Banging My Head Against the Walls

Back when I was in college, the Harvey Wallbanger was a popular drink. It mixed Galliano (a liqueur) and orange juice. I suspect the drink became a hit partially because of its unusual name.

Or maybe because most of us spend a lot of time banging our heads against the wall.

Or maybe it's a personal problem. Hmmm.

Last week I was trying to format a new version of Happy Homicides 4: Fall Into Crime.




 https://www.createspace.com/7605483

Try as I might, the book did not look right when I loaded it onto CreateSpace. For two solid days, I spent every hour loading, re-loading, changing the format, and trying again. To no available.

Finally, in disgust, I sent it to Linda Gordon Hengerer, my friend and co-editor of the Happy Homicides series. The next day she discovered what I was doing wrong.

I don't know why I didn't see it sooner, but I suspect I was blinded by the metaphorical headache I got from beating my head against my computer. I also ran into a problem with the cover. I couldn't get the right resolution, no matter how many combinations I tried. I was throwing up my hands in disgust when I grumbled about the situation to my husband. He took a look at it, used a different program, and tadah! Problem solved. (By the way, you can buy your copy at  https://www.createspace.com/7605483)

In the meantime, I've been working like a fiend on a room box, which is dollhouse-speak for a one or two room project (as opposed to an entire house).

 I've been encountering all sorts of hassle with it, too. I have come to these conclusions:

1. Always, always paint when you can use natural light.
2. Keep all surfaces as flat as possible and add on panels, etc., only AFTER you get the initial surface done.
3. Sand from heavy grit to lighter grit.
4. Make sure your paint is well-mixed.
5. Make sure your paint is thin.
6. Paint your surfaces flat, because if they are on a 90-degree angle, the paint will want to drip.
7. Keep a small container of water nearby so you can touch up bits with a moist brush.
8. Keep a paper towel or rag nearby for touchups, too.

Room Boxes: A Great Way to Enjoy Miniatures

Many people shy away from miniatures because they find dollhouses too expensive. Also, dollhouses can take years to finish! If you are just getting started in miniatures, room boxes are a better choice. A room box can be any size or type of container, devoted to just one room or scene.

By being creative, by seeing ordinary things with a "miniaturist's eye," and by experimenting, you can save a lot of money when you make a room box.  I made this one for less than $10.

Here's a breakdown of the pieces:

1. The container -- I bought this box from Beall's Outlet store for $5 and change. Boxes like this can be found at almost any big box craft store, but outlet stores such as Tuesday Morning and Home Goods, as well as Beall's, are terrific resources.

2. The fireplace -- The basic triangular shape was built with old cereal boxes and a piece of foam core board from an old science project display. Then I dipped pieces of newspaper into a mix of glue and water (a cheap sort of papier mache) and coated the structure. I painted bits of pressed paper egg cartons to look like bricks. I cut the carton pieces into the right shapes and glued them onto the form. I used Elmer's Carpenter's Wood Filler as mortar. Then I touched up the paint again.

3. The "fire" -- I buy strands of LED moon lights from Amazon, six for $9.99. (Normally, if you buy them from a craft store, they're $7 a strand.) At this price, they're a great bargain! For the "flames," I use pieces of plastic painted with nail polish. The plastic can be from any leftover packaging.

4. The chair -- I built the chair out of layers of corrugated cardboard, wrapped with masking tape. Then I glued on faux leather and added black cord trim. The legs are small chunks of wood, but I could have used beads.

5. The "throw" -- This started as a cheap washcloth. I pulled all the curly strands out. That left me with this loosely woven fabric.

6. The bookshelf -- I used foam core board covered with paper toweling soaked in glue.

Stay tuned and you'll see how I decorate this room box! Do you have any suggestions for what you would like me to add?

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Five High Tech Ways to Enjoy Crafting

1. Classes -- I signed up for a Craftsy class called Mastering Foundation Stitches. Say what? you ask. You know how annoying it is to make a chain to start a crochet project? The loops have so little give. They twist as you go along. When you're done, they stick out funny. But this class promised a better, faster way to start your crochet projects without that bother.

I bought the class on sale for $10. Best ten bucks I've spend in a long, long time. The teacher was obviously skilled and, best of all, she's taught enough in real life that she anticipated the sorts of problems I would have. Here's a look at my first try.

I'm really eager to translate this to miniature projects. As you might imagine, the thread you use for a tiny afghan has no give at all, which means this should result in a much, much better product.

