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

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........

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.......

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......

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!

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

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?!

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!