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...

Minis in a mad world

It was only two weeks ago, but I feel very fortunate to have made it to New Zealand (and back!) on a trip to visit The Parental Units and New Zealand friends.

I hadn't intended to come back with minis, as I was aware of the fact that I've not been doing much recently, but things just... happened.

Here's my haul: a mix of gifts, op-shopped finds and discount-store discoveries.

First the gifts, and one particularly precious one. Friend Miggs gave me the oak side table she made back in the 90s,

with its beautifully inlaid top,

along with her collection of vintage miniature pottery from Peru,

and a set of miniature pallets she found in her local tip shop.

I've always admired the table, and will treasure it. Hopefully sometime soon I'll make a particularly special scene to display it in.

From one of my favourite Wellington shops, I picked up this weathered bird cage, and a lighthouse and letter A charm.

From Uncle Bills [sic], some puffy stickers,

and from various op shops around the region, what can only be described as 'some weirdly random bits' that spoke to me.

I managed to slip back into the country six hours before self-isolation became mandatory for anyone entering, which means instead of being forced to loll round at home for 14 days reading books and playing with miniatures, I've been working there instead.Just to be on the safe side. I felt better about the whole thing when my role was declared 'critical', as I'm working on national COVID-19 related stuff (she says enigmatically).

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?

Weekend green thumb

This was the view of my poor long-ignored ivy kit yesterday evening:

late this morning: 

 and, finally, this evening:

I still need to arrange the stems a bit but am happy with the general end result, and even more happy with the fact it's finally done with counting and gluing and can move on to something else!

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.)

Well that was tedious

And not quite 250, but I figure close enough: and having spent all afternoon separating teeny tiny ivy leaves from each other I'm not inclined to go back through each one to find where the other five are hiding.

I need to rest my eyes for a while, and then I'll start putting it all together... (And interestingly enough, so far it's more soporific than scary...)

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!

Make, do and mend Monday: the scariest kit in the whole stash...

I was out and about this morning: checking the post box, catching up with friends for brunch and popping into IKEA (where I was delighted to find just what I came for in the As Is corner, marked down by 30%. It would seem I not only have a Frugalling Fairy, but I have an As Is Assistant as well, and this is why I always enter IKEA through the exit!).

And since it's only three days until I head back to work for next year, I started on my list of yearly tasks.

So it wasn't until after 3 pm that my mind turned to today's blog post.

'It's Monday, so we can do a make, do and mend.' it suggested. 'Something quick, easy, take a picture of the completed item, up it goes, bang, done, head to the (newly vacuumed with washed cushions) sofa, recline for the afternoon and finish your book.'

'Go on...' it wheedled. 'Only two days of this year's Daily Dolls' House December challenge to go, and the only rule was to blog something miniature related...'

Alas, when I opened the drawer of small kits, I spotted this:

The scariest kit in the whole stash. One that was bought for a house that I sold 23 years ago to pay to move my belongings from New Zealand to Australia.

And suddenly, it seemed like a jolly fine idea indeed to mark the end of Daily Dolls' House December 2019 by confronting my (miniature) demons, and actually having a crack

Who knows? It might turn out to actually be quite easy, and then I can feel like Grover in The monster at the end of this book.

(Either way, as I pointed out to a friend a few days ago about something else, it'll make good blog fodder...)

The sailor's daughter

And so he did. And so she did.

Which meant I got to mock up the beginnings of the next scene in the space (that's why there's a kitchen cupboard on the roof...)

The story is that when the sailor died, his daughter moved in: but not before getting rid of a lot of the 'old tat' in the place, and moving and modernising the kitchen (I probably need to think about getting another kitchen set as I use this one quite regularly).

She did keep the stove and fridge, which were still newish, and a number of pieces of her father's that she liked, and worked into the new scheme, such as her father's trunk, globe, model yacht and telescope, and the terrazzo floor...

(The sofa that I'd pulled out to test my box-frame scene worked well here, paired with an Eames rocking chair from a box of goodies received from Elvira back in 2014, a rug gifted by Mitchymoo Miniatures in 2015 and cushions which I swear were also a gift but I can't find documented (although I suspect they were part of this package from Mini Dork...))

In the space where the old kitchen and (huge) table was, she added a set of industrial shelves, a tulip table (from my now-sold Kaleidoscope House.. *sniff*), some Tolix chairs, a small desk (from Mini Mod Pod), paired with a school chair (from my seaside shack), and a low sideboard (the repainted Europa sideboard from the next build after that).

(The lamp base is from a necklace picked up on a recent op shopping adventure, and the shade my trusty Irwin Interior Decorator Set, which I have used in many scenes over the years).

It pleased me greatly to add a new satchel for the sailor's daughter: like father, like daughter, obviously!

Now I'll let the whole thing sit for a while to mature, which will give me time to decide what I'm going to do about wall coverings, and if I like the sea-washed paper above the kitchen or need to try something bolder (or softer).

Plus decide if that wall cupboard needs to move down into the kitchen or not...

This ship has sailed (The Saturday shelfie)

Back in August, I placed my Lori Ballet Studio on my desk, above my laptop, and in direct line of sight in the hope that it might cause enough inspiration to make me find time in my life for miniatures.

It worked (sort of, and much later than I'd hoped) but this week I've found that it's been sitting there taunting me as I sort out other parts of my life that were long neglected as I packed and moved last year.

'Bloody hell', I finally declared around 3pm.'It's Saturday. Do a quick shelfie of the kitchen. Blog it. Then you'll be done and dusted for the day and can go back to sorting out your files...'