2. Customized fabric -- I wanted a way to take Jax, my Havanese pup, with me wherever I go. I'd seen dog pillows offered on Etsy, but the price was pretty steep. Instead, I cropped one of my favorite puppy photos of Jax, loaded it onto Spoonflower, and they printed it on fabric. You can have fabric made for as little as $20 a yard plus shipping and handling. https://www.spoonflower.com/

Gives a whole new meaning to "doggy bag" doesn't it?

3. Floss on demand -- I hate it when I go into a store for a specific DMC floss, only to discover they have every color under the sun but that one. I discovered this wonderful service from Heirlooms Forever. Using their website, I can go online and order each skein I need, by the color or the DMC code. The cost? Only 77 cents per skein plus shipping and handling. Here's their website http://www.sews.com/ and be sure to tell them I said, Hi.

4. Virtual cropping -- As Christina shared earlier, May 5 was National Scrapbook Day. A bunch of fun ladies in Collinsville, Illinois, asked if I'd like to be a part of their crop. It wasn't feasible for me to travel, so I did a remote event with them via Facetime on my iPhone.

5. Small inspirations -- I subscribe to the Alpha Stamps newsletter. I might need to give up eating, because every newsletter shares the coolest projects ever and I want everything they sell. In duplicate. There are tons of ideas here. Enough to keep my little fingers busy until the wee hours of the night. And what crafter doesn't need more stash? You have to see this little collector's room box-- http://www.alphastamps.com/blog/?p=16758C

Okay, have you tried any of this high tech ways to feel your low tech crafting addiction? Would you like to?

 Be sure to comment below and I'll choose one of you to receive a free copy of our newest anthology, Happy Homicides 5: The Purr-fect Crime. I've partnered with ten other authors to bring you this fun anthology featuring crime and kitties. The release date is May 12, 2017, to make it easy for you to "gift" a copy to a friend for Mother's Day. Or to yourself. It's only 99 cents for the first two weeks, and then we'll hike the price, so you'll want to pre-order your copy here:  http://bit.ly/2HH5Purr

In fact, could you do me a favor? Could you share news of this anthology with your friends on Facebook? Here's some easy verbiage you can use:

Love cats and mysteries? You'll love Happy Homicides 5: The Purr-fect Crime. Pre-order your copy today for only 99 cents. (May 12, 2017 release) http://bit.ly/2HH5Purr

Like a Vacation with Drugs

By Joanna Campbell Slan

On August 8 I’m going in for foot surgery. They’ll take a piece of bone from my shin and put it in my big toe on the right foot. There’s a ten percent chance that it’ll grow and thrive enough that I won’t need further surgery. Maybe even twenty percent. It all depends on several things, including whether I can stay still enough to allow the tiny blood cells in the transplanted bone to find and connect to the bone that’s been nearly destroyed by my joint implant. My FAILED joint implant.

The thought of sitting still drives me nuts. My friends have gotten used to me walking around and doing housework while we’re on the phone. I only sit still to type. Heck, I even bought a standing desk so I wouldn’t be on my backside while writing.

And that gets me depressed. Or it did.

I might have found a solution. Back when I was a kid, my mother used to drive from Vincennes, Indiana, to Summerville, South Carolina, each summer. To keep us occupied on that long trip, she’d stock up on comic books, games, and small craft kits.

Well, why not look at this bed-stay as a sort of vacation--with drugs. Pain medication, actually. I've been warned this will be more painful that my past surgery. I'll need a distraction. Or two.

Why not gather a bunch of kits, super books, and craft items?

That’s exactly what I’ve done. Here’s my list:

·         Yoyo quilt for a dollhouse bed

·         Christmas ornaments kit

·         One-quarter scale project inside a tiny Sherlock Holmes book

·         Christmas candy container kit

·         Christmas basket kit

·         Quilling kit

·         Russian needle punch kit

·         Bunka rug kit

Yup. Of course, this will be a vacation with drugs, so these projects might turn out kind of…weird. But I feel like I’m going into this with a positive attitude, and that has to help!

Okay, if you've had a "vacation with drugs," tell me...how did you get through it? I want to know!

Crafting with Wine Bottle Corks

I love recycling nearly as much as I do crafting. I especially enjoy turning trash into treasure, which was the inspiration for my Cara Mia Delgatto Mystery Series. (You can read the first one in the series--Tear Down and Die--absolutely free on a number of platforms. Check it out at https://booklaunch.io/edit/558056e0c6a3572315c53553 or click on TDD )

Wine corks are a fun item to use for crafts. I've made several things from them, including a large trivet. For this, I arranged the corks in a pleasing design, hot glued them together and finally, I added twine around the outer edge.

