The end of this year stats

I thought it is time to check some stats again as the year is almost over. :)

During this year we got nearly 30 000 unique visitors to our wiki. Wow, that is something! :) How ever a lot of them left the site almost immediately so I guess they came via search engines looking for something else. I hate the way e.g. "dollhouse" is being used - it is a name of a band and a tv-serie and a book and what else... Why can't they leave the word for us? :P

Still the average visitor spent 4 minutes on our site. :)

Where do the visitors live?

1. United States 18 806
2. Finland 4 724
3. Canada 4 057
4. United Kingdom 2 925
5. Germany 2 440
6. Netherlands 2 219
7. Spain 1 624
8. Australia 1 266
9. Italy 772
10. France 734

Are you surprised about the figures or missing countries? Do help us in promoting the wiki! If you like it tell about it to your mini colleagues - e.g. write to your own dollhouse blog, forum or mag. I can help you by providing information for you :). Or take any button from this page to be added to your own page. :) Finland is number 2 because I come from Finland and me and my friends promote it a lot locally. Canada is number 3 mainly thanks to Linda who is promoting it there. I am not sure who are the promoters in US and UK or the rest of the countries, if it is you, tell me :). For Netherlands it must be Jasmina...

Where do they come?
Of course I guess some promoters by the traffic sources. :) The yearly top-10 list is:

1. google / organic
2. (direct) / (none)
3. flickr.com / referral
4. bing / organic
5. yahoo / organic
6. facebook.com / referral
7. nukkekoti.pbworks.com / referral
8. jasminasnoussi.punt.nl / referral
9. minitreasures.blogspot.com / referral
10. google.com / referral

And what they look then? The top-10 pages were:

1. /printables
2. / main page
3. advent_calendar_2010
4. /trash_minis
5. /projects
6. /diy
7. /character_dolls
8. /roomboxes
9. /museums
10. /shops

It will be interesting to see how the stats look like next year. :)

Now it is time to thank you once again you, Mini Treasures friends and fans. I am hoping you have a wonderful year with lots of mini treasures :).

Merry Christmas

I wish all my mini friends a very merry Christmas (or what ever seasonal holiday you are celabrating)!

If you have a mini related seasonal greeting, you are welcome to share it with other Mini treasures people in Facebook or Flickr.

And remember to check all the windows from our advent calendar (no peeking allowed;).

I have also a Christmas gift for you: The Mini Treasures Daily newspaper :)

The Mini Treasures Daily

A dream has come true again - I wanted to become a journalist and now I am editor in chief in a new eMagazine called The Mini Treasures Daily. :)

How do I have time for yet a new project?
I don't! :)

My social media friends started to use Paper.li already some time ago and I have often been referred in their mags. Before I started using Paper.li myself (that is two days ago) I was always amazing about their papers - how do they have time for that?

My mag is generated every day automatically based on a list I maintain in Twitter - it contains people who are tweeting about dolls, dollhouses and miniatures. The Paper.li services somehow analyzes the tweet they are doing and creates a mag out of them. It always gives the source for the news so people in the mag may get new Twitter followers.

I am now waiting the third mag to be published, the earlier ones can be found from the archive: first and second.

I think this service is new for many of you and it may raise confusion about the rights. Tweets are public and they can be used where ever: you can talk about tweets in your blog, in Facebook, in forums etc. The important thing is the sources - do not take credit from something you have not created yourself.

I hope you enjoy the new mag :). And if you know good tweeps to be added to the list, tell me!

Update:

If you want out of my mag tell me and I'll remove you from the list. Other option is to block me - as I guess I can't list people who have blocked me.

I was asked if I make money with the mag. No I don't but of course somebody is - paper.li is selling stupid ads to mags. I guess if I started paying for the service I could get rid of them. Money makes the world go round and every service provider (Facebook, Twitter, Google) looks for opportunities to make more money from the content we are spreading all over the web or by selling our data to advertisers.

Top-10 searches & printies

Maybe you are also interested about the most used search phrases? They were

1. mini printables
2. picture ice cream chairs made from champagn cork
3. diy miniature
4. roomboxes
5. dollhouse printables
6. miniature fairies
7. dollhouse miniature printables
8. miniature food tutorial
9. miniature printables
10. miniature printies

so a lot of people are looking for printies. Makes sense to me. Have you noticed that when you search for printies you often go to pages which start to warn you about some kind of danger? So if we all put our links to MTW it would be safe for us to search our printies through it. And we have a printie group too at Flickr where we can collect nice printies. :) Have you any nice Christmas printies you could add there now?

Top-10 pages @ MTW

Haven't had time to check the stats for a while but now I am sharing you a list of the 10 most popular pages. Are these also your favorites?

1. printables
2. trash_minis
3. character_dolls
4. advent_calendar_2010 - I guess this will be the most popular page in December :)
5. christmas
6. diy
7. projects
8. advent_calendar_2009 :)
9. museums
10. roomboxes

MTW Advent calendar starting - help us!

