It's been a while

Sorry I've been gone for a while. My son was here last week and he left me a gift ... a really bad cold. Hence I've been feeling a little sorry for myself and haven't really been up to spending time in the garage doing minis. However, I'm feeling a little better today and so thought I'd let you see just a tiny bit of progress.

Here is that 1:48 scale cottage which I bought from the charity shop a few weeks ago. I changed it quite a bit in the end. You'll see from the marks on the base board that it should have had bay windows but, because I wanted to glaze the windows, I just could not get the card to stay in that shape so in the end I gave up trying and made a new flat front for the cottage with just one large window and the door placed to one side rather than in the centre. 

I cut a hole in the side wall so you can see into what will be the kitchen area (painted blue), and also cut a large chunk out of the back wall for access. The walls are all decorated inside and I've glued blinds and curtains at the windows. I still need to add a fireplace to go on the wall where the chimney is.

 I got a couple of rows of bricks in place on the outside too.

I made a bathroom cabinet for the 24th scale manor house and filled it with pretty bottles of toiletries and a box of tissues.

The only trouble is that because the bathroom is in the roof space of the house the room isn't actually high enough for this to sit above the washbasin so now I'm making a small side table for it to sit on.

I've also been making a few handbags. I offered to do a workshop for my miniatures group and thought I'd make up a few samples so the ladies there can choose which style they want to make.

And finally ... spring is on its way! I thought I'd share a couple of photos of some of the flowers in my garden at the moment. I love snowdrops and every spare nook in my garden is filled with huge clumps of them. I love the hellebores too - especially this clump of deep purple ones by the side of the pond.