Oh Boy! And Some More Progress

We lost our computer earlier this week, the hard drive failed apparently. Well, it was 7 years in use, and they tell us they're only good for 5 years or so. Anyways, the PC Girls managed to transfer all our info onto the new drive, but....

From early September until this week, more than 3 dozen emails to my gmail account did not arrive, for some reason. So I discovered many messages, a number of which had been in connection with our miniature show last October, that I only got to see yesterday. Among them, several people requesting sales tables for the show, people wanting to take our workshop, and most heart-breaking, a request from our radio network (CBC NB) for an interview about the show. They've all had apologies, and most of them have already replied with kind understanding.

So I'm back to work on the Japanese vignette. The Japanese maple tree is now finished, and I am quite pleased with it:

I will rotate it when it is actually in place on the vignette, to get its best side facing forwards to the viewer. The leaves were made of coffee filter paper, coloured with a Copic marker, then punched out in two sizes, shaped, and glued to a twig from the garden. Lady Iolanthe in a comment suggested the cat might be looking at a Japanese nightingale on one of the branches of the tree, and that is something I am seriously considering!

The gate framework has been tested, I am now working on the panels and the sliding doors will follow after that. Once the gate structure is in place, I can decide the size and shape of the hedges and fences, and start designing them. Everything will still be removable, until I do the landscaping of the courtyard. Only then will things get fixed permanently in place.

 I found an odd, antique thread spool in my pile of stuff, which will work out perfectly for the Japanese lantern's pedestal; it even has a couple of raised bands on the shaft, like many stone pedestals do, but no flared top like most spools have, just a flare on the base. All it will need is paint. The lantern is actually Chinese rather than Japanese, but I think with a coat of paint and some aging it will work out well.

The club project has hit a glitch; I can't hinge the front as I had hoped unless I make some drastic changes to the overall look of the project. It is sitting on the kitchen counter, where I can see it and think about how to go about doing what I want to do. I have about 9 days until it should be ready for the interior decorating to begin....