Hi bloggers, Facebookers, Tweeps and other social media users!

I need your help! The second MTW Advent Calendar starts in two days and I need all the help I can get in promoting it. So please add a button to your blog, share the link in Facebook or tweet about it.

I do not want any miniaturist to be unaware about the fun that is about to start :). I already filled my page (no peeking allowed, I can see if you do and so will the Santa) and can't wait to see what others come up with. :)

Creative commons @ MTW

I just added the terms of use to Mini treasures wiki. We follow CC license, read more about that.

How to embed Flickr photos in Pbworks

I was sure I had shared this presentation in this blog earlier but could not find it. :( So now that the advent calendar time is very near it is time refresh our memory and see how easy it is to add Flickr pictures to our wiki. There are still some pages available so go and reserve yours before it is too late :).

How to embed flickr photos in pbworks

View more presentations from jjanhone.

Consulting social media for you

Dear friends

I think I owe you an explanation - haven't been that active at Mini treasures lately. I am not abandoning it but been busy elsewhere. During the last month I have moved, lost relatives and started a company of my own. It is called Hidden treasure - Piilotettu aarre according to my two blogs concentrating on social media. In my company I give social media trainings and consultations for companies, cities and other organizations and I also create content to social media services. So a lot is going on and that's why I do not have the resources right now to develop Mini treasures. The good news is that I think about social media 24/7 and every now and then I get new ideas for our community as well. :)

I work from the Central of Finland and travel a lot inside Finland - but it would be lovely to go abroad as well. :) So here's an offer for you - if you have a company selling dollhouse miniatures and would like promote your business with help of social media I am the best consultant you can ever get - I know this field by heart, I know the social media services and as you know I am full of ideas. :) So contact me e.g. by email.

Take care and lots of mini hugs,
Johanna

Happy Halloween!

For a long time one of the most popular pages in Mini treasures wiki has been Halloween. So now that this festival is so near I decided to make this a Halloween themed month in our wiki. During the month Halloween themed pictures are shown on the main page, we are collecting Halloween prints to our printie group and of course we collect links to cool Halloween projects to different Halloween pages. Trick or treat? Show us your goodies!

Blog award for Mini treasures

Wohoo - Mini treasures just got the first blog award :). It was given by The Fashion Doll Review thank you very much, you don't know how much this means for me :). In favor I added your Facebook page to Mini treasures favorites. :)

The rules on this prize, if you'd like to play along, are as follows:
Write a post about this prize, including the photo above and a link to the blog which awarded you the prize. Then, award it to 15 blogs that you enjoy reading.

It is always very hard to choose the favorite blogs so I let Google Analytics do the work for me and promote the blogs that has brought most traffic to Mini treasures wiki during the last month. Fair game and very nice blogs also, go and visit them. :)

So my winners are:

1. Schifka - schifka.vuodatus.net
2. Nukkekoti Väinölä - nukketalo.vuodatus.net
3. Hanna&leijona - hannajaleijona.blogspot.com
4. A miniature life - a-miniature-life.blogspot.com
5. Doreen's miniatures - doreensminiatures.blogspot.com
6. Fashion doll review :) - fashiondollreview.blogspot.com
7. Nasun nukkekoti - nasunnukkekoti.blogspot.com
8. The mini food blog - theminifoodblog.blogspot.com
9. Pubdolls - pubdolls.blogspot.com
10. Debbie's tiny treasures - debbiestinytreasures.blogspot.com
11. Little roomers - littleroomers.blogspot.com
12. My small obsession miniatures - mysmallobsessionminiatures.blogspot.com
13. The barbiequeue - thebarbiequeue.blogspot.com
14. Tarja's crafts - tarjascrafts.blogspot.com
15. A minha casa en miniatura - aminhacasaemminiatura.blogs.sapo.pt
16. Cauldron craft miniatures - cauldroncraftminiatures.blogspot.com

Congrats and thank you for linking to Mini treasures wiki :).

Blog buttons

Have you already added a button for Mini treasures to your blog? If not, do it now and get your button from here.

Interviewing Maria, fan number 250 in Facebook

Wohoo, nice to see where are growingin every front, recently we reached a milestone of more than 250 fans in Facebook. It will be interesting to see which services (Facebook 268, Flickr 258, Twitter 178, YouTube 28) reaches first 500 contacts :).

Hi Maria! How does it feel to be the 250th fan in our Facebook page? It feels fine, that means that there is lots of people who likes this lovely hobby :)

Tell a little about yourself: who you are, where do you come from and what do you do?I am Maria, mom and wife, miniaturist and engineer from Tammela, Finland.

Do you have any hobbies other than miniatures?
Yes, music is important for me, also reading.. I am big fan of Agatha Christie.. I am also quite a collector.. Beatles records, dolls, teddy bears, old toys etc..

When and how did you start doing miniatures?
My husband did me a dollhouse year 2000. All started then.

