In between working on the DIY homes, I decided to complete the Monument piece. I knew what I had to do if it was to be converted to become a door stopper. I couldn’t just glue the carving to the wedge as is because it won’t be strong enough to hold together.
So I carved an interlocking section in the joining area of both pieces for better support. The snug fit then had Elmer’s glue added for additional strength.
Thankfully, the whole process didn’t take long and all it needed after that was time for the glue to dry and a coat of varnish. A pat on the shoulder for me for the well-done effort!
M2 and I were aghast at the challenge ahead with my DIY home that arrived first. All the furniture pieces are so tiny!!! What have I gotten ourselves into?
Checklist of all items to construct my mini 3-story bungalow!
The mess working on the kitchen chairs
I had to put aside finishing up the Monument piece to focus on this. So the two of us worked on my house at every opportunity available. But it has been slow because cooking and cleaning the real house takes priority over fixing up the toy house. Don’t forget, there’s all that golf to play too during the weekends. The DIY home was merely to fill up any free time available.
Props are tiny beyond tiny!
However, there were days we didn’t look forward to the daunting task because the pieces were so minuscule to handle especially the props and materials. Half the time at such close proximity, I had to remove my glasses to see better. But I felt we couldn’t abandon the three projects just like that simply because things were tiny.
Everything here was so hard to glue! See the size in comparison to my glasses
Clips to hold and to hold down the fabric after applying glue
At times, I had to use a clothes peg when working with fabric to hold the pieces when applying glue. And the clothes peg also doubled up to hold the material down to bind with the glue. If I didn’t do this, I’d end up with all the glue on my fingers instead! And it’s rather time-consuming because the glue needed to dry before we could progress further.
When the second shipment arrived, M2 moved on to fix her house, whilst I concentrated on mine. And both of us agreed that hubby will not fix his house up because the parts are way too tiny for him to handle.
The incomplete first floor of M2’s DIY 2-story home. Check out the books on the bookshelf!
Once the two of us have completed our homes, we’d work on his together.
My latest online purchase was done on a whim. After purchasing a couple of kitchen appliance/utensil items, I itched to buy something for myself. After all, those kitchen things were more for hubby to use, and we’ve hardly gone out to do any shopping, let alone go out.
So what did I buy?
A do-it-yourself home! And I had to buy the biggest house with teeny weeny parts to be put together with glue and tweezers. And as if that’s not enough, I bought two more houses too, one for M2 and one for hubby to fix! Crazy.
My house arrived slightly squashed but all contents were intact
The DIY house kits arrived separately – mine first, at the end of May and the other two several days later.
As expected, I didn’t take long to complete carving my latest Monument. I am proud to say it’s rather monumental. At a towering height of eight inches, this piece is by far my biggest monument.
I’ve also decided to put it to good use rather than displaying it on the shelf like the rest of the other Monuments.
The wedge
Supporting it will be a wedge that I had painstakingly used the wood planer to shave off to get the correct angle as a door stopper! Clever, ain’t I? It should look good and certainly very practical.
Soon after the ginormous Gnome was completed, a change on subject matter to carve would be good. After all, I ran out of wood for Whales. However I do have an abundant supply of long Meranti wood pieces, why not carve a Monument?
Honestly, it’s been a while since I last carved a Monument. A quick check on the carving log and my… my… the last one I carved was 2 June 2019, a year ago! So carving another Monument now is apt.
It should be good fun and not too difficult, this piece should not take too long to complete.
I took quite sometime to finish the latest Gnome because cooking and cleaning comes first over carving. And when I finally painted it up, it is an odd one.
Same same but different
Certainly a breakaway from the troop, it does not have the blue top or white shoes although it has the red cap like the rest. Well, it’s okay. Sometimes variation is good to make things interesting and also helps to improvise for the better.
However, when a piece in hand is not following a systematic way to carve, like carving the Whale pieces for example, the task in hand becomes challenging. And ginormous Gnome, at the height of 17.5cm was certainly a tough challenge.
One tough cookie… err, Gnome to carve
Well it’s almost completed (the varnishing being the final process), I am now contemplating what my next piece should be. Hmm…
The latest ginormous Gnome is a ginormous challenge. The balance was off and so much effort has gone into it already. Obviously I did not want to waste the piece and decided to reshape things to save it.
It’s coming along
Days when I have the chance to carve, I’d be focused instead of planning on what to cook for hubby and M2. And this worked out.
