Long Time no See

Wow, I knew it had been a REALLY long time since I posted anything on here (this year has gone by crazy fast and had so much going on but I'll get in to that more in a minute), but I didn't realize that it's literally been since before Thanksgiving last year since I've posted anything! So I guess this post will be mostly getting everyone caught up to speed before moving on, haha.

So let's start with where I left off last year..... just before Thanksgiving, with the art gallery for my "Whimsy Street" project newly finished and gearing up for holidays and everything that goes with them.  Of course we had our annual "Pre-Thankgiving Dinner", and I think in a post last year I had mentioned re-doing the craft room, well, I did get the craft room re-arranged and my new workbench set up, but I have to admit almost a year later it's still in a semi--finished state because one thing I was planning on doing was opening the room back up to the back room in out house where my office is (long story but for a while we needed that part of the house to not be accessible through the craft room so there's currently bookcases covering the door), so I haven't finished painting or gotten everything exactly where it's supposed to be because in the mean time at some point that part of the house because out storage area and so now needs to be cleared out, and also I need a smaller desk in my office to get the door to be able to open, so I'm still not sure when that whole project will actually be completely done. But, to move onto the actual miniatures.....  I did get just started on the Toy Store at the end of last year, but then put it aside to work on Christmas presents and other projects, one of which was another miniature parade float,

figuring I'd get back to it at the start of the new year.  So, that brings us up to this year.

2018 so far:
 I suppose it shouldn't be surprising to me that I didn't actually post anything on here this year because the year flew by so fast and we had several major things going on that I ended up putting a lot of time into.  Honestly I didn't really work hardly any on the toy store (except for a little in January) until the past few weeks! I did however start the year working on some miniatures.  I was planning on making a big announcement once its all set up (which I still will), but at the end of last year I decided that I'm going to be opening an Etsy shop selling original miniature artwork, mostly in smaller scales, although there might be some larger scale items at times and of course some stuff will work for multiple scales.  The name of the business is/will be Gallery B Miniatures.

the shop logo

I had hoped to have it up and running in late March/early April time frame, but clearly that didn't happen. I vastly underestimated that time I would have available to get a good stock of artwork created before opening shop (although I did get a fair amount of paintings/artwork done early in the year I want to make sure that I have not only a good amount to post when I initially open shop but enough already ready to go to replenish the shop as items start to sell so that as I get new works finished I always have others already waiting so I never have nothing to post), I also wanted to do a lot of research on selling on Etsy and suggestions for shop policies, etc. and not just go in blind.  I was able to get a lot of research done early in the year, to the point that I'm confident enough that I'm probably as prepared on that front as I can be until I actually get into it.  My biggest problem as far as research and making decisions on policies and such has been trying to figure out shipping, let me just say the postal services website isn't always helpful. Haha.  So here it is October and the shop still isn't open, but at this point basically my hold up is getting more artwork finished and getting business permits and such, I'd say so hopefully by the end of the year, but in reality we're getting into the busy time of year for me, so I'm thinking more like early next year.

Now, you may at this point be asking yourself, "So, why didn't you get much work done this year either on artwork for the shop or on the toy store or bookstore?".  The answer to that basically starts at the beginning of March.  We actually took two full vacations this year, the first of which was at the beginning of March.  We went to visit some of my husbands family (2 sisters, a brother, and their families) in Arizona.  It was really an awesome trip, as well as getting to spend time with members of his family that we don't see very often we also took a couple days of the trip and took a side trip to the Grand Canyon! (his family is in the Phoenix area so the rest of our trip was there).  We stayed in the National Park (fortunately I was able to get a great deal on our room) and it was FABULOUS.

photo op at the visitor center

our first view of the canyon

I love this picture of my husband at the canyon

I wish I could post all the hundreds of pictures I took there, but then this post would never end, so I tried to pick just a few that I thought showed off the canyon the best.... you just really can't understand the effect of standing on the rim unless you have been there.... you just can't get the feeling of majesty and grandness and size through a photo

I have always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon, and it was even better than I was expecting.  It was a little chillier than it should have been at that time of year, but there was still some snow around and that was really cool.

you can see some snow in the bottom left portion of this picture

And the last morning we were there we got up early and watched the sun rise over the canyon..... neither of us were dressed quite warm enough for as cold as it was that early in the morning and we got a bit sick, but so, so worth it! I've always loved sunrises anyway but watching it come up over the canyon was just awesome.

Just a short way south of the Grand Canyon, there is a roadside attraction, which admittedly has seen better days, called Flinstone's Bedrock City (it's basically a recreated town of Bedrock). I love vintage roadside attractions (most of which have seen better days at this point lol) so we had to stop.  We ended up being the only people there while we were there (I'm asusming because of the time of year and it being a weekday) and we had so much fun running around taking pictures with the characters and houses.

you kind of know what your getting into as soon as you pull up hahaha.... but for $5 it was totally worth it (although I did find a $1 off coupon after we got home from the trip in a coupon/guide book I didn't really look though while we were there, so I wish I had because $4 each would have been even better haha)

we took a ton of photos, but I won't torture you with them all, but I liked this one of me and Dino and you can kind of see a couple of the structures in the background to get an idea of what the whole place was like.... the inside of the buildings were all decorated as whatever they were supposed to be too.  I loved it

