Letters Home- Furniture Building

    Continuing the series of my doll, Little Elecktra, and her visits to friends all over the world, we find her still in Canada with Terri Wright. All of the photos and today's letter are by Terri. 

Hi Mom! 

     I've been busy visiting since my last note. The stables here at Priam are hopping with activity constantly, and people are always coming and going. Today Emmie came and asked me if I wanted to learn how to upholster a chair.

I learned that it is not as easy as it appears, especially when there are cats involved!!  We spent time cutting out fabric to cover the chair with.  This is easier done on the floor as so much fabric is required. The cats seem to think its playtime, and we can't help but laugh. I think we will finish off a chair tomorrow, though! I will write more soon!

Love,

     Little Elecktra

 

Life Lessons

     This is hanging in one of the classrooms I work in. I feel that it is a very important life lesson and can, and should, be applied to almost everything. I have been meaning to take a picture of it for a long time and I finally remembered. And now I will talk about doll making. 

     For a long time doll making was difficult. The first doll I made took me 4 (long) days of work to finish. This was after having about 25 years of sewing experience. These days dolls are usually easy. But before they were easy, they were hard. Very hard. 

     Dolls go through ugly phases, just like any other bit of art. The ugly phase of dolls is long and can be incredibly frustrating. But if I don't give up on them they usually come together. Sometimes it's very hard. It has become easier over time. It has also become easier, over time, to "see" how they will end up. Which makes the ugly stage easier to work through,

     It is entirely possible for me to make a doll, start to finish, with no mistakes. I do it all the time. It is possible to make a new pattern, and have everything come together perfectly, from start to finish. But I don't learn anything that way. When I order a supply (of any kind) hoping it will work for doll making, sometimes it won't. And I have learned what won't work. I have tried techniques that won't come together, no matter how hard I try. I have experimented over and over. Plenty of mistakes have been made along the way. And I have learned a lot. Now I can hear (read) what someone wants for an unusual doll and I can think about the steps in my head. I can plan it out in my head, which comes from all the lessons I learned from all the mistakes I have made. 

     What is the point of this? The same point I always am trying to make. If you want to learn to do a thing well, anything, you need to practice. You need to try it, and you need to screw up. You really will learn to be better at whatever it is you are trying to learn, if you make those mistakes. And then keep on going and try it again.

    The Field of Dolls Online Fall show is open and accepting entries. You have 2 more weeks to enter and get your entries uploaded. The show is being held on OMHPS so please make sure you are signed up with them before you enter. You can use the site for free, but you will be limited on how much you are allowed to show in each show. I don't have any entry limits so premium members can show as many entries in each class (all different horses, one entry per horse per class) as they want. The entry form is here. 

     I also have been getting interest in the new miniatures club. Thank you so much! To make things easier for myself I am going to be shipping miniatures in January, April, July, and October. Other than International members, those will ship once a year because shipping costs are outrageous. So even though people joining right now have not been in the club for 3 months yet, I will be shipping the first miniatures to you in October. The sign up for that is on my ko-fi page, which can be found here.
 

The Lies I Tell Myself

     Since Breyerfest I have been hunting for a few Django models. I needed 3 of them to finish my Django conga. Back in July (maybe August?) I found 2 of the ones I was looking for. The original Django was still elusive. I found one available (actually, I think Lynn Isenbarger found it and told me about it), I made an offer, the offer was accepted, and I was asked for my zip code for a shipping quote, which I immediately gave. And then... crickets. I heard nothing back from the seller for a couple of days. So I emailed again, to see if maybe my email had gone astray. Still nothing. So I went back on the hunt. I bid on one on eBay, it went out of the price range I was comfortable paying for it. Then I got a message on my ISO ad, the seller and I started messaging and then, finally, I bought a Django. And now he is here. Which brings me to the lies I tell myself. 

     I am not an OF collector. I have said that often enough. I even sometimes believe it. I don't get super excited about most OF models. I much prefer artist resins and nice custom models. I can't personally see the joy in having thousands of models (or even hundreds), because I wonder how I would enjoy them. I have 10 resins and customs on a shelf in my living room (which was recently switched up slightly for an experiment on long term packing of resins) and I feel I can't even properly enjoy those 10 models. The majority of OF collectors I know have a very large number of models. Other than lack of space I just don't understand it. And congas... collecting every single color of a mold you like, just for the sake of having a complete set... yeah, I did that. Because I lie to myself. 

      The entire point of finding those last 3 Djangos was having a complete conga. I don't even really like the gold filigree or the appaloosa one. That is really outside of what I collect for. I only collect things I love. But it was actually really fun seeing if I could get a complete set. Kind of like when I go unicorn hunting (buying the blind bag unicorns to try to find the chase pieces). I don't even really like the unicorns for the most part, and I have not kept any of them. Or the chase pieces. I just want to FIND them. It's fun. And completing this conga was fun. But I won't make myself crazy over it. I will keep it up just as long as the rest of the pieces are easily obtainable. Just as soon as they are not I will start selling off every single one that I don't love. 

      So yeah, this not-an-OF collector has a complete conga, belongs to the premier club and the stablemate club, and is eagerly awaiting the next offerings from both of them. But yeah, I am not an OF collector. 

     
 

Moving On

     I am still working away on different bits and pieces of a couple of different projects. The cat sets are still in the works, the lunch bag sets, and so on. The other day I got some more work done on the lunch sets. I got the sandwiches wrapped. I made little parchment paper envelopes for the cookies, because even though the cookies are not real, I would not have a real cookie just loose in a lunch bag, so I made a wrapping for it. I also made some little snack chips. At this point I think I need to just dig out the other miniatures I have ready to go into lunches and finish them up. It would be a good idea. But progress is being made on them. I am happy. 

