OUTSIDE the church along the back of the bell tower wall. Some of you may remember that I used it for the carol singing over the Christmas period on both my Christmas and Advent Calendar pages. Vic Newey has done such a great job of the outside as well as inside of our church it is a shame for his work not to be shown off I am sure you will all agree.

See the above photo........check it out carefully.......and then wonder HOW muggins managed so many photos without noticing a certain pertinent fact............as below...

Poor Syd.......he had fallen over as I was arranging the ducks and I had failed to notice. I have to admit to you that I was so mortified that I had, in my attempts to pose poor Esme, dropped her on to the carpet and in the process her makeshift beak repair had broken again! Arghh.......however all was not initially lost because I almost immediately saw where her missing beak had gone. So there I was sitting down and carefully, or so I thought, guarding the broken bit of beak which I had placed for "safe keeping" on a tissue on my lap, and in the process of picking up the tube of wood glue must have jerked or something and bingo............broken part of beak had gone missing completely. We had the torch out.....checked the carpet floor, settee, where I had been seated.....you name it.........we searched there.
So the picture you see above was a result of me giving up finally on ever finding the said broken part of poor Esme's beak. I was still keen, though, that she should not miss out on her original photo shoot however.

I was immediately quite annoyed and upset at my own faux pas but then decided that I should be positive here and use it as an opportunity. So I decided on reflection that, if I couldn't find the broken bit of beak which, incidentally, didn't look that great a repair when done anyway, I may find another way out of the situation. Strangely I remembered that I had some plastecine which I bought from the childrens' shop, "The Early Learning Centre" many years ago. (children's shops can be a great place to find things when it comes to my miniature work - ie plastecine, pva glue, toy animals etc - hence the arrival of two lambs one Easter Sunday morning in St. Hils...........) YES - I decided to attempt my own makeshift "mend" of Esme's beak. I can't tell you that I think it looks really brilliant but I hope it makes her just about presentable enough for future photo shoots without having to turn her back to the camera!

You can see my efforts above.......and a close up as below.........

You can see my repair better here. I used a bit of white and black plastecine to refashion her beak.......think she doesn't look too bad all things considered!

Incidentally you will find that one of the pictures above HAS made it to our home page and has been turned into a new card for you to all to download on our Downloads page. Note that I have put "Happy Mothering Sunday" inside.

I won't give up looking for my lost beak.............I don't think poor Esme would quite forgive me for giving up quite yet................wish me luck.............

Till the next time....

Lent reminds me of our beautiful altar and more...........

2010-03-05T18:57:00.003Z

Dear All
Isn't it strange how something can suddenly grab your thoughts? I say that because I was musing on my next blog but as I was doing so I caught sight of our beautiful altar in St. Hilary's. That is the beauty of having St. Hils in constant view when I am in our living room.......a constant reminder of all things good in my life.

You can all see it above in close up as Priscilla Jane too admires it. I will spare you the hassles encountered this afternoon whilst taking all of these photographs but I can assure you it involved various permutations of hand held flash with image stabiliser set, daylight bulb with tripod and timer, tripod with flash and timer, no tripod, timer, no timer.......................shall I go on? ALL, of course, in an attempt to get that ONE perfect shot!

Where was I? Sorry about that as I have plainly digressed again as is my wont! Oh yes......my altar! NOTHING would persuade me to part with it (a complete nonsense of course - WHERE would St. Hils be without an altar?!) because it really "says it all" in terms of the Christian message as it is encapsulated in the words, "In Remembrance of Me", carved along the front. To me, it also explains the meaning of Lent so well in just those few words.
We SO have to thank Mark and Sharon Stockton of Stockton Miniatures for this master piece. I would NEVER cover this message up and that is why I so love my hardanger ribbon bands which fit along the top so perfectly and which allow for me to embroider a simple hardanger cross on each end.

I have to apologise though because Ernest (mallard duck husband to Esme and son of Eric!) and GP (young Grace's pet guinea pig!) have insisted on sitting ON the altar.........I am not sure that any REAL church minister or church leader would be so readily accepting of such a thing in their church. However St. Hils is not quite an ordinary church is it? For one thing...................each member of the clergy and congregation is only 1/12 scale in size!!!

Whilst I am thinking about it I MUST share with you something that did amuse me the other day. Again it is all about search engine ratings and this time I think, if my memory serves me right, it was Yahoo on this occasion. Would you believe that our modern day parable on the "missing teaspoon" came seventh in a search someone had made for the parable of the "lost sheep". Whoops! I found that whilst checking my statisitics one day. Lets hope they were not completely displeased with their rather eccentric "find"!!

Apologies for wondering off there again! I am back "on piste" again now I promise!

I wonder if any of you will have noticed a particular theme in our church? I say this because we have not only had Mark and Sharon Stockton provide us with church furniture but also John Cheal, who has made us various "bespoke" pieces including the organ, eagle lectern, tea trolley and altar rail. The furniture that we have received from Stockton Minatures is made out of the beautiful wood, black walnut. I can still remember my emails to Sharon Stockton because I was just SO excited when I found their website. Vic Newey had put our church together from the original kit and had even extended the width of the floor from ten to thirteen inches so we had more room in what was still, in effect, a glorified room box.

I was desperate to find some suitable church furniture but nothing seemed to be available online or in the UK mainstream dollshouse shops or shows. However Stockton Miniatures in the United States of America was to prove my saviour!

As you can see with this close up of one of the pews from Stockton Miniatures, Ben is admiring the little carved logo which is on every pew end.
John Cheal was anxious to ensure that his furniture, where appropriate, also had this logo on. You can see below an enlargement of the portion of the organ ............

Priscilla Jane is SUCH an observant girl isn't she? She has spotted the logo here on the altar rail too.....

The altar rail is actually made out of non-precious metal, ie brass, and wood. John has made great use of the logo taken from the Stockton's furniture as you can see and with the use of the brass and wood the effect is really lovely and so realistic!

When I commissioned John to make this altar rail we discussed it in detail because John wanted to know how I wanted to play things. You see an altar rail in a real church usually has the centre part of the rail on a hinge so that it can open so that the minister and anyone in the procession can enter the sanctuary. We discussed this at length until John suggested that he simply had the middle part of the rail as a separate piece which could be taken out or slotted in depending on the kind of pose I wanted to photograph. You can see more on our News page where John is seen demonstrating the altar rail.

I have also spent some time this afternoon "playing" with a pose which has included Ambrose and Adele with this stand up small wooden cross which we bought from a Cathedral shop somewhere on our travels. I think I made mention of this on an earlier blog........... You just wouldn't believe HOW difficult such an "easy" pose would be to photograph. I set the scene up on the right hand side of the altar thinking that my Ixus 980 camera would be happy to give me a good macro focus on Adele at least.......but no...................all of the photos were just too blurred to be usable. So I decided to place Ambrose, Adele and Prince on the LEFT hand side of the altar instead with the said cross. I eventually had something that didn't look too bad......as below. Apologies because Syd the pigeon is ALSO on the altar together with Eric and GP!

I then tried again with just Adele and Prince on the right hand side of the altar again....as below.

I am not quite sure WHICH of these two photos I will put on our home page at the moment. I don't feel that we are far enough into Lent to use them yet however.....perhaps when we come up to the fifth Sunday which is also called "Passion Sunday".

Phew - have I lost you all yet....I hope not but apologies if I have because I do have a tendency to ramble............
And now the smell of fish and chips in the oven downstairs beckons.......nothing better on a Friday after my last day of the working week.....
Till the next time.............

Mothering Sunday Saga now complete........with a little bit of tacky wax magic.........well of course!

2010-02-27T22:23:00.002Z

Priscilla Jane looks pensively at the broken off leaf....she is SO disappointed after she and Adele had taken such care to grow this daffodil for Miss Enid.........

Hiya Everyone!
Firstly - I just want to thank all of you who are following my blog.............your support is great to receive!

As you have probably gathered I have finally completed our Mothering Sunday page.....DO visit it and see what you think!

I actually finished the photograph work this morning. Things worked pretty well because I have the dollshouse upstairs which has our "Aunt Sal's Tearooms" whilst our church is actually in our living room and sits along the full length patio windows at the back of the house facing the garden. Home ownership is great most of the time but when something goes wrong as it did the other day when our immersion heater tripped one of our electricity circuits it meant we were without hot water until the element was replaced. So it was just as well that I had finished my photoshoot in our dollshouse upstairs in one of our spare bedrooms because, this morning, our electrician was working up there as he replaced the element.

This gave me a great opportunity to complete my photoshoot in the church downstairs. NO time is wasted in our house as you have probably gathered and today was no exception. So whilst our electrician and his colleague worked upstairs there was I kneeling on the floor with daylight bulb holder in one hand whilst I controlled the camera on tripod with the other one!

I wanted to provide some photos that would both serve as good Mothering Sunday/Mother's Day cards whilst also adding to my new storyline. You can see my new selection of four cards on our Downloads page....hope you all like them as much as I enjoyed creating them.
However as wth all things St. Hils things never go quite smoothly although thankfully nothing was lost today............phew for that! I do feel that Priscilla Jane's dress looks like it could do with a wash.........but trouble is................the dress will not come off so any cleaning would have to be "in situ". Ummmmmm.........I think I won't worry about that now. I am sure a story will always explain.....

I particularly wanted to use one of my "accidents" again and so it was fun to bring out the one slightly broken potted daffodil my sister of Dollshouse Heaven had made for me a couple or more years ago now. On the very first occasion of its' use I managed to sever one of the three leaves.........booooooooooooooo. As you can see in the picture above Adele fell over just as I was trying to take the photograph.

You can see here by my hand how small the dolls are..............it is easy to forget. I was touched when the colleague of our electrician commented on the high amount of detail in our church and he was standing quite a distance away. Hooray for tacky wax that is what I say! You won't be surprised to know that Adele had a re-application done to her feet immediately after this latest faux pas. WHY do my dolls have an innate knowledge of exactly WHEN to fall over.........JUST as my finger presses that camera button.........grrrrrrrrrrr

I took a photo (as above) using the manual setting on my Ixus 980 where I used no flash or daylight bulb. All I did was allow a very long shutter speed (calculated by the camera NOT me!) and the photo you see is the result. I do love the effect don't you? However as always I never include these photos on the website as they may appear too dark on some people's monitors and it is always my intention to make our St. Hils' site as accessible as possible.
I am always open to changing my mind here though so if any of you out there love these natural light photos as much as I do let me know and I may well include one or two in the future on the website itself. I am most interested to know how the above photo does look on other people's screens.

I have to tell you that it was "fun" this morning running up and down stairs as I collected my precious doll collection from the ironing board and dollshouse in order to place them safely back in the church downstairs. NEVER am I so careful walking down the stairs as when I am holding such precious cargo in my hands.

I guess a move to a bigger house is the only answer here..................but something tells me that is probably never going to happen now.............it is a full time job keeping THIS one in working order.............(we may have to get a new digital timer for our immersion as the electrician had quite a job getting it to work again once the new element was fitted..........oh well.......................such is life.........another job to be paid for in the future)

On that note I will leave you..........time for a relax and hot milky drink and watch a funny DVD........
Till the next time
PS I leave you with a close up of our Adele holding up the potted daffodil.......minus of course..........one of its' three leaves!

Mothering Sunday photo shoot part two.........

2010-02-25T18:23:00.005Z

Hiya Everyone!
Hooray - nearly the weekend again and I rejoice because today, being a Thursday, is my "half day" so I finish at lunch time, have a little food shop in Marks and Spencers and then home on the bus to have time in the afternoon to relax and indulge my love of St. Hils and all things miniature! Our minds were on "Mothers Day" at work and the matter of buying cards to mark the occasion so it was only natural that I should ponder on St. Hils and its' own Mothering Sunday celebrations. I promise I am planning to provide some downloadable greetings card to celebrate Mothering Sunday/Mothers' Day so do keep coming back!

You will be glad to know that this latest photo shoot has been Pebbles-free! However my husband, Andrew, has been much less fortunate because Pebbles chose to join him instead as he was cleaning the kitchen sink and work surfaces......much as we tried to dissuade him Pebbles was NOT for turning!

I can thank Frances of Buttercup Miniatures for the idea of having Rita in Aunt Sal's Tearooms as you can see her above. I initially thought it would be nice if the vicar gave her some daffodils that had been brought over from the church after the main Sunday morning service on Mothering Sunday.
Note that the vicar has brought Bardsley over with him. His cousin, Bishop Cuthbert, is away so the vicar has taken charge of Bardsley for the time being. Bardsley certainly didn't want to miss out today!

However as you can see in this next picture Rita now has some daffodils in her hat. I decided to use all of Frances' idea and have one of the children give her the daffodils as they felt for her knowing her son was estranged from her and was still living in Australia. Alice is amused to see that Rita has put them in her hat. (another of Frances' ideas - thanks Frances!) I am not sure that Archie, the proprietor of the tearooms, will be very pleased to see Bardsley on Homer's seat. WHERE has Homer gone I wonder? Perhaps Bardsley thinks he is keeping his seat warm for him until he returns.........
Oh dear - yet another stray into fantasy land. That is how things take me when it reaches Thursday and I know my working week is almost done..............................

You can see the daffodils in Rita's hat more clearly above.....

I guess my photoshoot for my new Mothering Sunday page is a bit topsy turvy. You see the story will begin IN the church and then move into the tearooms at lunch time/after lunch time but my photoshoots have began the other way round ie IN the tearooms first...... Perhaps both Rita AND Homer like to frequent the tearooms after church who knows? And is Archie the kind of person who understands how hard life is for them and spares them the odd sandwich and cake when times are particularly hard and the weather particularly cold as it has been recently in the UK?
Whoops - sorry about that......................my mind does tend to wonder as I imagine how hard it must be for real people who live like our two characters, Rita and Homer, when the weather is particularly cold and bitter. However we know that Homer and Rita are very well cared for in St. Hils.......................

I must move on and work out what my next scene/pose should be so I must leave you all now...................
Till the next time
PS ALL of these photos are taken with a flash on a macro setting AND hand held.........needs must when you have obstacles like clothes horses, oil filled radiator and ironing board, iron etc close at hand.............

Aunt Sal's Tearooms Capers from Pebbles..NOT planned I can assure you......

2010-02-21T19:48:00.011Z

Dear All
There I was having some space to myself whilst setting up and photographing some possible poses for this year's Mothering Sunday page on St. Hils' website when who should come along and disturb my peace but Pebbles, our hand reared cockatiel................................see him here below and despair.......and yes........my dollshouse IS a mess upstairs and in the atic as it continues to be a repository for a bathroom set (courtesy of Anne Shepley - a beautiful Victorian style one that has to be "plumbed in"..well not quite literally you understand but........) leather chairs, Nicola Mascall embroidered stool and more................shall I go on?

I think I can give Pebbles 10/10 for attitude.............he even has a following on Youtube and you can see a movie of him here on Aunt Sal's Tearooms here below....

Isn't he a handful.....little monkey!

Enough on Pebbles......but sufficient to show you what a character we have to contend with when he has free reign.........

You can now see the photos I managed to take BEFORE my fluffy feathered incumbrance arrived..........
My sister, Catherine, of Dollshouse Heaven, has promised me that she will make me some flowers to go in the lovely copper kettle she bought me for my birthday two weeks ago. I guess I couldn't wait for her to make some more so I thought it a brilliant idea if we used some of the daffodils Catherine made for me a few years back now for my very first Mothering Sunday! Alice has just arranged them as you can see below....

Don't they look great?! Catherine is pretty amazing in her work because EVERY flower is slightly different as in real life. If you check them out (see my last blog where they are in dear late Ernie's rusty old watering can at the end of the blog!) you can see that each may have a slightly different shade at the centre or the petals.......some more open than others............the variety is endless.

I have also included the little single daffodils Catherine made for me for a subsequent year. Here you can see Megan admiring one of them on the display cabinet. I have to confess that I have had to leave one out because I broke off one of the delicate fimo leaves that Catherine had so skillfully made........grrrrrrrrrrrrr

Miss Enid is entertaining young Phoebe in Aunt Sal's Tearooms as you can see above...........don't those sandwiches and cakes look SO tempting........ I think that poor Pheobe looks a little overcome by the experience don't you? However I can let you into a secret here..............she accidentally left her dolly in church and is pining for her......................because she NEVER goes anywhere without her............lets hope one of the other children bring her doll over for her soon..................

You will all be pleased to know that not ONE silver teaspoon has gone missing either...........how clever am I?

I must leave you with an overall photo of the whole tearoom........................................as above......doesn't it look grand?! Yes I KNOW it is quite a shame about the "upstairs" bit and yes...I have had some family nagging there with regards to having the bathroom plumbed in as soon as possible because the teashop customers will be caught short otherwise......................and they can't even nip over to the church because poor Rev Ponsenby-Smyth has yet to obtain a faculty to build some for his poor parishoners either..................things to do.......................

Till the next time.......

A Penitential time in St. Hils has arrived in Lententide.....and with it comes some penitential cleaning.

2010-02-19T19:20:00.009Z

Hiya Everyone

If any of you have visited St. Hils' Home Page today you will have noticed a change of colour and picture. I have to confess that the tin of polish on the altar itself is NOT the right kind of polish for the the wooden altar..............................I have provided you a close up below..............we wonder if Eric has noticed? I have no idea WHO brought the wrong polish to church either!

I am not sure if every one of you will know this but within the Anglican church, of which Andrew and I are members, different colours signify different parts of the church year. I am not extremely familiar with other denominations but am pretty sure that many follow a very similar pattern. As some of you may have noticed I always change the colour of certain type on the home page into the correct colour and now, as we are in the season of Lent, the colour I am using is purple because it represents "penitence".

We actually entered the period of Lent on Wednesday gone and this was "Ash Wednesday". Traditionally the palm crosses from last year are burnt and, on Ash Wednesday, they are placed as a sign of the cross on the foreheads of all the congregation. This signifies that we, as human beings, are made of dust, and to dust we return. I know......it DOES sound quite a stark message in today's society I know. I would LOVE to hold an Ash Wednesday service in St. Hils! However, I cannot work out the logistics of placing tiny cross shapes on the foreheads on my tiny dolls? I could use the tea leaves/dust out of a tea bag but I am so aware that, even IF I could manage to make a tiny cross shape AND get it to stick on the dolls' foreheads, I would not be happy because I would HATE to leave a mark on them after wiping it off.

I have always loved the idea of a "penitential cleaning day" and have held two so far. I have just hunted down the picture you can see above of our vicar, Reverend Gyles Ponsenby-Smyth, with his penitential pinny on. This was his very first cleaning day after becoming vicar! I have to confess I made his pinny myself. It is made out of a linen band in the same way as all of our different altar cloths. It felt natural to have a purple hardanger cross on it so our vicar matches the altar cloth during Lent! As you can see he has no surplice on and I particularly like that because during the period of Lent some robed church choirs don't wear their white surplices. This is done again to represent penitence. Of course, as soon as Easter Day arrives, they all have their surplices on and the church again has lots of beautiful flowers in it. The period of Lent beforehand makes the Easter transformation an even more wonderful event as Christ's resurrection is celebrated.

