November: a catch up and a new approach

 Hello there. It's been a while, and things have changed since I last blogged.

Most excitingly, Daiso opened its first shop in Canberra in June. I went to the opening (of course) and am now thoroughly enjoying 'just popping in' to pick up one or 2 items as needed, or just to see what's new.

It's pretty small as Daisos go and doesn't stock a number of things I buy regularly, so I guess I'll still continue my pilgrimages to the Wellington store when I'm in New Zealand.

Speaking of which, I was in Wellington in August. While I was there we made use of the residents' workshop to make progress on my projects for The Land of Spare Oom:

I also went on a quest to start my collection of Pratchett Discworld books: I read (and thoroughly enjoyed) 2 of them in the late 80s, and for some reason decided I'd put off reading the rest of them until I was 'stuck in a retirement village'. Earlier this year I remembered that comment, and decided that although not 'stuck', I was spending significant time there each year and so perhaps it was time to start reading the rest of the series.

Which gave us the perfect excuse to start the quest with a round of visits to our favourite second-hand book shops (and other ones we spotted on our way to other places), which resulted in me stumbling across the mother lode

and means my book collection now spans 2 different countries... 😶

And then I returned to Canberra, and a temporary promotion to work on a project for several months, which is sapping my brainspace, as all new jobs tend to do. But it's something we've been wanting to do for years and I'm super excited to be able to work on it (and my voracious offset account is pleased with the extra feeding it's getting).

I celebrated my first boosted paycheck by finally allowing myself to buy some of the Rement Snoopy's art studio and book cafe sets I've been lusting after for a while, and which I found at an acceptable price (and with combined postage), which, when they arrived I admired, then set aside as they had the opposite effect to what I'd hoped. reminding me of how many other minis I had bought with the intent of spurring me back into making, but rather just made me feel overwhelmed and guilty.

Minis did bring me joy when I attended the Canberra premier of Adam Elliot's latest stop-motion film, Memoir of a snail, (which is partly set in Canberra!) with Q&A with him afterwards: and a special guest appearance from the star of the show herself:

Alas they were in a hurry to get to the next venue and event, so I didn't get the chance to meet either of them in 'person'.

But back to the Snoopy pieces. For some months I've been pondering the fact that I've been trying to get myself back into miniatures on a regular basis since I moved here, if not before, with little ongoing success. And that I'm feeling more and more trepidation as I declare a new challenge to try and fix the issue ('May be miniatures!' 'Daily dolls' house December!') A book I was recommended by a colleague as part of my preparation for my temporary promotion contained a phrase that jumped out at me:

'...when the sole energy that motivates us is simply to make life wonderful for others and ourselves, then even hard work has an element of play in it. Correspondingly, an otherwise joyful activity performed out of obligation, duty, fear, guilt or shame will lose its joy and eventually engender resistance.'

And I realised that perhaps my approach to 'forcing myself back into the studio' in the hopes that I'd pick up the mini habit was almost exactly of the opposite of what I needed to succeed.

The realisation coincided with my annual move of my laptop from the dining area, where it lives over winter, back to the studio for the spring, summer and autumn months. And a couple of days later while I was checking my emails I noticed the new Snoopy pieces sitting waiting for my attention. I pulled the pieces that needed to be put together out and onto the desk, thinking "I'll just pop these together after I'm done here so at least I'll feel like I've achieved something".

Which clicked with something that I was reminded of recently by a mentor: The wheel of life. And I decided to try a new approach: every day I'd aim to spend an hour making micro-improvements in 4 areas of my life I wanted to improve: exercise, pain points, clearing the reading piles and creativity.

15 minutes a day doing something creative sounded extremely doable. So, over the past week or so I gave it a crack, and have dubbed it 'quarter hour creativity'.

On Tuesday, I cleared off my work board and made up some Jeffrey and Janice books I'd scaled down to both 1/12 and Lundby scale for a Lundby Facebook group I belong to:

then gently chastised myself for wanting to say "Is that all?"

