Review of the Year 2009

Dear blogger-friends, dear new followers!
Thank you for beeing my visitor - some of you - nearly every day. I enjoy your interestingness, comments and questions or suggestions very much. I'm so glad that I improved my english and that there are less words I have to look after in the dictionary month by month. That is because of you! I would never be motivated to improve my english before having so many international readers.
I want to give you, and especially the new followers, a very short overview of my posts this year.
Have fun! Have a good new year and may some of your dreams come true (and there may be some dreams left to dream).
Oese
PS: I made this post a few days ago, today I'll go to celebrate the last day of the year with a friend in Hamburg and at the weekend I will build my new IKEA-furniture.

Januar 2009
This is how it all begun: A few tiny things like playmobil in my cupboard - I liked the idea to have a small hair-salon. Had no idea to what this would lead....

Februar 2009
I began to craft a few things with cardpaper and fabric and polymer clay, I bought some dogs and beads and looked at the things I had allready with "mini-eyes".


März 2009
I purchased my first miniatures in HongKong. Didn't know what trouble that means with the customs. But all went well and I made a designer-table from light wood I saw in the other blogs for miniatures.
April 2009
I was so inspired by the other bloggers, I wanted to copy the wonderful style, I didn't realized yet, that my furniture was too big for my lundby-house.

Mai 2009 Messe in Soest
My first miniature-fair - I only visited because it was near to my hometown. It was a bit overwhelming for me, but I found a few nice chairs without paying posting or customs.

Juni 2009 Villa Eichhorn - pimped
I purchased a dollshouse for children and had a lot of work and fun to pimp it up to a kind of "modern dollshouse". It found its place near the window and I learned to make fotos with the sunlight or lamps beside it. It was really a lot of fun!

Juli 2009 First Swap
I bought so many things this year and I realized, that I couldn't keep them all. I dediced to give away some items and had my first Swap with the very nice Lady Doreen. She got three Bodo-Hennig dolls. The familiy arrived in Canada and had a warm welcome.

August 2009 Antique dollshouse furniture
I made a short trip with my son to pick up a very old dollshouse I found on ebay. I loved the antique furniture, but not the house. And everything was much bigger than I guessed after looking at the fotographs. Some of this pieces are in Australia now, because Rebecca loved it too, but I kept this wonderful doll and a few pieces for my scenes. I had a lot of work with it on my balcony - but it was worth it.

September 2009 The last summer days
Doreen made a wonderful barbecue, a golf-bag and some other really nice things for me. I made this summer scene that some of you reminds of their own garden-corners.
It is to mention that I had swaps with a few others of my new blogger friends, not only Doreen. And it was a great pleasure to me.

Oktober 2009 More minimini-houses
I first visited the modelrailway shop in my neighborhood and found a lot of nice N-scale houses for my collection. I started with a Villa Sibi made of a little wooden box and that was the beginning! This is my way to collect nice dollshouses, because I have no space to collect the real ones.

November 2009 Extension floor
This was my chance to get another room which needs no more space: the extension floor for my smaland house. I love big rooms with the possibility to make two areas like living and cooking or sleeping and working.

Dezember 2009 Massage-bench
I admired the work of Pinchofpepper on flickr and had the currage to ask her for making me an OOAK-piece. And she agreed and started immediatly, because she loves to make minis.
Hi Pinchofpepper, if you read this: Best wishes to you!

Tulip

Yesterday my late Christmas-gift arrived: four tulip-chairs. They are reac, I purchased them from Elizabeth/ELF mins in London. After seeing the pictures of her apartement I'm so pleased to deal with her - I think she is a very nice lady, friendly and openminded.
Because I'm busy with my IKEA-visit today and my journey to Hamburg I only made a little scene, that is not like I would like to present this wonderful chairs - but I wanted to show you......

My own room

This is definitely the point in time, where I have to pay more attention to my own room and stop buying or decorating new mini-stuff. I want my stuff in my flat and not in the basement (where I could storage it all), but that means I have to buy furniture for all these building-blocks and wood and fabric, tools, boxes with accesoires and so on. Not to mention the collection of vintage and modern furniture in a few scales.
During the holidays I tried to find out, what I need and what I want, but it is quite difficult in my room, because it has so many corners, three doors and I want a bed AND a sofa
Here is one trial with the Ikea-planner, but that's not the solution. You can only put workroom or kitchen or bedroom furniture in this planner, this is the reason why there is a bench instead of my beloved sofa in the middle.

Update: The living space of Elizabeth (ELF-Miniatures). Thank you maggi for the hint.