Recently I had occasion to use corks in my miniatures. I had an idea for how to make a tiny vial of test tubes of blood for my witch's kitchen. However, the vials needed stoppers. I cut a cork into small pieces, sanded them, and plugged the vials. (They're filled with red nail polish!)

That set me thinking. I had a lot of cork left over. Blood would need to be mopped up, right? In fact, if you were cooking with it, surely you would have a bloody handprint or two.

I upended a cork. Using a Sharpie marker, I drew a hand on the end. It was only a rough silhouette, but that was plenty for my purposes. Using a craft knife, I carefully cut around the hand. Next I tested my stamp by dipping it in acrylic paint and stamping on paper. Okay, the cuts needed a bit of work. I trimmed them with the knife again and double-checked my work. Finally, I cut a small piece of paper napkin, using a high-quality napkin without any raised design to interfere with my impression.

And here's the final bloody handprint on the towel.

Have you ever used corks to craft with? What did you make? What do you think of my bloody scene?

My Favorite Crafting Tool Might Surprise You

Because it isn't glue or a ruler or a craft knife.

It's Google.

When I'm trying to make something--anything!--I've found that googling that item is sure to improve my results.

1. Tutorials -- You can find tutorials on almost any subject these days. YouTube has tons of them, but there are also written directions galore. I even downloaded a free book on amigurumi, the Japanese art of  knitting or crocheting small stuffed toys with an emphasis on cute. Here it is: http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2013/10/what-is-amigurumi/

2. Freebies -- All sorts of cool artwork is available for personal use. Miniaturists love "printies," the word we use for printable items. Here's just one example:

You can find a ton of these on my Pinterest page at http://www.Pinterest.com/joannaslan

3. Tools -- Did you know that you can find graph paper on the Internet and print it out? Go to Formville.om

4. Patterns -- I love making my own patterns. Here are two good sites: https://www.stitchfiddle.com/en/chart/new  (for charting knitting, cross-stitch, etc.) and http://www.auntannie.com/BoxesBags/  and my all-time favorite http://www.templatemaker.nl/

5. Images -- Often all I need is a really good image, preferably a 360-degree view. That's where Google images prove invaluable. Looking at various photos/pictures of a heart, I constructed one to put in this dome. Then I switched and looked at brains. Next I checked out Venus Fly Trap plants and mortar and pestle combinations. Here's what I created...

Okay, your turn. What would you like to see me make for my dollhouse? What cool tools have you found on the Internet?

Top left, heart; top, right, gargoyle/imp; second row, right, cow skull; second row, left, Venus Fly Traps and moss; third row, far right, mortar and pestle; third row, middle, brain; and third row, left, plaque. 

Saying Hello: Minis and Writing

Hi everyone!

Let me say I’m happy to be here. Following up on Joanna Slan's post last week on getting caught up, I’ll start my post with an introduction.

I’ve been crafting in one way or another most of my life. As a kid, I liked to draw; I strung beads and did macramé as a teen (remember that?); I tried all kinds of crafts and then I discovered dollhouse kits in my 20’s and never looked back. 

Between working as a newspaper reporter, I started building dollhouses and miniature rooms. I’m now on #00000. Let’s say I’m still under the 50 mark, but I have many ideas and lots (and lots!) of kits to assemble. I’ve also gone smaller, now loving the idea of building in half the size in half or 1/24th scale. (That’s 6” to the foot compared to the standard 1” to the foot measurement.)

If there’s anything that crafters will agree on, it’s this: I became a packrat. Maybe I only have “one” hobby, but it encompasses many, many things: painting, building, woodworking and finishing, model making, soft goods: clothing, linens, curtains, rugs, etc., animal furring, oh, the list goes on. And it takes a lot of stuff to do all that.

But I love it.

Writers being the creative types anyway, I think it’s natural that we also do crafts. It’s another creative outlet. And it's fun. If you're not having fun, why bother, right? It’s like we have to keep our minds—and hands—busy 24/7. My mind is often working on a story, of course, with my writing for newspapers and magazines, plus working on both fiction books and short stories. And how often is it you get to do your hobby and write about it, too? So I enjoy writing nonfiction books on dollhouses including In Miniature Style II and the new Dollhouse Décor & More, co-authored with Joanna Campbell Slan.

When I’m not writing, I’m doing minis (and spending the money.) When I’m not doing minis, I’m writing and making money (to spend on more minis.) Yeah, it’s a vicious cycle. 

