Celestine at the pool (+ my instagram account!)

Yesterday was such a nice sunny day, so we decided to go swimming.

Celestine refused to come unless I made her a pair of sunglasses to match her swimsuit. Honestly! (roll eyes) She does insist on being fashionable at all times. I tell you, it can get quite exhausting.

So I quickly made this pair of yellow sunglasses and she perched them on her head. The lenses are made from a ginger beer bottle!

She enjoyed floating about in her new rubber ring.

Love Celestine

X

it's that time of year again...

Celestine does enjoy to feel festive. She's been planning her Christmas outfit too lately. She wants a red satin dress with red tulle under the skirt and a holly and berry hair decoration to match.

 

Hello from Celestine

Hi everyone. It's Celestine here! Harriet's a little too busy to blog right now as it's the wedding eve eve and she has been busy setting everything up. I said 'Don't panic,' in my most calming of voices. I said 'I will take it upon myself to write a blog post. I know it's a great faff for me what with the keyboard being so big and everything (do you know how much longer it takes to type when you are only 4 inches tall!?) but I will do it for you out of the kindness of my heart. Harriet said 'Celestine writing a blog post is not really top of the to do list right now, don't worry about it' but I insisted. I absolutely insisted.

So yes, whilst everyone has been very busy today setting up the marquee and putting decorations up and finding boxes of fairies and driving here there and everywhere, I have been practicing being a bridesmaid. You can see how well I've been practicing by these photos. Do you like my necklace? I made it especially for the wedding. It's swarovski crystal. It's extremely sparkly.

Though actually... I won't really be a real real bridesmaid at the wedding sniff sniff...

I was very upset to hear this at first. I sobbed for absolutely days. But slowly I came round to understanding the reasons why:

One is that being so much smaller than the other bridesmaids I will not be able to keep up with them as they walk down the aisle. Even if I sprint at my fastest run. (And sprinting would just look silly anyway)

Two is that there would be a high risk of me being stepped on. And that would be even worse than looking silly sprinting down the aisle. A squashed Celestine would not be a nice wedding present for Harriet.

So then I suggested that I could be on top of the wedding cake instead of being a bridesmaid. But then I realised what a boring job that would be and I decided that it would just be better for me to watch the wedding from a nice safe place. So that is what I am going to do.

Harriet says it's ok because I am still a bridesmaid in spirit and I can still have a nice bridesmaids dress to wear in the colour of my choice. I chose pink becasue it suited me best. And then today I wore my bridesmaid dress and picked some flowers from the garden and had some photos taken. It's not as good as being a real bridesmaid but it will have to do.

It's actually quite a tragic story now I think about it all. 

Ah well...

I'm getting a bit tired from all this jumping around the keyboard now so I think I will wrap this up soon.

I might write another blog post sometime though. I've quite enjoyed it. It's been cathartic to talk about my experience of not being a bridesmaid.

I'll leave you with a photo of my lovely dressing table in my (unfinished) castle. You can see my sparkly swarovski wedding necklace sitting in my jewellery box (just before I put it on today). Also, on the left, my gold cornish pisky ornament I got when we went to Cornwall last year.

Bye for now!

Love Celestine 

X

Crown Jewels

I just want to show you this miniature jewel cabinet that I created the other day for my castle.  I'm very pleased with it! 

I had been searching for the perfect jewel cabinet to display all my miniature crowns for a while but with not much luck. I couldn't find anything the right shape or size for what I wanted. I wanted one which was longer horizontally than vertically and that seemed hard to find! In the end I bought this one on ebay which was labelled as being a display case for a shop and decided to customize it myself.  

As you can see it's not exactly the most regal looking thing. Also you can't really tell from the picture but the depth of it was bigger than I wanted too.  Silly me didn't think about the depth when I bought it I just looked at the height and width!  When I put it in my castle it stuck out quite far from the wall which i didn't want. ALSO the crowns were too tall to fit on the shelves!

Well! I decided that I would take it apart and re make it exactly how I wanted it. Henry warned me not to. He said there was no way I could change the depth of the cabinet without ruining it and he said to leave it.  But I am a perfectionist. So I got out my little hand saw and began to saw it almost in half length ways. Then I cut the 'glass' in half too, shifted it down a bit so the crowns could fit in, painted all the wood gold and stuck it all back together with superglue.  And it worked!!! I was so proud! I was secretly quite worried that it wouldn't.