What is your latest / next mini-project? I am doing dollhouse Väinölä and Dollhouse Välitalo.
How did you find Mini Treasures wiki and what is your favorite page in the wiki? JJ sent me the wiki address. I like the instructions/prints part, 40's, 50's.. there is lots of everything!

What would you like to see in the wiki in the future? Difficult part.. all kind of projects! :)
Thanks for the interview Maria! You forgot to mention the shop you have ;).

HeiaHeia! (move babe move)

I have a confession to make: I do not move enough. But as there are two times a year people make promises I am now trying to improve the situation - with help of you of course: chearlead for me!

What?

I am member of HeiaHeia. It is like Facebook but the status updates are all about keeping fit. And as they say: everything counts. It is better to walk the stairs than use the elevator, it is better to walk to shop than to drive a car, it is better to take a bike instead of a bus and so on. And it might be a good idea to go to a gym but I am not expecting too much from myself ;). But I just took a walk so that I would have something to report to HeiaHeia before writing about it to you (which proves it is working, it got me moving). I have created a group for Mini treasures and I feel myself very lonely there - come and start moving with me virtually and spiritually - I cannot be the only miniaturist who rather stays at home with dollhouses than goes outside to look for some sweat...

Ps. Remember to participate to our contest - you have still one day to participate - edit the wiki, correct a spelling mistake, introduce yourself or add your favorite link, everything counts also for that ;).

Interviewing Grace who added the photo 3333

Wohoo - I just love seeing our Flickr group growing, this week we got the photo number 3333. To celebrate the occasion let's interview Grace :).

Hi Grace! How does it feel to be the one who posted the photo 3333 to our pool?
It feels humbling, actually - like it should have been somebody better or more important than me! It was only me by accident! But 3333 is a lot of pictures, so I'm glad the pool is so full and active.

Tell a little about yourself: who you are, where do you come from and what do you do?
I'm Grace White from North Carolina, USA. I work as a paper conservator, preserving damaged artworks and documents (sometimes called restoring, though we conservators don't use that term). It's a great career for me with my love of tiny details and history, working with my hands and eyes. It uses a lot of the same skills that I developed over a lifetime of making miniatures.
Do you have any hobbies other than miniatures? I like quilting and making bead jewelry. I also love reading, especially books about the sea and ships and historic exploration, fiction and non-fiction. And in my spare time I make miniatures, and sell some of them on Etsy! My shop there is honeyandbee, and I also post miniatures on Flickr and my blog.


When and how did you start doing miniatures? I grew up playing with a dollhouse that had been built by my great-grandfather for my mom. I can't remember when I first started making things for it, but it was always my favorite thing to play with. Now my nieces have it, and it's fun to see them loving it too.

What is your latest / next mini-project?
I'm working on a polar explorer's hut. I love the history of polar exploration, and I'm infatuated with the Antarctic huts used by explorers like Scott and Shackleton that are still standing today, and are being preserved by conservators like me.


How did you find Mini Treasures wiki and what is your favorite page in the wiki?
I found it through Flickr when I kept seeing that my favorite miniaturists were having their images linked to it. It's hard to pick a favorite page, but I love the section on treasures made from trash! I love seeing how creative my fellow miniaturists are - and I like knowing I'm not the only one who gets wacky inspirations from things discarded by "normal" people.

What would you like to see in the wiki in the future?
Something I love at Wikipedia is the random featured article of the day. It's always something interesting, and usually a topic I wouldn't have thought to seek out. That would be fun to see, a random miniature page, maybe a button one could click that says "Surprise me!"

Thanks for the interview Grace and thanks for the idea of random page :). I added that to Mini treasures yesterday the first random page beeing character dolls. It is one the most edited page on the wiki - we have a lot of links there but not that many pictures so I am hoping that by highlighting the page we could get more pictures of dolls made by our readers. And we need to make a page for polar stuff too, just give me the correct term for the title :).

Edit in MTW and win @ellebanscuties

Elleban26 from our Flickr group and from Etsy donated a wonderful prize for our new contest. If you want to get the goodies from the picture edit our wiki during the following week. The winner is picked among the editors next Friday 20th August. Good luck and have fun! :)

Embedding Picasa pictures in MTW

Embedding Picasa pictures

View more presentations from jjanhone.

MTW roombox poll

I like reading interviews of miniaturists but currently lack the time to do them regularly in this blog (I have asked if one of you would like to come to do the interviews here).

So this time I take the easy way: I interview all of you at the same time :). Answer to the questions either by commenting or by blogging (add the link to comments in that case). The poll is open to everyone.

1. Do you have roomboxes? How many? Link to pictures?
2. If you make roomboxes, why? what is the best thing for you in roomboxes?
3. Have you ever given a roombox as a gift? What was the reason and theme you chose?
4. What is your favorite roombox about? Share a link/picture.
5. Have you been inspired by someone's roombox? Who was it and can you share a link?
6. Any other sources for inspiration?
7. What kind of boxes or containers have you used for your projects?
8. Do you also have a dollhouse? What are the similarities and differences betweem them?
9. What kind of roombox you are planning to do next?
10. Anything else you would like to tell about roomboxes?