On Wednesday I cleared some more space then pulled out the frying pan for the mini club project for next year's show and asked myself 'What's one thing that you can do to make progress on this?", then cut out a template to start designing the interior, before getting sidetracked taking a photo of the unsure look the template was giving the frying pan:

On Thursday I battled a case of the 'I shoulds' and focused on the 'I'd like to' instead, and started gluing together a JWT Dollhouses sideboard kit I bought 10 years ago (!) that I had tucked away in my 'I was to make this' pile along with some laser-cut gift tags I picked up years ago that I wanted to try and use for sliding doors on it:

The 'shoulds' returned on Friday, but I shoved them aside (after gluing some more of the sideboard together) and instead I made the Snoopy's book cafe bag, not caring a jot that the wet glue was still showing when I took the photo:

Yesterday I got a bit carried away (and that's OK, too!). First up, I finished the initial design of the club frying pan kitchen:

Then decided to confront my fear of using something, in case it went wrong/ I ended up deciding I wanted to use it for something else, and made a random vintage can of Edmonds baking powder with a can from here, secure in the knowledge that I still had an extra one, and they were cheap toy ones I've had banging round for years:

But that's not all! I glued some more of the sideboard together, then cut down 2 of the gift tags ("I have multiples of each, so can try again if I wreck these ones") and did a dry fit, which suggested that it might just work:

and to celebrate, cracked open the spray paint and sprayed one of the $3.50 white plastic Daiso hospital beds with a rusty spray paint, which was most pleasing:

Finally, this morning I spraypainted a couple of Miniverse ramen bowls I picked up cheaply off Facebook that thought might make interesting light shades:

(in retrospect, perhaps I should have plugged the gaps on the rim before I painted them...)

So, almost a week into the new experiment, I feel like I may have found the solution.

And speaking of finding, I was delighted to stumble across this yesterday while looking for something else:

Start-of-the-week check in

Remember last Monday when I set myself some ambitious goals in the studio?

Are any of us surprised I didn't meet them? (But on a positive note, behold the current state of my work table!)

The cottagecore bedroom scene stalled again on Saturday when I got the urge to dig out and start dealing with my dead stock: not something that was in the plan for the week but I felt the need to run with it when it happened.

Which meant I spent a fair amount of time this weekend photographing the tables and listing them on Facebook.

And on Sunday I got a tad sidetracked with heading across town to test ride a potential new-to-me scooter:

(No: not the yellow one!)

Plus I have another couple of projects on the boil at the moment: listing some excess Lundby and other 3/4-scale furniture on another Facebook group, and, far more boringly, doing my annual full empty-out and clean of my kitchen drawers and cupboards.

So here's where I'm at as of this evening:

On the left of the worktable, the cottagecore bedroom has once again fallen into a state of (not fatal) disarray:

In the middle, I've lined up the perspex tables that I've yet to photograph and list on Facebook:

(Those ghost ones are certainly living up to their name!)

And a late entry on the right side:

because I decided this evening that just getting the main components of this scene onto the work table is a win, and hopefully a visual reminder that if I keep moving the other 2 projects along and off the table I get to have fun with this scene sometime soon.

(Don't panic about the coloured backing, it's just a demountable room corner that I used to move things down in!)

Make, do and mend Monday: The long game

 For this week's #makedoandmendmonday I'm playing a slightly longer game, since the other end of my desk is still covered with the remnants of the weekend's cardboard stash sorting, and the cottagecore build is still clogging the work table.

So I aim to use these pieces that have been sitting in the cubby above my desk since March 2022 to clear that log jam: because to make a scene with these, I need to make some space, and to make that space I need to finish those other things, and then once I've made this scene I can put these pieces (and those!) away.

All by this time next week 🤣.

(Because March 2022 isn't when these pieces came together for the first time, oh no no no: that would have been back in May 2021 when I finished the sofa (a copy of my full-sized sofa that I started working on waaaaay back in December 2020).

Yep, definitely time to finish this off and move things along, I think. Don't you?

Sunday fun day: getting it done day

 Yesterday's very odd mood to sort stash continued into today, and so I went with it (because I'm rather enjoying getting back to a state where I know where everything is and can grab it quickly if I decide I need to use it?)

But rather than the fabric stash, I decided it was time to do a deep clean and sort of the drawers that contain my flooring, wall coverings that are too big to fit in the scrapbooking paper boxes, and miscellaneous pieces of 'useful' cardboard, paper and plastic.

Which aren't quite so useful when the latter are more like a geological stratum that a logically-organised and useful collection.

So I opened the first drawer and dumped the contents out onto my until-recently-clear-again desk, and had a moment of consternation as I realised that this whole approach could go very very wrong and close the studio for an extended period, but I took a deep breath and started sorting, thinking while I did so: what was the important property I needed to sort by? Colour? Size? Use?

