Pillows Done, Camera Kaput

You can also see the owl, uh, bookends?
statues? thingies...

I think I just took my last photos on this, our third digital camera.  This one died the same way the first did, by the mechanism that ejects and retracts the lens breaking.  The second camera drowned in an overturned canoe.  My Mommy instincts kicked in and I was turned around and had my hands on Tootie Pie before we hit the water.  We were rescued by a good Samaritan in a motor boat, left the canoe with the river patrol to fish out, and went for a ride on an inner tube behind our saviour's boat while Tootie Pie ate his chips.  And, we had bought the warranty, so we got a new camera free.  So, it turned out great for everyone, except Canon.

An Eames chair pillow on an Eames chair.
This should be my full-sized living room!

So, it may be a while before I post any more pictures.  I am working on quite a few things simultaneously, but tonight I finished the linens.  The colors don't really work in the master bedroom, so I put the more blue  pillows in the living room.  I will probably have to try printing fabric again soon, since the rug I was so proudly hailing has sustained water damage. 

Printed Rugs Are Not WaterProof

In the first picture, you will see the bathtub filled with water and undies on the floor.  Tootie Pie was playing with the dollhouse alone, and I love when that happens.  I guess I didn't even notice her filling the tub.  A Critter took a bath. 

Since I haven't made any bath towels, Tootie Pie pulled up the kitchen rug and wrapped the dripping wet Critter in it.  Then she talked about smearing:  "It's smearing because it's wet, right, Mom?".  That got my attention.  See second picture.

 

One step forward, two steps back.  Maybe I'll Scotch Guard my next printed rug.  

Tutorial: Easy Miniature Books

My little books

Even then, I could tell he was age-inappropriate
for the Daughter Sunshine, but they were
all I had "to scale".  My God, she is still wearing
a onesie, and he is exhibiting male pattern
baldness.  Ew!

In my first dollhouse, made by my parents, I made a few small books by sewing paper into a light cardboard cover.  I hand wrote a back story of the Sunshine Family daughter and Dr. Doolittle, the residents of the home, similiar to Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls, where we find out what happened to the wife and the husband before they met.  When I went back to my mini masterpiece, to continue the story arc, I had found that my youngest sister had written something akin to the following with less than a quarter of the book pages with text:

Painstakingly printed and bound, to be
"personalized" with a magic marker.  Is it
any wonder that I sometimes mistakenly call
her by my little sister's name?

Dr. Dolittle and Sunshine daughter got married and had children.  

So that put the brakes on my mini book idea.  Until now.  I made mini composition notebooks that were immediately vandalized by Tootie Pie.  I think she thought she was "partcipating", which she was, in a five-year old "helpful" way.  But, now, I got this idea from a website, that I believe was in another language.  I pretty much stole the idea, but, since I no longer remember where I saw it first**, plus I think it was in another language, I am posting my own version here. 

Materials:

• A glue bound (not stapled) catalog
• A carpet cutter or other razor
• A printer
• Gloss Enamel Spray Sealer (optional)
• Straight Edge (optional)

Cutting the mini books with a carpet knife

Choose the width of your book by measuring from the spine of the catalog.  With your straight edge and razor, cut a strip along the bound edge of the catalog.  Then, cut this narrow strip into small lengths for your books. 

Next, find or scan a dust jacket cover.  I used Charlotte's Web and a redesign of The Wizard of Oz.  Resize the image to the dimensions of your book.  Print and spray with the sealer.  Cut out and glue the jacket to the outside of your book.  Enjoy!

Of course, the inside of the book is not very interesting, but I'm not sure if Calico Critters can read anyway, so it's all good.  Thank you, random website in Finnish or Turkish.

** Okay, thanks to web browser history, I determined that I stole this idea from a Turkish website.  Thank you, Küçük Şeyler. 

Where's My Chair? And Call of the Small's? Where's Hers?

Did I miss it?  Mini*Aesthetics got an email regarding her DWR champagne cork chair.  I didn't get an email.  Call of the Small, did you?

And, I don't see my chair, nor that of Call of the Small, on the entry page, either.  What gives?  I didn't expect to win, certainly, but I did expect some sort of "Participant" recognition.  Am I missing something, DWR?  I want to see my chair on the DWR page, so I can brag that I have a design that is currently on the DWR website!  C'mon!

Sometimes, We Just Play

Pass the Skittles, please.

We have many highly domesticated woodland creatures residing in our dollhouse.  Sometimes we witness their daily activities, which usually involves finding beds for all of them (the tub and couch and all larger chairs are used, and still we need a carriage and Mother must stand).  Today, however, they were eating a Skittle dinner.  I also had to do some quick thinking when Tootie Pie found a "Made in China" sticker on one such critter, and asked a pointed question about why it said that when it was from Santa.  I said that perhaps he has Chinese suppliers.  How does one explain such things?