I have therefore had to dutifully take ALL the flowers out of St. Hils because, although it may only be a dollshouse church, I love to have it mirror a REAL church in as many ways as possible. I have also got a wooden cross which I may put in the sanctuary too which I bought in a cathedral shop we visited some years ago.....if only I could remember WHICH one it was!

Ben worried me on our first penitential cleaning day (I had to go on to my backup external drive to find these pictures and they date back to 2005 - can you believe it!) because he insisted on running up the bell tower stairs with the small table and feather duster in order to dust the windows in the bell tower..............................as you can see above....................! He must have been pretty cold because we had NO windows as this was before the time we had the extension built and the addition of proper windows. I don't think that the vicar was VERY pleased with him at all do you? Incidentally the photo of Ben was a difficult one to take for me because my tripod wouldn't extend high enough for me to get a face on photo and that is why I had to take it "looking up" instead!

I particularly love the photo above which was taken for our second cleaning day and you can still see it on our website. The orange rind, apple core and Kit Kat wrapper are all courtesy of my sister, Catherine of Dollshouse Heaven as is her bin as below....

I really love her bin...............the rubbish looks just too real doesn't it...........?! I think the dying daffodils are particularly imaginative

I have included this photo (as above) which was again taken from the very first cleaning day because it clearly demonstrates how far St. Hils has come in photographic quality as well as the obvious fact that we now have the chancel/sanctuary extension and windows as well as other furniture additions. The camera that is responsible for this photo is my old 4 megapixel Kyocera. Our velvet lined full length curtains along our patio window/door look FAR too obvious through our open windows and, as such, are so out of place I can never look at the photo comfortably. At least with our new "leaded windows" such "out of place" additions are not so obvious!

I couldn't resist leaving you with (as above!) a photo of our "little Gracie" as she is attempting to clean UNDER the altar! I feel that a new " A Lenten Penitential Cleaning Day" just HAS to include our Gracie doing her bit to keep St. Hils spic and span don't you?

I have pulled out the daffodils that my sister made for my very first Mothering Sunday page years ago now in preparation for this year's "Mothering Sunday" page. I have a few ideas for that too and it involves "Aunt Sal's Tearooms"..............keep coming back as I will be sharing them with you all soon.................
Till the next time.

"The Parable of the Lost Teaspoon" Part 2.........Gracie joins the search!

2010-02-13T13:22:00.004Z

Dear All
A short and quick blog this Saturday morning. I just HAD to let you know that Gracie was so keen to look for the lost teaspoon too! She is a lovely doll and with all those 14 joints her involvement was a MUST!

Here she is (as above) together with Miss Enid and Esther who has also come over to see what all the fuss is about.....

I love the close up of our dear Gracie here as she tries to see if the teaspoon has disappeared down one of the pedals. Shame she can't see HOW close she is to it isn't it?

I feel that I have now virtually worked out my storyline for my "modern day parable" about the lost teaspoon. I really love the idea of having as many of my "children" as possible hunting for the said teaspoon. You see..........poor Miss Enid suffers very bad arthritis in her knees particularly so she can't kneel down to hunt for her much treasured lost teaspoon. So all the children want to help her!

I quite like this photo! (as above) Gracie was NOT meant to be posed like this at all. It was a complete accident! I had her sitting reasonably sedately on the floor but wanted her face to be more visible for the camera. That is the joy of working with a 14 jointed doll from Jane Davies!
I promise you all that I DO have a pertinent moral to my story but you will have to wait until I publish the new storyline! Sufficient to say I am very pleased with it.

It is most fitting that Gracie wanted to help find the teaspoon. She must have KNOWN that she has a small mention in the March 2010 edition of The Dollshouse Magazine when Christiane, the editor, chatted to me at the magazine stall at the last Miniatura Show. Christiane has reviewed the show which was held at the Birmingham NEC last September (how time flies - seems like yesterday!) and in her review she mentions my acquistion of young Grace and also her tambourine. I remember the chats so well even today. How excited I was when I saw Grace on Jane Davies' stall on the Saturday. I just HAD to have her.
As soon as I picked her up I went to show Christiane who was entranced by her. I felt drawn to this tambourine we had seen on Chris Sturgess-Lief's stall. I HAD to go back to his stall and buy the said tambourine for my new "kid on the block" ie "Grace".
I went back to show Christiane the tambourine for Grace straight away! So if you happen to pick up "The Dollshouse Magazine" you can check her Miniatura Show review out and see what she said about me and also what she loves to call Grace too.

I am sure those of you who have been following my blog for the last few months will remember this photo .........but I just wanted to show it off again (as above)............ie Grace and her tambourine..................

I best get along now..............must gather as many "children" as I can to find that wretched teaspoon.....................
Till the next time.
PS: The Parable of the Lost Teaspoon is now on line for you all to see........hope you like it........

Is it a problem?.........no.....it is a parable............ie."The Parable of the lost.........."!

2010-02-12T17:31:00.006Z

Dear Everyone
It is difficult to believe it is almost a week bar one day since my last St. Hils' blog. It is so corny to say but so true..........time really DOES fly by too quickly. I so remember as a naive fifteen year old at school when I and a few others used to visit an old people's home not far from our secondary school and help out in the kitchen making the tea for the residents and then serving it to them aftterwards. One lady made the self same point to us (ie time will fly by very quickly for us as we grow older .....just as it had for her!) but of course, being just teenagers at the time, we really couldn't see it at all! However I do NOW!

Whoops - sorry about that digression. Where was I? Oh yes. My title relates to a brain wave of a new idea/story for St. Hils which came to me only a few days ago whilst my husband, Andrew, was driving me home from work. It is amazing how creative I can be once I LEAVE my office - lol!

If you remember, those of you who have kept up with my recent blogs, that I managed to lose one of my most beautiful Mike Sparrow silver teaspoons whilst "playing" in my dollshouse teashop, "Aunt Sal's Teas". I lost it the once whilst lifting tables and contents from the teashop on to the nearby ironing board but did manage to find it on the floor with the use of Andrew's handy torch. Fortunately I recently cleaned all my miniature silver cutlery and it shone at me from the carpet! You would think that, after that fright, I would have been more careful the next time I decided to shunt things about but NO! As I let you all know at the end of my last blog in my "PS", Andrew found it on the ironing board whilst I was at work so was able to give me the good news when he picked me up from my office.

Jesus used to tell stories to His followers when He was alive. These stories or "parables" as they are properly called, were used by Jesus to impart a message about God. So St. Hils' Sunday School children should be pretty familiar with them because Esther, their Sunday School teacher, loves to tell these stories/parables to them when they are in Sunday School. It suddenly dawned on me as we were driving home for a well earned cup of tea and relax that there was NO reason why we couldn't have a modern day "parable" in St. Hils. So a new storyline is almost born.........ie............."The Parable of the Lost Teaspoon!" I hope you like the idea because it really grabbed me big time. My only problem is......HOW to play it? So I have began a photo shoot and want to share my "work in progress" with you.......................

As you can see above, Miss Enid is just about to enjoy a lovely cup of tea after the Sunday morning service. After all playing the organ can be very thirsty work and there is nothing better than a "nice cup of tea" to rejuvenate you! However, she is not very happy because she is missing something. She KNEW she had it not so long ago when Ambrose had filled her very own bone china teapot with hot water from the urn on the church trolley. It is........................her very old and trusty silver teaspoon that came with a silver service cutlery set which had been handed down from her father and his father before him.

I can let you into a secret but PLEASE don't let on to Miss Enid because she may tell her off! Sepp, Homer's pet rat, thought she would help Miss Enid by putting a spoon of sugar in her tea because she knows that she won't drink it without. However the spoon slipped out of poor Sepp's grasp and fell............well.............somewhere on the floor! GP, Grace's pet guinea pig, has decided to look for the teaspoon for Miss Enid which is so kind of him..........

Sepp and Miss Enid join Sepp to search but fail to find the teaspoon............ even though GP was SO close as you can see to where the teaspoon had fallen to the side of the organ console...............................but didn't see it....... (note - the teaspoon really DOES look old doesn't it? - and that is after dunking it into silver cleaning solution for a a few seconds and then rinsing it all off)

Fortunately, as you can see above, Priscilla Jane comes to the rescue here! She was NOT going to give up for one moment until she found the teaspoon and here she is presenting Miss Enid with her treasured and much missed teaspoon when she found it............ I am sure that Miss Enid is SO relieved.

It just goes to show..............even my accidents, losses temporary or otherwise....ALL become fodder for my storylines.........NOTHING is ever wasted...................and so from a "problem" comes a "parable".....................

I would like to tell you that the church is looking "spic and span".......but sadly it isn't...................................as you can see above.............................. We have to keep the church covered up with a pair of towels because of our free range and hand reared cockatiel, Pebbles, who loves to watch the birds visit our bird feeders and bird baths in the garden. Currently we are having quite a visitation from the local starling population courtesy of our hanging fat bar so Pebbles is not particularly happy about that and has the occasional mad flap around the lounge and kitchen in protest even though he WILL insist on perching on the church to watch the garden......I have warned him not to but he never learns..........!

Whoops - sorry about that digression but sadly Pebbles tends to make himself an integral part of my photo shoots however hard I try to keep him away! Even my photo shoot of today hardly went smoothly because balancing Miss Enid on that organ stool is a complete nightmare. WHY I had to have her balancing her cup and saucer on her lap as well I have no idea! I think it is just a challenge to be achieved. I can't remember how many times either or both Miss Enid and Priscilla Jane fell off the stool and the tea service went flying as they ALWAYS manage to knock the table over at the same time......amazing that!

Priscilla Jane is probably my most "tacky waxed" doll of all..........let me explain! I commissioned a "praying doll" from Jane Davies years ago and Jane agreed to make me one which was wonderful. I left the gender choice to Jane so I had NO idea how my "praying doll" would turn out. However I was NOT disappointed. Jane presented me with "Priscilla Jane" and I was just thrilled to receive her into St. Hils. As to the name, Jane suggested "Priscilla" and I just had to add "Jane" to it! I consider myself pretty fortunate because Jane told me when I picked her up that she had broken at least two sets of legs in the kiln. The extreme bend of the legs to create the praying position was more than Jane had ever had to do and it proved quite a difficult task. HOW lucky am I? I suspect Priscilla Jane is a unique doll don't you?

Priscilla Jane's pose has proved very versatile within many of my storylines. She may be "praying" but in reality she has still been able to play and draw too. In fact her "praying position" has proved very useful on many accounts. As you can see above she does have some tacky wax on her hand so that they will stick together. Sadly there is no other way to get her to "pray" or hold things effectively. I like to think that our Priscilla Jane is a deeply thoughtful little girl and so, in this story, as she finds the teaspoon, suggests to Miss Enid that this lost and found teaspoon is just like the parable of "The Lost Sheep" that Esther loves to read to them on Sunday morning.

I hope you like my new idea/storyline for St. Hils. I can also vouch for the fact that it is not a far fetched storyline at all given how easily I missed my missing miniature teaspoon even though it was literally staring me in the face.....ie...on the ironing board ALL of the time.........and there I was hands and knees on the floor with said torch..................................................arghhhhhhhh I think I have heard it called..........DOMESTIC BLINDNESS!
Till the next time..

Of Birthday gains........but a few strange losses......or more accurately.......misplaced or dropped but NOW found - read my PS!

2010-02-06T22:00:00.006Z

Hiya Everyone
I am back rather quicker than expected here! However those who know me will realise it was my birthday today and my sister Catherine of Dollshouse Heaven was going to come around with some birthday goodies for me......ALL for St. Hils and co of course. She didn't have to TELL me that was the case but I had a rather heavy clue handed to me this morning whilst visiting Dolls Domain, our dollshouse shop a few miles away. You see I rather fancied buying some quality copper pots and pans etc to place on the aga in our Aunt Sal's Teas Shop and Catherine, my sister, had tipped me off that Dolls Domain had some lovely copperware which would be perfect for Aunt Sal's Teas.

This morning, therefore, we were off to visit Dolls Domain in Leamington Spa but unfortunately had to make a wee detour to the NHS Walk In Centre courtesy of husband, Andrew's sore and swollen gum. You will be pleased to know he was given some antibiotic cover to see him through til he books an emergency dentist on Monday morning.

However I digress as per usual but guess you all realise now that most blogs of mine are prone to straying off piste and on to something else because I sadly type as I think.......................and my mind is prone to the odd wander.

Picture this! There I was perusing the dollshouse accessories in the display cabinets searching for a nice kettle and a few pots and pans for my tea shop. The one lady assistant was on hand so I asked her if they had some copper kettles and pans etc. She said they had some but almost before she had finished the proprietor of the shop came forward and told me that my sister had come into the shop and told her in no uncertain terms that if I, Sarah her sister, came near the shop and asked for a kettle to tell me not to get one as she had already bought one for me. The proprietor assured me that it is a lovely kettle so I was already excited even before my sister came around later this afternoon.

So therefore, with no more ado, I must share with you my latest acquistions which now have pride of place in Aunt Sal's teas! However before I do I have a confession to make....I DID still make one purchase before leaving for home which I was able to justify easily as it was some of my birthday money from one of my sister in laws.

You will be pleased to see (as above) that Snowy the mouse has gone back to his little home in St. Hils so is quite safe from any pest control................. I think Miss Enid is pretty relieved too! Shame Tinker has come back with her best friend, Belle.......seems they can't keep away!

In order for you to see some of the cakes and sandwiches (loose) which Catherine brought around in better detail I have sprited them out as above. The sandwiches have three sets of fillings..........egg mayonaise, (apparently Catherine has LOADS of egg mayonaise left and is planning to do some scrambled eggs on toast with it as it looks just right as "scrambled egg" too!) salmon and cucumber and finally ham, lettuce and tomato!

I love this fruit cheesecake she included in my birthday goodies (as above) and it would appear that Alice is dying to have a slice too!

See it in close up above........doesn't it look scrumptious?
Before leaving the topic of food.........I must give you some idea of how tiny Catherine's sandwiches really are. I therefore took a photo with some in my hand (balancing on our ironing board..........amazing how useful an ironing board......even if you are not using it for ironing!) .............as below...

Before you all die of hunger pangs after seeing all of this "food" in one sitting I will now let you know what I purchased at Dolls Domain with my birthday money. You may have already noticed it of course and it is............a fully working Grandfather clock.............

Megan has popped in to check it out (as you can see above!) after she heard that Archie had been left it by his own father who recently passed away. Archie wanted it in Aunt Sal's Teas so that everyone in the village could also enjoy seeing it........AND it still keeps perfect time......... Archie finds it a comfort too as it helps remind him of his father.

You can see Alice (as above) admring the kettle! It is a splended facetted copper kettle and Catherine told me that she means it to be more ornamental than functional. In fact she is even planning to make me some flowers to put in my kettle as the lid opens! This kettle will have to be a family kettle....I think that it may have to be the original "Aunt Sal" who owned it and who originally opened and established "Aunt Sal's Teas". It now has pride of place on the mantlepiece.

I hope you have enjoyed the photos taken today. I have to admit that taking them has cost me some pain in one loss namely a beautiful silver teaspoon. I dropped it twice in the process of arranging and rearranging things and the second time happened when I decided to pick the nearest table with contents on and place it on the ironing board in order to make sure the teaspoons were in the saucers (amazing how easily they manage to fall off the saucer - slighest movement and there is mayhem) and the candlestick was upright WITH candle in it etc. The teaspoon is now nowhere to be seen......booooooo Andrew has loaned me his torch and it was great because it helped me find the teaspoon on the carpet the first time around. However the second time I was not so lucky. I did drop a Gracie cake too but found that alongside another on the carpet that I hadn't even known had fallen so had not missed it. The teapot lid even went flying at one point but thankfully I found that on the carpet pretty quickly. So yes - a rather frustrating photo shoot this afternoon.

Incidentally all the photos here were taken by hand (no room for a tripod or daylight bulb in our second bedroom what with the ironing board, washing drying inside as it is too cold to put it outside........) and with the use of flash on my Canon Ixus 980 camera on the easiest setting: ie the automatic with macro and flash.

I hope you have enjoyed a preview of some photos taken today that may form part of a new page with Miss Enid taking the children to Aunt Sal's for high tea as a treat one day.

Oh well - best go back to see if I can find my lost teaspoon with said aid of Andrew's torch.........I don't want to give up........well not just yet because I find it so annoying.......
Till the next time
PS - It is now Monday 8th Feb - just got home from work - hubby picked me up and gave me some good news - he found my lost teaspoon........it was on the ironing board ALL along............................Alleluia!

Tinker.........Belle..........Snowy....a tail to tell.....

2010-02-05T15:43:00.009Z

Hiya Everyone!
I am back again and dying to show you my latest idea for St. Hils. I am NOT quite sure that any real tea room would allow this but, as you know, with all things St. Hils..........reality NEVER impinges upon my imagination.

I am fast finding my "Gracie Cakes" becoming a kind of signature cake for St. Hils so it was only natural to include them in my blog again...........sorry about that but Gracie insisted.

I guess I have to confess that I just love my two half days at work on Thursday and Friday. I work three long days from Monday to Wednesday so, on Thursday and Friday, I only work til midday and then, as I work near the town shopping centre, often enjoy a little shopping mooch before heading home on the bus. I enjoy that little bit of solitude after working in a busy office most of the week so it was easy to imagine how our Miss Enid must feel after a hectic Sunday in St. Hils with services to play for, children to keep an eye on etc. The best thing that can be enjoyed after hectic times is.................a nice cup of tea. So I wondered if Miss Enid would fancy visiting "Aunt Sal's Teas" this afternoon for a nice quiet cup of tea whilst enjoying the lovely classical background music that is often played for the customers. However all didn't go to plan because Grace wanted Miss Enid to take her tin with some freshly baked "Gracie Cakes" for Archie, the proprietor, to sell to help raise funds for St. Hils. These funds are needed badly to help fund the ongoing repairs required in St. Hils as it is, after all, a VERY ancient English village parish church!

See below the shock poor Miss Enid had..................................

As if seeing Snowy hiding IN the tin was not bad enough both Tinker and Belle had secretly followed her to the tearooms too........... again as I said earlier we are pretty sure that the pest control people would have been called in double quick if this was a REAL teashop so we think that Snowy is pretty lucky here as he is quite safe. NO danger of any nasty men in white coats arriving to exterminate him and his friends! Miss Enid may be a bit cross with him and give him a telling off as will Archie but that will be all.