Roombox month

With help of Lunika's rooms I open the first theme month: during August we are concentrating on roomboxes. They are fast to do, easy to move (e.g. to exhibitions) and perfect places for small miniature collections. And once we are making gifts for our closest people we often give them a roombox. Now it is the perfect time to share your favorite sites and tips :).

How to add Blogger pictures to MTW

A wiki reader was asking help with embedding Blogspot/Blogger photos in Mini treasures wiki so I wrote instructions for her and then added them to the wiki as well, see Photos_Picasa page. As I wrote the instructions using Finnish UI there might be different words in your Picasa so I hope you edit the instructions.

But this is what we have there now:

How to embed Picasa (Blogspot) pictures in this wiki

Find your photos from Picasa http://picasaweb.google.com (Log in)
Choose the album connected to your blog (e.g. my photo album connected to jjminit blog is http://picasaweb.google.com/jjminit/Jjminit#)
Change your album to be public (Edit - Album settings)
Share: choose Public

Save

Then go to the picture you want to embed
In the right panel there is e.g. information about the picture and a link icon "Link this picture" (or something like that, my UI is in Finnish).
Click it.
Choose the size of the picture: Small 288 pix
Copy paste from the second box. There is a code which looks like this:

...table style="width:auto;" a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo ...

Come back to Mini treasures wiki and choose a page on which you want to add your picture, click Edit and go to the table where the pictures are. Choose an empty cell. Then from Insert-HTML/Java Script.
Enter code here: paste the code in this box
Allow Java Script.
Next
Insert Plugin
Save.

Done! :)

This is how the picture looks like on wiki page:

Lähettäjä jjminit

I hope this will encourage more readers to post their photos to Mini treasures wiki :).

MTW goes France

We started the country theme weeks 10 weeks ago from USA and now we have arrived in the last country: France. France is know for fashion and good food - have you done any French projects? Be inspired by Mini treasures once again. :)

After this we will take a break in theme weeks and have a theme month in August when we are concentrating on roomboxes. It would be nice to have a theme contest - is there someone who would sponsor it by giving a roombox related prize?

Roomboxes gone with the wind

Something really bad has happened - all the roombox related pages were deleted by accident from Mini treasures wiki. Read more about the issue from this page and help us in filling the roombox pages.

I am sorry for any inconvenience caused by this and I hope we have learnt from this case our lessons so that this will never happen again.

Top 25 traffic sources from the last month

Where does Mini treasures wiki get traffic? The 25 biggest traffic sources from the last month are the following, my warmest thanks for all of you who are promoting the wiki in a way or another :).

1. flickr.com
2. facebook.com
3. ca.mc539.mail.yahoo.com
4. nukkekoti.pbworks.com
5. google.com
6. minitreasures.blogspot.com (this blog :)
7. groups.yahoo.com
8. schifka.vuodatus.net (again in the very top :) -congrats Nanna!)
9. en.wikipedia.org
10. poohbeers.eigenstart.nl
11. doreensminiatures.blogspot.com
12. hannajaleijona.blogspot.com
13. a-miniature-life.blogspot.com
14. debbiestinytreasures.blogspot.com
15. theminifoodblog.blogspot.com
16. google.co.uk
17. nukketalo.vuodatus.net
18. search.bt.com
19. google.de
20. millimari.blogspot.com
21. sn110w.snt110.mail.live.com
22. google.com.au
23. google.nl
24. lastanzadigiuggiola.blogspot.com
25. mistercrawler.com

The second MTW contest starts now!

Wohoo! It is time to start the second wiki competition. In the first contest we were looking for tips for miniature projects inspired by football - congrats Betty King :). Now we do not limit the content but the time - everyone who is editing the wiki during the following week will be part of a lottery. You can e.g. correct spelling mistakes, promote your dollhouse projects or recommend a museum/book/shop. The lottery results will be informed on Wednesday 28th July 2010 (or later).

If you have not edited the wiki yet, see wiki abc and wiki faq.

And one of the editors will get wonderful prize donated by

Marottesud: the 6 Jane Austen's novels
-"Pride and prejudice",
-"Emma",
-"Sense ans sensibility",
-"Persuasion",
-"Nothanger Abbey" and
-"Mansfield Park"),
that's 12 miniature books because each one of the novels is in 2 volumes.

Good luck and if you have problems with editing, ask help from me. :)

PS. If you are not lucky in the lottery but are dying to get the books you can of course buy the books from her Etsy shop.

MTW goes Italy

Ciao bella! After quite quiet Australian week (because I was offline whole week) it is time to visit Italy. See the Italian pages in our wiki - and be prepared for a contest any day now :).

Many ways of being part of MTW community

Do you know that anyone can edit Mini treasures wiki?

Do you know that you can add links to your web sites (photo albums, blogs, mini shops and other mini sites)? Start by introducing yourself.