Small Technical Issue and Insight Into How My Brain Works

Since people are commenting more on my posts, I'd like to make a formal announcement that I cannot reply to comments.  I am working out a way to fix this, but have not come up with a working solution yet.  Any advice would be appreciated.  When I click on "reply", the link shows "javascript;", which means that something should be happening, but isn't.  It may be a cookie issue.  It may be a template issue.  I have no idea, but I am trying, trying to work it out.**

Also, I cannot figure out a way to show comments after the post.  There is code to do so, but you must insert it between the <blogger> tags, which my template does not seem to have.  I have been working on this, as well.

Admittedly, he is very hard to see,
but Mr. Cartwright is in the circular
window atop the rocket, looking
decidedly browner than most
astronauts of the time.

I do wish I could reply to your comments.  I want to!  I just can't.  Please understand why I may appear aloof or disinterested, which I am not.  I love blogging and I love my followers!  I am just something of a machine-destroying Luddite.  Which, of course, I can tie into to minis! See, a while back, I ordered an old "Famous Inventors Series" Cartwright loom, which came packaged with literature about this great inventor, as well as a bust of Cartwright himself.  Don't you wish that there was still a market for such educational toys today?   In the literature, it mentioned how this powerloom was not met with great joy by the weavers of the day, who would go on to protest the technology by burning the new mills that used it to the ground.  They thought it would destroy jobs, since the new looms required less workers to produce cloth.  Those people were called Luddites, after Ned Ludd, a youth who had allegedly smashed two stocking frames 30 years earlier (thank you, Wikipedia).  I ordered the loom to create mini tapestries.  But to date, the most useful item proved to be the bust, which I encased in an old ornament bubble pack, painted a sort of light brown color (to match my students' general skin tone, in a vague attempt to affirm their identity, and not at all to address the fact that all astronauts in the 1960's were exclusively white men), and used as an astronaut in my classroom's 1960's rocket ship. 

If ever I figure out how to reply to comments on my blog, expect a deluge of responses.  I apologize for my lack of technical expertise.  But, you got a good history lesson out of it, at least, right?

** EDITOR'S NOTE: I solved it.  I am using IE, and that is the problem (insert Microsoft joke here).  I can reply on chrome.  Problem "solved"

Only One Complete Project This Week

I added some 3D elements on this.
 Not the best work, but not bad.
The orange dot in between the 2
smaller knobs is supposed to be
an LED light, but it just looks like
a flaw.  There's actually a yellow
one underneath it, to prove it is
intentional.

First off, I want to thank Jazzi for the mention in her fabulous blog.  When a blog hero of mine mentions me in a post, well...it's an honor.  That, or I just bothered her enough in the link party.  Hey, whatever works, right?  Happy 50th, Jazzi!

This week I finished my wood cased radio.  I hesitate to mention my inspiration for fear that a) you'll compare (unfavorably) mine to hers and b) that she will not want to be credited (negatively) for my shoddy reproduction, but thank you Kris for the tutorial.  I failed to plan for the width of the wood in my measurements, so I "fixed" that by merely sanding down the corners.  The reason I did that is because it takes sooooo loooong to make these minis.  From the cutting of the stacked cardstock, to the gluing, to the waiting for the glue to dry, to the printing of the image, to the spraying and again waiting for it to dry, to the sanding of the edges of the bits of stacked cardstock, which then unglues the glue on the stack, requiring regluing and rewaiting, and on and on...I've been working on this little thing for a month.  And it only takes Tootie Pie about 10 seconds to crush it or lose it. 

So, enjoy it now.  It won't last.


Whhhhyyyyyy?!?!

Meant to be 50% cooler,
until one bead broke

I am also working on electrifying some lamps.  My lamps are not going to be plugged into outlets (that would require pre-wiring and foresight, which I lack completely), so they will be battery powered.  The 1.8 mm LED lights that I ordered seemed small enough to fit through the, eh, let's say a generous 2 mm opening, were sadly mounted on a 2.5 mm plastic base, which was itself on top of a 3 mm wide spread of wiring.  The instructions said to sand the plastic and bend the wires if it was too big.  I broke the first one right off.  Plan B was to sand a bigger hole in the beads, and I broke a bead.  So, after much trial, error and swearing, I sanded the bead openings down using less force but much, much more time, and sanded the edges of the bulb down just enough to squeeze in. 

The wiring is in progress now.  My old nemesis, the soldering iron, waits to torment me next.

Evil lurks in the corner of this photo.  It is
the horrible, gasp, a soldering iron.  Screech, screech,
screech, screech violin Psycho music.