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It’s So Tedious, Part 2

3 Jul

The DIY house project has been such a challenge. While it’s a nice change from carving, it’s truly a test of patience and skills. Putting little pieces of furniture and accessories together is not the easiest hobby on earth, especially when it comes to gluing fabric. It’s so darn hard!

My two kitchen chairs took several days to complete because the fabric, upon gluing, wasn’t bonding with the wood well. I had to use clothes pegs to hold them down so that they can set properly to dry. And it took several attempts as I ended up having more glue on my fingers than the pieces!

Once the kitchen chairs were finally completed, I worked on another equally aggravating set of chairs for the bedroom. And if I thought this was the ultimate test of patience and skills, making tiny pillows take the cake! I’ve managed only three pillows so far and have procrastinated on the last two.

Tiny chairs and tinier pillows to aggravate you!

On a brighter note, the ground floor has been completed and it looks impressive despite an initial misalignment of the chandelier. The chandelier had to be moved so that it’s directly over the coffee table when the sofas were put in place. All’s good now. Phew.

Top: Chandelier was off; bottom: my pretty ground floor

A few days later, the first floor was also completed as I got those darn chairs glued properly. It’s only a matter of time now to shift my energy and focus on the open-top floor with the swimming pool.

Fancy staying in this place? Hehehe

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It’s So Tedious

29 Jun

When it comes to furnishing the little DIY home, it’s so tedious. It’s not as easy as the instructions show. And it takes patience and accuracy to ensure the alignment is precise.

I started off working painstakingly on the itty bitty pieces of furniture and accessories once the main structure was put together. Then focused on the kitchen area.

The kitchen: before and after the wall cabinets, light and top floor were up

When that section was completed, I worked on more itty bitty pieces of furniture and the bathroom on the first floor.

Shower area walls are not straight!

The wiring of the whole structure to be lighted up was tough because things were very delicate and fine. Generally, while it has been slow, I’m rather pleased with the progress.

 

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It’s Rather Monumental, Part 2

19 Jun

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!

 

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A New Activity, Part 2

16 Jun

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.

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A New Activity

15 Jun

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.

These two came more squashed but nothing broken

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It’s Rather Monumental

8 Jun
My eight inch Monument of Gigglesville

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.

Stay tuned for the final piece!

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The Next Piece

1 Jun

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.

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Odd One Out

26 May

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…

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A Totally New Gnome, Part 2

19 May

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.

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A Totally New Gnome

8 May

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.

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