Unfortunately Tinker leapt on to the table and knocked the one teacup over too in the process and sent the beautiful silver teaspoon flying! Naughty Tinker! (in reality I knocked it over and never noticed until all the photos were taken but still decided to keep the cup, saucer and spoon "as is" - amazing how many accidents actually make the story!)

Sorry about that - another fantasy land expedition wandered into by yours truly! However I just love to stray into fantasy land after a week at work where reality is just too real if you understand me....deadlines have to be met, jobs done etc etc. I very often envy my St. Hils "little people" as they can relax in St. Hils and not worry about any cares in the world at all. In fact I have to confess I NEVER tire of looking at our little church and, when we are home, the lights are ALWAYS on. I even find it more interesting than watching the television on most days. My imagination often wanders................and not only at home looking at my church either because when I was at my church home group last night whilst we were supposed to be listening attentively to the CD my mind started wandering off and thinking about yet ANOTHER addition to St. Hils. Bet you can't guess what it is? I will let you out of your misery because it is a votive candle stand with candles that can be removed. I know where it should go......ie where my prayer corner is with the prayer desk. I am even considering a small notice board for people to pin their prayers up on as well. Oh dear...................my only worry is...............is there ENOUGH space? I am not quite sure where or who to go for my votive candle stand but whatever happens it may need to be custom built to fit.

Oh dear I realise I have wandered off piste again as is my wont and nearly forgot there was something else that I wanted to share with you today. I wanted to tell you something more about both Tinker and Belle and how I acquired them. They really ARE a pair of waifs and strays because I had an email from Frances of Buttercup Miniatures asking me if I would be prepared to take this cat and dog in as new pets for St. Hils. There was, however, a rather big snag..........BOTH had their tales broken off. Naturally I had to agree to take them - who wouldn't? However I realised that their tails needed to be stuck back so that is what I did. Belle's tail was no problem as you can't see it was ever broken off but poor Tinker...........HER tail still looks a bit rough where you can all see the join. However she doesn't seem too bothered about it as you will have noticed in all of our storylines featuring her so I have given up trying to hide it during photoshoots. You can see where the break was very clearly on the sprited out portion of the main picture as above.

I have to confess to being quite excited because my sister is coming tomorrow because it is my birthday. Now please do NOT ask how many years it is as I would rather forget! Catherine has promised me some sandwiches and cakes for Aunt Sal's Teas.................I SO want to divulge what the fillings are but you will just have to wait til my next storyline when Miss Enid takes some of the children to Aunt Sal's Teas as a special treat......................

Well - I best go............other things to do etc.....
Till the next time.......
PS We were thrilled to hear from Jackie Wightman, Coventry Diocese representative for the Children's Society, that a total of £2,692.20 was raised for the society in memory of the late Jan Craven who was a wonderful supporter and contributor to St. Hils and is sadly missed............

I finally manage that jigsaw puzzle photo shoot after previous distractions...

2010-01-31T17:22:00.004Z

Dear All
As you may well have gathered now....I rarely stop when it comes to St. Hils! So you all may remember how I WAS in the throws of setting up a photo shoot with this lovely 1/12 scale wooden jigsaw puuzzle made by Jacqueline Crosby (and no.....she does not appear to have a website sadly for me to direct you to which is a shame as her work is amazing) which I bought at one of the previous Miniatura Shows at the NEC in Birmingham when I was distracted by Miss Enid! The blog, as you remember, then took a completely different turn as so very often happens with St. Hils...

You can see above the best photo taken of my little scene...............

I am not sure WHY Magnifi-Cat decided to sit IN the lid to the puzzle.......perhaps he doesn't want them to put the puzzle away once they have finished doing it.......I really have NO idea! He is being a bit naughty too as he has not alerted Priscilla Jane to the fact that one piece has fallen on the floor.

I have not quite worked out what I will use this photo for because a puzzle is not a "game" is it so I was unable to include it on my Games Afternoon but when I had seen it at the show I still wanted it as it looked so cute. Andrew chose the picture as it had rabbits on it. Andrew thought that children would naturally love a puzzle with rabbits on so that was the one I chose. I have loved including my Mallard family....ie son, daughter in law and father in Ernest, Esme and Eric. Esme and Ernest are very thoughtful holding the photo up for Priscilla Jane as she does the puzzle so that she won't forget what the picture looks like. Eric is well..........doing what Eric does best.........ie standing by observing quietly all that goes in St. Hils during his stay. I am sure that GP, Sepp, Snowy and Syd are giving Priscilla Jane helpful hints too. I hope that Magnific-Cat lets on that he is guarding that jigsaw piece soon.............

I have to confess to having thoroughly enjoyed my trip into fantasy land again in the form of St. Hils......it surely beats a day in the office. As I tell my work colleagues.......................being completely batty and insane at home is the ultimate secret which helps to maintain my ultimate sanity..................long may it continue......................

I am hopeful of another new page soon featuring Aunt Sal's Teas..........I have been commissioning things from my sister, Catherine of Dollshouse Heaven (DO visit her as she has some new things for sale.............she is very busy restocking her site so it is well worth a visit) so please pop back to find out more....................................
Till the next time
PS Have included a sprited out part of the above photo below for you to see the beautiful puzzle picture better..........apologies on behalf of Syd who would insist on standing in FRONT of it so you can't quite see it all..................

Tom took those Valentine's Day card photos - how clever he is!

2010-01-29T18:31:00.008Z

Hiya Everyone!

I have had quite a time this late afternoon trying to take ONE decent enough photo of Tom holding his camera and Prisiclla Jane holding the Valentine's Day card (available on ourDownloads page now!) which has herself and Grace on holding their own design Valentine's Day cards. What a nightmare it was despite my new camera (Canon Ixus 980) being a more up to date and "cleverer" model than our last one (Canon Ixus 750).

WHY the focus has to go to the BACK of the scene even when the face recognition software highlights one of the dolls' faces as it did Tom's I have no idea. Tom's face is identfied by the camera software but as soon as the button is pressed to actually take the picture the focus suddenly points to the back...arghhhhhhhhhh.

I am not sure you would all appreciate me including all the failed shots here........but you can understand my frustration when you get this below for your troubles......

Isn't this photo a wonderful clear photo of the back display units?.........well yes it is.........but that was NOT what I intended! I took it with flash so you would seriously believe the camera SHOULD have "seen" that the obvious subject/s were in the foreground!
At least we can be thankful that our cameras are now digital and we no longer waste time AND money when it comes to the price we used to pay to have all those films developed.

As if the camera and its annoying foibles were not bad enough I just had to contend with the ever present joy of my clumsy big fingers knocking things over too. Let me explain. You can see that there is a cat bowl in the background in the photo above. Well whilst I had already posed both Tom with his camera and Priscilla Jane showing off the photo with herself and Gracie in with their own design Valentine's Day cards, I suddenly had a brainwave. I could see Magnifi-Cat our church cat hiding behind the stairs whilst sitting in his basket so my immediate idea was pretty simple ie: move cat whilst sitting IN basket to the right so that he could then feature in the photo. Ah........it may SOUND a simple manouvre..........................WRONG!
In the process you will be shocked and surprised to know that I not only managed to knock poor Tom over but also the guestbook and delicate and tiny quil pen and holder (made by Danny Shotton) went flying off our beautiful William and Mary period table (made for me, by the way, by the late Harold Cudsworth) at the back too! So I had to move everything out of the way in order to see the tiny quill pen and ink pot which had fallen on to the floor. You will be pleased to know though that I DID find it. The next job was to scoop up the tiny skiny quil pen into my clumsy hand and deposit it at its jaunty angle in the pot! Job done............eventually!

This above is a close up of both the guest book (Dateman Books) and quill pen and ink pot on the William and Mary table..
For you to have an idea HOW small this pen and ink pot are I have just asked Andrew to hold it in his hand whilst I photographed it......................

Now you can see how tiny it is you can imagine my horror at any idea of it falling into the pile of our carpet...............but so far nothing as catastrophic has happened fortunately and for that reason I like to keep it right next to the back wall of the church.......just in case........

I realise I detract from the theme of my blog........please forgive me but I do have a terrible habit of wandering...........

Where was I? Oh yes. I was meaning to tell you that Tom is, as you may know, the church photographer, and so he enjoys the use of his grandfather's SLR camera. (made for us by Dave Tayler) He wanted me to let you know that HE took those two photos that appear on the Valentine's Day cards that you can all now download and send to anyone you feel would enjoy recieving one.

He is SUCH a show off as you can see above! He is showing his camera off to Prisiclla Jane and explaining HOW he managed to take such a great photo of her and Grace. I have to apologise for Magnifi-Cat......I haven't quite got him in the picture have I? However he is quite happy in the background sitting quietly in his basket.........................as you can see.

I have been called for my fish and chip tea............................but before I go I just want to let you know that, as readers and followers of my blog, I am letting you all know you can download your very own 1/12 scale miniature St. Hilary's cards and 2010 calendar for the little people in YOUR dollshouse to enjoy..............HERE! (right click and "save target as" to save down to your computer or simply click and open it directly in your browser)
I WILL be putting this pdf file with the cards and calendar on to the main site soon........but just thought I would let you as my readers preview them for me.................any problems or ideas to improve them let me know in the comments box...
Till the next time
PS If you have visited our website you will have gathered that I have taken MORE photos of Priscilla Jane and Tom since writing this blog earlier and was also strangely more successful in including Magnifi-Cat as well.......alongside our dear Eric and GP too........because one of the photos is now on our Home page

Gracie insists on doing her bit for Haiti.............

2010-01-22T17:11:00.017Z

Hiya Everyone
I am afraid I just HAD to write today because Grace is so keen to let you all know what she is doing herself to help raise funds for the Haiti appeal...................and guess what it is....................making and selling Gracie cakes of course!

I caught her a while ago (as you can see below - a result of me putting her back in the church after taking her out of the tearooms......a complete but beautiful accident which helped spawn this storyline idea!) sitting quietly on a pew in church looking as if she was in a complete reverie.........clearly something was on her mind...................

I didn't have to wait long though. You see most village churches have pubs next to them.........but NOT St. Hils.........oh no..................................St. Hils has a lovely teashop called "Aunt Sal's Teas".

Gracie LOVES to make her "Gracie Cakes" of course but not just to give away to her new Sunday School friends but also to sell in aid of any favoured charities that she has a heart for. Naturally she and her mother were completely devasted to hear about the earthquake in Haiti so her mother asked the person who owns "Aunt Sal's Teas" if they would mind selling "Gracie Cakes" in aid of the Haiti appeal.....................needless to say they gave her a really big YES!

Alice recently was offered a little Saturday job as a waitress in "Aunt Sal's Teas" so she made sure that she was in the shop when Grace arrived as you can see........................................ Whilst Gracie is putting her cakes out on the cake stand that Alice has found for her, Alice is staring at the very very old photo above the fireplace..............................it is actually the photo (in reaility a miniaturised photo of my great grandfather - ie my father's paternal grandfather who was a choir conductor in Wales) that Ambrose brought along during one Heritage Weekend. His father allowed the proprietor of the teashop to have it in the tearooms which was really lovely of them................

Whoops....................another stray into fantasy land................however I have to confess that the idea that Gracie would want to sell her special secret recipe "Gracie Cakes" came to me suddenly yesterday afternoon and it just "felt right" to include this. I had thought of putting this on the home page of St. Hils......................but instead I felt a blog more appropriate because we want to highlight the appeal.

For those who want to contribute Gracie has found you all a link...........ie http://www.dec.org.uk/ this takes you to a site which also includes other appeals too so you can choose to support which ever project or appeal touches your heart.........................

I expect you are all wondering WHY I decided to call my tearooms "Aunt Sal's Teas"? I was named after a great aunt on my father's side and she was called......................"Sal" - hence "Aunt Sal's Teas".

This teashop is actually the downstairs shop in an Anglesey Dollshouse we bought in a dollshouse shop in Stratford upon Avon some years ago now.

Andrew, my long suffering husband, decorated the house for me and we used some pink paint (we used those sample pots in Homebase!) and we mixed with tetrion which gave a nice textured result........a bit like pebbledash which was the idea. I had decided on pink for my house because some of the very typical Essex cottages are often rendered in pink outside and, as Andrew was an Essex boy and we initially lived in Essex when first married, it seemed the obvious thing to do. I have got a piccie of Andrew in the process of painting it too somewhere but it is is "pre-digital" so it would have to be scanned in for you all to see it.
The name is actually taken from the person I was named after - a great aunt on my father's side. Of course she was known as "Sal" so our tea rooms became....."Aunt Sal's Teas".

You can see the frontage of this, my original dollshouse, here and yes..........the name has been painted on by none other but myself! It has NO proper windows so I guess, for the time being, it will have to be a fairweather tearooms and only open on a lovely warm Summer's day................................. However you all may remember that I did mention this dollshouse on an earlier blog...................so to complete the picture so that you can see how the tearooms now look inside I am including a couple or so photos below....................

As you can see have an aga under the stairs but no old fashion copper kettle's to heat up on it as yet...............so that will be a "must" before our dear Miss Enid can bring any of the children along for a visit to show them some old fashioned table manners................. You can also see some blu tack too which had dried to a hard mass which fell off in one hard lump when I removed it.......

I hadn't realised how faded hour wallpaper had become..............as you can see hear "Aunt Sal's Teas" is in need of quite a lot of refurbishment..........but money is tight at the moment............

Whoops - another fanstasy land trip........sorry about that one! I could tell you more.........about my 1/12 scale silver cutlery and more because each of my Stokesay Ware cups and saucers sports a Mike Sparrow silver teaspoon too..........................but perhaps I will leave that till later.................

Till the next time.......

PS All these photos were taken using my Canon Ixus 980 - automatic setting with macro and automatic flash - hand held with image stabliser set - not bad ay? Well I am pretty chuffed with them..................cos if you saw how hard it was to negotiate the clothes horse, ironing board etc in the bedroom where the dollshouse currently resides...........

And WHAT is Robert Alexander playing at here?

2010-01-19T22:08:00.004Z

Hiya Everyone
It has been so cold in the UK the last couple or so weeks......the ground has been quite hard and icy. It is thankfully a bit better now and all the snow has virtually gone...........................perfect weather to play...............well.......FOOTBALL!

I was hunting in my "tub of bits" (in reality an old margarine tub minus the lid lost ages ago!) alias the less precious St. Hils props when I came across a prop that has not been used for ages........in fact I can't remember WHEN it was employed. Guess what it was............a football of course and it belongs to none other than......Robert Alexander! He used to bring it to church quite a bit during the Winter months despite warnings from the vicar not to do so. He never received the message that football is to played OUTSIDE! However after his family acquired his pet dog, Georgie, he had all but forgotten about his football............until, of course, I reminded him!

So here he is under the bell tower complete with not just Georgie but also...........well Prince too. I have a nasty feeling that Prince is going to pounce ANY moment here and nab that ball off poor Georgie before she manages to give it back to Robert Alexander. Robert Alexander IS naughty though because we are sure the vicar will be none too impressed if he catches sight of this football after believing Robert Alexander had learnt his lesson...
We hope that someone comes along soon or there may be some irreparable damage in poor St. Hils!

Rita is still sitting upstairs as you can see..........but in view of what is going on here you can't blame her can you?

Oh dear - a stray into fantasy land again......sorry about that. I was almost forgetting to tell you what I was hunting for in my "tub of bits". I was wondering what Miss Enid would carry her bone china tea service to church in? You see - she MUST have something serviceable mustn't she but what? I had thought of a cardboard box and yes - I do have one in miniature. However she is too quaint and dainty to use such a bulky unsightly box to carry such a beautiful exquisite tea service. Back to the drawing board on that one......................but I still have time to create my Valentine's Day which I plan to include.............a red rose....................bouquet of roses..................Valentine's Day cards...........................Valentine's Day heart shaped cakes.........................a pair of gloves and purse....................................shall I go on? In fact I am planning to pull out my whole Valentine's Day arsenal in terms of props!

Anyway - just been called by my poor long suffering husband who has to put up with my obsession with St. Hils and all things miniature......my supper is now ready!
Till the next time..........

Miss Enid is missing something.....................and WHO has it?

2010-01-14T17:36:00.008Z

Hiya again everyone!
As you all have probably gathered now I am ALWAYS busy doing something with St. Hils. I HAD intended to do something with this wonderful miniature dollshouse size wooden puzzle I bought from Jacqueline Crosby's stall at the Miniatura Show held at the Birmingham NEC last March. There I was posing my baby Clarissa and Priscilla Jane under the bell tower with said puzzle turned out and on the little wooden tray I bought a while back now.

Suddenly though I happened to look at Miss Enid as she was still posed for one of the last photos on our Patronal Festival and could immediately see her complete with bone china tea set..........after all she has such a "quaint look" as my husband, Andrew says of her, that one can see her drinking her tea out of a bone china cup complete with matching saucer, bone china teapot, milk jug and sugar bowl.
So the rest was easy......and why..........because years ago when I bought my first and only other dollshouse with a shop down below, I HAD to have the shop all set out as an old fashioned tea shop. That inevitably left me with the matter of the tea service so where did I go?..............to Stokesay Ware of course and I homed in on the Sovereign Blue range straight away!

You can see Miss Enid here as I have her on our Home page today...........complete with lid of said Blue Sovereign teapot..............but..................no pot! However I am going to let you out of your misery here and tell you WHO has it........................

Ambrose of course! You see..............Miss Enid never minds having her tea in one of the church's cups but she does also particularly enjoy a good cup of tea in a REAL bone china cup which has been poured from a REAL bone china teapot! She says it never tastes quite the same in an ordinary mug or cup! Ambrose offers to fill the teapot directly out of the urn which fortunately has just boiled!

I do have some real siliver cutlery from Mike Sparrow who is an excellent miniature silversmith too so I will have to fetch a couple of teaspoons to go with the two cups and saucers set on the tray here. I am not going to let on WHO the other cup is for....................but all will be revealed on my next new page.....................

I would love to show you a photo of my old dollshouse BEFORE it was ransacked to provide props and resources for St. Hils............because the tea shop downstairs looked really lovely with home made table cloths made by myself (crochet cream edgings using ordinary sewing cotton around some green velvety material I found somewhere!) with a centre piece crochet doily and candlestick......oh yes......AND place mats with Mallard ducks on! I am you sure can see that a theme was already emerging here which has taken even more shape as I have developed St. Hils!

Perhaps one day I will set it all up properly and have our "children" visit with Miss Enid as she wants to teach them some good old fashioned table manners? However.........before that can happen we need some lights as my old dollshouse has none! It is yet another job on my "to do" list...............sometime in the future as per usual!

Now if you will excuse me I am going to leave you for now because I have some important work to do putting my church back in order after taking those two photos...................................

As you can see...........it looks a terrible untidy mess. I DO think though that our Miss Enid looks VERY dignified given what is going on around her.......wonder if she may give me a hand?

