My DIY miniature has not progressed, but in line with the Christmas spirit, I am helping M2 to build a Gingerbread house! And it’s not easy, I tell you.
The humidity has contributed to the structure becoming soft when exposed to the air. So the first attempt failed. Sigh.
We will attempt again today and hopefully will fare better. Otherwise, the Gingerbread house will join my current DIY miniature as an incomplete project.
It just hit me that it is December already! Oh, my goodness. 2022 is coming to an end soon. With less than a month left, there is still much to do to fill up the days with memories.
December is a constant battle with the weather when it comes to doing the laundry. Will the sun peek out for a bit? Will it rain non-stop? The laundry does not have that sun-soaked smell during this time of the year.
December is also a month to get my Christmas shopping going! And so far, I’m on track. Yay. And yes, the home Christmas decorations are out, and it’s just the finishing touches here and there.
Being the last month of the year, December is also a time to wrap up things that started at the beginning of the year. Specifically, my DIY miniature, sitting at my station, collecting dust. I have not crafted so many this year, and it would be nice to finish up this last one.
December is a time for reflection on the year that passed. I am thankful for the good times and have stored away the good memories. I hope the remainder of the month will give me several more last hurrahs to cherish.
Besides my golf game struggle, my DIY miniature crafting has also struggled over the past few months. I have not sat down at my little workstation for so long, and my last project has stalled to the moon and never came back! Hahaha.
It would be nice to finish it up and not leave the set incomplete and collecting dust. I have gone so far with crafting miniatures for the past three years already. And this being DIY project #25, it would be great to wrap it up before the year ends.
If there’s one thing besides patience I discovered during the pandemic when we were under lockdown, it was online shopping. One can buy just about whatever we fancied at the click of the mouse.
In the last two years, during the lockdowns, my favorite item to buy from my go-to online shopping site was DIY miniature kits. But hubby is different in his purchasing choices. He buys plants!
Although he has bought plants in the past, they are mostly air plants, nothing heavy. These days, he continues to buy plants online instead of from the nursery, even though there are no more lockdowns. The last two purchases were fig plants, which are far heavier than air plants! The most recent one was rather large trees, in my opinion.
So now, we have nine fig trees and growing the fig family. It should be interesting.
DIY project number 25 has hit an unexpected stumbling block! Call it a jam because it literally is! I have to make 21 jars of jam for the jam shop, and I’m jam-stuck here, pun intended.
The rest of the set is not that hard to put together because this is not a regular-sized kit but a medium-small one. It’s the itty-bitty pieces that are the challenge that I did not foresee.
Oh well, by hook or by crook, I will get this Sweet Jam Shop done!
As the saying goes, time goes by when you’re having fun or being busy. Suddenly we have reached the halfway mark for 2022! Goodness, what happened in the past six months? Was I having so much fun or being so busy – I don’t seem to recall!
The pandemic is still here, and we are so used to it now. After all, it’s two and a half years already since the beginning of the outbreak. And the country has been revising the SOPs constantly to circumnavigate the ever-evolving situation.
Despite the constant rules updates and changes, one thing has remained. People are still masking up whenever being out in public, especially indoors, although it is not a must now for open areas. The public has been ingrained since day one to do this. It’s a good and safe practice to contain the virus spread. Our mask supply is never-ending too!
This year, my crafting of DIY miniatures is taking less of my time because I started wool felting, and also my golf games have picked up. I suppose one can’t have it all. We’ll see how the second half of the year goes for me as far as my miniatures are concerned. There’s still a mountain of supplies waiting for me, and I intend to buy more!
Felting is quite a therapeutic activity whenever I want to do something. This activity takes less time, and the finished piece is just as rewarding and satisfying.
Carving has halted big time because it’s too messy and dusty. However, I still have a three-Gnomes piece to complete before the year ends. With six months left, I should be able to, I think. I need to find the time and focus on the activity.
Let’s hope the second half of the year will be exciting and not just fun and busy so that when we look back at 2022, it will be a year to remember and not be lumped together with the past two forgettable years.
I started DIY project number 25 two days ago. Woohoo! I forced myself to stay away from my games on my iPad Mini to work on it. It was a good decision as there was less time on the iPad, and I could focus better on crafting.
DIY project number 25 is another small set. After working on those few minuscule sets, I find them more therapeutic for my mind and patience. And since I recently purchased three new mini kits in the series of six, I decided to work on the Sweet Jam Shop first. And it looks like all the larger sets that I have will have to take a backseat for a while.
DIY project number 24 is a wrap! I’m so proud of myself. Within two weeks, I completed the set because I stayed focused. Every day, I had a mission which was to work on it. So things came together bit by bit daily.
The biggest challenge was the gramophone piece, and I had to improvise to ensure the sound horn could hold its position. I felt the tiny wire, as stated in the instruction booklet, was too weak to withstand the weight of the sound horn. True enough, I improvised by reinforcing with a stronger joint, and it worked out well.
Overall, it’s an easy set to work on and could have taken a shorter time frame to complete. But there were time-consuming steps, which were leaving the pieces to dry after gluing them together. Well, I’m a happy camper, or should I say, crafter with this completion. Onwards with the next set!
Just when I depleted my DIY miniature stash, I increased it again! I have been slow crafting my miniatures this year compared to the last two years under lockdown during the pandemic. My current supply of miniature sets has been collecting dust, and I attribute this slowdown to playing more golf and the new felting hobby.
Despite completing only one set (number 23) recently and in the midst of another now, I felt that I needed to increase my stash of DIY miniatures. There seems to be a sense of insecurity when I take a box from the mountain of miniature sets. Funny.
Three weeks ago, Lady Luck was shining on me as the sets that I had been eyeing were on sale on my favorite online shopping site. The series of six was on offer, and it was tough to decide whether to buy all six or be selective on which ones to get. Decisions, decisions!
In the end, I picked only three sets. Although my mountain of DIY miniatures sets saw a decrease by two, these three latest purchases have reinstated the security level. Yes, I feel a little more secure now, and crafting miniatures have never been more pleasant!
So DIY project number 24 kicked off before the weekend. I thought it would be an easy set to work on, being so minuscule. Boy, was I wrong! The gramophone is so hard to construct, and I have not even looked at the rest of the set.
Thank goodness I had the weekend off from golf, and there was progress. Slowly but surely, I will finish this set to avoid this being a repeat of project number 23, taking forever to complete.
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