    I should have been finishing up the lunch sets, and the cat sets (I still need things for those) but I didn't, I moved on to starting some cross country kits. I got as far as cutting out this rainbow of vests and getting the padding in them. They still need Velcro, the pinnies, and then I need watches and medbands. But some decent progress was made on them. 

     I also got this pair of Breyer cats in the mail. They were from a single eBay auction. I am thinking one will stay here and be mine and the other can maybe be a giveaway during the next live sale. I have not totally settled on that idea yet, but I do like it. 

     So progress is being made, even though nothing is getting finished. Sooner or later things will get done. I am hoping today I can finish up at least a couple of the projects and then maybe early next week, if everything I need has arrived, I can get the cat sets wrapped up. Next week I also plan on getting started on several other miniature projects. 

 

Tiny Toys

     Next up on my project list is feather toys for cats. As I have mentioned, I have never had a cat. But I do have the internet. So I looked up feather cat toys. There are a ton of different types of feather toys. I grabbed a design that was fairly easy to replicate in miniature and I made a bunch. Every one of them is different, though they are all similar. I am one step closer to having the cat sets finished. The dishes and litter boxes should be on the way soon. I ordered “litter” and “cat food”. Hopefully those arrive quickly. But progress is being made and I am happy about it.

    In other news that makes me happy, I have gotten to teach a bit the last couple of days. One of my co-teachers is out and I have covered some of the classes. I really love teaching. Though I have discovered I don’t love every level class. It turns out the classes I like best are with the kids that need the most help. I have done plenty of teaching in science classes, a bit in a couple of different types of math, but now I got to do some teaching in an English class. I love that too! Reading is one of my favorite things and being able to help kids with their reading and writing makes me especially happy. 

     So school is going along well. It’s still really early in the year, but it also seems to be going by quickly. As frustrating as things are at times this year it is so much better than last year! I definitely did not like hybrid. Remote was hard because everyone started at you silently. Hybrid was harder because it was way too easy to semi-neglect the kids at home. Things are still weird but I am glad we are in person.

      I still have lots of things I need to make before my next live sale, but I am making decent progress. I am still really tired, but today is the first day of Fall. Which I know seems like those 2 thoughts don’t really go together, but I struggle when the seasons change. I get tired and unmotivated for about 2 weeks every time we move into a new season. I have been forcing motivation so I think that is leaving me extra tired. Hopefully I can be more alert soon.

 

Shipping (Miniatures Club Update)

      I tried to do a fun thing and start a miniatures club. In part it is an incentive to help my blog earn a bit of money, so it is somewhat less of a burden to keep going with it. Ko-fi offers tiers now, so it should have been easy.  I have a "thanks" tier that is a monthly donation of $3 and is just a thank you to me with no extra incentive. The second tier is level one of the miniatures club. It is a $6 monthly donation and every 3 months I will send you a random miniature. The third tier is level 2 of the miniatures club, which is a $10 per month donation. In level 2, every 3 months you receive either 2 miniatures, an extra cool miniature, or a handmade miniature. All of them are surprises (aren't all subscription clubs?) and for tier 3 you don't get to choose, it just depends on what I have for that month. 

    Setting everything up was a bit tricky, though not horrible. Then I ran into an issue. Of course. The idea was to make a small amount of money from the blog, not just make more work for myself. USPS shipping rates has found a way that it would be more work. So, sadly, I already have to make changes to the club. 

     

     I do not want to leave international collectors out, but with shipping charges being the way they are I would make nothing if I shipped a miniature every 3 months. To some countries I would actually lose money, which definitely is not fair to me. So the most reasonable option I have been able to come up with is I will ship the miniatures to international collectors once a year. I know this sucks, but this is the only way I can see that will make it work. If you are outside of the US and have already joined, and do not like the once a year shipping rule, you are totally free to cancel and I apologize for this. Really, anyone is free to cancel at any time, of course. Again, I am sorry this is what I have to do. But I definitely don't want to leave anyone out. 

If anyone is looking for the ko-fi page, it's here. https://ko-fi.com/fieldofdolls

The Miniatures Club

       For almost a month I have been tossing around the idea of doing tiers on my ko-fi page. I mentioned that ko-fi now offers monthly subscriptions, and someone did subscribe (thank you!) but I figured if I had something more to offer to people, maybe they would subscribe. But how to make it fair to people? Sure, people can subscribe, which “buys me a coffee” once a month as a thank you for writing my blog. And I wholeheartedly appreciate it. But I wanted to do something more. Mary Snyder had the idea for a miniatures club, so why not? I mulled it over, and then mulled some more. I really liked the idea. I even started shopping for cool miniatures. But that was as far as it went.

     Then yesterday Jennifer Buxton and I were doing some trouble shooting on ko-if. There are membership options and tier options. Jennifer had membership set up but there was no clear way to tell the membership is there and will give you access to the blog. So we played around some more and I finally pulled the trigger on a miniatures club.

     There are membership levels. The first level is $3 a month and is just a thank you to me for doing the blog.  And I appreciate it! The second tier is $6 a month and is miniatures club level 1. Every 3 months I will send you a miniature, and it is a thank you for my blog. Tier 3 is $10 a month and every 3 months you will get either 2 miniatures, a super cool miniature, or a handmade miniature. The shipping months are January, April, July, and October.

     It is entirely possible that sometime in the future I might add another level or other bonuses randomly. But for now I will start with this. If you are interested in joining my miniatures club, or just supporting my blogging, here is a link to my ko-fi. And did I mentioned Jennifer is opening up her blog to subscribers? That is absolutely worth the $5 a month!