Till the next time!

St. Hils ventures into a Brave New World............

2010-01-12T19:40:00.002Z

Hiya Everyone!
Just to confirm..........I HAVE bitten the bullet and added our new drop down menu to our site. Comments were generally favourable so it feels the right way forward. It is so easy to stick with the old and feel comfortable but it is also good to be able take on new ideas and this really does, in my opinion, work better than our old site.
Thanks again to those of you who visited the trial pages..........

I have to tell you all though that the transition has been far from easy. I confess that I uploaded the pages and as soon as I tested them "live" found bugs.......so I edited the bugs found and re-uploaded them........to find another bug or page missed off! There are so many pages now it is easy to miss some out! I have set three templates too so every time I found a fault in the one menu structure I had to go and correct it in the other two!

If anyone DOES find any bugs do let me know.........................oh yes.......for ease of reference here is the home page ........http://www.miniaturechurch.co.uk/
Till the next time

Work in progress..............my new drop down menu trial for you all to test

2010-01-11T16:34:00.004Z

Hiya Everyone
I have been quite busy again today. As I have been saying I have been working on migrating St. Hils website into Expression Web which is the latest web design package from Microsoft. I have had a great day today because it was a day off work to await the electricians come to replace our old duff storage units. So what did I do to while away the time............work on my new drop down menu for St. Hils.
I have ONLY uploaded two pages - ie the home page and a new site map which I created because my stats suggest at least 60 of my last 500 page loads were made using the browser, Internet Explorer v6. Unfortunately IE6 does not support this kind of drop down menu created using cascading style sheets so the site map link has been provided for those who still use that browser.

This is the home page with the new drop down menu: St. Hilary's trial home page - the new site map is the last in the drop down "Welcome" menu on the left. The "Welcome" button takes you to the home page wherever you are and I have also added a home like to the banner image too so if you click that it takes you "home" too!
You can see a screen shot of the home page with the "welcome" drop down menu in operation here.

The "css sheet" or to give it's full name "cascading style sheet" was actually not written by me at all by Stu Nicholls so it is a bit of a "cheat" really. However I CAN assure you I completed a full drop down menu tutorial so know the full mechanics of their creation which is really quite simple when you work it all out.

Anyway folks - I am happy for any feedback on this one so if you have any other ideas let me know - and if I have apparently missed a page off too I would also love to know!
Til the next time
PS Electricians DID come early this morning and yes they DID fit said pair of storage heaters........but minus bricks.........so we are still awaiting their arrival which is still supposed to be today! Guess the extremely cold weather has meant a real run on storage heaters and said bricks that go inside...............lol

Of BIG annoyances with little things.......or is the problem REALLY big clumsy fingers.......? oh yes and a bit of digital trickery to boot!

2010-01-09T21:14:00.010Z

Hiya Everyone!
Well folks...........THE new page is finished and uploaded as well as perfect as it ever will be until someone finds a mistake or typo! I am referring to our new Patronal Festival.

My title sadly refers to a temporary loss of poor Gracie's tambourine in one of my mad moments whilst trying to arrange or rearrange my scene. The result is reallly something like that domino game that I love to watch.............ie: you knock one domino over and hey presto.........within a short while the whole lot have fallen down as the ripple effect carries down the whole chain. However with THAT game the intention is meant! With mine..................it is certainly NOT! I do NOT intend to knock one poor doll down........who is standing close to another who promptly falls over on cue too............and so it goes on...............let alone having other props fall off furniture and grounded pets fall over................

There I was.....................my scene was set..................well ALMOST! I had managed against all odds to set Rev Ken on a chair and have him hold the guitar without dropping it, Ben was holding his shut hymn book and Tom had his obediently open at the right page.........and Gracie had finally agreed to stand up straight after her knee and hip joints kept pinging back to a sitting position..............arghhhhhhhh But WHERE was her tambourine? I had it a minute ago.......it was sitting on one of the pews! Ah...........suddenly realised that, in my scramble to clear enough space to enable my big fat clumsy fingers to operate such a delicate scene I had picked up the said pew and carelessly dumped it in the entrance/bell tower area. I was due to have a cup of tea and Andrew was beckoning me to it. However he quickly realised I was NEVER going to sit still to drink my tea until said tambourine was located so joined in my search. Initially I checked the whole floor of the church.....nothing. So I checked the carpet just beneath the bell tower where I had uncermoniously dumped the said pew having forgotten its' precious cargo. Nothing again. I nearly gave up when I decided to fish under the little chest of drawers next to my part of the three seater settee.........BINGO! There it was! Sitting just under the curved bottom bit. I sighed such a big sigh of relief on locating it - think Andrew did too! Not sure HOW it managed to travel so far though.........that is the problem with little things. They are so tiny that they can travel quite a distance so you can never rule out anywhere when looking for them although within reason of course.
I thought I had nearly lost Sepp the rat too. She had been left perched on one of the steps of the bell tower but yes........I had also knocked her on to the floor. I had the usual photograph hassles too though with my fancy new camera still preferring to focus at the silliest place......ie.......the background. Never mind the fact that there is a doll virtually filling the lcd screen on the camera!

I thought I would again like to show you a couple of photos that didn't reach my new page. I particulalrly love them for their atmosphere but they may appear a bit too dark in some people's browsers in order to be included on the site. I took them using natural light which was late afternoon here by the time I had my poses set up.

This photo is the first one and it is of Rev Ken holding his baby daughter together with Miss Enid..... As you can see there is a bit of a cast on it so I did use Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 to do an automatic colour correction and the difference can be seen below.............

I am not sure which I like better........but in any case the difference is not that marked.

However I took this one again with Gracie and Miss Enid with natural light and long shutter speed together with a manual focus and the cast is more obvious..................

The correction as above achieved with Photoshop Elements 3 is also more marked too than with the previous photo. I think it comes down to preference WHICH is the "better" photo in each case. Thank goodness for photo editing software.
Incidentally have you noticed something else in this picture.........................Grace's dress and Miss Enid's blouse are both made out of the same material! It is a lovely antique material used by Jane Davies who made both dolls.

I am not sure if you all will have noticed but on our Games Afternoon page there is a digitally altered photo. Bet you can't guess WHICH one it is? Don't worry because I WILL tell you! It is the picture with Esther and Grace standing next to the altar. The shadow cast on the altar rail with the natural bulb looked very obvious and off-putting. You can see the orginal photo below!

See how bad that shadow of the altar rail is. I rectified it in my trusty Image Composer which came with my Frontpage 2000 software! I managed to rid the photo of that shadow by simply cloning part of the unaffected wall and spriting out part of Esther's skirt so there was no obvious join. I have used a similar techique to "repair" the duck beaks if the "broken now repaired" beaks look too bad on a photo.

If you check through my site you may spot some obvious digitally altered photos.............my last year's Palm Sunday has one example.........visit it and see if you can find it.

Well I best leave you all now because I am having "fun" with Expression Web 3 trying to migrate St. Hils from Frontpage 2000 into it. My ultimate desire is...............drop down menus along the top of every page for ease of reference to our visitors but I am still not quite "there"........but bear with me...........I WILL get there........well........sometime in the future with the aid of tutorial books and online tutorials and lessons showing me how to make use of CCS style sheets and more..........it WILL be done be assured!
Till the next time.

Already I am moving on to my next page and it is to be a................?

2010-01-05T20:45:00.010Z

Hiya Everyone!
I am back again..............and the answer to the title is.............."A Patronal Festival". As I think I shared with you a few weeks ago, I had completely forgotten about the fact that I DID have a patronal festival back in 2004, not long after I set the site up. The original idea for a patronal festival was something I ran past the now late Jan Craven, our dear and much missed friend. She really enabled me to set it up because she sent me an appropriate collect as well as opening sentence and, I am sure, readings too. I really HAD forgotten the readings until I found an archive copy of our website at that time when I rediscovered them.

You can see above a photo from the original page which has long been taken off the live site....it is of Tom reading one of the two lessons chosen. Poor boy was too short and had to stand on a table which can be quite precarious knowing all these dolls are made of porcelain...

I KNOW I showed you one from our old patronal festival page in a previous blog but couldnt' resist...... I actually took the picture from the outside - poking the camera lens through the gaps of the then open east window. I loved the view. However it is no longer possible now we have a proper stained glass window in it..........and some nice plain but attractive "glass" in all the other windows coutesy of Vic Newey.

The lectern has now been replaced by the brass eagle lectern made for us by John Cheal, a man of great talent who has also made us a processional cross, tea trolley, altar rail, paschal candle and pipe organ. I think that is all...............so far!

I am sure you all wonder WHY a tea trolley in a church? Well there IS a story behind our tea trolley. We used to attend Holy Trinity Church Coventry where Andrew was also the organist for nine years. They had this most WONDERFUL tea trolley complete with urn and everything and it was wheeled out for refreshments when required at the end of services. So it seemed the right and proper thing to do to have one in St. Hilary's too. I hunted high and low for the "tea trolley of my dreams" and almost gave up my search.......you see the only one I could find was a very unrealistic wooden thing with handles and two wheels and NOT the genuine article at all. It HAD to look like the one in Holy Trinity Coventry. John Cheal came to my rescue and together we sat and designed it and then I left him to complete the job.

You all can see it here where we used it for the first time (I think - so don't hold me to that if you find a page that is plainly earlier!) to serve tea and coffees at the coffee morning the vicar arranged to raise funds for the new church extention.

Oh dear...I DO digress! Before telling a little more of my current plans for the NEXT Patronal Festival I would love to share with you one more old photo from the first one......

I rather liked the idea of our two boys, Ben and Tom, singing a duet as above! I can't quite remember WHAT duet they were singing though. This is a slightly different view of course from the one included in the previous blog.

The first thing that always hits me when looking back at these old photos is........how poor they are...........the colour cast is ghastly too................................so in order to give you something a little more appealing to the eye.......as well as being a little bit of a tease.........I am including two photos taken only this evening using our daylight bulb.................these are to be included in our new Patronal Festival page........ DO click (right click and open in new window if you don't want to lose this page) on this photo below as it looks even better enlarged...........!

I won't give much away here but Robert Alexander is plainly having a conversation with baby Clarissa............wonder WHAT he is saying to her......and WHAT is she saying back? I will give you a clue but it probably won't give you much idea really..........................it concerns Clarissa's lovely warm rug............Robert Alexander SO wants it.....but what for? Notice that he has brought his pet dog, Georgie's dog bowl and food to church..............NOT sure that the vicar will be too happy when he sees that.........

Miss Enid has cause to call Ben over for a little chat too as you can see here.............wonder what she is saying to him? She is plainly just about to put her glasses on and Ben is holding a book....... Again.......you will all have to come back another time to find out...................... The actual day for St. Hilary of Poitiers patronal festival is 13th January..........as Jan told me those years ago. I would LOVE to tell you what the readings are but if I do some of you who have been visiting the site regularly may work out why Robert Alexander is asking Clarissa for her rug........AND being rather naughty trying to tug it from under her.......poor baby!

Just as a matter of interest...................my photo shoot tonight involved taking THIRTYTHREE photos in order to have the two above that look reasonable. That doesn't account for those I deleted on the camera straight away when I knew immediately how bad they were. HOW did we cope before digital photography? Just to show you the results I more often have to put up with see this below............

I gave up with this one and even put my hand in the way.... In fact I virtually DID give up with the Robert Alexander ones. EVERY time the camera would insist on blurring the foreground in favour of Miss End although even she is not really in much better focus..........arghhhhh and THAT was with the face recognition feature activated. Oh well.........guess that most digital cameras prefer full size real life faces so I am probably expecting a bit too much here but..........

I do still have to say that the quality of my photos are so much better though than those taken with our old Kyocera which only had a max of 4 megapixels............whilst our latest one has 14!

Well that is all for now folks.............
Till lthe next time.....

The children always remember their manners...........

2010-01-02T08:52:00.004Z

Hiya Everyone
Back again........and NO - I promise to avoid showing you any more of my bad house keeping and untidiness! I guess you have worked out that poor Rita really could NOT stand the ringing of the bells at midnight as it rang in the New Year of 2010 and she fled downstairs! Sensible lady as she is.

However Esther, the Sunday School teacher, has been reminding the children that they mustn't forget to write all of their thank you cards to those who were kind enough to give them Christmas presents.....including of course............................Father Christmas!

Whoops - got a bit carried away there...........................but anyway I have been having fun recreating my "thank you" and other general cards in 1/12 miniature so that the "children" too can have their own cards to write and send to friends and relatives................and..........Father Christmas!

You can see above the children writing their thank you cards........and see how proud Tom is that the vicar agreed for him to pose for a "thank you" card complete with a bunch of flowers as he stood at the church door. I guess he won't let the other children forget that by the looks of it.

I am so dying to put this photo on the home page........but will wait til next week as I don't want those less frequent visitors to miss out on the current one with our now famous "Gracie Cakes". Before I forget - I don't think I have properly explained how the "Gracie Cakes" came into being. You see........firstly I asked my sister Catherine of Dollshouse Heaven to make me some "fairy cakes" of the kind that were in her old Brownies book of years ago when she was a small Brownie! She so LOVED making those cakes in our younger days and I do remember how lovely they tasted too. We never found the recipe again. Catherine then suggested that they be called "Gracie Cakes" and again......I readily agreed it was a GREAT idea. Then a week or so later she emailed me asking me how I wanted them decorated on the top as she suggested she put icing on them etc. I had already had a brain wave.............and suggested to her........as they are CALLED "Gracie Cakes"......why not put a big "G" on the top of each and every one to tell everyone.
Catherine too thought it a brill idea and went with it...........after all......it solved her biggest problem. She then said that they looked more like "iced buns"............so on that one I could see another great storyline.................and again you may all see that I did touch on the issue of bullying but only in a very gentle and unthreatening way because, after all, the children in our church would NEVER knowingly bully ANY of their church friends. To them it was only a little tease and a joke...........but as we all know in the real world.....such things can really get out of hand...

I must nearly leave you all now as we always enjoy a short trip somewhere on Saturday morning..................sadly it always involves shops......wonder why? Before I go - I have been so thrilled with visitors' comments both via our guest book and via email...thank you all for your support. It is great to hear how often you all enjoy "popping in" to see how things are going in St. Hils..........
I am particularly grateful to be made aware of a "hale of bay" on our Harvest page....................however in my editing of it I also realised I had removed our greetings card with Adele and the seagulls so was able to amend that link too. I often can't keep up with my own alterations etc.................. I currently use Frontpage 2000 to edit and maintain St. Hils.......................but am trying to eventually use Expression Web 3 so I am in the process of rebuilding the site from "bottom up" via Expression Web 3 - for all those out there who are into web building........ Frontpage 2000 is great - but the shared borders is a nightmare and in the process of editing our havest page the borders (to those less technically minded - the common top and bottom of each page including photo/banner and collect at the bottom/copyright info etc) "fell off" on upload so I had to add them in manually.....
All is well again and borders have re-attached after a bit of a play about.........such is life.................
Best go.......am on the hunt for a simple and easy book on Expression Web 3 by Microsoft......wish me luck.....
Til the next time....

IS it coming to a Spring clean in St. Hils?

2009-12-29T22:47:00.003Z

I am not sure I SHOULD be showing you the photos below as they show me up at my worst when it comes to organisation and tidyness when it comes to all things St. Hils.......but hang...............think what you will.........here they are and I am NOT proud!
I was considering having a New Year photo using our bells and bell tower.............however I opened my bell tower door and realised rather quickly that a bit more than a bit of Spring cleaning and tidying was in order.............................as you can sadly see below...............

You see during my photo shoots I need a QUICK escape route for placing my "little things" that are "in the way" of the camera....................things that are annoying me by falling over like my processional cross.

However I guess the photo above is living proof of rather more..........ie............I am just TOO lazy to put things away properly and so my upper bell tower has become a repository for.........well lets see..............Frances of Buttercup Miniatures' Christmas pudding that I used in my Christmas day home page photo............a peach (made by my sister, Catherine of Dollshouse Heaven) which I found a few months ago under the altar long after we had set up and dismantled our harvest page......... some business cards picked up at the last Miniatura Show (I hang on to them so that I can credit the suppliers of my props on St. Hils)....the altar floral arrangement which has had some flowers pulled out so is not quite respectable to put BACK on the altar yet.......................some holly and ivy used during August/September for our Advent Calendar and Christmas pages..................baby Clarissa's Afghan blanket used by Robert Alexander for his shepherd photo in the Advent Calendar..................shall I go on? The towel, by the way, is a protection for both free range hand reared cockatiel and church............

Perhaps not.........but BEFORE I go on if you look hard at the above photo I have missed something off........or more accurately...........some ONE! It is none other than our lady of the road, Rita. I placed her up there because she told me she was finding it difficult to rest or have any peace at all when sitting in her usual place at the top of the stairs..............poor Rita.........she loves the children and the babies..........but sometimes it is nice to have some peace and quiet... So it crossed my mind that she may feature in a New Year front page photo up in the bell tower.................but then again she may not............after all bells are VERY noisy when ringing in the New Year! Oh well......we will see how she feels about that one when the time comes!

Oh dear....................I have strayed into fantasy land again.......sorry about that..............

I have to confess that I DO have a safe repository for nearly all of St. Hils more precious "little things" and that is actually a case which has special sponge pillows inside in order to protect the more delicate items..............as below..................

Oh dear..........yes you are right - it DOES look rather untidy as I have laid it out for you all to see.................At a glance I like to keep.......Percy Spider in his case and be assured he is actually in his own special box provided for him on purchase (from Tinytails Miniatures) as is our butterfly also provided by Tinytails Miniatures.............cleaning materials including a duster, feather duster, broom etc (cleaning never stops in St. Hils.......) Catherine's "Tudor carrot colour wheel" with sunflower in the middle....................and no......I think I will stop there as you have all got the general gist here!

I have to confess I also have a small chest of drawers too which is full of St. Hils props...............altar cloths and stoles for different liturgical seasons...............a couple of big margarine tubs filled again with so many different things.........Easter eggs and bunnies..............chicks.............stand up cross.........the list is endless here. It is a wonder there is room for anything else in our lounge to be honest!

My collection of props just keeps growing as you can all imagine.................the latest being........"Gracie Cakes" and my board games................and speaking of "Gracie Cakes" you all may like to know that I have put the photo below on the home page together link to a downloadable card/notelet with the photo on......

I am particularly loving this new card I created today.........................."G" for "Gracie" works so well when you use "Gracie Cakes".........................hope you like it too........................amazing how creative I felt with these "Gracie Cakes"..............

I am off now..................tomorrow we visit my mother in law. I am taking her the photos and story taken from our new page on Gracie, GP and Prince.......................she is my number one fan!