You can also promote other mini things you like, e.g. museums, books, shops, brands, cool projects.

You are also encouraged to
- write instructions related miniature, e.g. in trash minis.
- correct all the grammar mistakes I have made :)

Do you know you can add pictures of your minis? You can add them either in our Flickr group or directly to our wiki. See wiki faq to learn how.

Do you know that you can help promoting MTW? E.g. by
-telling about it to your friends (e.g. in club meetings or forums), use e.g. wiki abc to get you started or ask help from me
-adding wiki link or button for your site
-joining our Facebook page or
-following our Twitter account,

The best way of being part of our community is of course reading the wiki pages - after all the wiki is made for readers. :)

From now on I'll be mainly offline until I go back home. You can follow me either in Facebook or in Twitter.

MTW goes Australia

Greetings from Gdansk! I am here participating Wikimania, yearly conference organized by Wikimedia (best known of Wikipedia).

We have a lot of readers from Australia but not that many information related to the area in our wiki so this time we are working on Australian pages. Can you see why I used this picture? Please add more Australian pictures to our Flickr group. :)

For those of you who have not visited MTW lately...

Hi mini friend

As it seems you have not logged in to Mini treasures wiki in the last months I am writing you to tell what has happened lately there :).

First of all we got new icons and the whole site looks much fresher now. Go and press the buttons to learn to navigate in the wiki again.

Then we started having theme weeks. During the past weeks we have visited US, Finland, Canada, UK, Germany and the Netherlands. This week we do Spain and after that we go to Australia, Italy and France.

And we have started piloting contests. The very first one is about a hot topic: football (soccer) and it will last one week still - one Sunday we will know the winner. To participate you only need to write a hint for miniature projects related to football.

Start following us either in Facebook or in Twitter .

Welcome back! :)

Mini hugs,
Johanna Janhonen

Organizing wiki: tags

Are you familiar with the concept of tags? If not, check this video:

An example with Halloween tagged pages.


What this has to do with us then?

Well, we also use tags in our wiki and now I am telling you why and how.


Why we need tags?
Tags are needed for organizing the data. Folders can help in that too but a page can only belong to one folder.

E.g. in countries folder we have Italy, France, UK...

Then we have tags. E.g. pages with tag "italian" (we use small letters both in page names and in tags):
blogs_italian(belongs in blogs folder),
fusili(food folder),
italian(nationalities folder),
leonardo_da_vinci(celebrities folder),
pasta(food folder),
pizza(food),
salamis(food),
tuscan(nationalities),
venetian(nationalities).


How they are then used?

Go to a wiki page and look in the right panel.

Click Edit tags
(or Add tags if there are not any yet)
so that the space will be active:
now you can edit the tags, e.g. add new tags or remove old ones. There are no limit about how many tags there are in one page (at least I have not seen any limits so far).

So when ever you see a page that has not enough tags for you go ahead and add them. Read more about tags from here and thanks for tagging. :)

MTW goes to Spain

Hola! This week we stay in sunny Spain - see the pages tagged with spanish and get inspired by this wonderful country. I am not that familiar with Spanish miniatures but I would like to know more as one of our most active Flickr group members Lola, is always showing so cool stuff. Please show us more Spanish projects!

MTW goes to Netherlands

Weeks go fast, dont they? Tomorrow we switch again countries, from Germany to Netherlands. My favorite Dutch is Vincent van Gogh who created beautiful paintings during his not so happy life. Dollhouse hobby has roots in Netherlands so I am hoping we will hear more about Dutch hobby soonish. See dutch tagged pages and be inspired.

MTW goes to Germany

After week in UK we which tomorrow to Germany. Germany is an interesting mini country as the hobby is really popular there - Germans might be to most active crafters I know - I am always amazed by the wide variety of German craft magazines. E.g. before Christmas they have several magazines just for advent calendars. And I have seen mags about how to give money as presents - they had so creative ways to do it. In Germany there are also miniature facturers, see e.g. Annina's picture for vintage furniture. For more German minis, see the german tagged wiki pages.

Would you like to read more interviews here?

I definetely would! But I seem to lack the time of producing interviews here. We have pretty good formula for them already.

Questions are the same every time:

Hi x! How does it feel to (this part is different every time)?
Tell a little about yourself: who you are, where do you come from and what do you do?
Do you have any hobbies other than miniatures?
When and how did you start doing miniatures?
What is your latest / next mini-project?
How did you find Mini Treasures wiki and what is your favorite page in the wiki?
What would you like to see in the wiki in the future?
Thanks for the interview!


And I have ideas for who to interview next.

So would you like to help me be starting to make the interviews in this blog? What is required from you is:
-time
-passion for miniatures and especially for Mini treasures wiki
-knowledge of Blogspot (Blogger)
-ability to write good enough English (you are proof-reading the answers, you don´t need to be a native speaker - I am not one either)

If you are interested, leave a comment or write an email to me.

I hope I find you fast, my new co-blogger :).