In the end I settled on a mixture, and have finished the day with the drawers looking much better:

(If you're interested:

The top drawer (closed) is floor and wall coverings that I haven't used yet and are too big to fit in my scrapbook-paper boxes.

Second drawer is various sheets of plastic, ranging from placemats to overhead projector sheets (that I use for 'glass' in picture frames and, sometimes, fake windows) and other interesting bits I've picked up.

Followed by 'interesting' bits of paper and card (mainly die cut at this point for the 'interesting' and sparkly or shiny for the card).

Fourth drawer has paper: bags to the left (I mainly use these for backing framed pictures) and other bits of paper to the right (like a stack of black that I was donated some years ago: these may end up in a scrapbooking box, depending on how much space I end up with leftover in those, especially as think cardstock will end up here once I've sorted it further).

The fifth drawer has thick cardboard to the left, and mattboard and foamcore offcuts I picked up cheaply from the local framing store a couple of years ago, and have been living down the side of the work table ever since, to the right.

Finally, the bottom drawer is the same as the top drawer, but contains pieces the I have used).

I also have a very full recycling bin. Again.

I spent Saturday sorting out the stash

 Continuing on from yesterday's effort with the paper stash, today I got stuck into the rest of the contents of the drawers on my work desk: all paper stash, sorted into various sub categories including books, magazines, movie posters, plate designs, tiles and pictures in various sizes from super big to teeny tiny.

I finished the day with one fewer set of drawers up there (down from 3 to 2), a lot of recycling, a studio floor that looks like this:

and a rather large feeling of accomplishment, not just because of the culling of the stash but because I have now touched, assessed and dealt with every bit of paper that was in there (plus several art auction catalogues that I'd been given ages ago, and a folder full of more pictures, now integrated into the drawers as well).

One of the treasures I fold was a bright blue envelope marked 'books':

And when I opened it, it brought back memories of how we used to create miniature books in the days before we had the internet, scanners or printers at home.

We'd pin book jackets from our collection to a notice board (or sometimes just blu tack them to a wall) then work out how far from the notice board we needed to stand to get a photo that contained the size book covers we needed, taking a couple of extra photos a step or 2 back and forward from the original spot just to be safe.

Then once the film was complete, we'd take it in for processing, and once we picked up the prints we'd check the measurements, chose the best option and cut the cover out to make the books.

Based on the flat this is, I guess these were taken in the very late 80s or early 90s. How much easier is it these days to create miniature books? A quick google search (or scan), some resizing in Word and bang you're done!

Which meant that once I documented the contents, the whole lot went in the bin.

Doing the do*

 For today's Monday make, do and mend I chose do: because yesterday I found myself going through some drawers full of paper which lead to a quiet yet productive afternoon and evening assessing what I had, sorting it by type and spending the time to cut out the bits I want to keep, and creating piles of bits heading to the recycling and other bits (mainly out-of scale scrapbooking pieces picked up as part of a discounted pad), that will be heading to the op shop.

I'd like to keep working on this task this evening while I'm in the mood.

Which, alas, doesn't lead to a very exciting blog post (or picture) for you, but it's giving me a great sense of satisfaction, and another level of studio clearing.

(I fear I've been rather influenced by my recent watching of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning on SBS on Demand, so am taking advantage of this flurry of activity. Long may it last!)

* ...and there's nothing you can do.

A slow Sunday doing a spot of studio archeology

 I got carried away sorting out the kit pieces yesterday and just kind of... kept going.

So although I'm a little bit grumpy that I've not actually completed anything from last week's Finish it off Friday, I'm pretty chuffed that the studio is starting to turn into a clean and welcoming space to spend time

and find things in.

(Yes, that's my two-tone dance party still waiting for attention up there...)

Speaking of finding things: is it just me that starts a clean up and finds containers of seemingly-random items which I have no idea why I gathered together, but am reticent to put away in case I suddenly remember?

An evening in the ensuite...

 Between the work I'm doing collecting, inventorying and packing bits for the National Trust Victoria exhibition, the fact that work has settled down to pre-2020 madness so I have some brainspace left at the end of each evening, plus the fact that last weekend was the Sydney miniatures fair (to which I did not go) miniatures has returned to the front of my mind.

Add to that today's theme for the May mini makers challenge on Instagram, which is 'What I did today', and I had the perfect kick in the pants to pull out my half-finished sofa from January and try and make some progress. In my ensuite.