You can see some of my projects and other stuff at my website, http://cverstraete.com or my blog, http://girlzombieauthors.blogspot.com so feel free to stop on by and say hello!

4 Terrific Sources for Ideas

By Joanna Campbell Slan


People often ask, "Where do you get your ideas?" and the answer is...everywhere. But I thought I'd share a few of my favorite resources:

1. Walks -- I'm a huge fan of walking without headphones or music. The silence gives me a great chance to think. More importantly, I often hear the "voices" of characters in my head. Or I'll see someone or something that sparks ideas. Here's an example, I found a scuffed up piece of glass stuck in the dirt. I dug it out. The coloration reminded me of an old shop window. From that I made Odd Bob's Antiques.

In the door on the right, you can see the piece of glass that started all this rolling. I embedded the glass between two pieces of foam core board. The frame is cut out of drink coasters.

2. Memories-- Thinking of old shops reminded me of the year we lived in England. The streets feeding into Covent Garden were full of poky little stores. The dust and traffic guaranteed that windows were dusty. Yes, I thought, that's how Odd Bob's would look.

3. Challenges -- My pal, Christine Verstraete, and I call ourselves Two Mad Miniaturists. We're working on a new book of tutorials, especially for Halloween. She suggested that I try my hand at a bookend, as that's a new trend (or the revision of an old one) in miniatures. I looked up the size on a cool website called www.dimensionsinfo,com and started building Bob's.

4. Brainstorming -- Chris has been telling me about all the cute things she's crafting, and I didn't want to duplicate her efforts, so I decided to go darker. Last night before bed I brainstormed a list of horrific items. Today, I built a miniature guillotine, only 1 1/2 inches high. I also created a cobra in a basket, and a set of horns on a plaque. I'd already made a gold casket, and I sculpted a dis-embodied hand, too. 

The guillotine can barely be seen on the left, bloody blade and all. The cobra in a basket is next to the guillotine. The plaque with horns is on the left, second shelf, and so is the gold casket. You can't see the hand I made. Hmmmm....maybe I should put it somewhere else?

The piece isn't perfect yet. I need to rearrange the shelves, attach the lights, and create the roof. But it's definitely coming along. 

What sorts of horror-ific props should I add to the outside of Odd Bob's? I'm curious to see what you suggest!

Let's Get Caught Up

It's been years--maybe even nearly a decade--since Deb Baker and I (Joanna) had a hallway conversation that led to the inception of Killer Hobbies. Wow. How time flies. I took a long vacation and now I'm back, along with my friend, Christine Verstraete.

Together we've formed Two Mad Miniaturists. We've just released our first miniature tutorial book, Dollhouse Decor & More, with 62 cool projects.

If you like crafts, you have to love miniatures, because you can exercise all your craft muscles. Today for example, I concentrated on paper arts, cutting, assembling, and painting various small accessories for the Victorian room box I'm constructing out of garbage.

My trashy Victorian roombox.

Yes, you read that right. Garbage. As in, trash. I try to recycle, upcycle, and reuse anything I can put my hands on.

Here's a partial list:
* The bed is cardboard stacked and glued together.
* The headboard is a mixture of toilet paper and glue, covered with tissue paper.
* The chair is an empty toilet paper roll.
* The plant, lower right, is the plastic trim from sushi.
* The throw at the foot of the bed was a washcloth I found in the street.
* The curtain rod is a wire clothes hanger.
* The leaded glass windows are the bottom of a fig newton container.
* The dresser is an empty box that makeup came in.
* The mirror started with a jump ring I found in the street.
* The purple flowers are dried ones from a real floral arrangement.

So I hope you'll tune in on Mondays to see what I concoct over the weekend. It isn't always pretty, but I hope you'll find it entertaining.

See you next week--

Joanna

Save the Darlings!

By Camille Minichino

Earlier this week, April 2, my 16th book, "Mix-Up in Miniature," was released. What better time to visit the blog that supported my then-new crafts series nearly five years ago? Thanks to KillerHobbies for always being so welcoming!

One of the rules of writing that has been around for nearly a century is "murder your darlings." The idea is that if a particular sentence or phrase stands out in your prose, it doesn't belong there, no matter how brilliant it is.

There's disagreement about who first said "murder your darlings," but I hold to the theory that it was Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944), and not Nabokov or Stephen King, as often claimed, because those two have enough credits to their name, whereas Sir Arthur needs as many shout outs as he can get.

As much as I want to honor Sir Arthur, who put together no smaller a work than The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1900, I do not follow this advice.