MTW goes to UK

How do you do? Tomorrow we start another mini journey: we go to United Kingdom. Help us in filling the page - what can Great Britain offer to us miniaturists? Dollhouse hobby is very old there, hundreads of years, so I bet we can learn a lot from them. See also pages with british tag.

MTW contest: football

So far I do not run out of ideas about what we could do in our wiki - the only limitation is the time - not enough time for the site...

Now we are opening the very first contest in Mini treasures wiki!

Our contest is connected to FIFA World cup in South Africa started today - both of them last one month. It's about digging cool ideas, tips and links related to football (soccer) projects in miniature. We do not limit the scale - it can be anything from microminis to big fashion dolls.

Being a "football widow" herself Linda is the judge of the contest. On 11th July she will decide the coolest tip someone added to football page. That someone is the winner of the first contest and the prize (donated by Linda) will be sent to her(him). So if you see a cool dollhouse/doll project related to football, if you see cool printables, if you see mini instructions - just add them to the page and you are in the game. Maybe you are even inspired to create something by yourself...

PS. There will be more contests as the time goes by. For that we need donators. A donator is being featured in all MTW channels (MTW main page, blog, Facebook, Twitter) during the contest so it is an unique way to promote your miniatures. If you want to get in, contact me. All the contests are different. Normally they last only one week and the participants are usually asked to contributed in MTW in a way or another. This time it is about collecting football tips, next time it will be something completely different. :)

MTW goes Worldcup

Today I saw FIFA Worldcup being promoted by Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube... So why wouldn't we do the same? So I added a still new button for the sidebar, Poodlefifi's girl's feet are shown on every page of the wiki until the Worldcup ends. And that is not enough - we have something else on our pocket too :).

Icon hunting: Blogs, Forums, Home pages, Kids corner, Magazines, Museums, Projects, Printables,Scales, Trash minis

Phew - it was fun but now I am finished: the icon hunting is over. I had so much fun with the icons earlier today that I did not want to stop that.
Now we have icons for:

Blogs - blogs are full of text usually and the text is being typed by Renatta R's type writer

Magazines by Natalie 007

Kids' corner by Lady Crow

Museums by CauldronCraft

Scales - Citlali has compared dolls from different scales

Printables - Pubdoll's posters

Trash minis by Millimari (who is btw the trash queen of my dollhouse forum, we have had competitions)

Projects - this was difficult but in the end I chose a drawer by Enchanticals - a sortiment of stuff needed for starting a new project

Forums were tough too - but then I figured out that forums are about discussions and the discussions are very vivid in coffee tables. Thus I chose coffee by Asuka Sakumo - wouldn't you love to have that kind of coffee while reading your messages from your favorite forum?

Home pages was not easy either but for that I chose a computer by Annina

Icon hunting: Calendar, Collections, Countries, DIY, Dollhouses, Dolls, Photos, Shops

I have told you I like hunting the icons and now that a colleague taught me how to use Photo Shop for creating buttons I got excited and chose quite many at the same time. But doesn't this look so pretty now?
I hope you follow my logic with the icons.

The clock by Beach Blossom Hill is for Calendar - what is going on in the mini world right now.
The chest by Hart's Desire Minis is for storing Collections
The map by Goldieholl is for going to different Countries
The cabbage phases by Shay Aaron are for DIY
The dollhouse is owned by Dont Make a Scene is for Dollhouses and
The doll by S.Lilium is for Dolls

The camera by Nina Victor is for taking Photos and
The shopkeeper by Miniaturemadness is for Shops.

Did this make sense to you? Any ideas for the icons still missing?

MTW goes to Canada

This is already third theme week - this time we concentrate on Canadian minis and projects. Tell me what comes to your mind from Canada? In 2006 I visited Vancouver and had wonderful time there: I went to a fleamarket, a big mall with 1 dollar shop and a wonderful bead shop - and found treasures to my dollhouses, e.g. small Dawn doll, a small totem for my white witch and beads as vases and containers. I also took a ferry ride and saw dozens of bear statues all over the town.

One of the most charming Canadians I know (apart from our lovely Linda) is Anne of Green Gables. I read all those Anne books as a kid and saw the tv serie too. Inspiring girl, isn't she? Thanks to her (and Emily of course) I decided to be a writer - and I did it - we wrote the first dollhouse book in Finnish in 2005. :)

Now it is time to share your Canada memories together with the tips and links: what should a miniaturist see and doo in Canada and how to capture Canadian memories with help of miniatures? Check the Canadian pages.

Icon hunting - Books

The list of icons keeps growing - this time I found a beautiful picture by Graceewhite from our Flickr group. Isn´t it just perfect for Books about dolls, dollhouses and miniatures? :)

Speaking of Books page riSa has promised to help us with it - it certainly needs a finishing touch from someone but let´s wait her version until we start improving it together.

Congrats Grace - your books will now be seen on every page of Mini treasures wiki :). Hunting the icons is nice, you never know where you find the next one.

