Custom Progress

      I was bitten pretty hard by the customizing bug when I was working on my horse for the Breyerfest Best customs contest. I finished him up, he was far from flawless, but I wanted to work on another horse right away. I got a Winx body from my friend and immediately cut her head off. That's apparently what I do with horses now. I actually took off her entire neck and her tail. I had gotten as far as making her a wire support for her new neck, doing the basic shape in foil and covering it with a layer of epoxy. It ended up much thicker than I wanted so I dremeled the crap out of it so I had a better base to start putting her actual neck on. Then she went up on the shelf in the pantry and sat there for a good long while. 

      Until last Sunday. That was the day I finally decided the poor horse needed a neck. At least a neck, even if I didn't make it further than that. So I printed out some reference pics and got my horse out. 

      This was partway into the process. It didn't look horrible, but it sort of looked lumpy. Not old Breyer John Henry mold lumpy, but it's own special kind of lumpy. So I worked at it. A lot. And then some more. 

      I superglued some wires into the rear end of the horse so I could have a base for a tail. I have a plan, it may or may not work out. It's OK though, I own a dremel. 

      I covered the wires with a bit of epoxy, just to have a bit more of a base. It looks atrocious. But I think once I actually put a tail on it will be OK. So far though it is in the super scary ugly stage. 

     But at least my Winx has a neck now. It may be a bit off, but it is definitely the best neck I have ever done. I am sure everything will need to be cleaned up some, but at least I got a bit more work done on this poor horse. 

      As always I am just sharing a bit of my progress, I am not looking for advice, to know what I did wrong, to know how I can fix things, or anything else. I am enjoying the learning, the trial and error, and the attempt to apply things I have learned from watching other people. And I have to say, it's pretty fun.

OMHPS- how to load performance pics

      I love the setup of the Online Model Horse Photo Show site. But it can be a little bit confusing at times. Especially if you show performance. Though once you get everything set up you have all of your photos for each horse nestled all together in one spot. I really like the format a lot. It is easy to see which shows/classes you have your horse entered in, all the classes/shows it has previously been entered in, any placings from past shows, as well as their awards. But there are several steps to go through before you get to that. 

      The very first thing you need to do before you can get to performance pictures is create your horse. Here is a step by step list of how to do that. 

1. From your My Horses page click on Add New. 

2. Enter the horse information (name, make size, gender, breed) and your main horse photo. This is typically where I put the horse's halter picture. 

3. From the same page you can click on the tabs for references, workmanship, or collectability and add any information on the horse on those pages. 

4. Click on create at the bottom of the page. You cannot add performance until you have done these steps (at least the horse page, you can do references, workmanship and collectability at another time if you choose).

5. Now you can add your performance entries. Go to your My Horses page. Click on the horse you want to add performance photos of. We are using Halestorm as an example. At the bottom of that horse's page (or on their picture on your My Horses page) click on edit. (alternately you can just click edit on it's thumbnail photo on your main My Horses Page)

6. On the new page that comes up now you can click on performance (do it). 

7. At the top of the page click on Add New.

8. Now you can enter one performance entry, for example a western trail entry. There is a drop down menu (under the word performance). You would choose western trail. Then you can add a description, any reference you need (a description of what the horse is doing, a link to an outside source, etc.) and you can also add reference images (this is usually where I put the picture of my pattern, or a photo of a similar horse doing a similar thing). Once you have the entry complete click on I'm not a robot and Create. 

9. Now that you have one performance entry in for your horse repeat steps 5-8 again. When you are done adding all of the entries for one horse they will all be nested together in one place. After that, move onto the next horse and its entries. Happy showing!

 

Bareback Pads

      I am getting closer and closer to finished with my various small items projects for my next live sale. The sale will be Friday, November 26th, at a time to be determined (but likely middle of the afternoon my time, as usual). I may think about doing an evening (my time) sale, which will bring things up for people on the west coast and might bring things into a reasonable time for people overseas. I need to look at the time difference, I have no idea really. 

     Anyway, the latest batch of finished items is bareback pads. I have been working on the small things in groups, as I usually do, with the idea that if I can get a handful of each type of thing finished now, I can move into working on dolls, and if I have time/energy/desire to make more small things closer to the sale, then I can do more of whatever type I feel like making. It's a good plan and so far, it's working. 

