A
BIG
SURPRISE!
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| Happy Birthday Janine! |
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| a gift from Fatima! A wonderful house plant that she made and with the most INCREDIBLE DETAILS! |
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| Oh, ... And LOOK at this! A Fabulous plant stand for it to sit upon! Wow! |
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| Fats has made the most beautiful collection of Victorian style plant stands from wooden fans and they are to DIE FOR! She has made them with a variety of different finishes and I LOVE THEM ALL! AND SO DID JANINE! |
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| What a pretty combination, wouldn't you agree? |
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| And Here is what I gave to Janine. It is a basket of assorted bath and laundry items. As it happens Janine is thinking seriously about another house when her French Country house is complete. (Hmmm..... wonder how I knew this would happen?) ***** THE LAUNDRY BASKET |
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| Here is another view of the basket and its contents. Towels, bath soaps, (both wrapped and unwrapped), bathroom tissue rolls, Jasmine water, a unique painted ivory perfume bottle, and a starfish as a topper. |
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| I have been making a variety of things and some of them also went to Janine for her birthday. The little oval picture of the Eiffel Tower, and the jar of Laundry soaps, and the oval PARIS plate, were added to the package! |
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| This is all for Janine! With love from Fatima and elizabeth |
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| The 3 MINITEERS |
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| "A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words" |
FRIENDS FOREVER!
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My friend Janine and her trusty side-kick husband Bruce, will be away in the Australia outback for the next 5 months. Fats and I shall miss them and wish them God Speed and a safe and fun-filled adventure. .......AND A VERY SPEEDY RETURN!
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A very Happy Birthday Janine!!! I won't sing - the birds fall out of the trees when I sing....You girls are so very lucky to share your passion with RL friends. Lovely lovely gifts and made so much more special because they are handmade from the heart.
ReplyDeleteHi Elizabeth, Here I have been doing paperwork all evening and just as I was to pack it in just thought I would check if you had posted!!! How will I explain to everyone that I posted your last birthday present to me so late in the year!
ReplyDeleteIt was a great surprise that you remembered that my birthday would happen while I was away. I know I will suffer mini deprivation but I must admit my thoughts are already heading west to Australia.
A great day and wonderfully thoughtful gifts. Thank you both.
Janine
Wow, what lovely gifts you girls gave Janine. I am sure she had a fabulous birthday. Amazing cake and beautiful writing on it. The plant and stand are fabulous. I love things made with fans. The basket of laundry items and the lovely tin buckets and paris plate etc are stunning. I am glad to hear Janine is thinking of doing another house - I am sure she still has so much talent to share with us. I am sure you will miss her while she is away but what a great catch up when she returns and you will have a lot of show and tell.
ReplyDeleteWonderful gifts and a great cake!
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday Janine! What a lovely group of ladies you all are! I hope you had tons of fun and I hope Janine enjoys her lovely presents. Party on!
ReplyDeleteBig hug,
Giac
I think this is absolutely one of the best ways to celebrate a birthday :)!
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday! Gorgeous gifts. I love all. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteHugs, Drora
Happy birthday Janine! Your gifts are wonderful. I like the plant stand.
ReplyDeleteGreetings, Faby
What a wonderful gathering of true friends. So many lovely gifts for Janine. The cake is gorgeous and looks so delicious. That little plant is just perfect and the stand is such a wonderful creation. Elizabeth, your basket is so special as only you can make them. The ivory painted perfume bottle is so special. I have never seen anything like it in mini land. It's sad to see the 3 miniteers will be separated for a while. I'm happy to know Janine has another build in mind. Happy Birthday to Janine and may her trip be super special. Take care all three of you. Love you, girls!
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit late but a cheer for Janine:) It is great to have friends you can share the same interest with. You both spoiled Janine with gorgeous gifts! At the same time, I have a question for you...what fabric did you use for the towels...I need some for my bathroom, but all the fabrics I found that look like the real thing, are still to thick? And you know I can be a little picky;)
ReplyDeleteI forgot to tell, I put you in my side bar with my favorite blogs, so I will miss none of your posts!
DeleteThank you Sab! I am struggling with the google reading list trying to find how I can get the new additions out into my sidebar. I was able to publish the ones you currently see which keeps me up to date, but there are others that I follow that I can not seem to make appear out of Google Land! Most frustrating and my go-to, tech savvy daughter can not figure it out either! Woe is me! I often forget who is tucked away inside the google reading list and forget to visit as often as I want. Does anybody know how to make the reader display all the blogs instead of just some? I need to know.... Well, maybe better tell my daughter. I am so not good with directions.