And a bigger version of Grace´s books:

Miniatures for sale (not on sale)

Millimari spotted a bad mistake in our wiki pages: on nearly every page I have used the term Miniatures on sale even though I meant Miniatures for sale. So now that we have 866 pages the term should be corrected from most of them. :( So people, when ever you notice this faulty term make a favor to all of us and correct it. It will only take 5 seconds from you - I just wont start going through all the pages just to correct one word from them but if you help us we can update them in a month or so. And when ever you notice other errors, please correct them too - English is not my first language as you have noticed so there should be plenty of errors out there :). To get started with the wiki see the ABC.

Icon hunting: Dioramas

Yes, this is fun! We have a new icon in our wiki, this time for dioramas thanks to Corset Kitten who kindle gave my a permission to use one of her photos - tough decision as she has plenty of them but see the original icon photo. Dioramas are (to my understanding) roomboxes or homes for fashion dolls which are typically from scale 1/6. As we have pages for dollhouses and roomboxes we needed one for dioramas as well. We have the icon now but we dont have the content so diorama makers out there, come and help us in filling the page with correct information and cool links.

Mini buttons for funding the wiki @ Lahti

Next week I am going to Lahti for a dollhouse fair. This is the fourth time already and once again I will be there my own junk. I bet you share my symptoms... When you have been doing this hobby for years you find out that you have too much of everything like materials that cannot be just thrown away as those may be needed someday by someone. I hope some of my junk is being rescued by people who really need them.

But this time I am selling something else too: MTW badges. I have a limited edition of 100 pieces, come and claim yours when in Lahti (or ask your mini friend to get one for you too if you cant make it). The profit from the badges goes to Mini treasures wiki to cover part of the premium version costs I am paying. If you want to join this group-funding operation you can also get a button for you too from Cafe Press, the price is
€2.00 = £1.50= USD $1.75 =
AUD $2.50 = CAD $2.50.

(There are other products too if you dont like buttons)

I am just hoping I do not need to wear all 100 buttons by myself ;D.

MTW goes to Finland

The first week went fast, didn't it? After visiting US we go forward and now it is time researh Finnish mini phenomena. As a Finn myself the area should be pretty familiar to me but let's see if even I can find something new. :) So study what Finland has to offer and be inspired of Finnish projects.
Ps. Next week we do Canada so be prepared!

MTW goes to USA

Everything is big in US they say but what is small there? On Monday 24 May we are starting a theme week in Mini treasures wiki to find everything out from American miniature projects. See the pages with American tag and join the fun - add your favorite tips and links and see what others have found. Who did find America? We will!

New concept - Theme weeks starting

It's time to launch a new activity in Mini treasures: theme weeks. For every week we have a theme for which we are concentrating. The first ten weeks, starting from tomorrow we will focus to countries and nationaties. They are chosen with help of Google Analytics: the ten countries with most visitors. After the ten country weeks we are taking a new topic. Perhaps 5 animal weeks followed by 8 food weeks, 3 Christmas weeks and one new year week. Maybe we want to have book weeks or tv-show weeks? Let me hear your thoughts!

But we start from countries and nationaties. They are:
1. USA
2. Finland
3. Canada
4. UK
5. Germany
6. Netherlands
7. Spain
8. Australia
9. Italy
10. France

Check our calendar to find out what the theme weeks are.

Interviewing Debbie, our new Facebook moderator

The other day I told you about our new Facebook page moderators, Debbie and Linda and I realized I had not interviewed her yet so it was about the time to do it. Debbie is not only promoting MTW at Facebook but in her site and she has been among the biggest traffic sources since the beginning of the wiki which I am very thankful :). So let's start the interview...
Hi Debbie! How does it feel to be a new moderator in our Facebook page? It was an honour to be asked. I'm always looking for Mini Links, to share with everyone and I also have a Mini Link Blog, where I share all the links I find.

Tell a little about yourself: who you are, where do you come from and what do you do? Do you have any hobbies other than miniatures?
My names Debbie, I originate from Greenwich, London. Lived in Kent for 18 years and moved to Wales 5 years ago. Married to my Hubby for 21 years and have two teenage sons. I make Dolls House Miniatures and breed Miniature Shetland Ponies. You can see I am obsessed with all things Mini.

Haha :). When and how did you start doing miniatures?
I started making Miniatures in 1989, after my Parent's presented me with a large hand built Georgian House for Christmas. I didn't have a Dolls House as a Child and was more of a Tom Boy, climbing trees and playing with a Train set.

What is your latest / next mini-project?
I am currently working on a Diagon Alley Street Scene, which includes The Apothecary, Flourish & Blotts and Eeylops Owl Emporium and a separate Room Box of "Honeydukes" Sweet Shop. My next project is going to be a Witches Hat Shop. Pictures can be seen on my blog page.

Very personal projects :). How did you find Mini Treasures wiki and what is your favorite page in the wiki? What would you like to see in the wiki in the future? I've been a member of the Mini Wiki since it was first set up. I don't have a favourite page as the Wiki is being added to all the time.
Thanks for the interview and thanks for boosting Mini treasures wiki!