Yes, some people work on their minis in their kitchen, and various other rooms in the house, but I'm not sure how many work in their bathrooms. I usually do my ironing in here because of the good access to a power point, and it also gets excellent evening light: very useful as the evenings set in.

So the ensuite it is.

Now I just have to remember where I was with it...

Attempting it again in August...

After the spectacular (in my mind at least: I suspect no one else much noticed) failure of my May miniature challenge, at the end of last month I finally thought I should try another approach.

It's a nice mix of supportive and caring ('I know it's been a draining couple of years and you keep saying you don't have the brain space for minis, or find your 'new' studio easy to navigate, but perhaps by making some time to make something you'll feel better and finally start settling in?'), and my usual hard line and logical ('And if you don't actually start to use some of this stuff, perhaps we need to consider getting rid of it!')

And so on the weekend I figuratively locked myself in the studio: firstly unearthing my cutting mat and the chair in front of it,

and shoving stuff into the cupboard ('My what a lot of treasures you've amassed!'),  then dismantling and putting away most of The Sailor's Daughter and dusting off the remaining empty space.

I even worked out how to pull apart the IKEA mini shipping container that was sitting next to it, making more room for future possibilities (which may just include its return, if I decide to attack it with my tin snips rather than look into laser-cutting options...)

After all that excitement, past failures, and realising that I'm once again very rusty, I decided to approach things very gently.

There's making scenes. And there's making miniatures. Perhaps I should focus on the latter this time, rather than the former. Yes, I'll end up with just the same amount (if not more) stuff in the studio, but at least it's completed and not grumbling at me from the cupboard, and just perhaps starting with the latter will kick the former into action.

And so, on Saturday I started with this,

figuring that since I didn't remember where the kit came from I wouldn't care to much if it came to nothing,

By the end of the day I had a handful of completed projects

(none of which, you may note, is the book kit that started the whole approach).

Since my focus was on kits made of paper, I also made these: from a kit I received in the goody bag from the 2015 AMEA convention.

(Giggling as I spent way too much time making sure that the card corners weren't square...)

At that stage I hoped quietly that I'd managed to find and recapture my mini mojo....

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?

Leafing it to the last minute

And so I finish the year, and this year's Daily dolls' house December challenge.

Alas I haven't finished yesterday's kit, but I've opened it up, read the instructions (twice) and sorted out the pieces. Then I started carefully prising the stacks of leaves apart, holding my breath, and being paranoid that I'd accidentally sneeze and blow all the little teeny tiny leaves all over the place, causing me to spend next year trying to hunt them down (the instructions say there are at least 250 of the blighters in there...)

Today, in the list of yearly tasks, I repotted my work pot plants (and one from my bathroom) ready for another year. They're like hermit crabs, all moving up a size pot each year, and (not like hermit crabs) gradually all ending up in self-watering pots. Alas, it looks like Robert (Palmer: geddit?) is now so big, I may need a hand truck to get him from the car to my desk this next year...

But that doesn't explain the state of my hands in the first picture. After exactly a year of many excuses ('Too hot!' 'Too cold!' 'Too worried I'll balls it up!' 'Too difficult to schedule three to four times, exactly twelve hours apart...') I finally realised this morning that if I scheduled staining at 7:30 am and pm over the next couple of days, when the weather was coolish enough to safely stain,  I could possibly get these armchairs' wooden bits stained wenge before I went back to work for the year, and thus assembled, out of the workshop and into my lounge.

(Here they are in my shopping trolley on this day a year ago, when I snapped them up from ALDI for $30 each, marked down from $100, thinking I could try turning them into the frugal version of the IKEA Ekenäset. Which I'd actually bought two of just after I bought the flat, in that 'limited edition might miss out' frenzy, but knowing full well I had three years to return them if I changed my mind. Which I did and I did: partly because spending $600 on armchairs seemed ridiculous, but mainly because I quickly realised that the teaky-coloured wood didn't fit in with the wenge colour I had elsewhere in my lounge.)

Anyway, that's a very long-winded way of saying that I finally plucked up the courage to not only deal with the scariest kit in the whole stash, but also two armchairs that have been sitting around in boxes in the workshop for a year.

So far the prognosis is not looking good, but I remind myself that first coats usually look like shit and to withhold judgement until the third (or fourth) coat is on. And if it's all a disaster, it was a cheap-enough one...

And on that note, I wish you a happy new year: may the best of this year be the worst of next, and may all your pleasures be tiny ones!