Till the next time........
PS I have a small apology to make to our visitors........some of the new downloadable cards may not have had a full border around the picture when printed out..............so I have edited and re-uploaded all affected and also have managed to reduce the byte size too for ease of download...................sorry about that folks..................I could have kicked myself when I noticed it today...............

A Good Christmas and New Year to all of our visitors to St. Hils and more.

2009-12-25T09:58:00.003Z

Hiya Everyone
Firstly - as it is Christmas morning here in the UK I want to wish you all a happy and blessed Christmas and New Year as do ALL at St. Hilary's!

I also thought I would share a few things I have been doing over the last few days alongside one small calamity which looks like it won't ever be resolved courtesy the thick pile on our carpet upon which the dining table with miniature church stands.............but such is life and no point crying over spilt milk is there?

I have been busy pulling together the various photos (and taking a few more too!) taken of our "children" playing various board games over the last few weeks with the aim of creating a Games Afternoon page which introduces Gracie, GP and Prince to St. Hils formally for the first time. As I checked the adhoc photos taken........ie children playing snakes and ladders.........chess................solitaire...........dominoes etc......I quickly realised that the back drop and props were sometimes completely different so I knew it was impossible to palm it all off as a "one day event" as it were. So you will see that we have put it online as a series of events and "one off" occasions instead where Gracie may or may not be there at the time. I hope you all enjoy the new page!

I have deliberately NOT given too much away about Prince...........and have yet to work out HOW he was found roaming and wandering in and out of church...........especially as he is NOT a stray........but I have made sure you all aware that he IS an ex-guide dog and has been taken in by Rev Ken and family. However an "ex-guide dog" he HAS to have some kind of history inorder to explain WHY he didn't quite "make the grade". I DO have in mind the main reason..........but it will become apparent as time moves on.

I must share with you here a photo which didn't quite make it to the new page itself....unyet I really LOVE it. I took it using just natural light during yesterday and with my Canon 980 Ixus on a stand, image stabiliser turned off, on manual mode, ISO 200 and long shutter speed determined by the camera's intellect and not mine! I also had the ten second timer on too in order to eliminate camera shake....

I think it looks really good - AND crystal clear even on the full size version which is not seen here for obvious reasons! I felt it was TOO dark to entertain on the page itself but for some reason or other it gives such atmosphere too....................................hope you all agree with me there! Note that "Christmas cards" are still being advertised behind the children! I did pull that leaflet off in later photos however. I tell you - so many "faux pas" on this new page and this is one of them! However I still hope that it works for all our visitors even so..........

Before moving on from "faux pas", I was most indignant when I accidentally flicked a small black draught off the board whilst trying to slide it into place with a miniature candle! You would THINK that a miniature candle would be a better tool for this delicate job than a clumsy finger of mine.......WRONG! That was after the umteenth attempt which, when finally accomplished each time, was scoobered AGAIN by a botched attempt by myself to add another prop to the scene to give added interest but only succeding in knocking something else over........booooooooooooooooo

You all may also have noticed that I have also completed a clean sweep on our Downloads page where you will find that ALL the old "general" cards have been deleted but, in their place, are six brand new ones which I spent time yesterday creating alongside two New Year cards too.
Hope you all like the new selection.......

Anyway...................I better leave you all in peace as we plan to arrive in time for a Christmas morning service at our church for 10.30 and Andrew will soon be running upstairs to see what I am up to....................poor chap..........
Till the next time.

A short one from me today..........to share a photo I took when my sister came around...

2009-12-22T21:30:00.006Z

Hiya Everyone!
You will be pleased to know I have my mitts on some new props for St. Hils..........I will not share them with you quite yet although some who have read my previous blogs may well work out what at least one set of items are but I am giving no clues here unless, of course, you fancy back tracking my blogs and see if you CAN work it out...........
My sister, Catherine, came around today as we exchanged our usual presents etc and she brought some of her latest work to show off to me. Of course I have seen it already on her website ie Dollshouse Heaven and in an email attachment but today I was able to see them in the flesh as it were.....

I decided it would be fun to pose this ceramic basket with flowers in St. Hils using a couple of my "children" as models................as you can see above Adele, again, has won the task after begging the others to let her be THE one to hold the basket..........................such a media girl as she is...... Robert Alexander is so intrigued to see these flowers too he can hardly take his eyes off them...........and Eric (father to Ernest) is also fascinated and thinks the flowers smell really lovely...... If you want to find out more about this beautiful ceramic basket and flowers visit Catherine's Flowers page where she is selling this one and another one with a lemon basket.

I have quite a bit of work to do now of course.................I plan a new photo for the front page of our site to coincide with Christmas but I am not letting you know yet what it is................you will have to visit on Christmas Day to find out. Also...........I need to regress my age (oh if that were REALLY possible! and if it were - would I really want to regress this far..........21 will be fine) and try to think like a seven year old in order to complete a little job...............and it involved crayons, a tin and some drawing ........oh and yes.......some paper to write on of course................wish me luck.....................

I will be back............after I have played with a few more photo shots inside St. Hils....................well of course.....
Tlil the next time.....
PS NO apple and custard doughnuts in Marks and Spencers today - booooooo.............the label was on the shelf but there were some OTHER kinds of doughnuts on there.................NOT the ticket at all...............................such cruel deception for someone such as myself who had been looking forward to this moment all morning whilst at work........

ANOTHER Calendar calamity........this time discovered whilst doing a spot of personalisation......

2009-12-20T13:16:00.006Z

Hiya Everyone!
You know.............gremlins have been playing inside my computer again...............they seem to particularly love MS Word for some strange reason and the most recent one is...............Advent SUNDAY was suddenly on the following Monday - what is that about? I can assure you all that I have immediately set to and amended the downloadable calendar affected so those who have already downloaded version 1 please feel free to download it again here as it IS perfect as far as I know.....until someone tells me different of course................The version 2 which prints a photo and calendar per page is unaffected which again begs the question - HOW did the first version go so astray?
However if anyone HAS noticed this mistake before me...................be assured only GOD is perfect as I have said before.................it is my excuse and I am sticking to it! So folks if anyone has given anyone a copy of this calendar in good faith you have your answer if the question is raised...........................

I expect you are all wondering HOW I found out about my latest calendar calamity? Well it all stems from a little exercise that I had in mind and that was to print out a couple of personalised copies of the calendar for a couple of my work colleagues who each have various pets.

You may remember that our new "girl on the block, Gracie, (as above!) has her very own pet guinea pig called "GP". "GP", is named after a REAL guinea pig who is owned by a friend and work colleague. It seemed a great idea to see if we could add the real "GP" to some of our calendar photos so that he too has visited our church...................so in that task I have created a special personalised calendar for my work friend which includes not only her pet, GP, but also her wirehaired dachshund, Klaus, who is still a puppy but has already won a prize or certificate in dog shows this year.

See above that I have also added our adorable hand reared pied cockatiel to the strange mix although I am not at all sure if Klaus would really appreciate having a hat named Pebbles! GP, ie the REAL one,.....IS here......he is hiding behind Ambrose' trousers...............he is just having a little nibble of some greenery he found in the churchyard.........

I am dying to share something else with you too with regards to our Gracie.........but that will have to wait til I have more to tell and show you......................so instead I just want to share a little more with you about our rather different Christmas carol which I chose for today on our Advent Calendar (ie Sunday 20th December).

During the Summer I was canvassing far and wide for ideas for carols for inclusion on the calendar and so it felt SO right to be as international as our church congregation and clergy........hence a German and French carol for starters......although yes - I know we have, as yet, NO French person, but who knows what the future may bring.............
I was particularly keen to have something Australian because, after all, our vicar and "lady of the road, Rita, were both made by Rachel Fritz, an Australian friend of ours. So when another Australian friend suggested "Christmas in the Shrub" and emailed me the words I was, at once, most intrigued by it........my imagination ran riot imagining wallabies, wombats and kangaroos to mention a few hopping about INSIDE St. Hils................................. Copyright was the immediate concern but I had no reason to worry as our friend knew Leigh Newton, who wrote the carol, and was able to ask on our behalf and it was gladly granted on the provision that a link was provided to their website where visitors can actually buy a CD with the carol on. We urge you all to give the site a visit and let them know how you found them...........plug plug!

I will try to resist letting you in to my latest excited secret for St. Hils in the New Year.............all I can say is it involves our Gracie in a big way.............and, instead, leave with another photo which I personalised for GP (the real one!) and his family's St. Hils Calendar for 2010...........enjoy!

Til the next time...................which may not be too long at all as I am too excited to let you hang on for too long waiting here.............

PS If you can't see GP so well above in the wheel barrow......here he is sporting his very own Christmas hat .....isn't he SO cute.........almost as cute as Gracie's pet, GP!

PPS...........added at 17:36 GMT Sunday..........just had an horrific afternoon..........came upstairs this afternoon to find PC was switched off and dead as a dodo.............Andrew changed the fuse......we switched the power supply but nothing...........so up to PC World where an angel in the form of a tech support guy took the machine off us, opened it up before our eyes, proclaimed it needed a new power unit and proceeded to do the job for us...........then he found that the processor's fan was bust so replaced that in the nick of time because we were in danger of burning the processor out. Talk about "God's timing" being perfect...........if the power supply had not broken we would have lost our processor completely..........
We were panicking because we had backed up - but not in the last few days..........and uploading my daily Calendar is a MUST as I don't want to let you all down who visit each day faithfully.....

Continuing memory lane.............this time remembering Emily's story.......

2009-12-16T19:23:00.011Z

Hiya Everyone!
Firstly I hope you liked young Robert Alexander posing as a shepherd on today's Advent Calendar page! Poor Georgie and baby Clarissa though..............................

I have been reminiscing..........with particular emphasis on the dolls that came from my mother's Welsh display cabinet in order to live in St. Hils. There is one in particular who has a special place and that is Emily! Emily, I feel, had quite a life BEFORE she came to St. Hils. To explain....................my sister, Catherine, of Dollshouse Heaven used to love sitting Emily in her corner shop. This is not any old shop but actually a hardware shop. You can see it in its full glory here...................

Catherine, if I am correct, modelled it on a similar scene she had seen at the Black Country Living Museum. She is very keen on social history and it has very much fed her interest in miniatures as she attempts to recreate scenes from the past. It is Catherine who made me aware that carrots in Tudor times were PURPLE and not orange and she even provided me with a purple carrot colour wheel for one of my Harvest Festival pages in order to add a unique splash to the occasion.

Sadly you can't see the stool that Emily sat on whilst she was living there. For anyone wondering.........yes..........Catherine DID place ALL those wooden boards on the wall individually!

So far Catherine has created a war time cafe just after a bomb has struck and an up and coming idea is an Andersen shelter.....again an idea taken from the Black Country Living Museum.

This shop, which has a living room upstairs, was one of Catherine's earlier projects. The upstairs living room is permanently set up for Christmas..........with paper chains, presents around the fireplace ........festive food made especially for the occasion by Catherine herself...........Our late mother, Hilary, REFUSED to let Catherine EVER take the Christmas decorations down whilst she was alive so even to this day............the upper room in the corner shop is all ready for Christmas Day....................... Although on that issue I have a small confession because Catherine allowed me to raid it in order to put my Advent Calendar together.....so many of the extra presents on some of our Advent Calendar pages are courtesy of Catherine's corner shop.......thanks Catherine!

You can see the upper living room below on the day I "borrowed" some presents....oh yes AND a couple of Christmas cards you also see on my Advent Calendar..................but BEFORE I vandalised it.............Note also the Tudor style wooden beams in the ceiling........all executed by Catherine herself MOST ably....

Catherine even wrote a story around Emily and the corner shop too...............and it is Catherine who named her..........well of course. It is also Catherine who spelt out her character to me and I can almost quote her here as she told me, when she passed her over to me....... that Emily "is a complete tomboy who, when not attending church, would rather be up a tree!" We both liked that idea for Emily because it explained away something rather unfortunate..........................................see below for the worst case scenario when photographing poor Emily............and before you ask - I have NO idea how things got to this stage of untidiness.............

As you can well imagine - this photo, which was taken for the page featuring the children completing a lesson by Miss Lorna Webb on the topic of Pentecost,...........NEVER saw the light of day..............well ...until today of course!

As you all will have gathered......the issue of her awful untidy hair was no issue to me at all.......it just added more fun to the story............talk about the poor girl having been dragged through a bush backwards.....Emily certainly qualified for that one poor girl!

However as with all things.............life NEVER stands till and so it was that one day whilst posing Emily the inevitable happened and horror or horrors.........I dropped her and by some awful accident she lost half of one of her legs. Now I KNOW that I make great play of how accidents give birth to new storylines......but after this particular accident I was completely at sea......after all HOW do we pose Emily with only half of one leg?
All was well after a word with Jane Davies, who made Emily originally. She agreed to take poor Emily back to her home and, because she no longer used the kind of body Emily had, gave her a NEW body. However Emily not only was bestowed with a new body......but a NEW hairstyle too..................see how she looked on her return.......and imagine the surprise of her Sunday School friends when they saw their pal looking SO tidy with her hair all brushed and with a ribbon.......

It is quite a while now since the above photo has seen the light of day on St. Hils website................but with so much going on I have to make hard decisions from time to time as to what to keep and what to delete.......and as it gets bigger the decisions get bigger..................

I love here how you can almost immediately see that Emily has not changed one bit because the jar of tadpoles is rather tell tale isn't it? So she is STILL a tomboy, albeit a "tidy" one (for now?!), as she shows off her newly caught tadpoles to her friend, Priscilla Jane! Again no prizes for guessing who made the tadpoles (some still for sale on her website...) ........well my sister Catherine of course.....

Well - that is all for now.....................but DO remember to keep checking out our Advent Calendar as each day unfolds.............there are still a few surprises to come too............................cos the children and congregation have been pretty creative this year with their Advent calendar......................
Till the next time

I hope you are all enjoying our Advent Calendar.....

2009-12-11T16:02:00.016Z

Hiya Everyone!
I hope you are all enjoying our Advent Calendar! I have to say it has been quite interesting for ME too and I will tell you why. You see as some of you will know I put the calendar together back in August/September so I seriously have NO idea what is on each page anymore until I check it over and upload it. Every day it has become exciting as I check out what is in store for tomorrow.................(is that called a "senior moment?)

You will have noticed that I have tried to have a balance of "old and new". The children have walked down memory lane and insisted on including some old favourite photos of times remembered in St. Hils.....as well as enjoying new photos being taken of them too............

The church started off life as a glorified room box in all reality. I can honestly say that, when I check over the old photos of the church before the extension, I am truly amazed HOW I managed to make so much out of it in terms of furniture rearranging, liturgical changes required for each church season..........and most of all the stories I came up with.
And so.......(yes - I KNOW it is not grammatically correct to start a sentence with an "and"......lol!) I fancied taking you on a trip down St. Hils' memory lane.......................

I have had to delve into my archive here to show you some really OLD photos...............

This photo (as above) is how the church looked after we had our original delivery of furniture from Sharon and Mark Stockton of Stockton Miniatures in the USA... This WAS the very first Christmas scene we ever set up in St. Hils too.

Poppy (seen here on her very first Christmas in St. Hils!) was our very first member of the Sunday School and she was shortly joined by Clarissa Elizabeth, her baby sister.............. Poor Poppy and baby Clarissa because, to begin with, they were effectively orphans.......as we had yet to work out WHO their parents would be. We still haven't introduced their mother and if she IS mentioned she has no name. Fortunately for us her father soon turned up as the curate, Rev Ken!

I MUST share a treasure I received in the post yesterday. You all may remember me mentioning the passing away of my dear friend, Jan Craven back in October? She was a great supporter of St. Hils of course and inspired me to keep the weekly collect taken from Common Worship on the website week by week.
Rob, her husband, sent me the latest Holy Trinity Church Stratford upon Avon's magazine which had THE most wonderful tribute to her...........photos, a summary of her life as well as tributes from friends and family.
And so......................this took me back to quite a few years ago when it was Jan herself who suggested we had a patronal festival in St. Hils. THANK YOU Rob if you are reading this!

However CAN you believe it cos I genuinely forgotten that St. Hils celebrated their patronal festival til today whilst perusing old archive photos. St. Hilary was a man of great faith....................and in his faith I think not just of my mother who originally inspired me to have him as our patron saint but also now of Jan too!

You can all see above our two boys, Ben and Tom, singing a duet at the patronal festival as Poppy and the other children listened! We are not sure that Poppy looks VERY impressed does she?

Apologies for the appalling ruddy/red cast on the photo but that sadly was the standard of my photography in those days courtesy of my very first digital camera, a Kyocera. (4 meg!) I look back and wonder HOW such poor photography in what was, in essence, a room box masquerading as an old village parish church, attracted the visitors it did. Our guest book archive bears witness to this though as we have guest book entries dating right back to December 2003 which was only a few weeks after my dear mother died.

Returning to the matter of a patronal festival. It will be NO surprise to you that it was Jan who found and emailed me the collect for St. Hilary's day too. In fact it falls in January and so I am tentatively considering another special patronal festival this coming January and, although I am not going to make a great announcement of the fact, in my heart it will be done in her memory as it was HER idea after all!

I have NO idea WHAT our story line/s will be............and you will be interested to know I often don't! I set the dolls up in various poses after having a few rough ideas......................and sometimes mistakes and accidents occur which add an interesting twist to the story....................... I particularly remember one storyline currently on the website which was completely accidental..................it involved Robert Alexander whom I had posed sitting near the altar rail. Unfortunately he fell over slightly and ended up resting his head on the altar rail.

You can read more of the story on our website Blessing of the Altar Rail page........... I decided he fell asleep as his eyes are set to appear to be looking down slightly so lending themselves neatly to the storyline..........

DO keep coming back day by day to see what other photos the children have posed for and chosen for each day..................I particularly LOVE a couple of photos where the children insisted on dressing up for the occasion and posing as........................?...and a ...................?

Til the next time

PS. Andrew did so well playing for his father's thanksgiving service this Tuesday gone. We have Jan to thank here too.........you see we loved the way that the committal was also done as part her church thanksgiving service last month and thought it would work well for Dad's thanksgiving service.too. It worked so well as it enabled all who came to share in the whole service whilst the family were released to attend the many who came to bid Dad farewell.............as we shared together in the church hall afterwards over light refreshments etc........

Of Christmas and other card killer mistakes.............all mine of course!

2009-12-06T21:31:00.001Z

Hiya Folks
I have to share with you my latest faux pas. Sadly it was pointed out to me only a short time ago by one our visitors and I am very grateful to them for it too.................................here is the worst below........see if you can spot the problem.........

Um...............HOW did I miss that one pray?..................worrying times me thinks if my sight is failing THIS badly! Poor Alice................she has no mention at all .........and WHERE is Homer in all of this Christmas morning activity......?