Rather than murder my darlings—a phrase, a metaphor, a zinger piece of dialogue or description—I put them in storage, suspending their lives, keeping them available in their own file.

Let's face it—I don't write a lot of darlings, but if I come up with a line so good that it makes the rest of the page look bad, it's the rest of the page I should murder. I should rewrite that page so that it measures up to the darling.

Otherwise, I sink into mediocrity. Isn't that what happens when the bright stars in the world are asked to dim it down and wait until everyone else catches up? Darlings are an endangered species!

For example, I'm pretty good at sarcasm, but I find romantic/flirty/sexy scenes hard to write. Too personal? Too old-school? (Please don't say, just too old!) So, I was happy to have come up with this for "Mix-up in Miniature," and made it its own darling scene, where my protagonist, fifty-something Gerry Porter, calls her new almost-boyfriend:

I was so excited about the new dollhouse, I needed to share my delight. I called Henry.

"I'm on my way to see Alexandra Rockwell," I said through the Bluetooth device clipped to my car's sun visor. "I'm passing right by your street."

"Why would you do that?" Henry asked.

"Remember I mentioned we want her to donate a dollhouse to the bookmobile auction? Well, she agreed!"

"I meant, why would you pass by my street?"

I gulped and felt a blush coming on. "I can stop at your house on the way back."


It's not always possible for me to do justice to the occasional darling I come up with. That's when I extract the darling, put it in its own file, and continue on the middle road.

Sometimes, late at night, I take a phrase from DARLINGS file and work with it. I might use if for a whole new story, or a blog, or a novel. Then, guess what, a new darling will appear, and I'll have to take it out and put it in its own file and …

I'm in a loop.

But I believe this loop is what makes me a better writer now, as I write my 18th and 19th books, than I was with the first one.

And speaking of darlings, I wanted to share the little house I put together for the Left Coast Crime auction last weekend. Note the crime scene in the living room!

As writers, what do you do with your darlings? As readers, do you notice darlings?

I hope I've helped save a darling!

Creative beginnings

A crude dollhouse, made by my father, was one of the few playthings I had as a child. If there was a toy store within 25 miles, I didn't know about it. We had a 5-and-10 (anyone remember those??) in town, but that's where we bought sensible things like dishes and underwear.

For playtime, the dollhouse was it, and I loved it.



My cousin (photo shows us today!) and I would sit for hours furnishing and decorating the rooms. We'd make beds and sofas out of popsicle sticks and toothpicks, and bedding out of worn pieces of flannel or lace from old curtains. We'd cut pictures of flowers out of used greeting cards, "frame" them, and hang them on the walls.

My parents never told me there were stores where you could actually buy ready-made furniture! Maybe they didn't know.

Since I began writing the miniature mysteries, I've connected with so many other dollhouse and miniatures enthusiasts through shows, like Molly Cromwell's (I'll be at her Sturbridge show in June) and Good Sam (in October); yahoo groups like CAMP; and organizations, like NAME, the National Association of Miniatures Enthusiasts.

LATEST NEWS: A first-person article I wrote on how making miniatures has a lot in common with writing novels appeared in the latest issue of Dollhouse Magazine. I'm thrilled to be included in this first rate magazine for miniaturists.



I've never outgrown my need for dollhouses. I'd much rather shop for a three-inch sofa than a life-size one.

One of the most famous dollhouses, and one of my favorites, is Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle. It's in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry and is surely worth its own blog soon. Here's a quote from her that explains my love of miniatures:

"The child yearns to interpret the adult world in terms he can handle, and small replicas of grown-up things answer his need."

I guess I'm still trying to interpret the adult world!
Did you have a favorite toy that served that need for you?

Monster in Miniature

MONSTER IN MINIATURE, my 5th miniature mystery releases today. It's about a Halloween decoration gone deadly!

It's always exciting when a new book comes out. Do I like number 13 (counting 8 periodic table mysteries) less than my first mystery, "The Hydrogen Murder," many years ago?

I don't know anyone with 13 or more children, except my long deceased Italian grandmother, so I can't make that comparison.

A couple of things occur to me, though. For one thing, I'm a little more blasé when the book arrives at my doorstep. I'm delighted, yes, but I don't dance around the room with it and prop it up at the foot of my bed.

However, in a way, I like this 13th book the BEST. It's a better book than any of my others – at least I hope it is; I've learned a great deal with each book, so this one should be 13 times better than the first!

