Fourteen: reasons to not have been blogging

Oh good grief, it's blogiversary time again. How did that happen so fast?

I had all the good intentions in the world to continue with the blogging habit I'd restarted with Daily Dolls' House December 2019, but it would seem that life had a different plan.

Here's what's happened since I last blogged...

1. Workwise, we've been mogged (and no this does not mean we've all been given cats, nice as that would be) which has meant much uncertainty as two government departments become one.

2. It's been crazy hot While my new* place usually copes much better than my old one, when it's over 40 °C (104 °F) , even the 'cool' breeze I get is not really cool at all.

3.There's the bushfires in the ACT and the surrounding regions, which haven't (yet) affected me directly, but the smoke and uncertainty most certainly have.

4. I bought a new bookshelf for my studio, second hand.

5. And a desk (new, but deeply discounted).Both of which meant moving stuff out of the studio, and them back in again...

6. Then there was The Hail Storm.

7. Which killed Miss Daisy.

8. Who, because of the massive number of claims, sat in the car park opposite work for quite some time. Without a back window. And perfectly positioned for me to check her wellbeing several times a day from our work kitchen.

9. In the meantime, I bought a scooter.

10. My first in 14 years.

11. So I needed to relearn how to ride.

12. Several months ago I'd noticed my shower was leaking through the wall, so I'd booked my fix-it man in to sort it out, and his first available spot was February.

13. This means that, over the past week, on top of everything else,my ensuite has been pulled apart.

14. And is being slowly put back together.

 So there you are:14 reasons I've not been blogging.

*And I'l leave you with a question:
At what stage does my now 18-month old flat become not 'new'? Is it like relationships, where it apparently takes one year to get over every five?

It's good to see you again my friend...*

I'd arranged to meet my former colleague/ boss (now friend) this afternoon to visit the Reg Mombassa exhibition at Ambush Gallery in Kambri at ANU (I've had a soft spot for Reg's work, not just because he's a fellow kiwi living in Australia, but because he has a dolls' house in his studio...)

We got a bit lost as neither of us had been there before, and ended up finding a lift that took us straight into the gallery from the plaza.

So it wasn't until we left, via the front entrance, that I spotted something familiar in the foyer below. Raced down the stairs and stopped dead in front of Bette Noir, delighted to see she was being used once again as a publicly-accessible miniature gallery.

I felt a bit teary, to be honest, and wondered how long she'd been just up the road from work without me knowing...

And to make the whole thing even weirder, in the blog post from when she arrived into my life, the contract that I'd just started, that was sucking up my energy (and that morphed into my current role), was the one where I first met the colleague/ boss/ friend I was standing in front of her with.

(*It's been a long long time.)

The art of miniature

I've been fangirling over artist Lori Nix for a number of years (in fact I'm very tempted to say "since we exhibited together at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York", even though she was in the actual exhibition and I was in the online gallery add-on, Small Realities. So not really in the same league at all, even though I made it onto the Small Realities front page).

I bought the book that goes with the exhibition back in 2011 (the year the exhibition happened) but have been after a copy of Lori Nix's book The City ever since.

Alas it went out of print very quickly and the second-hand market soon had it into the hundreds of dollars (possibly due to a fairly constant flow of media attention), and thus well beyond my budget.

I'd pretty much resigned myself to never having a copy of the book, but still occasionally checked out Booko to see how stupidly expensive it was.

And then, one day in April this year, something amazing happened: I found a copy for under $100! And in Sydney, no less!

I snapped it up as an early birthday present, fully expecting to get the 'Oh sorry, it's not actually in stock' email, but instead getting the 'We just shipped it to you' email. I was gobsmacked at my luck.

(Of course, nothing birthday present-related will beat the buying of my first home, settlement of which just happened to land on the day before my birthday this year).

As part of the preparation for my shift, I realised there were some things in my life (and my home) that I could no longer justify.

Sadly, one of these was bette Noir, which had sat in my front hall for almost two and a half years before heading to its new home.

I was feeling bad about my lack of action during that time until I was reminded that it was destined for the tip before it came to me: so perhaps I was only ever supposed to be its caretaker, not its owner.

And when I discovered that its new owner (caretaker) was in the studio next to one of its creators, I was happy.

Tiny treasures at the tip (shop)

I've previously sung the praises of Canberra's city-based tip shops, especially for discovering unexpected miniature finds.

What I neglected to mention is that there are two more tip shops in Canberra: one at each of the resource management centres (the new term for tip, dump, or whatever you call it where you live). And those ones are massive.

Canberra is in the fortunate position to have a fairly high level of education (and pay) and also a rather transient population. Which means the resource management centres have a regular supply of items too good to end up in landfill (see example A (or is that A sharp?)).

I don't visit the tip shops very often, as I have that whole 'trying to save money/ have enough stuff already' thing going on. But the day after this year's Canberra Miniature Fair and Dollshouse show I popped in because I needed bigger plants pots for my work plants (even though I'd replanted them already at the beginning of the year), and figured it was the right place to start.