Also..............poor Miss Enid has been wearing "oran shoes" for a long time too.............and I never noticed! Poor Miss Enid! However be assured these two and other mistakes pointed out to me today have been duly corrected. She is now wearing proper "organ shoes" again!
I apologise to all those out there who have been disappointed as a result of my poor workmanship!

Seriously..........I really rely on all of you out there to be let me know if you spot anything amiss on the site. It has grown so big (my stats state over 500 urls now!) that it has almost become TOO big for me to keep complete control of....................but I still LOVE it of course and will continue to add and edit it as my storylines develop and change..................

Just noticed another "faux pas" and it is on our Advent Calendar Day 7....................anyone spot it? I will give ONE clue and it concerns Rev Ken.........

Work tomorrow.....................and a sad day on Tuesday as it is my father in law's funeral day and Andrew is to play for the funeral....................... Mum is a great supporter of St. Hils though and that has helped cheer her spirits just a little even in this, her darkest hour............

Lets hope Adele's popularity in the media doesn't go to her head!

2009-12-04T15:05:00.005Z

Hiya Everyone!
I am back again and much happier too now we can edit and upload our changes to St. Hils after the technical support team resolved the problem so quickly! I had an email from them when I arrived home to say the problem was resolved............and sure enough it was!
Enough of that and on to the real business of the day and that concerns our young star, Adele! I am a tad worried about her and I will explain why.
You all may remember how Christiane, the editor of The Dollshouse Magazine, gave our new Advent Calendar a little plug in the December edition? Well for those who haven't seen it.......the star of the show on that occasion was...........Adele! She even remembers the picture being taken of her standing on a chair decorating the church Christmas tree last year. When she saw herself in the December edition she wasted NO time telling everyone at church too!

Imagine her surprise when she saw the January edition..............and who's photo did she see in this magazine?...............no surprises for guessing.........HERS of course! There she was actually TALKING to Christiane at the Miniatura Show back in October when she went with Ben, Tom and Esther! Do pay a visit to our Miniatura Visit page and see how they all did if you haven't already done so.

Adele wasted NO time did she?.................she HAD to spread the news of her newly found fame to all her Sunday School friends...................and here you can see her telling Robert Alexander ALL about it.............

I am not sure how interested Robert Alexander is though............I think he looks ready to give a big yawn........and who can blame him because she has even decided to bring her Miniatura brochure to church to remind people............

Oops - again a stray into fantasy land......................................However I thought that you all deserved something more positive after reading my whinging about uploading problems...............................

I leave you with Georgie, Prince and Eric having a little chat.......................ummmmmm..............I feel THEY look a tad bored with Adele................because she is plainly droning on.........and on.............and on...........about her new fame after finding her latest media appearance in The Dollshouse Magazine January 2010 edition...........................lets just hope it doesn't go to her head!

Til the next time...........

Problems on our Advent Calendar are now RESOLVED - HOORAY!

2009-12-04T06:39:00.001Z

Hiya Folks
Just to tell you that all is back to normal now and our Advent Calendar is now up and running WITH Day 4!
Thanks for all of your patience folks!
I will be blogging again later on today so keep checking this out.................won't let you know what it is about til later though just to keep you all guessing.......
Til the next time!
Sx

Spot the deliberate mistake......................just goes to show how you forget......

2009-11-28T09:08:00.004Z

Hiya again everyone!
Just a quick short blog today because I have just realised that I have made another "faux pas"! You see as you may all remember, I created our Advent Calendar 2009 back in August this year. So imagine my surprise when I decided to let all our visitors have a sneak preview of Day 1 because it IS Advent Sunday on 29th November and therefore officially Adventide!

Check it out Day 1 for yourself and see if you can see a discrepanacy here............the clue being.........the altar cloth colour! I get SO cross with myself when I find out my forward planning or memory lets me down.....and let me down it HAS! However am I going to change it..................nahhhhhh I refer you all back to my earlier comments about eccliastical embroidery..........ie...................tradition has it that there is always ONE mistake ........because only God is perfect. So.......I rest my case!

So please excuse the fact that we have used the more traditional PURPLE on our Advent Calendar Day 1 page whilst changing it to BLUE on our home page in order to celebrate the arrival of Advent in St. Hils. Anyway.......................... they are BOTH "colours of Christmas" and equally valid..............

On another front Andrew has a "little confession" to me yesterday morning before he went to work. He had a little "accident" and knocked one of my little dollshouse chairs on to the floor. It was standing on the little cabinet next to where I sit in our lounge and he brushed past it when he was busy renewing the bird bath outside. The chair lost one of the bars between two of the legs so Andrew used our good and trusty wood glue. He showed me the result................and to be honest he could have got away with that one if he had not told as I would NEVER have realised......................but also..............I was the daft one leaving it outside the church and "vulnerable" to such accidents.......................................

Till the next time
PS Andrew saw a little robin going to the smaller of our two hanging feeders............an interesting observation as we always considered a robin to be a ground feeder...........but perhaps THIS robin has never read the book?

Of Advent wreaths and photographic faux pas........

2009-11-26T16:54:00.008Z

Hiya All
I am back again and this time it is courtesy of Frances from Buttercup Miniatures. All I had said was that I loved her newly crocheted/designed Advent wreath and I received one in the post! You see as you will all have now gathered.....I am always looking fowards with St. Hils......ie WHAT shall we do NEXT year for Advent........Christmas.................Mothering Sunday..............the list goes on. I am always so keen that each year I do something just a "little different" from the year before so any ideas from my friends and St. Hils supporters are all warmly received. So please DO feel free to let me know if you have any ideas for any of our future pages and I can asure you that I fully credit all contributions on my site.

So for NEXT year this lovely green crocheted Advent wreath will be my "little difference" when the children celebrate Advent.

No prizes for working out WHO is in this photo below posing with the said wreath and it is..........

Gracie! Well of course! The wreath is made to either sit on a table or to be hung up. Of course the white candles can be ANY colour but I actually very much love them as a plain white. No photo is complete without at least ONE pet or member of the local wildlife so you cannot be surprised to see both Tinker the black cat and Syd the pigeon who is one of Homer's two pets who arrived with him when he came from Germany. You will see that I have also borrowed a candlestick and white candle from the altar! It is a good thing that I can "borrow" items within the church because nobody will ever see that the altar is temporarily mssing one candlestick and candle! I HAD to add the candlestick with said candle in order to complete the Advent wreath...................and I think it looks quite good already!
I did have one devil of a job though trying to get our Grace to stand up. It is great that she has got 14 joints but that becomes a nightmare when trying to stand her up as I have mentioned before on account of the joints at the knees and hips springing back and forcing her back into a kind of sitting position again.....arghhhhhhh However we got there in the end.............as I am not one to give up that easily.

As per usual I was not happy to keep things that simple. So I thought it would be a great idea to use some holly with berries which Catherine, my sister, of Dollshouse Heaven, let me borrow a couple of years ago now. For some reason I STILL have it!

So here you can see Tom has arrived and he thought it a great idea to use this holly as you can see..............

Gracie was NOT going to be out done here so she too decided to add some more holly with berries to the wreath to make it look pretty.............doesn't it look good now? See a close up here for better detail of the wreath.............

You have now seen the best of the photos taken late this afternoon before the light became too low and dingy. However I took one photo which I felt was not quite "good enough"..........see below if you can spot why?

It is poor Tom! I KNOW that boys can be a bit slap dash when dressing and making sure they always look decent but this is NOT a good show is it? Tom's trousers have been the bane of my life for years! I pose him in what I think is a perfect pose. However when I check the photos on the computer a little later I am so annoyed because I missed the salient point of his trousers not being properly arranged! I am sure that I can find a story for this but for once I really would rather not!
So I had to retake the photo as you can see further up. Sadly the light was not quite so good outside by that point though.

Now on a not completely different subject I must share with you the commission I have given my sister, Catherine of Dollshouse Heaven to make for me............ie.........fairy cakes to be brought to church by our Gracie! Catherine was chatting to me yesterday about these said little cakes and she thought that we should re-name them "Gracie Cakes"! What a GREAT idea! Gracie makes them of course so perhaps, just perhaps, she has a secret recipe for them which she will refuse to share with the children when asked.
Catherine has also emailed today and this is what she had to say..."Hi Sarah - I've had an idea for a theme for the Gracie Cakes - how about iced sponge drops with different sweets/chocolates on top? Just a thought."

.....And so...........I have thought............and I think my sister's idea is a brilliant one! Catherine is also going to let me borrow a plain miniature cake tin too for Gracie to bring her cakes to church. This gives Gracie scope to decorate the tin herself. I am sure I can see her making her own little notice to stick to the tin in order to advertise her home made and original recipe "Gracie Cakes" to the other church Sunday School children.

Well folks that is all for now. Don't forget to check out St. Hils in the next few days when our new Christmas page will be online alongside our daily Advent Calendar................................

Till the next time..........
PS - Andrew must think we will drown in Marks and Spencers "French Apple Tarts" as they are called in their bakery as well as their chilled apple and custard doughnuts. You see - I saw some of both yesterday and today and went mad......................I daren't tell you HOW many of those yummy doughnuts are in our fridge at the moment...........if we aren't careful we will be having them for dinner........... So if it is famine tomorrow I am all prepared...................talk about a siege like mentality .....lol

How to have a flame in St. Hils without burning the church down.......

2009-11-22T17:52:00.019Z

Hiya All!
Just thought you would all be interested to know that I have had "fun" this afternoon. You see.........as it is Advent Sunday next Sunday I was keen to have one of our "children" given the responsibility of lighting the first candle on our candelabra Most churches have an Advent candelabra in the shape of a wreath with four candles and one higher/taller in the middle. Each of the four candles represents a Sunday in Advent so every Sunday sees the next candle lit until the middle candle is lit on Christmas day to signify the birth of Christ.

I have to confess we do NOT have a proper Advent candelabra. However we do have one which fortunately has five candles although in a straight line. We have to thank Stockton Miniatures in the USA for this candelabra and many other of our pieces of church furniture which are all made out of black walnut. We particularly love our altar as Mark Stockton has carved "In remembrance of me" along the front. We would NEVER cover those beautifully carved words up. All our altar cloths are made by me. They are VERY simple as I use a linen band which is just the right width for the altar and then embroider a hardanager cross on each side. This way it leaves the words at the front of the altar exposed .......just as we want!

I STILL use an old gif animator programme from Ulead as it works well. See below how Ambrose is doing holding the candle lighter/snuffer (again from Stockton Miniatures!) as he tries to light the first candle on our candelabra...........(note that sadly the animation does not work on this blog......boo.............sorry about that folks but check it out next week when it is "in situ" on St. Hils.......it WILL work then!)

I think he is doing quite well don't you?..........AND we won't have a fire in the church either! I do enjoy a spot of digital trickery. A couple of years ago I enabled my butterfly from Tinytails Miniatures to "fly" across to a floral display after Alice brought it into church. WHAT did we do before we had digital photography? I can only imagine the pain I would have had taking endless photos using film.........waiting for the joy of them to be developed............................and the pain of having to discard so many with the prospect of not even one being suitable for a new storyline. I think I will go as far as to say............WITHOUT digital photography St. Hils may never have happened! I took my first St. Hils photos with a Kyacera 4meg digital compact camera. The photos were fine although they always had a bit of a red hue to them. When you check out some of our older pages (take a few links from our Parish Records page) you will see what I mean. However I have "corrected" many of them so that the red hue is not so noticeable although, sadly, some photos really don't lend themselves so well to such correction. I subsequently bought a Canon Ixus 750 which served me pretty well up to this year. The only problem I had with it was...........getting it to focus on the doll/s in question successfully. Too often it would decide that the wall at the BACK was the subject.........arghhhhhhh.............or some piece of furniture. I often felt like tearing my hair out!

I bought the Ixus 980 in August whilst we visited my parents in law because it does so much better. It has as near a manual control that any digital compact camera can ever have. It is so brillaint I can have a very long shutter speed and have the focus JUST where I want it. It even takes a credible photo with no flash in very low evening light. Enough of my eulogising over my new gadget!

Ah.........where WAS I? Oh yes - back to my Advent Sunday ideas for next week............
Esther too has been busy. I have always used the most usual and traditional colour of purple for both our altar and stoles for the clergy during Advent. However this year I decided to have a change. You see..........some churches choose to use blue. Blue is also a "colour of Christmas" and represents royalty and therefore the birth of a king! How appropriate! So Esther has made the church a new altar cloth with a blue hardanager cross and here she is inspecting her handywork in situ on the altar............... Dear Bardsley, the bishop's dog, is hiding under the altar..................bet he has had a sneaky little snooze whilst nobody has been looking!

Oops........................another wander into fantasy land.........................................and no, Esther did NOT really make that cloth.....I did, as I said earlier! I have to confess I have such a stock of craft stuff.....linens.....aida........silks.........cotton threads.....silk threads.....................craft cards......double sided cards.............................tissue papers..................card of various colours........wools for crochet/knitting.....YOU name it - I have it!
My stock of craft and embroidery materials often provides unexpected solutions.......................during August I was actually working on my Advent Calendar and I needed to turn three of my boys into kings for a pose.......................and I had NO idea what to use. I played with various materials at my disposal with no luck....until I found that, some years back, I had bought some beautiful gold crepe paper! I cannot even remember buying it let alone having it. As they say..............amazing what discoveries you find in your own house. You will all have to check out the Advent Calendar day by day during December though to see my "three kings" pose.....................but I have to say I am very chuffed with it needless to say..........

Anyway - check out St. Hils home page by the end of this week to see how St. Hils marks the arrival of Advent and, indeed, the church's New Year................

Till the next time
PS: We had a "feast" in Marks and Spencers on Friday.....so much so I overdosed and purchased FOUR packets of apple and custard doughnuts - two in each which works perfectly for me and Andrew.......yummy! And now time for our Sunday evening traditional of ...........egg on toast!

Another "haccident..............oh well..........good job there is such a thing as wood glue in our house......

2009-11-19T17:32:00.005Z

Hiya again folks!
Am back again to report on my latest little photo shoot...........which resulted in a little accident! I have ALWAYS been a tad accident prone due to the "clumsy gene" I am sure I have inherited from my paternal grandmother. My father used to moan about how clumsy poor Nan was................and I sense I have the same problem.............so if it is a "clumsy gene"..........it is then.............NOT MY FAULT is it lol?!

Well that is MY excuse and I am sticking to it!

I have to thank Dave Tayler for my lovely display unit (to the left) seen in the photo below.

You see.................I have ALWAYS wanted a suitable display unit for my parish magazines, church guides, cards...........and well...........anything that most churches sell at the back of thier churches. So we were all at one of the six monthly Miniatura shows at the Birmingham NEC one year and I happen upon something that fitted the bill but the trouble was.....................it had things STUCK in it! Don't these people understand that we miniaturists need room for our OWN imagination here?! Why can't they make a little display unit that has blank shelves for the things WE want to put in...................? I can only suppose that many people who buy these kind of things are happy with the stuck in comics/,magazines etc...................but for me and, I am sure, for many others like me, it is just not enough.

I am sure you want to see the new notice that Adele was holding in its full glory so here, below it is "in situ"on the display unit where it is advertising the new Christmas cards for sale to the congregation Lets hope they all love them and buy some so that more money is raised for church funds! We had a leak in the roof last Palm Sunday if you all remember and fortunately there was just enough in the bank to pay for a swift repair .........in time for Easter Day!

Adele is now going to stack some of the new Christmas cards that have arrived back from the printer here..........and there is a space cleared for them too as you can see............

Ben has come along to help too of course as he is a very helpful young man........however.......he is a bit of a show off at times and I think he may quite like Adele ..............secretly of course..........so don't let on to her will you?

Oops...........again a stray into fantasy land............but to be honest I don't think it is a bad place to be really do you?
As to the "accident"............well as I was lifiting the little display unit off, the stand fell off as it is only held by a peg which can be pushed up to enable the unit to sit on a table as Dave meant it to as an alternative to the stand.............therefore giving me more flexibility in its use which is very thoughful of him. However one of the four "parts of the bottom broke off........arghhhhhhhhhhhh However all was not lost as it was easy to find.....unlike, of course, the tiny end bits of both Esme and Ernest's beaks when they broke off. And so...........all was soon well again and the repair with the help of a little wood glue of Andrew's is not even noticeable..........................

I have not quite finished this story however........................at least one more photo to take which will have to wait til tomorrow afternoon when I am home from work. I love working part time.........................more time for my miniatures.............VERY important...........................and in fact even......MORE important to me than my.........WORK! However................I always have to remember..........work pays for my miniatures.....................
Till the next time.......
PS Ongoing custard and apple doughnut saga in M&S - ever since they have raised the prices the glut that was there when they were just 99p a pack of two has become a virtual famine now they have increased to £1.19 and so today...........there none there.........AGAIN.....grrrrrrrrrrrrr!

The children are putting together St. Hils 2010 Calendar in their OWN way!

2009-11-18T19:29:00.001Z

Dear All

I am back again...........and yes I have been VERY busy. I have had fun making up some miniature 1/12 scale version of our church calendar..........or should I say that "the children have"!? I do have to thank Frances of Buttercup Miniatures for letting me borrow her WYSIWYG way of creating one "mini style". She used this method last year and I thought it a great way of making a version for St. Hils THIS year!

See how they do below............................

I hope you can see that Adele and Tom are both holding up the monthly sheet that THEY think is the next one for Prisiclla Jane to stick on to the calendar. However......if I tell you that it is being built from the "bottom up" and started with December at the bottom and, so far, we have reached October.........you will quickly guess we need to find the September sheet next. And no prizes for guessing who has got it right.......Adele of course! Tom is holding the January one with the bells being run for New Year! Poor Tom - he didn't get it right this time at all!
Eric has decided to stay for a while with Ernest and Esme so they are also helping the children make the calendars up for the vicar.

Oops............I see I have strayed into fantasy land again..............apologies.......

I have to confess that I had a "problem" to solve before I put my photograph pose together. You see......................if the "children" were to successfully make up these calendars for them to be sold in the church for church funds, then they needed something rather important and that is namely...............glue! I am a complete dimwit when it comes to DIY and imagination in terms of how to make anything so had to resort to a "help" email to Frances who, as she always does, bless her, comes up with some ideas and solution.

I don't know about you but when it comes to copyright, I always want to "get it right". Of course we are rightly angry if others borrow our work or make money out of it without our permission, so I was keen not to infringe any copyright even when it came to having some miniature glue sticks (you know the ones...........the famous name ones.........!) in my piccies of St. Hils.
So I did something very simple for my "glue stick". I rolled up a small piece of rectangular paper after glueing it on one side.......bingo! I know it doesn't look perfect in the photo above as Priscilla Jane holds it in readiness to stick down the next month's sheet on to the calendar as she builds it up from the bottom but who cares?! I have to tell myself I am no Rembrandt or the miniature crafty equivalent here!