Originally, I shaved off too much of the shoes and it wasn’t stable on its feet literally. Hence some patch work was needed to increase the footprint and this decision turned out well.
The cap was problematic from the beginning and I stressed over this. So I filed it, vigorously if I may add to shape the overall to look like what it is now. As best as I tried, it is still lop-sided. This fella certainly wears his cap differently from the rest.
I’m at the tail-end working on ginormous Gnome. Despite all the imperfections, I’m rather pleased with the result. The homestretch to complete now is just sanding to fine tune the lines and putty work on the holes before the gesso and paint process.
I have stopped carving Whales for almost a month already for a couple of reasons. Number one reason being no more correct sized Meranti wood. However it’s not that I have zero wood supply anymore, it’s just that there’s a lot of odd-sized pieces. And it would be too tedious to trim to the size required.
Second reason being I wanted a change. With the 60th Whale (in total since the beginning) completed on 12 April, I felt like a factory, having carved a dozen of the same thing during the MCO (Movement Control Order) period.
So a week after Whale #60, I started on a new ginormous Gnome. But this totally new Gnome had a lot of ups and downs.
Plans to carve daily did not work out well as I had to juggle between cooking and design work. Throw in meal times and playing Homescapes, I simply did not have the luxury to sit down for a few uninterrupted hours to carve. And as work picked up too, this was far more important than all other activities. Hence progress on the piece was slow.
By the time I had the chance to sit and carve–and this would be by nightfall–I would be so tired mentally and physically, there’s no more energy left to even lift the carving knife.
Then there were errors and hiccups working on the piece. The initial outline on the big two-piece Meranti block looked okay with a slight tilt of the cap but when I got down to it, not only was I off, I managed to nick my finger without realizing. The Gnome ended up with a very obvious lop-sided cap and a slightly bloodied nose. Oops…
The cap turned out too lop-sided!Sweat and blood stains
It’s not only a totally new Gnome but a totally new challenge as well. I thought the Little Birdy was tough, this one was equally if not more. But I ploughed on because I don’t have the correct sized wood for Whales.
Carving a new shape is not easy! Three months ago, I used the little birdie that my friend bought for me from Japan as my sample for a new shape to try. It was a real challenge in every aspect – the 3D visualisation and proportion before I even began carving and shaping the block of wood.
Even though I had all the measurements of the angles and sides, I was still off! Eeeks. Little birdie was without a beak because I miscalculated the allowance that would be shaped into its beak! At that point, little birdie looked nothing like a little bird at all. Hahahaha….
So a little surgery to add on and some putty magic to fix the problem, otherwise the whole effort would have been wasted! But the effort resulted in little birdie looking like a little duckie! Horrors… challenges after challenges.
Fast forward to the finished piece, little birdie looking like what it should be with a further reduction on the size of the beak. But now, after two months I am still stuck on how it should be finished, as in what color to paint instead of just leaving it in its gessoed state. Sigh… this new carving direction has not been easy.
It is Day 5 of our quarantine period but if I include the MCO period, it’s actually ten days being at home. I think both hubby and I are still doing okay but I suspect M2 may be a bit restless, cooped up in her room. All the way home but not quite home, no different from before because we are using the phone to communicate despite being in the same house.
We’ve been sending her food in a Bento box, leaving it outside her room. Almost like a hotel’s room service but this is where the service stops. No housekeeping provided so she has to take care of this chore until the quarantine period ends.
The various Bento box mealsBesides meals, there’s Snack Boxes too
Sometimes I even forget she’s back because she’s been so quiet in her room. Of course being out of sight, she’s out of the mind! But as she has online classes everyday, we leave her alone.
I guess I’m still not used to having her back, sooner than the original plans. Oh well, I’m not complaining. Better to have her here than afar with the ever changing situation of the pandemic.
However once the quarantine period is over, the situation remains except that M2 can leave her room. The government of Malaysia had announced on Wednesday, a further two weeks extension of the MCO! So we still have to stay at home until 14th April. It is with fervent hope that this drastic measure will flatten the curve to fight the Covid-19 spread.
Every other day, a new Whale is carved and completed
And until then, my cooking skills have been improving, my carving has yielded more Whales than ever and my waistline has been expanding much to my dismay. How can it not when I am constantly thinking of all these delicious food that I am now able to cook—because I have the time—instead of design work? In truth, the 16/8 diet has long since been thrown out the window at the start of this.
Angieneering 
Remarks