While searching for the gardening department, I stumbled across an entire end of the shed that looked like a craft shop: except it was at the tip. Wandering inside, I spotted a dolls' house on display:

It wasn't until I got closer that I was able to read the sign on the top of it:

and got very excited.

Because what they've done is taken a fairly standard kid's dolls' house and used it as the centre of an area dedicated to showing how everyday discarded items can be used to make minis, and offering a selection of items that you might want to use:

An example: 

I eventually found my plant pots (50 cents each), but also came home with these:

(which were $5 total).

Running out of steam

With four days of this year's Daily Dolls' House December challenge to go, I fear I'm losing my oomph. Or perhaps it's just that other tasks that I'd planned to get done before I return to work (next week! My how time flies...) are muscling their way onto the daily list of tasks and thus making the time for creating minis shorter.

You may be pleased to hear that I glued seven things together yesterday from my mini mending box, and made a list of what I need to do with the rest. So perhaps this time next year I'll be able to share a picture of an almost empty workbench, containing just a bowl of cherries and a tube of glue...

There have been a couple of mini-related happenings of note, though: last night, while reading a second-hand book on Rosalie Gascoigne, I discovered a previous reader had a left a little* present between two pages. (*Literally: the perfect size for miniature use...)

And this afternoon I met with my friend at the local café for coffee, chatting and mini cushion-making.

One good thing about not making minis today is that the studio has remained tidy from this morning's clean-up... 

Finishing it off Friday

This is starting to become a habit.

But with the range of events offered by this year's Design Canberra, don't hold you breath for any minis around here anytime soon, as I'm a wee bit distracted...

Not many minis in April or May

I've been distracted for the past six weeks, but some minis have happened since I last blogged:

1. The matchboxes I ordered from the UK arrived and I finally managed to finish this year's calendars.

2. I made time to visit the new display of miniature books in The Treasures Gallery of the National Library of Australia.

3. I caught up with a friend who had mini goodies for me that she bought while on a recent Disney adventure.

4. I sort-of made a scene with a postcard insert advertising Janine's new range of fabrics which was included in the latest issue of Uppercase (I think it would make great cheater fabric for mini quilts, don't you?).

5. I discovered that Typo is now selling battery operated light-up marquee light keyrings, so just had to add an A to my collection...

 

6. The Parental Units visited for a couple of weeks. My mum wanted to see some trees so I showed her my favourite ones...

7. Because The Parental Units were in town, I didn't make it to The Sydney Show this year. I wasn't too disappointed as I figure I have more than enough stash to keep me going for quite some time, but am looking forward to reading about the displays in the next issue of The tiny Times, as there didn't seem to be very much coverage on social media this year.

8. While The Parentals were here, I did manage to buy a couple of miniature-related items: an empty beauty set case ($4 from the op shop), which I'm contemplating making a mini hairdressers in to give to my hairdresser. And two metal ornaments from the half-price rack at the National Museum of Australia shop ($4.50 for both).

Reduce, reuse, recycle

We're very fortunate in Canberra to have not one, but two tip shop outlets in the centre of town (and a Red Cross op shop just across the way). So when I arranged to meet a friend for an after-work catch up this week, I was pleased that we suggested meeting at The Green Shed, and deciding where we were going from there.

While I waited, I wandered the shop with my miniature eyes on, particularly inspired by my new studio (and recent visit to see the Alex Asch's latest exhibition...)

The first thing that caught my eye was a basket of vintage souvenir spoons (three for $1), with interesting handles and bowls

and, of particular interest: these styles, with holes in the handles with tiny metal charms hanging from them!

There was also a stack of vintage vinyl presentation folders, which, following my op-shopping rule of 'open everything', I discovered contained pages and pages of enamel tie pins. ('From Croatia' the shop assistant told me, as she pulled still more folders out from under the counter for me to peruse).

('Klein' is German for small: how could I not?)

At 66 cents each, I came home with a handful.

And speaking of handfuls: as I was sorting out some stuff in the (full-sized) studio I came across the doll that came with the MiWorld Fashion Boutique. Without feet (as I'd stolen her shoes back here).

As I was contemplating whether I should just throw it out, or if an op shop might be interested in it (even without feet), I suddenly noticed that the hands were in the perfect positions to hold things. Like candles. 

And so the poor doll lost both her feet and her hands. Followed by a decent burial in the rubbish bin.

Saturday: strange couplings

The latest Alex Asch exhibition opened at Beaver Galleries on Thursday night. I decided not to go to the opening (apart from all the people that would be there, I was concerned that I might have a glass or two of bubbles then accidentally buy something...).

Instead I popped in this morning: first for breakfast at The Palette Cafe, them for a mooch around the exhibition (where, in true Canberra style, I bumped into my tutor from my CIT design course!)

Good thing I don't have tons of money (or, indeed, space), as I lusted after almost everything in the exhibition.

 But most particularly this piece, 

with its miniature gallery containing a Rosalie Gascoigne homage inside (the concept of one of my favourite Canberra artists referencing another of my favourite Canberra artists, in miniature, delights me greatly).

And this piece, which takes up much less room and would fit in with my decor perfectly...

 But, with my wallet tucked safely in my bag, I finally left and came home to create my own bit of distressing, at a much more affordable price: