Off Topic: DH's for awesome prices on Craigslist...

Anyone in Texas, in the DFW area that has a bit of room and about a hundred dollars.... take a gander at these:

http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/art/1277113272.html

http://dallas.craigslist.org/ndf/tag/1266120054.html (new in box!!)

I emailed these to my hubby and got back "One project at a time please". Hmmmm... guess he doesn't remember I have TWO giant houses going on right now :D

Anyhow... just thought I'd post for anyone with a little more room (and more time) than me!!

Morticia had to have one too....

Hi everyone.... phew.... the Garage sale is over and I couldn't be more happy!!! We have just enough to buy a new kitchen table set!!! yay! and I am getting a big one to lay out all my lovely mini projects :)

Speaking of... now that things are getting back to normal I just had to jump on the bandwagon and make one of these wonderful cans that Marlies has a tutorial for on her blog. Morticia needed one for the conservatory.....


It's a lovely tutorial that I was able to play with in between the craziness of the weekend! It was too much fun... you have to try it :)

Off Topic: Alice in Wonderland: More images and Trailer

Just saw this link to new images and the short trailer for the movie!!! It's gonna be good!!!!

Click here.

I'm a lucky blogger!!! Gifts!!

Whoo hoo!!! Thank you Kate and Tabitha!!! Kate was so gracious to send me a copy of the ever so popular magazine that so many of our blog friends are in, along with several mirrors and frames for my dollhouses!! There is even one to match the frame I used for Gomez's bedside table... so now morticia will have a matching one on her side! And I just love the big lumpy gold framed mirror too - that will have a center place at Bentley Manor :)

Tabitha sent me some of her skull beads to try out her wonderful cadelabra idea! Don't you think it will look perfect in the Mini-Mansion?? I hope I can do the idea justice!!

Thank you both for the wonderful gifts. Now continuing on with chores.... and pricing garage sale stuff.... gosh I have a lot of junk!!!

Anyone else having a busy few weeks?

Just wanted to say sorry for being so quiet lately! Things have been crazy around here and the Mini-mansion has taken a back burner!


I am hoping after this weekend to get back into gear! We're having a garage sale this weekend and the whole house has been turned upside down!

Set 0f Origianl TV series by MGM Home Entertainment

But the amazing thing is that the room where the dollhouses are is shiny and clean!!! Just waiting to be messed up by a good days work!


I also plan to get some plans down on paper for Bentley Manor... its been soooo neglected.


Anyway... off to get my thoughts/plans in order!

Gifts from Tara!

This week I was lucky enough to receive a package from the lovely Tara of The Dollhouse at Pooh Corner!! She found some lovely presents for the Addams Family and sent them along as a "House Cooling" present!! She also sent a few things for me though:

There are several Hawaiian products, such as chocolate covered macadamia nuts, pancake mix, these really yummy caramel and chocolate treats and Mauna Loa nuts! (by the way did you know that my aunts name is Mauna Loa - haha - I call her Aunt Mauna) And so much more including a calendar and a book, I just kept pulling out treasure after treasure!!

And here is the miniature part of the package!!!

There's a beautiful hall rug, a pewter carving set!, 2 kits (one for a light and one for a gown!!) and a few weapons that she picked out for the Family! I think its called a Halberd, a flail, a butchers knife and a dagger!!! Also there is a classic Addams Family phone!! So perfect!! And Tara was so gracious to send some of her sketches from watching the Addams Family! There are some things in there I have missed so I will be looking for them Tara!! You have such an eye for detail!

I had a few of the Family members pick 3 their favorite pieces... Morticia picked one of the Pewter plates, Wednesday picked the flail (she thought Pugsley would like it too), and Gomez rather liked the Halberd (he said something about being able to reach that itch on his back.....)

Thank you Tara, so much for the lovely gifts!!! Your chair is in progress and will be winging its way to you sometime soon!

Much love, Ara and the Addamses *snap snap*

3 New awards from Sans, Marsha and Mary!!

I got several awards in the past week or so and I finally have time to sit down and address them all. Thank you all so much for them!!! The Addams Family says thanks too!

The first award was from Sans! She gave me the Reader Award which is so fitting to come from her as I LOVE all her stories. She translated the title to mean "Passages of the Story" which I agree is a really cool phrase.

For the reader award I have to grab the book closest to me and read the 5th sentence on page 161. So here goes.... I have a fun coffee table book near me called "The Hollywood Guide to Romance". There is only one sentence per page and no page numbers... so i am just gonna pick a page towards the back and tell you the sentence... they are generally pretty funny :)

"Try to keep those rituals of daily hygiene out of sight so that your partner can continue unhindered to worship you as a deity" - hahaha

*******

My second award came from Marsha! Thank you so much Marsha! I love the look of this one - haha!
For this award I am supposed to tell 10 things about myself.... that y'all don't know. Soooo lets see....
1. My second and third toe on each foot are somewhat connected to look like a 'Y'. It's a hereditary thing because my mom has it.
2. I met my husband online :) - hehe
3. I used to live in the Carribean
4. My wedding had a 50's touch to it... tea-length dress, rat-pack music, and rootbeer floats!
5. My husband and I just recently formed obsessions with Bonsai's (we have two on the mantel)
6. I collected elephants all through my childhood - I have a HUGE collection
7. I could eat pizza for every meal! I know that's bad!
8. When I was young I had a horse sit on me... and break my leg!
9. My husband is mowing the lawn right now.....
10. There is a green sauce at a Restarant called "Los Cucos" that rocks my world. I am craving it right now....