DeleteHi Sab! I just finished visiting you in your delightful living room with the new tufted ottoman addition.
ReplyDeleteIt is just the right size for my big flat feet! haha
The material that I used for the bathroom towels is BABY WASHCLOTHS! I have been using this for terry towels for years and years and they are the perfect scale for a nice fluffy towel that is in scale with the surrounding items. If you are interested ( or anybody else for that matter,) I shall post how I did them although you will no doubt find it too simple to credit as a tutorial. I shall try to get it done tonight, if possible. It will fill in as I am still struggling with a different tutorial that just won't come together.
elizabeth
Hello everyone and thank you all for the above comments! I refrained from directly replying as I usually do, to allow Janine to bask in all of your good wishes.
DeleteI will now personally thank you on behalf of Fatima and Myself, for all the compliments that you have extended to both of us. Thank you one and all. I have to add, that it is not often that a Surprise Birthday celebration, remains one, and yet Janine had NO IDEA, that Fatima and I were going to celebrate her birthday( which is the beginning of April). Even when she sat down to lunch with the gifts in packages in front of her, she didn't think it was for her birthday and only when the cake was presented did she put 2 and 2 together! It was Great! And it was a wonderful send off to a woman who was always born to travel and yet who has a domestic and hospitable heart and love for people, places and things unlike anyone I have ever met. I am proud to call her my friend. Fatima and I shall carry on and with the miniature show in the wings the time will pass quickly but there is no doubt that Janine will definitely be Missed, not only by us but also by all of her friends, like you, in blogland.
I had totally missed this blog entry. WTG Elizabeth! Thank you for capturing this moment in our lives as "miniteers". Our friendship means a lot to me. I can imagine our meetings without Janine and at each meeting there will be a placemat upon which we will stack Janine's gifties for when she comes back. What fun!
Deletefats
Hi Fats! I am glad that you surfaced here! I am especially glad that everyone got a chance to see your wonderful Victorian Plant stands! You did such a fabulous job on each of them and I can hardly wait to see the next set of stands that you have planned! Way to Go, Fats!
DeleteThe idea of putting a little pile of goodies aside for Janine will be a nice Welcome Home when she gets back; Meanwhile the Show Must Go ON! The Miniature Show in June, that is! hahha
talk soon!
elizabeth
Happy birthday Janine. You received lots of lovely gifts and I hope you have a lovely holiday.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth - your little basket and contents is fab - what a lovely idea.
ReplyDeleteThank You so much Irene! This basket was a whole lot of fun and as linen is something that I know that Janine loves, it was easy for me to assemble and sure enough she enjoyed it!
DeleteJanine is one who sets her bed linen out on the grass in the sun so that the smell of the sun and the sea air is infused into the cloth. Janine and Linen is like soup and a sandwich, they just go naturally together. Just look at the assemblage of linen that she has in her Birdroom Bedroom, and the way the armoire is filled. Making linen is a real pleasure when someone is so appreciative of your efforts. It also gives me a chance to play and experiment too. The linen basket was such an opportunity and went to a dear friend and was packed with great love and affection.
elizabeth
I love your little basket. Everything looks so sweet. Do you have a special way of doing the toilet paper rolls? I tried this afternoon and had problems cutting them so that I now have them in several heights.
ReplyDeleteHello Yvonne! Here is what I THINK I remember doing.( I haven't made them for a while) I used a plastic cotton swab stick and cut one end off. Then I cut strips of tissue to the width that I was wanting. I secured the end of the tissue to the plastic stick and began winding by holding the long end of the swab, until I got the dimentions that I was looking for in the roll. Then I cut the straw as close to the roll as possible. Some of the rolls did need to be adjusted with a SHARP pair of scissors to even out the paper, but the adjustments were minor. So keep the paper as even as possible as you roll it, it makes the job easier!
DeleteThanks for asking, and I hope you'll have better success with them!
elizabeth
Thanks Elizabeth. It seems the trick is to cut the tissue the right size to begin with and to be very careful when winding. I was very slack doing this as I thought that I would just cut them to size when I finished. I watched a tutorial on how to make them which used a tiny piece of thin cardboard wound round a fine paint brush for the middle, and the middle does look great, but it wasn't a comprehensive tutorial. I shall have to try again or just use the ones that I already have in a 'constructive' way (keep the best ones for the top) as I can't bear to throw anything out.
ReplyDelete