So I did:

 (Of course, you know what happened next...)

 I finished the kitchen.

 Then I finished the lounge.

 (Deciding that it's much easier for my sailor to live in the present day...)

 And I think I'm done. 

(Although there's a small voice in my head suggesting that my sailor might be due to die, and then his daughter take over the space...)

Flashback Friday (it *is* Friday, isn't it?)

A couple of weeks ago I shared some photos of the bedroom of my Mickey apartment: the very first scene I'd created when I returned to the hobby in my 20s (and if you're new to the artform and feeling like you'll never be any good and so should just give up now: have a look at this photo I took just after I started as an adult...)

At the time I mentioned that I didn't have any electronic photos of the lounge/ kitchen area, and hadn't yet got my printer hooked up after moving a year ago. This has now been rectified, although I'm almost loathe to share the photos as they're so bad (and did momentarily consider recreating the scene to rephotograph, as I still have the rooms and the contents: wrapped up until I decide what to do with them in my much smaller home):

Let's go for a stroll down Memory Lane, shall we?

It's the late 1980s, so no internet as we now know it existed. (I worked in a scientific organisation and had recently been introduced to this 'thing' where you could leave messages on notice boards and other people THAT YOU DIDN'T KNOW ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD would reply: so yes, the internet existed but only for a very specific and rather small group of people but most certainly not for buying dolls' house miniatures).

I knew of two shops in Wellington that sold miniatures: one, the hobby shop where the Lido cafe now is (in what I didn't realise then was a lovely modernist building),that sold basically Chrysnbon, some wood, and not much else that was interesting for a miniaturist. The other was an odd little shop in the Regent cinema arcade on Manners Street: I remember poring over the contents of their sales counter wondering when I could afford the singer sewing machine set displayed there: even though it wasn't modern, it was still miniature.

Apart from the pieces I mention in my original post on this room, I made the Mickey Mouse triptych out of wrapping paper and cardboard, the Mickey Mouse wall clock out of Fimo and cardboard, and the speakers out of Balsa wood, paint and pantihose. The records are prints from the World Record Club catalogue (remember them?!), and I sewed the gingham cushions.

I was particularly proud of the yellow case I made out of Fimo: the first time I recreated something I owned myself.

The rest of the contents were commercial pieces I picked up over months as I saved up enough to purchase my next 'must have' item.

Sadly, to this day, although I have lights in the room, they have never been hooked up to work...

I scoped it out

So it took a while, but a good part of that was that (after I got the instructions clear in my head) the pieces were luxuriating in a egg-cup bath of vinegar for a day to make them look suitably aged.

Once that was complete, I did a little sanding and voila!

(OK, OK, it's only blog ready as I've not yet glued anything together, or made the lens. But if I'd not told you, you never would have noticed, right?)

Christmas day plans...

...look a lot like this:

(Yes, it's another post where I get out of bed in order to make a scene of my bed so I can tell the world I'm not getting out of bed...) 

It's a Christmas-day tradition around here,

except for last year, which looked more like this (and makes me particularly appreciate my ability to return to tradition for this year):

I hope your day is just what you need it to be.

Procrastination by printer

So I made brunch, and read the kit instructions while I ate.

'Paint the aluminium strip gold'... (I didn't find one in the bag. This could be a problem.)

As I read I realised the absurdity of a technical editor reading a set of instructions, over brunch, during a holiday.

Brunch finished, I took a deep breath and returned to the studio. Where I started at the kit bits for a while and then sprang into action...

...harvesting appropriate book and magazine covers (with magazines covering several decades as I still don't know when the scene is set), printing them off and gluing them to cardboard supports. And (finally!) making candles from some white glue sticks I picked up at Daiso (probably on this trip) and some black wire from the local discount store.

I did pick up the telescope kit pieces, rearrange them into groups, and decide that perhaps my sailor didn't need a stand for his telescope and could just have a hand one. I then realised that the sanding paper I needed to work on the pieces was through the flat, out the door, down the stairs, across the car park, and through the garage (which made me feel like a character in Bears in the night*) which just seemed like too much fuss to bother with right now.

Yup, still getting used to the 'new' set up. And am missing the extra three metres of floor space I had in my old studio, plus the space on top of my catalogue drawers as well. It's OK: part of the point of my time off work this summer was to get used to my new spaces, and work out how I can make them work best for me.

(*Which I only now realise is a Berenstain bears book, which makes me feel quite silly as I use the Berenstain bears as an analogy at work very regularly...)

Make do and mend Monday: watery thoughts

Yesterday, with the printer hooked up for the first time in over a year, I tested out making a view for my sailor. And what a difference it makes to his flat!

This morning, in the shower, I was ruminating on what today's blog post would be. The view, obviously (and that would hit the mark for a daily post), but since it was Monday, perhaps I should make something...

And my clever brain piped up (water... geddit?) and suggested that now the sailor has a view of the sea, perhaps he'd like a telescope to look at it. And reminded me that I had just the kit in stash (which I'd completely forgotten about until then, and have no idea where I got it from!). Clever brain also thought the sailor might like some shells, and perhaps now was a good time to use the ones I picked up almost three years ago?

So with a plan firmly in place, I unpacked the kit pieces and started reading the instructions. 'Paint the aluminium strip gold'. I look at the pieces of kit and can't see any aluminium strip.

Perhaps I'll have brunch first and come back to this later?