*******

And my third award was the Bella Sinclair Award from Mary! Thank you so much Mary!! I am glad we can all inspire each other! This award comes along with this note:

Ces wrote, "I designed this award to celebrate art in the blogs and to honour the value of friendship, sisterhood, sharing and caring. It is to be awarded to the gifted , accomplished, eloquent and talented blogger, whose friendship and influence inspire us to do our best. That I named it after Bella Sinclair is because she epitomises all of these things."


Thank you all so much. It means so much to me that you guys would think of me when giving out awards! And now to pass these on to some other bloggers I know! Since they've built up on my (I know - my bad)... I will give each out to two bloggers I know....

For the Readers Award, I would like to pass it to:

Eileen of the blog Eileen Sedgwick. All of her creations seem to have a base in some sort of history or art so I figure it'd be interesting to know what's in her library!!!

Inhae of My Milk Toof. I don't think she does awards but just wanted to highlight her blog seeing as she tells wonderful stories with a single photo! She's been doing a summer series this past week. It's too cute!

For the Honest Scrap Award:

Eliza at Wasting Gold Paper. She just got a beautiful new house that I am excited to see come together!! Also make sure you scroll to see her breath-taking painting skills!

Sumaiya Mehreen at The Fantasy Forest. She finds the most beautiful eye candy!!! Please check out this blog but be prepared to stay awhile!

For the Bella Sinclair Award:

Tara at The Dollhouse at Pooh Corner. Tara has been so helpful to me in searching for things for the Addams Family! She always has an eye out for them! She just sent me a wonderful package you will see in a future post! check out her fantastic Pooh Dollhouse!

Kate at The Whittaker's Miniatures. It's been great getting to know Kate lately! And she has such wonderful imaginitive projects going on right now! Her creativity is never ending!

Addams Family Give-Away WINNER!!!!

And we have a winner....

But first here were the drawing results....

The Favorite Character (for this give-away) is: WEDNESDAY (2 pts for this one)

The Character Lotto drawing came up as (1pt for any of these in the right order):

1. Grandmama

2. Gomez

3. Lurch

4. Cousin Itt

5. Wednesday

And the winner is SAVANNAH THE MINI-MAKER (with a grand total of 4 pts)!!!


Congrats!! The family is so happy that you will be receiving one of their family heirlooms. They hope your dolls get many a good nights sleep from it! Please email me at afminimansion@gmail.com so I can get this sent to you as soon as I can (it'll be early next week :)

And thank you to everyone who entered! I will have more give-aways in the future so stay tuned! And just a BIG thanks to all of you again who read my blog. Love you guys! -ara

Addams Family Giveaway: 75 Followers!!!!!

This morning I woke up to 75 followers! How fantastic is that?? Of course I informed the Addams Family and, being the generous souls that they are, they immeadiatly started planning a giveaway. They went through many ideas but it was Uncle Fester that volunteered one of this favorite nail beds. The family just loved the idea of helping some of their devoted followers get a good nights rest. It has even been lovingly labeled "Rest in Pieces" by some member of the Family. Here you can see Murph modeling the bed for everyone (Murph is not included in the giveaway ;):

Yes, those are real nails and they are really sharp (just ask my fingers!).

I just want to say thankyou so much to everyone who has followed this blog! You guys are so fantastic and so encouraging!!! And I hope whoever wins this lovely nail bed can put it to great use in one of their creations!

Here's the rules to win:

Copy the following ballot into your comment....

My Favorite Character is:

Lotto drawing order:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

And now all you have to do is tell me your favorite character out of the following character list (this will be the first drawing):
Gomez, Morticia, Grandmama, Uncle Fester, Lurch, Wednesday, Pugsley, Cousin Itt and Thing.

And then pick 5 of the above characters in order of how you think they will be drawn (this will be the second drawing and you can reinclude your favorite character if you like). You get 2 points if I pull your favorite character (first drawing), and then one point for every character you get in the right order (second drawing)..... confusing enough? haha. Its just like the lotto but picking characters instead of numbers. A final draw will be held for anyone that comes out with equal points :)

Here's a sample ballot (this in no way reflects what the final out come will be - the order will be pulled at random):

My favorite Character is: Morticia

Lotto Drawing order:
1. Uncle Fester
2. Pugsley
3. Lurch
4. Thing
5. Morticia (I reincluded my favorite character but you don't have to if you don't want to)

I will post the lotto results and the winner Friday evening (7-10-09). You have to be a follower to enter but you don't have to be one of the first 75... if you join after this post we'd love to have you!!!

Also, Cate of Solet Luna answered the fastest on the bullet question a few posts ago so, Cate, you get an extra point added to your total!

Good luck everyone!!! And thanks again for all your support!!!!!

Ara and the Addams Family :)

I finally found some help! Meet Murph....

Well, it's been a long and hard search but I finally found some help!!! See... I don't have any dolls yet to help me size and proportion and I don't want to just going buying tiny people willy nilly! So I have been searching and searching and searching...... and searching for the perfect sized wooden model to help me with my minis. Why did this search take so long? Because the only sizes I could find in any store was 4 1/2", 8" and 12" tall!! And none of those help!!!

But anyway... I would like you to meet Murphy (Murph for short). He's a perfect 5 3/4" tall! He has come to help me with both houses so you will see him here (The Addams Family Mansion) and also at Bentley Manor.

Here you can see him meeting Thing. Thing wasn't sure at first but I think it'll be fine. Thing's a great hand model but I needed someone with a whole body to give me some perspective on the Mansion :)

Also, I'll be away from the computer this weekend as it is Independence Day weekend! and I will be with family celebrating! I didn't know Canada Day and Independence Day was so close together - how fantastic! I hope everyone is having a great time celebrating their country :)