We also stopped at another Park Service Site - Montezuma Castle National Monument - on the way back from the Grand Canyon (it's a small site that doesn't take long to visit, but it was really nice).

view of the cliff dwellings as we were walking along the path towards them, you don't go in them or on them here but there's a trail with several stops with informative signs that take you right under them and give all sorts of info. about them and other stuff on the site (and its a short, level walk) and there's really nice little museum in the visitor center as well

Later that week we visited the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix,

me posing with one of the garden sculptures right after entering the gardens

walking down one of the paths through the gardens..... there were other areas that were more like a "garden" but there were also a lot of sections that felt like you were out roaming through the desert (but you know with paths haha) and I really like this picture ;)

and the Bass Pro Shop in Mesa (it's a thing we do, if there's a Bass Pro near anywhere we go we have to stop in and check out how its decorated).

the outside of the store

looking down the middle of the store after entering

     After getting back from the trip, I pretty quickly had to get working on Easter stuff, and then I had my birthday and had a party for that (a cacti and butterflies themed party.... did I mention there was a butterfly house at the Desert Botanical Gardens?.... can you guess my inspiration for the party theme?)

some of the bigger decoration on the food table in the bay window in my mom's dining room (we tend to have parties there, unless they are going to be outside because her house has a better set-up/flow for parties than our 1930's house lol)

the dessert buffet

and then a lot of days spent doing outdoors things in late spring/early summer. Our second trip of the year was in July to visit my husbands Dad in CA and his brother that he hadn't seen in 20+ years (and who I had never met in person) and his kids were there with us too (they live in TX).  We also went to Disneyland while we were there (my first time to Disneyland.... being on the east coast I've always been to Walt Disney World every other time I've gone to Disney, so I was super excited about that. Oh, did I mention that I had been sick just before this trip and still wasn't feeling great and was having breathing issues while we were there.... so let me say, my first reaction to Disneyland was how much smaller it is than Disney World, but I was really thankful for that because I don't think I would have made it through Magic Kingdom at Disney World hahaha.)

the whole park is smaller than Magic Kingdom in Disney World, but what really shocked me was how tiny the castle was compared to the castle at Disney World.  I'm not even that far away from it in this picture..... it's a super cute castle though!..... and I got my rose gold mouse ears that I really really wanted!

We didn't end up doing as much there as we would have had we both been feeling 100%, but we got in everything we really wanted to do and had a great time.  The next day we also went to Santa Barbara Pier with some of his family, but we headed up a little early and toured the Santa Barbara Mission before meeting up with everyone else for lunch at the pier.

Santa Barbara Mission from the front

inside the mission at the start of the area that you tour

standing near the end of the pier looking back towards the shore

since we got there really early (touring the mission didn't take nearly as long as we had allowed for it lol) we did a little souvenir shopping while we waited and also watch a bunch of sailboats heading out into the water

After getting back from that trip it took a few weeks to really recover from having been sick and having traveled while being sick and not really recovering in a normal time frame (and IDK what it was I had but it really affected my breathing, which was making it hard to do much of anything because I was having trouble getting enough oxygen).  So then it was a few weeks of trying to play catch up with stuff that had been not getting done while sick and out of state, and that pretty much brings us up to late August and when I really got working again on miniature stuff.

So, This post is already probably too long and most of it not really about miniatures even (although I hope you enjoyed some of our vacation pics and I really hope it inspires you to go to the Grand Canyon because I think everyone should go there at least once in their life!), so let me wrap it up with were I am with everything as of today.....  Etsy shop: at this point as I mentioned earlier, as much as I'd like to have it open before the end of the year, since my original goal was to have it open this year, I realize that that might not be doable and I'd rather have it wait until early next year and be done right than rush to get it done this year and not do everything the way I would like too (granted it would be nice to be open for holiday shopping, but probably not gonna happen) I did make a Facebook page for it though earlier in the year when I thought it wouldn't be much longer before I officially opened shop so if you like and follow it you can stay up to date with when it actually does open and special offers and such! (you can search for "Gallery B Miniatures" and the profile pic is the company logo)   Whimsy Street shops: The past few weeks I have really been working full steam on the toy shop (still haven't decided on a name though), and it is essentially done.  At this point I am just waiting on a couple little floating story locket charms I ordered to come in the mail and paint those up and glue them in place, then glue all the fixtures and everything in place and it's done (except for the name haha).  I will do a separate post just about the toy store though since there's a lot to cover since I haven't been posting as I go.  The bookstore should also be done before December, and as soon as I'm finished with toy store I will start really working hard core on that.... I've already gotten as few things started for it and I have everything I need for it (well at least that I know I need for it at this point lol) so I think it should go together relatively quickly.  If I don't get the last few pieces for the toy store sometime this week, I'll go ahead and get working on the bookstore "full time", but I also have some housework that needs to get done and I want to get my Halloween decorations up in my real life house this week, so this week I'm going to focus more on that stuff. haha.

I will post a post about the toy store by the end of the week either way, if the final items haven't come in yet to completely finish it off I'll still go ahead and show you what I have, and then I'll just do a short post later with the final pictures.  And then I should be back on track to post progress as I work on the bookstore (Which I think will be called The Librarian and The Bookworm Used Books, but I'm not 100% positive about that yet, my other top choice is The Bookworm's Burrow). And hopefully no more insanely long catch-up posts that have to cover basically an entire year.......... ;)