Sunday, February 26, 2012

We Interrupt this Miniature and Teaching Blog...

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Hello, gorgeous!
 
Before

                                                                                                                    Anyone who has taken up a craft can tell you that the volume of tools and materials can build up rather quickly.  The cardboard boxes and plastic bags weren't making my kitchen look any more streamlined, let me tell you.  I found this bedside table in the garbage across from my in-laws.  The first day it was out, it was without its drawers.  Awww, so sad.  But then, the next day, there they were, happily reunited!  There was a hole on the top of the dresser, and there were no handles.  But, I never let that stop me.  I had a pair of pulls with a nice shape but hideous finish that I found around a year ago that would be perfect for it.  So, out came the wood putty, the sandpaper and the primer, and voila!  A new bedside table.  The former K-Mart blue light special, press-board, faux wood grain dresser (I was soooo fond of it, as you can tell) is now in the basement, holding all of my craft items, and the bedroom has a bright, white dresser.  Ta-tee!   







Friday, February 24, 2012

Back from the Magic Kingdom

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I felt slightly guilty about
that bacon on my plate
Mishka, Mooshka, Mickey Mouse.  Did you miss me, my throngs of loyal readers?  We just returned from our second Florida family vacation, and this time we submitted to the all powerful mouse.  Perhaps I am turning into an old, sentimental fool, or maybe it's the rock bottom, third-ring-of-hell expectation I held prior to our visit, but I have nothing snarky or ironic to say about it.  None of the characters I met smelled bad, the rides are hokey in the nicest possible way, and the breakfast that looked like a rip-off when I reserved it powered us through the day without needing to buy the dreaded and woeful Theme Park Family Meal of Desperation.  All in all, it was a magic kingdom.  After receiving her last dosage of magical elixir at 3 p.m., L held up beautifully despite not being able to breathe the night before (it turns out that breathing is a crucial ingredient to sleep).  Add to all of that a wonderful hostess, beautiful weather, world-class beaches, and a mid-winter visit with Nana and Gramps, and I have just had the best vacation I can remember in a long time.  This trip has made huge strides in restoring February to its rightful place as just another month, and, quite possibly a month I could actually look forward to once again.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

My Arco Lamp - Finished

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Well, ladies and gentlemen, here it is.  My first finished Arco lamp.  This one is battery powered.  I learned a lot.  Here is what I will try differently next time:
  1. Paint the inside of the ornament.  You can see even in the scanty 1.5 volts of light in this picture that the light shows the light patches from the inside of the ornament.  So I will paint the inside on the next one.
  2. Use a non-wired LED light.  Some come with miniature conductor wire attached, and other just have pins.  I will use the pin type from now on, since the wire, once I put the heat shrink tube on it, is too thick to pass through the aluminum tube. 
  3. Spray paint the battery cover.  The mod podge looks good except at the seams.  Spray paint will give even coverage, although I will have to then emulate marble with paint.  Not sure if this will be the easier route or not.
  4. Open the little cover on the inside of the battery case while soldering.  After I soldered the wires, I was trying to tuck the excess in the battery holder, when I realized there is a little cover inside that can be popped off.  This will make the wiring easier.
  5. Make the base even weighter.  Even with the AA batteries in the lamp, it is STILL top-heavy.  I'm looking into different size washers of brass or stainless steel to attach to the base to make it heavier.  Or, should I try to fashion a sculpey cover, and the combined weight of the batteries, holder and sculpey will balance this creation perfectly?  In any case, prepare to be dazzled with Arco lamp version 2.0!

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Thinking of Building a Dollhouse?

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Have you ever been in the dollhouse kit market?  Have you ever noticed how many "unfinished" dollhouses you can score online?  Does the fact that there are so many unfinished dollhouses give you pause?  Well, it didn't stop me.  I seem to have the overly optimistic outlook, or I believe that everyone else is an idiot and I will succeed where so many others have failed.  And, inevitably, I figure it out; making a dollhouse is a major pain in the bazumpa. 

I purchased my dollhouse kit with idealistic, soft-lit visions of my daughter and me working on it together.  We would share the creation of it, smiling and making eye contact in slow motion, and we'd treasure the memories forever.  It would be part of my own personal drug commercial montage.  In reality, I haven't let her do anything except paint the roof, and the most vivid memory she may have of the process is when I strung together the F-word with BS in front of her this morning.  I asked her not to touch it while the glue dries and she proceeded to "walk" her new plushy friend through the front door.  F-ing BS!

So, as someone who has experienced the joy of building something like this "together", let me just give you this one little piece of advice: DON'T.  It will fall apart.  You will wallpaper the wrong walls.  You will get splinters and none of it is fun.  Not even the finished product is satisfying because everytime you look at it you see the crooked walls and the glue blobs and all the other flaws.  And the thing is so fragile there is absolutely no way that you would allow a child to play with it.  Oh, heavens, no.

Perhaps someday, far in the future, she and I will gaze at it from the couch, a mug of coffee in our manicured hands, while the next generation plays with it.  Sun will stream through the window, making our blown-out hair glow like halos, and we'll think of the days when we built it together.  Until then, I'm hating every minute of it.
 

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