Winter-Solstice

I am and was allways a huge fan of solstice-fire! In former times I lived in a nice landscape with crazy people around - they often lit a fire in their gardens and we sat or danced around and sung, don't care, if the people might say, we are witches!
I miss this fires very much, in the town it is not allowed to make a fire in the garden.
Today I am so happy because of the change to more light, this day brings to us. I wanted to make a scene with a few dolls and a fire, but then many things went wrong and so I could only take pictures of my mad balcony-fire in an old bowl of emaille (I think I had a bath in it, when I was a baby :-)

The last weekend before Christmas

I have no stress with buying presents or preparing a christmas-meal - I can enjoy my weekend after a busy week at the office. Because I suffer in the loud atmosphere I worked in another room the last days of the week and out of the window of this room you can see the "biggest christmas-tree of the world" (so told by our town-managers - if it is true?). I want to show you a foto, taken in the early morning at 7 o'clock, when I begin my work.

it is very very cold in germany today - but the sun came to say hello and reaches into my lundby-house, where the preparing for christmas-eve is nearly finished.

Lovis Corinth

I love this painting very much - first time I used it in a mini-scene.

A Christmas Scene

Bald prangt den Morgen zu verkünden

Bald prangt, den Morgen zu verkünden

die Sonn auf goldner Bahn,

bald muß die Nacht die düstre schwinden,

der Tag der Weisheit nahn.

Oh holder Friede steig hernieder

kehr in der Menschen Herzen wieder,

dann ist die Erd ein Himmelreich

und Sterbliche den Göttern gleich.

Dir strahlt aus tausend Augen wieder

dein Bild, oh Lichtesquell.

In Perlen fiel der Tau hernieder

und grüßt dich rein und hell

Dir dankt, oh heere Lebenssonne,

die stille Blume Lichteswonne,

dir dankt in frohbewegter Brust

die neuerwachte Lebenslust.

Schwing frei dich von dem Rand der Erde

empor in Ätherblau.

Beglückt im Reich des Lichtes werde

die ärmste, tiefste Au.

Wir werfen ab der Nächte Sorgen,

des besten Tages schöner Morgen

er bricht in jede Seele an,

er führt sie froh auf lichter Bahn.

waiting for the postman

my last ebay-find was this extraordinary sideboard - I'm totally in love with it - and a lot of other stuff I do not like or need AND a matching wardrobe. but the wardrobe wasn't in the parcel and the seller promise to send it.

haha, just in the moment I wrote this the postman arrived with a letter....

I was surprised the matching wardrobe was so small, but it is wonderful for my lundby-house, I will make fotos immediatly:

....

I think one of my best pieces!

Cocktail-Chairs

For a long time I was searching for such chairs, they are so costly at ebay or very odd. This were only 1 €.

The ebay-seller made the fotograph in a way that I could not see the legs were not the original ones. But I had enough mikados from my villa-sibi-crafting and so new legs was no great thing!

I ask for the measures very seldom, I take what I get, but I never had thougt that this chairs would be good for lundby - so small. I will try to make a cover in a cyclam-pink (I have an old t-shirt in this colour), but it is okay in the original colour too.



It was hard for me to make a scene that makes me feel good, but I am pleased to have more vintage furniture for my lundby-extension floor - unexpected!

About the light / lighting

There was a question about the light I use. I think the nicest fotos are shot, when the sun shines through the window.
Well, in this post I showed the results with my daylight-lamp, an LED-lamp and without lighting.But very often I use the fotoshop that came with the Picasa3 I downloaded free for organizing my fotos and work with it. Here are some examples what I do with the - very easy - fotoshop:




















There are some fotos that don't need any fotoshopping, but a special cutting to look better
like this.


Some fotos are too dark, but it is okay because of a special athmospere:
like this

If you have any special questions, feel free to ask me. I am learning by doing, but like to share my experience!

About my "new" Midcentury sideboard

Some of you liked one of my last sideboards and asked about the material. Here are some fotos of this plastic-box (that came with a vintage sewing machine 1:1 for the little tools).

I think you do not need any explanation:

Two parcels

arrived today - I will show you more and answer your questions tomorrow - the work is very exhausting at the moment!

Some new furniture

This is the next auction I won for a rather good price. I was mainly interested in the green chair in the background - and it is as nice as expected, perhaps a little big. I'll sell the two chairs in the background, I have similar ones, and one of the red chair. I will show all the vintage items I like to sell, when everything arrived.

ooops, I did it again...

.... my last ebay-shot.
sigh
I don't want, but.....only 5,49 €

AWARDS

Today I want to do what I planned for a long time. Some of us like the awards, but some of us do not like the chain-letter-system coming with the awards. I am not a fan of following the rules too. But Rebecca gave me an award a few weeks ago I apprechiate very much: My award

I have done all my housework yesterday together with my daughter (and afterwards we had italian pasta and pizza), so today there is time for paying forward this award. Because I am no more a big reader, but love films, I want to tell you something of my favourite films with this award-thing.

