When Finish it off Friday turns into Frustration Friday

I was feeling all smug like before lunch, imagining how happy I'd feel after I completed the dark academia study, taken the necessary pictures and put the contents away, leaving a nice clean work table to start my next project.

Alas, by the time my lunch break ended, the scene looked like this:

Guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow, then.

My poor tired brain is trying to be helpful

You'll recall I mentioned looking for my decanter on Tuesday.

Well, I've had no luck finding it so far (and, alas, the current weather isn't quite up to a scoot down to see James and buy a new one from him: it's times like this that I do miss having a car), and am starting to wonder if it is in fact imagined.

But my poor tired brain is trying ever so hard to be helpful.

First, and fairly easily, it found me this, which I'd made from a Trash to treasure kit given to me back in 2015:

(Which, granted, could work in a pinch if I dig out something suitable for a stopper).

Next try was this lamp shade, in my stash box of clear and white decor accessories:

Which was much closer to what I remembered my decanter looking like, but not it (the fact it's in this box means I must have used it in a scene at some stage but trying to remember which one or when will, I fear, cause my brain to cease up and close down: so no link).

 Then this morning at stupid o'clock it poked me and whispered "I think I know where it is!" (damned brain still hasn't been trained to keep civilised hours).

And so, when I had the chance, I went to investigate. And found this where it told me it'd be, in the box full of the contents of my Triang 55 house:

Which is excellent remembering, but still not what I'm looking for.

I hate it when I lose things. Especially when I'm not actually sure they existed in the first place. Perhaps I need to decide that my academic has been diagnosed with gout and therefore has had to give up drinking so has hidden the decanter away?

A framing frenzy

 My stash drawer reorganisation worked a treat and I was able to place my hands on both my stash of overhead-projector film and my container of small white card scraps within seconds of opening the drawer, which pleased me greatly.

And meant that I could spend my lunchtime framing rather than finding:

I approached the framing a bit differently to how I usually doing it, using washi tape to hold things in place rather than my usual approach of gluing a sheet of thin brown paper bag over the back.

This means that the framing isn't permanent and I can easily swap in a different picture for a future scene that I need the frame for. Hopefully this approach will hold together once I attach them to the wall with Blu Tack...

The butterfly picture missed out on the framing for now, as I spray painted the metal frame black: and alas made a whoopsie which I'll need to correct before I can use it.

But it's too cold to spray paint now, so that'll have to be a job for tomorrow lunchtime.

A productive lunch break

During today's (half-hour) lunchbreak, I not only made and ate lunch (wholegrain noodles with Thai-green-curry tuna and stir fry veges, if you're interested) but also found an extra sheet of the scrapbooking paper I'm using on the walls of the dark academia study, which gives me the option to extend the build further along one wall or add a third wall if I feel the need (although if I add another wall I fear I will be setting myself up to have to create a wall of filled bookcases).

I also sorted through the images I chose yesterday, and through my drawer of empty frames to match up some likely candidates:

Which means next on my list is testing if my stash drawer reorganisation worked well enough for me to quickly place my fingers on my stash of overhead projector sheets to use as glass, and venturing down to the garage to spray paint that silver frame for the butterflies.

Then deciding if my windows (yes, they're staying) need curtains (or if they need to be cut into the wall so I can use them to pull as much light into the scene as possible).

And who lives here? I'm thinking semi-retired academic with wide-ranging interests across the natural world, the arts and history. And a taste for whiskey, once I've found my decanter...

Questions, questions

I finally asked myself my standard 'Who lives here?' question for this scene at lunchtime today, which caused me to wonder and ponder as I sorted through my art stash to find items that that person might chose for their walls, then set them out for further scrutiny and decision making:

I also pulled out some blue items to try, as I mentioned last week,

and found myself trying out some windows (which I last used back in December 2020, with a different background in them).

Which lead me to wonder if it needed a fireplace as well:

Oh dear: I seem to have asked myself more questions than I answered today!

A knitting emergency, with cake

(Alas only miniature)

At mini club a friend arrived with dark grey fingerless gloves on her hands: not knitted, but something that looked more like fabric gardening gloves with the fingers cut off.

"Oh" she said "I hurt my hands and I've been told to keep them warm. But I hate these".

It just so happened that I'd stopped off at Lincraft on the way to club to buy some nicely-discounted machine-washable wool to knit some lounge socks for Mum, so pulled out my purchases and asked if she liked any of the colours, as I'd decided she needed some nice hand-knitted wristwarmers instead.

She picked the variegated, so I cast on last night when I got home (choosing a suitable stitch marker, of course!), and finished them off just after lunch this afternoon.

She lives in the next suburb over but has headed up to Sydney today on a day trip to visit the Sydney miniatures and dolls house fair, so I dropped them into her mail box for her to find when she gets home.

And that, dear reader, is why there were no minis happening around here today.

Decision made

I think this is the paper I'll go with for the dark academia study.

If so I'll need to introduce some more decor with the rug colours into it.

What do you think?

The universe has spoken, and progress has been made

Little did I realise when I was blogging yesterday evening about how I was tossing up if I should try to go to the Sydney show this weekend and possibly sneak up to Hornsby to visit Daiso, that Daiso had just posted this on their Facebook feed:

Well blow me down!

Although I've been wishing and hoping for it for many years, I never expected it to actually happen: and the fact that it's the nearest mall to me is just icing on the (early birthday) cake!

But back to the here and now.

Today I was mindful of the light issue, and made sure to set most of my lunch break aside to do something for today's post.

I pulled the dark academia build out of the corner of the worktable where it's been gathering dust since mid March, and as I did so spotted the fabrics I'd bought at the Canberra show that same month.

Which got me thinking: perhaps the issue was I'd been testing the build with plain black walls, which isn't what I intended the end result to be.

So I clipped one of the pieces of fabric up to the wall and took a test shot.

Which was interesting enough that I dived into my scrapbooking paper stash and ferreted around for some other likely options:

(which, thanks to the crap light in my studio* even in the middle of the day aren't reading quite right: the left 2 are black and the other 3 are more antique gold than yellow).

By this time it was time to log back on for the afternoon, so I left them clipped up so I can wander past and ponder, then start to weed the options.

Although perhaps that process should also be informed by how much of each pattern I have available...

*Or maybe I need to have a stern talk to my phone and see if I can convince it to take better pictures?

Just parking this here

I've been feeling a bit envious reading all the social media posts from people who have been home over the past month or so, with lots of free time to deep dive into projects.

Then I feel conflicted as I remind myself how fortunate I am to have a job. And a job I can do from home. But which often leaves me brain dead by the time I clock off for the day.

So I decided that I should attempt a challenge: but with all the other stresses caused by the current situation, make it as low-pressure as I possible.

It's called 'May be miniatures'. It's May. I'll try to do something miniature-related each day, but I'm sure as hell not going to beat myself up if I don't, or the lighting's crap because it's dark by the time I finish whatever it is that I plan to create that day so my photos aren't great.

Yep, this is going to be the loosest challenge I can come up with. Perhaps you'll hear from me tomorrow. Or perhaps I'll decide what I need to do is stay burrowed under the doona (duvet), keep warm, and read. We'll see...