I haven't quite decided HOW to use this photo yet............and in any case I still want to create a further pose or two using my newly printed and cut out 1/12 scale Christmas greetings cards too.

I can also confess another little piece of news too........my sister has bought Miss Enid a lovely new present............and I think it is great because it will complement her book of Bach which the children have bought for her this Christmas...........................I won't let on yet...........so watch this space..........

Til the next time
PS Darned apple and custard doughnuts have disappeared from my local M&S foodhall again......arghhhhhh............how DARE they build us all up to expect such a wonderful gourmet delight and then drop us from a great height.........................yes I KNOW I am a tad sad but do I care???????!

Gremlins invade my St. Hils 2010 Calendar...........grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

2009-11-15T14:19:00.002Z

Hiya Folks
I had NO idea what to share with you all today.............................in fact blogging was not even featuring in my mind at all. To be brutally honest with you all, I was too busy feeling VERY cross with myself to think of any such thing. I have decided to blame the gremlins I am now convinced live in each of my computers for the most recent annoyance. As we have "collected computers" over the years.......a habit born of an inablity to sell or dump the old computer or laptop once we buy a spanking nice new one..............we have a total of FOUR...............NOT that the oldest would be worth a lot of course given it was purchased just when XP was released. So given the number of computers we have...........the number of gremlins must be huge too.........because it doesn't matter WHICH machine I use............those gremlins invitably make an appearance......................... Of course I sadly realise that the real gremlin is ME sadly..............but that would be to admit I am less than perfect.....................................:-)

I decided today to have our "children" seen choosing or pursuing the photographs chosen for their church's calendar for next year. So I have, naturally, had to create some miniature calendars as well as photographs to use for my photoshoots. So there I was.....opening up my real full sized monthly A4 calendar in order to take some screen shots and then reduce them.

However.......imagine my horror when I reached May..........................see below and spot the mistake.....................

I couldn't believe it.......after having created a pdf file for our website too...........our poor visitors have been, without knowing it, downloading the calendar with the wrong date for Pentecost.......which SHOULD have been 23rd May and NOT the 25th May.........arghhhhhhhhhhh. I couldn't believe it - how daft of me. However Andrew did remind me that there is a rule that goes in ecclesiastical embroidery and you will all be interested to hear it. Apparently each eccleisastical embroidery ever embroidered HAS to have ONE mistake............the reason being.............only God is perfect! However even that idea didn't help me....................and so if you have not yet downloaded our version 2 calendar which was affected by this error, you can do so and check to see that I have now rectified it...........phew!

I have now recovered from this mistake............................although I am very annoyed I even managed to make it......especially since the version 2 calendar is correct. Oh well............as they say..........worse things happen at sea!

I can, at least, still share something positive with you below............... Ambrose is showing Robert Alexander the photograph that has been chosen for March...........

I have had fun though making up 1/12 scale calendars and Christmas cards for the church and am considering making them available for free download too.....................so if you are keen to have a 1/12 scale St. Hils calendar and Christmas cards for YOUR little people in your dollshouse watch this space.....................

Till the next time.....

PS Apple and custard doughnuts reappeared last Wednesday.................but with a big booooooooo attached...........they have gone up from 0.99p (special offer) to £1.19 for a pack of two........ You may ask if that put me off................sadly......NO!

The mysteries of search engines.......but AM I complaining?!

2009-11-10T17:18:00.011Z

Hiya again folks!
I just fancied sharing with you some funny things about search engines and St. Hils. I can seriously admit I NEVER deliberately consider improving the ratings for St. Hils when it comes to search engine listings......but I have never seen the need! I think you will have to agree that the search engines have their own way of listing all of our work.....when it comes to different searches I am very often amused when I find that St. Hils has hit page one again when perhaps, just perhaps, it may have been best for the one searching if it hadn't!

As many of you who run your own websites may identify with..............there is always a sad enjoyment when it comes to checking out your stats..........HOW people find your site........but most importantly.......IF they have used a search engine.......WHAT did they wish for?

I have to share with you the funniest result ever............some poor soul wished for this one......."HOW do you become a vicar?" Well guess what came up at the top of the search results.................OUR vicar's letter to our visitors! See for yourself by visiting this link how disappointed the poor person must have been when, for their troubles.....they pulled up this, our letter from the Reverend Gyles Ponsenby-Smyth................

http://www.miniaturechurch.co.uk/Vicarletter.html arghhhhhhhh.

I can only just imagine the shock on the poor person's face when they were faced with this letter plus a photo of our dear vicar meeting ME in the Kaiserstuhl Conservation Park in South Australia:-)

However that being said.........I will never know how many fans may have found St. Hils by complete accident.....................and in this case, I would like to think that the searcher didn't feel completely disappointed with their "find"!

It is frustating to say that I can't think of any more funnies to share with you at the moment..................but when they come to mind be assured......I WILL share them here!

Til the next time!

PS WHY didn't Marks and Spencers stock their lovely apple and custard doughnuts when I visited them in my lunch break today?....................and to add to my worry it was also rather ominous that they had something billed as "new" - does that mean my fav custard and apple doughnuts have been discontinued?........NOT FAIR! Little luxuries with cups of tea make THE difference after a hard day at work!

St. Hils in the Media again..........

2009-11-05T17:18:00.002Z

Hiya Folks!
I really had NOT planned to write another blog so quickly on St. Hils but I just HAD to because we have been commented upon in The Dollshouse Magazine's December 2009 edition that came out today. Christiane, the editor, did let me know a while back that she wanted to advertise St. Hils again but with a special emphasis on our up and coming new Advent Calendar......good job I worked on it during the Summer time and it was "done and dusted" by the beginning of September! You all may remember that I was working on Christmas in August.............how mad is that?!

Christiane has advertised St. Hils on page 5 of the magazine. I never told you all this either...............Christiane emailed me wanting me to complete the sentence....."All I want for Christmas is...."...................now I am NOT telling you what I have said. You will have to check the magazine out to see what I REALLY want from Santa Claus! I feel most privileged because I am one of just ten miniaturists quoted. So Christiane, if you get to read this......a big THANK YOU!

I have to confess this has been a bitter sweet day for me.................but strangely it all felt "meant to be". You see today was our dear friend and St. Hils' supporter, Jan Craven's funeral. We went to it of course but before we walked to the church we just HAD to go into WH Smiths knowing that the December edition of The Dollshouse Magazine should be out today. How poignant it was because for the first time I have not been able to share my success with Jan who was so supportive of St. Hils and all it stood for. I won't repeat anything said on an earlier blog about Jan but sufficient to say that Jan was a most wonderful lady who supported ALL whom were her friends without any consideration to herself.

So how fitting that something about St. Hils hits the media on HER day?!

Dare I share another interesting thing.......until today I didn't realise that, in the last few weeks of my mother's life, when she smiled at me with such an angelic smile which involved the WHOLE of her face and which completely transformed her (you see she had repeated strokes and her normal smiles were naturally lop-sided sadly), it was as if she had briefly became an angel...............and there I was................in a "Thin Place". A place where the space between heaven and earth has become SO thin that it is almost touching. So how fitting that Jan found that "Thin Place" in her last weeks.......................but my mother was there too........................................

Until the next time......................

What has a sun hat got to do with St. Hils?... and it involves......well feathers actually!

2009-11-04T19:22:00.008Z

Hiya again folks!
I have to confess I continue to cough and croak for England..........friends and family now beg me to see the doctor because this has been continuing for over a week now..... but I HATE seeing the doctor cos I always feel MORE sick after my visit than before so lets not go there.................................and major, instead, on my most absorbing interest and hobby............St. Hils!

I am STILL having fun with the new and various games I have purchased for my "children" so that they can welcome our new girl, Gracie, to the church formally when she comes to the games afternoon the vicar organises to help her settle in.

I have imagined that Grace would be the kind of girl who likes to play games on her own.......you see she is an only child and has enjoyed providing her own entertainment when her mother has been busy at home or at work........NOT that she has been missing out of course because she knows her mother loves her very much and provides her with more than enough attention when she needs or wants it.

So I have had "fun" tonight.......well not quite "fun" really because I didn't realise how fiddly a 1/12 scale pack of cards would be to arrange for a game of clock patience/solitaire. Firstly of course I had to provide myself with my "Avian protection kit" in the form of my sun hat.......................................see me pose here with said sun hat complete with little Grace sitting in my hand so that you can see how tiny she really is next to me and consequently how hard she is for me to pose given she has 14 joints!

I have to tell you that I had "fun" taking the picture too given the fact that the only person who could have taken this photo for me was out (ie Andrew out on his piano teaching rounds......) so I was using the face detection//timer facility on my new Canon Ixus 980 camera! I took the first photos without my glasses.......urgh..................all my laughter lines and wrinkles were shown in stark relief..........NOT good!

So you can see here with glasses = acceptable photo of me with Grace and St. Hils. Sadly the upper part of the bell tower with the bells provides a TOO perfect repository for little props when not in use if I can't be bothered to put them away properly.....such is life.

If you are wondering WHY I should require an "Avian Protection Kit" look no further...........the culprit is seen here posing on his most favourite "out post" as explained in my previous post!

So here is our little avian monster, Pebbles, looking on curiously as if he really wants to see what is going on in the church this evening. The towels are sadly essential but lets not dwell on that one here. You can just about see the pose I had set up under the bell tower with Grace playing clock patience on the floor. I confess those cards are SO fiddlly. You would think that it would be easy to have 12 stacks of just four cards apiece looking all neat and tidy........NOT so ...ESPECIALLY when you have a nagging desire to cough and you finally succumb as I did at least once and destroyed two stacks of cards in its wake!
Check out the final photograph that I chose out of the myriads of ones taken here below............noting that Prince and Eric have slipped in again.

I think they both enjoy playing games too.........and note that GP, Grace's guinea pig, has decided he was bored sitting on the altar with Esme and Ernest and decided that he wanted to see what Grace was doing! Sepp the rat continues to keep watch on all goings on in the bell tower whilst perched on one of the bell tower steps which provides a perfect look out for her.

I can share with you an idea I have.........it may come to fruition.......it may not..........I have asked my sister Catherine of Dollshouse Heaven to make me some "fairy cakes". You see my idea is..................when Grace comes to the games afternoon she brings some of her very own home made cakes in order to share with the other children by way of an ice breaker. I also like the idea of her bringing them loose in a tin as in "real life".

Oh dear - my throat is still not good.......................time for more medication to soothe it me thinks. I have to confess our kitchen has become our very own pharmacy with all my cough remedies and medications. Of course friends and even neighbours have added to it when they hear me and take pity...........so I have been showered with sherbert lemons, cough sweets and more........................................

Till the next time.........................

St. Hils may be a miniature dollshouse church but to Pebbles it is............

2009-10-30T12:58:00.004Z

Hiya Everyone
It is true........St. Hils really IS a 1/12 scale miniature church..............well to me, and you and, of course to many others too. However to our Pebbles it is something FAR more important and that is..........................................an outpost for sentry duty!
You see, Pebbles succeeds our late hen cockatiel, Cheeky, whom we also nick named our "winged sentry" on account of her habit of using our church as a sentry outpost to keep guard on the garden.............keeping unwelcome guests away.
Of course to Pebbles as to our dear late Cheeky, "unwelcome" unfortunately for us, means something completely different.
There we are............putting wild bird food out to encourage the local song bird population to come IN to the garden as our WELCOME guests......whilst we have our Pebbles on the scene who's main aim in life would appear to be........keeping OUT the local song bird population!
You may be asking HOW effective our Pebbles is in his "winged sentry" duties. Well fortunately for us......not very well at all. He may think he is big and frightening..............but when the crunch comes and a really BIG bird comes flying over the house...............he cowers on the room side of the sloping church roof so that he can't see the said bird................... We find him completely hysterical of course.................and when he is REALLY frightened of any of the birds he sees he does a double loop around both the living area and kitchen to show off his displeasure with his "unwelcome" guests.

We, Andrew and I, have taken "winged sentry" from an anthem called "My Soul there is a Country" (the composer of which temporarily escapes us both but Andrew thinks it may be Parry).

With no further ado here you can see our Pebbles "in position" as he "keeps guard" over the garden for us....

I think this gives you a good idea of scale too................ I am not sure if there ARE any other people who find that their dollshouse has accidentally doubled up as something completely different......................but please let me know if there are any strange "other" uses for your dollshouses.........I will be MOST interested.........

On a slightly different tack we visited Andrew's parents yesterday. Andrew's mother is an avid miniaturist just like myself and also has a wonderful dollshouse she takes great pride in. In fact his father has even made an extension to her dollshouse many years ago now and it really looks great. At Christmas she even has Father Christmas on the roof............just about to descend down the chimney.............................

This leads me on to my next "idea" for St. Hils. I am fully aware that printing off almost any internet browser is not very easy.....................you can be sure that, however you try, the printer will NOT print the right things on the right page.............or the page is too wide and the printer only prints half a photo on one page and half on another. I do know that Internet Explorer has improved with later editions in being able to shrink to fit the page when printing.........but the print may be TOO small as a consequence for some to read.

So I have, over the last few years, been keeping a parallel "book" going in which I include all my latest stories in printable form. I have, in the last few weeks, finished a version of my book which I am hoping to provide to you all as a set of freely downloadable pdf files.............in bite size chunks so that you can collect the whole book over a period of time. I was able to give Andrew's mother a copy of this book yesterday and she was, of course, thrilled to receive it.

I am letting you all preview the first part as a taster............................................St. Hilary's Miniature Church Year Book 2009 Part 1

However as with all projects...................................you realise "too late" you have got something wrong or around your neck. Imagine my horror yesterday when, at Andrew's mother's home, I realised that I had included the "wrong" photo in my Miniatura Show visit story.................................................and then today when reviewing my book again........found spelling errors................arghhhhhhhhhhhhh So today has been a busy time making sure there are no more............

However it just proves a point..............my St. Hils project will NEVER be finished.....................................but does it ever have to be?

Till the next time.............

PS - Please see my new photo on my Home page....... pasted below............................Miss Enid and Phoebe enjoy a game of dominoes....................................and even Eric has come to visit his son and wife and can't resist trying to help Miss Enid out too.......AND you can download it as a greetings card too......again on my Downloads page.............enjoy!

Celebrating the life of a St. Hils' supporter and dear friend.........

2009-10-27T12:46:00.010Z

Hiya All!
Today I feel it only right and fitting that I pay tribute to my dear friend, Jan, who passed away last Sunday. She was a devoted St. Hils' supporter and who was also a great contributor to St. Hils too.

It was Jan who suggested we used the weekly Common Worship Collects for our website and I have kept that up faithfully week by week. Not only did she suggest them but she emailed me the whole lot so I had NO excuse or could say I "couldn't find them" online! You see Jan was, for a while, the webmaster for Holy Trinity Church, Stratford's website so I was able to return the compliment to her by helping her set that up after the last webmaster retired from the job. She added the collect to the church's site and thought it a good idea for St. Hils. I thought, "Why not?"..........after all, St. Hils is a REAL church too in my mind and equally worthy of having a weekly collect too. The collect gives weekly focus on the site to the church year as the Anglican church celebrate it..............and of course St. Hils IS part of the Anglican church.......even if it is just "in miniature"!

When I set St. Hils up I was very keen that we had all the "right" church furniture for liturgical use. However Jan was extremely observant and noticed that we were missing one particular item and she took care that we had one as a gift. Unbeknown to me she approached John Cheal of "Saved in Time" and commissioned him to make us our very own processional cross. You can see the processional cross used for the first time in St. Hilarys here...............Rev Ken was MOST privileged to carry it for the church for the very first time at Christmas.

This approach to John proved invaluable to us because John's craftsmanship skills are second to none working as he does, in both wood and non-precious metals. We even took a big risk and asked him if he would consider trying to make us a 1/12 scale brass eagle lectern for St. Hils too. Of course he agreed to the challenge and the rest is history. John went on to make more commission items for us too including the organ, altar rail, tea trolley, (a strange request I know but we attended a church for years where a tea trolley was an integral part of the church - serving drinks after some services..complete with urn too!) and paschal candle to name a few! ALL thanks to Jan who knew how talented he was!

I can't finish this blog without mentioning her one other important contribution to St. Hils. Jan, with her husband, was, for a few years, a representative for the Church of England Children's Society so it was only natural that, when we had our very own Christingle Service in St. Hils, she kindly offered to let us have one of her sermons which she preached at a real Christingle service in St. George's Church, Coventry.

Jan is one of many people who have given of both their time and talents to St. Hils so it is lovely that I am able to share her contributions with you all today. I will always remember her with great fondness and her legacy will live on in St. Hils......................
Till the next time..........

PS: You won't believe it - I have yet ANOTHER darned cold - and it feels worse than the last one! However I managed to convince the pharmacy assistant in a local Boots store to sell me the illusive "purple bottle" of Covonia today..............you know the one...................it is the night time version for tickly coughs (with cough suppressant and makes you lovely and dozy too so says a work colleague!) which they jealously guard behind the counter and only give it out if you give the right answers! AND my answers were 100% honest as I admitted the original version did nothing last night with my cough keeping me up half the night. I DO think the squeaky/croaky almost non-existent voice helped some lol

Is it too early to look forward to Valentine's Day?

2009-10-22T16:28:00.006+01:00

Hiya Folks!
I have a great idea for Valentine's Day next year (2010) and it is courtesy of Frances of Buttercup Miniatures who suggested this one. You see.....................if you remember, in a previous blog, I was worrying about poor Miss Enid's hands freezing to death in the Winter months because of the erratic heating in St. Hils so had the idea that she would enjoy having a pair of gloves as a Christmas present at Christmas. She can wear them when not playing so as to keep her poor arthritic finger as agile as possible.
Frances has told me that gloves were traditionally given as a Valentine's Day present in pre-Victorian times. The tradition started back in Saxon days apparently. PERFECT I thought! And so.........................whilst at the last Miniatura Dollshouse Show I made a point of buying her a pair alongside a matching leather purse courtesy of The Luggage Lady.

Of course our Miss Enid must have a suitor..............and there is just one obvious candidate in St. Hilarys at the moment......who is.....................the vicar! So a future storyline is already born! I am not sure how much our Miss Enid likes the vicar......but he has definitely taken a liking to her and is plainly keen to let her know.
You can see him hanging around her coyly when she finds this anonymous little Valentine's present left on her organ stool...............she is MOST curious.

Of course we all hope that she is pleased with this........................as she opens it.....................................The vicar sneaks back to pick up a Valentine's card he has already written out for her and is waiting to present her with it when she has opened the gift.................

