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.