Icon hunting: Roomboxes

This is going well - I found another icon for the wiki. I asked help in Flickr and Lola said that I can use her images (it is funny that I can understand her messages even though I never studied Spanish) and so I did. I chose one of her nursery roomboxes. If you click that you will end up to page of roomboxes which is full of cool tips and links. Have fun and congrats to Lola whose picture is now shown in every page of the wiki. :) Who is the next happy one? :)

Mini treasures @ Facebook

Improving a website is about learning from your mistakes. The more mistakes you correct the better the site will be.

5 days ago I made one of the right decisions - I chose two new moderators to our Facebook page to make it more active. Debbie Wright is one of the most active Facebookers I know and as she has been actively pushing miniaturists to network with me I thought she would do wonderful job at Facebook too. My other co-moderator is Linda, the most active person in Mini treasures wiki (we are SO FORTUNATE that she found us). I am very pleased to have these ladies on board helping me :). And just look what they did for the amount of Facebook fans (officially people who "like" MTW) - look at the peak! Amazing!

Speaking of Facebook I am not very active in networking with people there. I am accepting there only people I have met in real life or who I have learnt to know in Internet. Lately I have got a lot of friend invites and it makes me sad not to accept them but I try to keep up with my policy. The amounts of contacts in other services (Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter) are much bigger, network with me in them if you want.

But now I would be interested to hear your personal Facebook policy :).

Ps. BTW we have a short url for our page: http://www.facebook.com/minitreasures

Icon hunting: Animals

In the earlier blog post today (ok, yesterday, it is past midnight :P) I told you I am hunting cool icons for our wiki to make it user friendly. I have found the first one and I think it is just perfect. :)
The Playmobil cat photo taken by Bumblesweet is simple, clear, colorful. Congrats Bumblesweet for this honor, from now on your cat is seen on every page of the wiki (my cat is there too, the Lego on in the top left corner - that will lead you to the main page).

In a picture this small we can't have too many details (I think but go ahead and challenge me). The icon will lead you the animals page where you can find miniature projects related to animals. I will remove those projects from the projects page as it has grown too long. Yesterday I was removing already country projects from that page as they can be find from countries page.

Icons needed - help!

Today I got feedback from a web pro (thanks Arto!) about the usability of Mini treasures wiki and I realized something important. It is studied that normally 1% of the people are updating a wiki freaquently and 9% of the people do it sometimes. The rest, 90% are only reading the content. At the moment the look and feel in the wiki is planned for this 1%! Does this make sense? No. So I am about to change the main page soon.

To do it more usable I need icons for these words:

Animals, Blogs, Books, Calendar, Collectables, Countries, Dioramas, DIY, Dollhouses, Dolls, FAQ, Forums, Home pages, Kids´ corner, Magazines, Museums, Photos, Printables,
Projects, Roomboxes, Scales, Shops, Swaps, Tags, Template, Trash to treasure miniatures, Wanted pages, Wiki FAQ, Wiki members

and since it is a wiki about miniatures I think the icons should be pictures about miniatures too.

Is there anyone out there who would like to help me with this project, to find the suitable icons? Pleeease :).

Flickr group one year today!

Wohoo, a birthday again! During the first year Mini treasures Flickr group has not only grown big (231 members) but also beautiful (2364 cool photos of treasured minis). What I like in our group is the big variation, we have dolls, miniatures, roomboxes, dollhouses and dioramas and the scale varies from micro minis of 1:144 to big fashion dolls of 1:4. And yet we are sharing the same hobby and passion for small things, we have kept the child inside us while we play with our treasures. Thanks for sharing them with us and keep sending them - it is always so nice to find new photos and new members in the group. Happy birthday to you all my friends! Open the present by clicking the play button in the slideshow. :)

Another birthday coming: Flickr group 1 year

We just had our first birthday for the wiki. On Friday our Flickr group will be one year old :). I will post some highlights and stats on weekend. Help us to make the group even richer - tell your friends about it and add pictures of all your mini treasures. If you don't have an account in Flickr yet, get one to join all the fun :).

A minha casa em miniatura baked us a cake

I was very pleased to see that there were a birthday cake baked for MTW by A minha casa em miniatura. Thanks a lot, very sweet from you indeed :).

New girl on the block

Three weeks ago I moved to a new city, Hämeenlinna. And today I joined a local 3-years-old dollhouse club. As many clubs they have also a traditional club swap and this is what they got today (I was not prepared for this). Next time I will teach them how to use the dollhouse wikis, Nukkekotiwiki in Finnish and Mini treasures wiki in English. As always it was fun to talk about minis. See you soon ladies!

Ps. Like in many families, the big sister (Nukkekotiwiki) is not getting the attention she deserves while mum (me) is taking care of the new baby (Mini treasures wiki). So if you are a Finnish miniaturist maybe you can sometimes go and play with the big sister while the mother has her hands full with the baby. The whole family would be pleased. :)