Then I decided to fancy it all up with some gold decoration. I bought these little bits and pieces a while ago. I was originally going to use them to make an ornate little mirror but then decided that the jewel cabinet was a more worthy cause.  

So there you go! A fancy little jewel cabinet for my castle. It's going to sit in pride of place!

Castle progress!

I haven't updated in a while and that's because I've been in the midst of wood shavings, paint and superglue for the past two weeks.  I've been sawing and cutting and measuring- all in the aid of getting on further with my castle.  This year WILL be the year I finish it!  I never put myself down as a 'woodwork' kind of person before but I've actually been enjoying myself quite a lot!

To you it may not look too much different than before but this is now the current state of my castle:

I have wallpapered all of the outsides with stone patterned paper and painted the edges and tops grey (it took me three coats of grey paint to find the perfect shade!).  I have ALSO- and this is the part I am most proud of- made a flight of twisty stairs for it!  (I don't like dollhouses without stairs.) 

To make the stairs I bought a length of wood doweling and chopped it up into three inch pieces. Then I stuck them all together with superglue and voila!

Then came the hard part- how to cut a hole in the floor.  I watched a you tube video and realised it was possible to do with a craft knife.  When I say possible I mean possible if you're happy to sit there for three hours doing it.... Still it was worth it and created quite a neat, precise effect.

I am so proud of myself for doing it!  Since then I have also cut another hole in the floor above (to the top/attic room) and made a little ladder to go up to it. 

I am now very almost (apart from a last coat of ceiling paint) ready to start putting in the carpets and wallpaper and lighting.  I can't wait!

Celestine's Halloween Costumes

From right to left we have: Green and Purple witch outfit. (I love that colour combination) Pumpkin outfit (my personal favourite) and lastly Red and Black witch outfit. 

Which one do you like best?

click to enlarge

Celestine says her favourite is a mixture of the two witch outfits.  She likes the colour of the green and black one but the tutu style of the red and black one. She's picky. 

A quilt for Celestine

Celestine likes reading Peter Rabbit

Celestine was tired of sleeping in a sock so I made her this nice patchwork quilt to sleep under instead.  I thought it would be nice to make it sort of seasonal so there are lots of reds, oranges and yellows in it.  Celestine likes it so much that she is demanding we make another Christmassy themed one for December. I said: 'I expect you'll want another one for spring and then another one for summer too!?' and she said: 'Yes please. I like to have a selection.'  

Not demanding at all!

patches all laid out in order.

Celestine likes to help out.

the finished article!

goodnight Celestine. (really she's just posing here. As soon as this photo was taken she jumped right out!)

stars, stripes, leaves and flowers.

What do you think? Happy Monday everyone!

Green for Celestine

Happy first day of October everyone! Now I can finally start talking about Halloween related things without feeling that it's too early.  I'm looking forward to a month of pumpkins, dark nights and spooky stories.  In fact I am planning to show case a few of my favourite Halloween related picture books here on my blog in the run up to Halloween.

Anyway that aside, I thought I'd show you a new item of clothing I made for Celestine the other day.  (I know I know I think I have a can't-stop-making-miniature-things disorder) A green cardigan!  I actually made a pink one for her first and then realised that pink wasn't quite her colour but that's a post for another day. 

As you can see it is the perfect cardigan for climbing trees in! Celestine is well camouflaged. 

*I know the buttons are actually quite large on her but I think it gives the cardigan a sort of charm.  I did have some smaller buttons but not in green.*

some green buttons from my miniature button collection. If I see tiny buttons I HAVE to buy them.

A couple of photos from a walk I went on the other day. Meant to post them before but I forgot. They fit well here though!

Today has been full of thinking up story ideas, swimming, taking the dog to the vet and eating cheese and ham toasties.  Celestine went bed shopping.

What have you been up to? xox

Celestine takes a walk

Yesterday Henry, Barney and I went walking in one of our favourite places.  Celestine came too. It was a beautiful day.

Here's Celestine standing on top of the hill. She wore her new shiny yellow coat.

View of the valley.  There's a stream at the bottom.

Henry and I raced wooden boats down the stream.  We wrote our initials in the bottom of them. Henry's boat won.

I love shallow, pebbly streams like this. They inspire me. This one comes from a spring just a bit further up.

Celestine at the bottom of the hills in the valley, just before we walked our way up to the top.

Pattern for Celestine's yellow coat. Very simple.

Yellow coat in all its glory.

 Hopefully we will go back there soon!

What did you do this weekend?