First person is the incredible Pubdoll. I was looking for a film with fantasy as in her stories about the dolls, with witty speech, with love for the work and unexpected outcome. So it wasnt hard to find such a film, and I love it very much:
Ein Fisch namens Wanda

(sorry that I do not post any pictures, I know, such a post is not so interesting, but I'm not sure what is allowed and what not).

Second is Callsmall. I love not only her blog with pictures of furniture I like - we have the same taste indeed -, I especially love the stories of her childhood in NY, of her family affairs, and... this is the name of the tv-series I chosed for her:
Family Affair

(and sorry that I do not link the winners of the awards, I think you all have a bookmark to their blogs)

Doreen is one of my first followers and she is such a kind and friendly person. I enjoy watching her post that shows her skills in making furniture with her own hands, but I like to see the wonderful landscape she lives in. That reminds me of a film I also like so much, not only because of the wonderful actors, but there is such a nice landscape and lake:
On Golden Pond

The wonderful Rebecca. There was no second of hesitating which film is for her. I absolutely adore this film, but I'm afraid it is only available in german language. This film is about a journey of a former ddr couple and her daughter to Rom. The husband has a book of Goethe and reads what Goethe wrote on his own journey to Rom in some parts of the film/journey. It is a very funny film, but never silly because of the wonderful actors and the Goethe-parts. I would love you could see this film, Rebecca. I know you would love like me:
Go Trabi Go


Next is Petitenouveau! Oh, I miss her posts and hope she is well. A lot of work to do, Christy? I cannot say exactly, what is the reason for selecting this film, but it was the first that came to my mind and there was no doubt. I love your outlook and so I love this film, enjoy!
Sweet home alabama

I often told Annina, that her pictures reminds me of a Hitchcock-movie. There is some tension it in, I cannot explain, but it is a very strong feeling and strikes me all the time I look at her artwork-fotos. So my favourite Hitchcock-film is:
Die Vögel

Püppilottchen - für Dich einen Film zu finden, fiel mir etwas schwer. Ich glaube, es gibt bestimmt einen, der dich charakterisiert, aber ob ich ihn zu meinen Lieblingsfilmen zählen würde? Du bist in vielem so sehr das Gegenteil von mir - wohl deshalb mag ich dich so und schätze Deine Emotionen. So habe ich einen Film ausgesucht, der voller Emotionen ist und noch dazu mit meinem Lieblingsschaupieler Kevin Spacey. Hier, der Award-Film für dich:
Pay it forward

One of my favourite films since the 70s, when I watched it with my husband, is the film I want to give to Modern MC. It is /she is classic - no more is to say.
Star Wars

Allthough she isn't at this stage in the moment, I want to include Altera. I love her style and I miss her. Hope she will read this at least. I'm a fan of the sixties style and there is no film I have seen so often as this one (because it is repeatet shown in tv again and again):
Pillow Talk

The last award goes to a lady I got to know not long ago. I like her style and I like her ideology, she shows a bit of it in her wonderful blog. So a film for the heart and for the people who believes, that there is just more (so do I). Please visit Lizes blog! Her film is:
As it is in heaven

I hope you all had fun reading this award-list and I hope you are not sad if you are not mentioned. I read many more blogs and there is something I apprechiate in every blog. I want to thank you all for the connection and the love i feel behind fotos and words.

sideboard

Update: here is a similar sideboard on german ebay at the moment. If you need help, don't hesitate to email me: link to ebay

Actually I like sideboards much more than cupboards - in real life too. The reason is that I can put some decoration or a dollshouse-roombox or such things on it easily. So I am allways watching the sideboards on ebay and if I can get one for small price I am happy. Unfortunately there is often some other stuff that come with a nice sideboard, so that I have a lot of cupboards or furniture I do not like. This dark red sofa and chairs in the 70s-style was not my taste, but after taking a few pictures I am not sure - perhaps I can keep them and have a good use for them.

this was the eby-auction.

moss and lamp

Last week I found a little piece of moss in my bike-basket.I saw, that it has the perfect size for my table and would be a perfect advent-decoration.
Today three modern lundby-lamps arrives and I was able to set the moss into the right light.

I need a massage

I am so tired from work, but I made a very quick and easy scene with my new massage-bench. I would like to shrink to 1:16 and feel well on it....
more later

Brandy Playter

Doreen (doreensminiatures.blogspot.com) introduced her new dog Brandy as a Maltese and now she found out, that Brandy is no Maltese, but a Shinh tzu. I googled about Shinh tzu and found out, that it will have very long hair as a grown-up and I realized, that I had such a dog in my pets-collection as well as a white Maltese.
This coincident makes me (smile and) think of a nice way to present the two and I decided to show you a current german womens-lifestyle-magazin that shows christmas-presents in a wonderful decoration: with a lot of dollhouse-minis in the modern style.
I think you all should see this. Have fun!