You may all think that all is plain sailing here for the vicar as he can't see any competition for his affections .........yet! However, courtesy of Jane Davies, who has agreed to consider another of my ideas for St. Hils, Miss Enid may have another potential suitor on the scene in the form of crusty old "Archie", the church verger. Jane was only too pleased to consider the idea when I suggested it to her at the Miniatura Show. She was even able to add flesh to the bones in more ways than one.........would you believe it but she actually KNEW an "Archie" who WAS a cleaner. I immediately felt that "Archie" was preordained and "meant to be".................. However the twist here is.............this "Archie" was also a very good operatic singer too! So as you can see...............if Archie arrives as verger/church cleaner he may well steal Miss Enid's heart with his beautiful voice....................but if he does.............poor Vicar ....watch this space.....................

In the mean time......................I will let you all wonder how Miss Enid receives these presents of a pair of gloves and matching purse............................and whether she is thrilled with the expression of affection in the card he has chosen for her to celebrate the day.................................................

As they say..............you are NEVER too old for love.......................................

Where will I go next? Now THAT is the question!

Till next time!

My poor Ernest in the wars again poor chap................my fault too probably!

2009-10-16T20:56:00.007+01:00

Hiya again Folks
This may be a short blog today. As some of you may have discovered, I have actually created my new Remembrance day for All Souls! I would also love to say it all went smoothly........but no.....it didn't! I had quite a panic. Some of you who have been reading my blog regularly will realise that I had a sad accident with our duck and drake, Esme and Ernest - two Mallard ducks. I thought I had done a pretty good job sticking their beaks back with some of Andrew's wood glue so imagine my horror this afternoon (I only work mornings on Thursday and Friday!) when, whilst trying to pose young Tom in front of the pulpit where he was to hold up his paper with the name "Bungle" on it as his late pet hamster, my poor Ernest must have fallen on to the church floor and I picked him up to see................half his beak missing...............arghhhhhhhhhh

As you do I tried to be practical and NOT panic but that was quite difficult. It got worse if you can believe because I had the added issue of our hand reared cockatiel, Pebbles, who, with immaculate timing as per usual, decided to fly downstairs and join in the fun by landing on my head and church - NOT good! I had to sport my sun hat bought for our last trip to Australia back in July/August/September 2007. Pebbles HATES it and hisses at it like mad............but apart from a very hot head for me it is better than him doing what male cockatiels love to do on a nice head of hair..............say no more..............and before you ask - NO - he has yet to show ANY kind of learning curve on this matter at all but any tips welcome!

I cleared the area where poor Ernest had been the best I could................I picked up various little bits in the church as the light was not good enough to see properly...................and thinking I was on to a good one at one point to find it was a ...................................cockatiel seed................again..........arghhhhhhhh I am sure that, even IF I never found the proper article - ie a bit of broken beak, poetic licence would not allow that seed to work at all as part of my poor Ernest's beak - joke!
Having failed to see anything I had a brain wave.......................my daylight bulb I used for my photo shots - HOW stupid was that to forget THE most often used tool of my trade when on a St. Hils photo shoot!
So I shone the light in and presto.........THERE the little bit of beak was..........it was hiding at the back...................... I was thrilled..............never mind the fact that most of my poor porcelain dolls were strewn about on the backs and stomachs on pews.........floor.....squashed between the choir stalls and altar rail................................ALL in a desperate effort to rescue my poor Ernest's pride and joy and all that makes him a duck........ie........his beak!

I can now report that Ernest is almost "good as new" (well as good as can be "post" his last accident!) ..........having extrapolated the wood glue from one of the drawers in our coffee table and courtesy of one fat pin which I used to streak the glue on to broken part of the beak on the duck itself......... It may not be normal for a duck to be sitting on an altar......but that is where he is..................til he feels a bit better and I feel more confident to "pose" him for any more photoshoots.......................
And here he is....................on the altar with GP, Gracie's pet guinea pig keeping him company until he feels better........

I think I have done quite a good job here considering I am left handed and have cut my left hand index finger so have had to sport a plaster.......................amazing what you do when you have to...........and the odds of me finding the said broken beak bit was not that good given the fact that things, being so small, can easily fall on to the carpet and then can be lost forever....................

I can now return to the matter of the two stools that I bought last Saturday. They look really nice I think as the first photo on my new page on All Souls.....(link as above) ...............................................but to save you visiting the page here is the photo...

I had to include Miss Enid..............and I do think she looks rather nice sitting on the stool. I had quite a job placing her spectacles.........................but we got there in the end....... Emily also sits on the stool most elegantly too.

I have just checked this in the "preview" window and note that I started this as a "short blog".........whoops!
Anyway.......till the next time...............

My lovely new Christmas tree to show off today.

2009-10-14T19:26:00.006+01:00

Hiya again folks!
I am back again to show off my new Christmas tree which I bought at the Miniatura show with the help of my sister, Catherine, and husband, Andrew. I will have to save it till next Christmas though because, as I have told you all before, this year's is already set up and done and dusted.......ready to upload when the time is right!

I have to thank my sister, Catherine Davies, of http://www.dollshouseheaven.co.uk/, for sending me the adaptor and also adding a little extension lead too so I can plug my tree in to light it up. You see......Vic Newey who put St. Hils together and extended it for me has already wired it all so we have no actual sockets in the church to plug my new tree in. Thankfully Catherine posted me this little adaptor gadget so I CAN see my tree all lit up under our bell tower!
And here it is......

The original uploaded is a decent size so please feel free to left click it to see it all in greater detail! I sadly couldn't resist including our Grace again....................................even though I had to re-set her standing up when her joints pinged back again in her legs and hips.........arghhhhhhhhhhhh. Eric too had to come in on the act and he, as you can see, is having a little chat to Prince whilst Megan is also admiring the new tree.

I have kept Frances', of http://www.buttercupminiatures.co.uk/, crochet angel..............so instead of having an "either star OR angel" we have BOTH! Well why not?............................the wise men were led by a star............but the shepherds were guided by angels to find the baby Jesus so it is most fitting for our tree to sport both for biblical accuracy.........! Poor Grace..........she is trying SO hard to reach that star and angel................but something tells me she is just NOT quite tall enough is she? I think Magnifi-Cat has just come to see what all the fuss is about.................although we hope he doesn't spot Sepp the rat who is also sheltering for safety from Magnifi-Cat by sitting very close to Prince!

I have done it again........strayed into fantasy land.................but I really can't apologise for that I am afraid. .... EVEN after having a couple of my work colleagues declare me "completely mad" after reading one of my latest blogs I can unashamedly tell you all that my being "completely mad" is THE only tool that keeps me "completely sane".......................SO THERE!

As I often tell my friends and family and work colleagues....................there are many bad addictions in the world..........but thankfully an obsesssion with fantasy and miniatures is NOT one of them!

I am sure I will find more St Hils musings to share with you all soon........................so...........until then..................

PS - just to say.....I have just this minute (4.40pm BST Thurs 15/10/09) uploaded the above photo as a downloadable Christmas card on our Downloads page.......so DO go and check it out - it is a pdf file for ease of printing and viewing etc...

Thanking you all muchly.........

2009-10-13T16:57:00.000+01:00

Hiya Folks!
A quick one today !
Just want to say a big "Thank you" for the awards - they are great to receive!
You will be delighted to know that I have bought some miniature playing cards...................again for my games day/afternoon. I promise to set my "children" up soon so you can all see the games we have for them to play.
I am not much good at card games...........so I will have to investigate and decide which card games the children will most enjoy playing..............although solitaire would be good for any one of our children who prefers to be on their own for a while.....................

Pebbles seems a bit better today - he still sneezes a few times but he is certainly bright enough. Yesterday he was causing a spot of bother around the gas cooker as the potatoes were boiling................he would insist on dancing and singing to the kettles nearby.............
Sorry this is short - but wanted to let you know that the awards were really great to receive......

Remembering.............

2009-10-11T14:40:00.004+01:00

Hiya Again Folks!
I am back again to report on.............well not a lot today. I just felt it right to share with you the beginnings of a new page for St. Hils. I am focussing in on "remembering....." because, as I have mentioned before, November is, very much, a month of remembering for me every year and particularly even more so since the loss of my mother.

And so it has felt very right to devote at least one page on the topic at this time. November has two main days which are devoted to "remembering" and they are All Souls Day (2nd November) when all who have passed away are remembered and then "Remembrance Sunday" (usually the second Sunday in November) when all who died fighting for the country are remembered nationally.

I confess to a slightly sombre mood at the moment.............................so without giving away any personal details..........just to say that, yesterday, I had it confirmed that a much valued friend is terminally ill and yes.........it hurt. Fortunately my friend has a deep Christian personal faith so I KNOW that they are being called to greater things and that their work here is done............but my humanity hurts............because yes........I know we will never exchange another email..................phone call..............or a light hearted exchange when sharing a mutual joke................ And of course - they fervently supported St. Hils and also were a great support to me on the loss of my mother.

And so..............to have a special page this year devoted to the act of remembering those we have loved and lost seems highly appropriate................
So without more ado I have to share with you the first couple of photos taken which will form part of this new page.
Here you can see Ambrose with the church's very own Book of Remembrance which is kept for church records. He has been asked to bring it into church by the vicar so that the names of those who have passed away during the last year can be read out during the service.

I do have to assure you all though that this will NOT be an entirely sombre occasion.......oh no......................that would NEVER do in St. Hilary's. We can always count on someone in either our human or animal/bird community to lighten the mood........................

And so......................Esme and Ernest our resident Mallard ducks are anxious that they too add a very special name to the list of those to be remembered on this commemoration of All Souls Day.

Ernest wants the vicar to include his mother, Elsie, in the names because she passed away very recently and his father, Eric, is naturally devasted. They hope that Eric will find time to come and stay with them........................ Whoops - I have strayed into fantasy land again.............but you can see where this is going can't you?

Before telling you about my latest purchases (yep - we went out yesterday and I chatted to the lady assistant in one of the shops that sells dollshouse accessories and yes.......I succumbed...............) I must tell you that I am quite pleased with my miniature "Book of Remembrance".....................all created in Image Composer/Word and then printed on our Epson R1800! I just LOVE my Epson!
You probably are wanting to know what I bought yesterday................ I bought two stools.....NOT that exciting in themselves but you see, I only have a few chairs and some tables - but no stools. And stools can double up as small tables too for my games day..............................

The lady assistant at the dollshouse shop has finally bought herself a couple of 1/24 scale Tudor style houses and is most excited about them. She didn't have room for anything 1/12 scale so these are perfect. I think, however, I am sticking to 1/12........definitely small enough for me! I have enough trouble with my clumsy fingers and, as you will know from previous blogs, have had a couple of accidents recently...........so yes......................will stick to 1/12 scale.........

Looking ahead and to Valentines' Day.......................................Miss Enid will be having quite a surprise from the vicar................................................I will share more later.................................

So folks........till the next time...............

PS: Pebbles, our little cockatiel, has caught a cold poor little chap but DOES it put him off his performances of "Pop goes the weasel" and "MAKE a cup of tea"..........well of course not. And he still enjoys perching on St. Hils and keeping an eye on the birds in our garden................AND a nieghbour's black and white cat who was also eying HIM yesterday afternoon from the top of a nearby garden shed. I got my camera out but was just too late.........cos it would have made a great photo................

Gracie stands for the first time..........................

2009-10-07T20:49:00.009+01:00

Hiya Folks
It has been quite a week so far.......what with the excitement of the Miniatura Show at the weekend. Sadly my credit card got another bashing today in Marks and Spencers - they are SO clever aren't they? I had already bought my favourite apple slices from the bakery section (doesn't that lovely smell of "just baked" entice you - such a clever trick - but we love it!) and was intent on dropping in to another shop on the way back to the office.
Trouble was.......I got well and truly caught when I saw the "just in" arrivals not far in from the exit/entrance........and suddenly I found myself standing in a long queue (just what you want at lunch time) whilst clutching a pair of lovely soft grey cotton leggings and a beautiful purple sculptured top. I always enjoy a banter at the till - and yes - they ALWAYS offer you a Marks and Spencers credit card so I ALWAYS decline but joke with them that I am trying to get RID of them at the moment..................................and the lady serving me worries that she is too old to wear leggings so I assure her nobody is EVER too old..................

Sorry about that - but I have to tell you that, after the hassles of my day, what with temporarily "losing" Pebbles, our cockatiel, (on account of him spooking because of our new chordless phone ring tone - giving me a temporary heart attack!), and my broadband connection (I will spare you the details), I rather fancied seeing if I could get Gracie to stand up.
It IS quite tricky cos of her 14 joints. Jane showed me the trick on Saturday when she handed her over to me. It IS very tricky......as soon as you have ONE leg straight you start to work on the other...................and bingo the other leg springs back into a "sitting" position and you have to start again. However...................I DID succeed and here is the result..................hope you all like it - I do! Prince's eyes are spectacular too.........the detail is amazing..

Doesn't she look superb? Shame she is not officially living in Daffodil Green yet isn't it? But as I said - we don't want her to feel too jealous cos she is not included in this year's Advent Calendar nor Christmas page. Make sure you click on this picture so that you can see the detail better............................

I HAD to add Eric our new duck on the block................just love him too!

I have an idea for All Souls Day.........................and you are welcome to comment ...............I am going to have it as they do in many churches throughout the land............and so St. Hilary's will remember all who have passed away in the last year and our congregation will submit names of those they want to be remembered too.

November is a very poignant month for me as my mother, Hilary Davies, passed away on the 26th so it seems fitting that All Souls Day is commemorated in November.

We, Andrew and I, will NEVER forget the amazing Autumn/Fall we had in that year of 2003. My mother left us at the right time....................with all of those beautiful Autumn colours of red and orange.............and the mountains of orange and red berries on the trees and bushes too. I felt it "right" and significant..............and in that way we knew that it WAS in God's own time..........................

Sorry to end on a sombre note..........but really it isn't................because my mother is well now.................

Till the next time.................

Miniatura Madness Part 2!

2009-10-04T21:37:00.002+01:00

Hiya Everyone
I am back to report to you all on my second day at the Miniatura Dollshouse Show. Did I add to St. Hil's collection of props and congregation you ask? Well the answer to that question is a big YES!

A certain duck had taken my fancy yesterday...............so poor Andrew had to cope with me insisting we went down EVERY aisle methodically after we couldn't find the right stall...........so of course WHEN we found the offending stall the least I could do was buy the said duck!

And so Eric is born...........he is a proud Mallard drake with attitude and he is made by the talented Aidan Campbell. I did feel a little concerned for his lady friend as I had decided not to buy her too but Aidan's wife/partner assured us that she would be fine on her own........phew! No doubt Aidan will find her a new mate soon enough............

So we here present Eric in all of his glory as he meets up with his son, Ernest and his wife Esme..........in the church sanctuary next to the altar where both Ernest and Esme were having a quiet time away from the noise and activity of the nearby village pond......................those ducklings and geese can be SO noisy at times!

Eric has come on a short visit to see his family...........but who knows........he may decide to make Daffodil Green village pond his new home!

Sorry about that folks........yet another trip into fantasy land.........................................

I mustn't forget to tell you that I also bought a couple of other items............some dominoes in an old fashioned little box which will create a great storyline as they will easily be presented as a family heirloom along the way................and then a tambourine for our new girl on the block, Gracie! We can see even before she officially arrives that she will certainly add to the life of St. Hils in a great way............because she just loves to bring her tambourine along to church when she has a fancy and accompany the hymns and songs with it as she herself sings.......

Well - work for me tomorrow and I can tell you all now...........it will be back to earth with a bump for me BIG TIME - will I cope after an amazing Miniatura dominated weekend........?!

Til the next time folks................................oh and before I forget - do visit our new page and see how our "children" enjoyed their visit to the Miniatura Dollshouse Show ...........and find out why Esther was so cross with the children.........

Miniatura Madness.........................need I say more?

2009-10-03T19:05:00.008+01:00

Hiya Folks!
As promised a "report back" after a day at the Miniatura Show at the Birmingham NEC. I had a brilliant time. I have a confession........I have added to our congregation........both human and pets!
My new "girl on the block" is Grace.............or "Gracie" as her new friends like to call her despite her protestations that she is "GRACE"!!

I do not intend to showcase Gracie yet..................her family have not properly moved into Daffodil Green and they don't want to disrupt her education by taking her out of her present school at the moment preferring her to start afresh in January next year! However you can have a preview of her as she makes a short visit to the village, her new school and St. Hils, which will become her local church!

See her here as Adele comes to welcome her when she finds her under the bell tower complete with her pet guinea pig, GP! She brought GP with her because he goes almost everywhere with her.......although NOT to school of course! (left click to enlarge - I uploaded a 0.2meg photo so you will see her so much better if you do!)

Esme and Ernest have come along to greet her too..............................

You will all have to wait til after Christmas to meet our Gracie properly...........and I will also let you into a secret here. I have already completed the page for Christmas and we feel Gracie would be very upset that she is not included if she had moved in earlier!

Now my third new member of the congregation is actually an ex-guide dog called Prince (courtesy of Pocket People - Sarah Schiff) Prince is a yellow labrador who was chosen to train as a guide dog. Sadly he failed because he just ate everything in sight so he had to be found a new home poor chap. Good thing that Rev Ken and his family take him in! I have based this story on fact........a lady in our home group takes in rejected guide dogs and one of her last ones was rejected for this very reason.........this labrador would eat literally ANYTHING to the point that the family had quite a time keeping up with her antics as she raided fridges and anywhere which had.......well ....food actually. And of course she would also eat other non-food items too.......a veritable nightmare she was.......but so well loved despite this rather mega fault!

Oops ..........apologies here because I strayed into my St. Hils world of fantasy here...............................a story is always being found!
Anyway - before I stray futher into fantasy...............here is Prince together with Grace who, by the way before I forget to tell you all, is a 14 jointed doll by Jane Davies.

Gracie is the first 14 jointed doll I have bought from Jane and she is just wonderful. She is also able to stand as well as sit which means we can use her for various poses which the other dolls are not so good at. I just LOVE everything about her. Jane told me today that the material for her dress is antique and she will be so sad when she finally finishes it all up. If you are all wondering WHY we have called her pet guinea pig GP.........I can tell you that he (yes - her guinea pig is a boy we have decided!) is named after the guinea pig of a work friend and before you ask........................it stands for ....Guinea Pig - original right?!

I also broached the subject of "Archie" as our new verger/church cleaner whilst at the show and it looks as if Archie may happen which is great........................but I can say no more ............yet.........
I can also tell you that I DID pick up a cut out kit (free courtesy of Dee Daw Designs on presentation of a voucher) for a trip to the Miniatura Show for our"children".......it includes a catalogue, tickets, sandwich pack, Miniatura bag and a cup of coffee! I plan to take a couple of photos tomorrow (yep - back for a repeat visit tomorrow....CAN my bank account cope after today's extravaganzas?!) so that we can sprite our dolls out and make it look as if they really came along with us this weekend..................no promises it will work mind.............so watch this space.......

I did buy a few other things too...........but they can wait for inclusion in a later blog...........................
Til the next time..........