MONSTER IN MINIATURE will get a lot more of my attention than the first book. Back then, there was no Facebook. There was no way to e-promote; there were no blogs.

I did have a website early on, thanks to my early-adopter, hi-tech husband. For a look at my website (and me!) more than ten years ago, go to this link.

Meanwhile, I'm working on the 6th miniature mystery and hoping it will be even better than MONSTER IN MINIATURE. (But don't wait, try this one!)

SPECIAL OFFER
Email me to enter into a drawing for a miniature scene! I'll choose a winner on April 15.

The Miniature Museum of Greater St. Louis

A Special Report
By Fay Zerb

I have been asked by Joanna Slan to write a little something about our miniature museum (the Miniature Museum of Greater St. Louis). This group was started in 1989 because a group of ladies were concerned about their miniature collection because their kids weren’t interested or didn’t have the space to keep them. The ladies didn’t want their stuff ending up in a yard sale. A lot of people downsize or go into a different living arrangement, and we get their stuff. Most of the things we have came from families once the miniaturist died.

When Owners Die

Several museums have folded once the owner passed away. (Joanna’s note: This, sadly, happened just this year to the entire Delaware Toy & Miniature Museum.) A lot of the museums were started by wealthy people had quite a collection of stuff, and they started their own museum.

How the Building Fund Started...and Plans to Expand

The group started sponsoring local miniature shows in 1991 to make money to buy a building for our museum. We actually bought our building in 2000, renovated the building and opened in 2001 with our first floor open to the public. Since then, our volunteers have been renovating the second floor, and we hope to open that level to the public this year.

The museum still sponsors miniature shows in the spring and fall where dealers from all over the country come to display and sell their miniature creations (dollhouses, roomboxes, dolls, furniture, food, landscaping, and everything imaginable) to the public.

Our museum is run by an all-volunteer board of 15 people. Our general members help staff the museum during our open hours. The museum costs a small fee to enter. If you are interested, you can visit the museum's website: http://miniaturemuseum.org/ and look at some pieces of our collection, information about the museum, information about the miniature show and much more.

Fay Zerb

Where Will Your Treasures Go When You Are Gone?

Note by Joanna: Fay’s post got me to thinking. What will happen to your hobby when you die? Have you thought of finding a good home for your collection? Does your family know who might enjoy or benefit from your supplies—that stash you haven’t used? Take a moment this week and write a letter of intent. I don’t know how legal it would be, but surely it might help your family make good decisions about your belongings. After all, you can't take it with you.

A Creative Fugue State--A Holiday for My Brain

Blame it on Camille Minichino (aka Margaret Grace).

I was on my way to Florida for Spring Break when I emailed her if she’d like some sea shells for her miniatures. She wrote back, “Oooh, yes, I have a little beach scene on my bookcase, and it's seriously lacking shells!”

But somehow I read that as “ Oooh, yes, I have a little sea shell shop on my bookcase, and it’s seriously lacking shells!”

Funny how my mind works. I went to South Carolina and picked up tiny sea shells from the beach. But the whole time, I was thinking about a sea shell shop, which was something I’d intended to create for myself in miniature for years. In fact, I couldn’t get this project out of my brain. One night while I was listening to the ocean, I went online and found http://www.wannainelpaso.com/ I entered a fugue state, which is defined as an altered state of consciousness in which a person may move about purposely and even speak but is not fully aware. My mind was buzzing with ideas. When we got home from South Carolina, I went to Michaels, coupon in hand, and bought a paper mache “hat box” plus a wooden hutch and several bottles of acrylic paint.

On Friday, my husband left town for a business trip. Since then, I’ve done nothing but work on my sea shell shop, ruining a perfectly good manicure but having a ball.

It’s not entirely done…I want to add a few more things and then I’ll close it up and cover the outside and the lid. I made everything but the mermaid (I painted a statue of Ariel), the hutch, the paintings. I created the rug, the lights, the shell trimmed mirror, the table, the chair (except for the painted shells), the postcard stand, the plant, the shelving unit, all the shell displays and so on. In the "ceiling," I put tiny lights. Then, I draped the sparkling net over it to catch the 20 miniature "fireflies."

I’m curious. Do you enjoy more than one hobby? Do you ever get a creative impulse that’s so strong you can barely control it? Have you ever spent two days in your jammies working on a project and forgetting to eat? I feel so refreshed. I've been working on my writing for so long...I'm about 1/3 of the way through Book #3 of my scrapbooking mystery series...that this feels like a restful vacation. A holiday for my mind and my creative juices.

How do you like my sea shell shop?