The Tea Shop is Open for Business

I mentioned awhile back that I would be finishing up my little tea shop before I get on with my next miniature project. Today I did that and here are the results.This first picture shows the little tea cart I finally finished today. The little tea set on top was from a swap, can't remember what or when.


Now you can see inside... I have added chairs and a little table to the ladies room, food to the pastry holder and the tea cart as I mentioned before.

And here is a close up of the food, all came from swaps.

I will be moving all these pictures over to picture trail soon. Just in time to start another project.
Let me know what you think.

A Brand New Day

After feeling miserable with a cold all weekend I am much better today and getting lots of work done. I have spent the morning catching up on a lot of jobs around the house. We are getting cable phone put in so couldn't go near the computer until now which was good to keep me working on all the things that needed to be done.

Here is a picture of a little building I bought at a yard sale on Saturday. It has a hole on the top that made it look like a bird house. However the lower portion includes two doors that open up onto two inside shelves. The item had been on sale at Big lots and I had put off buying it until suddenly it was gone. Good that I waited as this was a LOT cheaper at the YS.

And here it it with the door open

I am going to make some sort of miniature scene inside.... I would love some ideas. Just write them in the comment section.

Time to Relax and Catch up

The dizzying travel around the country side to attend BlueGrass festivals is over for a couple of months. Three festivals in 5 weeks may? be a bit too much. We Enjoyed the music, we got to see several friends we have met at other festivals and now it is time to stay home. I have to admit I started getting a cold on Friday and by Saturday it was affecting me a bit. It didn't stop us from attending a huge garage sale that morning but by mid afternoon I was a mess and ended up sleeping away the afternoon and evening...... I missed seeing one of the groups I really wanted to see but they will be at our next scheduled festival and Bill bought me one of their CD's so is isn't so bad.

I am hopeful now to get back to my mini making as soon as I can quit coughing.........
I have to finish up my little tea shop and another project I have started on but not mentioned here yet.

So keep checking in....

Tomorrow I will post the picture of a birdhouse type building I bought at the garage sale and want to turn into a 1/2 scale "something???" Any and all suggestions are welcome. Just add a comment if you think of something.

Happy Fourth of July

We have been doing a lot of traveling lately and not home much so almost forgot this was a holiday weekend. We are going to a blue grass festival this week but it is local so we can come every day.

I will try to tell you about it in a few days. Maybe a picture or two though I have not taken a single picture yet and we have been up there twice now.

Our Grass is BLUE

Music in the Mountains Bluegrass Festival

Finally on Wed. of last week the Blue Grass Festival began. We had to drive a long way to get to this one. Much longer than usual but it was so worth it.

Here is our little home away from from at the festival:

Many of the top BlueGrass artists were performing. I will list some of the best.....
Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, The Grascals, Dailey and Vincent, Gold Wing Express,
Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys. There were 27 groups in all, over 4 days. I would have thought we had our fill but we are going to another festival, a local one, this weekend.
NOW........... if you don't follow bluegrass at all none of these names will mean a thing to you but they are at the top of the charts and have all won lots of awards from the IBMA. Just click on their names if you want to learn more about the groups.

My husband said I was running around like a teeny bopper at a rock concert getting autographs, taking pics, having pics taken with them. Well, maybe I was but it was fun. Here I am with Jamie Dailey from Dailey and Vincent.

And now I am surrounded by Gold Wing Express.


This is a picture of three members of Carolina Road. The fiddler on the left is Josh Goforth who just happens to be a distant cousin. My brother did the genealogy thing and it is true.

Rhonda Vincent of Rhonda Vincent and the Rage Her sponsor is Martha White Flour which I used to use when we lived in the south. Her group always sings the theme song now. Years ago it was sung often by Flatt and Scruggs.

I took a lot more pictures but won't be putting them here. If you want to see more of these artists you will just have to go to a blue grass festival yourself.

West Virginia, Wild and Wonderful?

Here is part two of my travel "adventures."

After spending time in Virginia, we drove to West Virginia to attend the Summersville, WV BlueGrass festival and do some camping for a couple of days before the festival started. We arrived two days early so we could enjoy some camping and sightseeing in the area before the music began.
The state uses the term Wild and Wonderful on their license plates and their tourist information. It is an interesting description. If you love white water rafting, hiking and skiing in the winter this is probably a great place for a vacation. And if you want to go to one of the best Blue Grass Festivals around, Summersville, WV is it. There are a LOT of mountains, hollows and not much in the way of flat land.

One day we traveled about a half hour south of the campground to the New River Gorge National Park. The whole area is rich in history,scenic beauty and recreational opportunities.
If you want to learn more about it you can visit the website New River Gorge

The gorge itself is beautiful and put us in mind of the grand canyon of Pennsylvania. There is a LOT of white water rafting and kayaking in the river. Here is a picture of some rafters that were enjoyed the day while we where there. The zoom lens of my camera enabled us to see them, though not exactly up close.

Another attraction is the big bridge. It is an amazing architectural wonder. The road is 876 feet from the bottom of the gorge. They say it is the second highest in the US.
Here is one of the pictures I took.

After coal mining ended the area was able to regenerate all the growth that had been removed to get at the coal. It is home to many types of trees, wildlife and such. Here is a picture of a mountain laurel. I was pleased to get close enough to get a nice picture. We have lots of it in Pennsylvania too but we are usually driving by it in such a hurry we don't have a chance to enjoy it.

Travels to VA and WVA

I know, I have been away from my blog for awhile. But we have been traveling.

We just returned from 10 days on the road with our little camper being towed behind us.

Over the next few days I will try to talk about some of the things we did along the way.

It began on Friday a week ago when we headed out for Virginia, to a blue grass camp we often attend at the Log Cabin Campground just north of Winchester. Also lots of good pickin and jammin there so we were happy to be there. However, we managed to do some really interesting things, at least for me, on the Saturday we were there.

We drove to Front Royal, Virginia so I could do a bit of visiting with my ancestors. We first visited a cemetary where my Great-Great Grandfather Cone, his wife, a number of children and grandchildren were buried.

THEN we were able to visit the home he built for my great great grandmother back in 1869.
It is so fortunate that it has been kept up all these years and now is a Bed and Breakfast owned by a couple who love the old house and are restoring it beautifully. Almost all of the woodwork in the house is still original.

It was a strange feeling to know that my great great grandparents, great grandparents and even my grandmother lived there at one time. We enjoyed the tour of the house and were able to share a few tidbits of information with the family that owns it now.

The next day, before we took off for West Virginia, we managed to go to two flea markets that we like in the area and bought a few things.....

more in the next blog entry.