     The only issue I have found so far is financially I don't think I am doing good things for myself. Either I am working incredibly slowly or I am undercharging for a lot of the items I sell. I don't want to make them prohibitively expensive, but I need to be fair to myself. It's a tricky balance because I have been backhandedly accused of just being in the hobby for money, as well as many other artists who produce anything for the hobby. This isn't an idea that is exclusive to the hobby either, not by a long shot. Artists across the board are expected to give things away for "exposure". Or because people want them. Sadly, exposure doesn't pay the bills. On that note, here is a song that my friend posted on their Facebook page. It is awesome, but full of profanity (you have been warned).

     Unless I come up with any more new items, or make more of the types of items I have already finished, I am very close to done with small things. I still need to make hoodies, saddlebags, dog sets, and micro pouches (if I choose to make those). I am getting there. And so far at least, I am not stressed about it at all. 

Letter Home- Projects

     Continuing my series of letter from my doll, Little Elecktra, as she visits with friends all over the world she is still in Canada with Terri Wright. All of the photos and some of the post were written by Terri (I changed, added to, and embellished some of it!)

     Hi Mom!

       We were busy today finishing off various projects. I learned some electrical stuff today too! These lamps are made of LED lights. You have to twist and twist and twist the wire until they are tight to make a good connection. Then cover them so the wires stay in place. Sort of like when you helped Gramps build the motors for the lasers (true story, I used to build electromagnetic motor parts for fancy cutting lasers for my father-in-law).

After we put the lampshades on it is time for the fun part!

     I felt a bit like a mad scientist when I was connecting the lamps to the power supplies. Just imagine it's night, with a wild thunderstorm and an evil laugh, muah ha ha!

     Even though Emmie knows what she is doing, and is an excellent teacher, it is always exciting when the lamps work!

We also finished off the upholstered chair, after we finished playing sword fight with the legs, lol!

     There are a lot of steps to building furniture, especially if you make quality pieces. I hope everyone who gets these tiny pieces appreciates them. I know you do, you are almost a tiny furniture hoarder mom! (I do not have a wingback chair in my collection, which I feel is a terrible oversight on my part)

        This time around I was the first quality control tester. There were no cats to jump in the chair first so I tested it for comfort. It was amazing, just as all of the furniture that comes out of Terri's workshop is amazing. 

     After we finished up with the chair Emmie started showing me a project she was working on. But she wouldn't tell me what it is for! No matter how I asked and begged, Emmie grinned and said it was a surprise. It's apparently a big secret. So I guess I have to wait. This is going to be painful, you know how impatient I am!

      This letter has been packed with all sorts of news this time around. I am pretty tired from all of the hard work on the various projects. I think I will go and relax. And ponder what the big secret is with Emmie's mystery project. I'll write more soon. 

     Love,

         Little Elecktra

It’s Been Awhile

     It has been awhile since I have made a doll. I finished one back on September 10th and before that I finished a few the last week of August. I have not really been making dolls. Do I miss it? Not really. Was it horribly hard to get back into it to make this doll? Not at all. In some ways she is sort of different and was almost a break from working on the smaller items I have been working on most of the time. 

     This lady also has pretty cool hair. The customer and I went back and forth a bit on colors and designs and eventually it was decided she needed tri-colored hair, with the base color being "fog" which is sort of a lavender gray. She then got some streaks of purple and silver. Pulled into a side braid I think it looks fantastic! The way I did this side braid the hair is pulled across the top of her head before being braided, instead of just pulled to the side. I think this makes the braid stay out of the way of the hood nicely and it makes the different colors stand out in a really nice, fun way. 

     Typically the way I make things for my live sales is I start with a big batch of dolls, usually a variety of casual dolls. These don't take a lot of thought process to make after I decide on what colors I want them to wear. Then I sew all the clothes in one batch, dremel a whole bunch of bodies, dress all the dolls sort of assembly-line style, and in a fairly short amount of time I have a decent start to my sales inventory. I usually save all the small items until closer to the end. I invariably make myself crazy doing it this way. Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I'm a little bit crazy, but I am not insane, so I decided to do things differently this time. 

     Saving the smaller items until last ALWAYS takes longer than I think it will. The result of that is a feeling of panic and working super long hours trying to get ready for things. I know that people have said that all of my goals and deadlines are arbitrary, I made them up and I can change them if I need to, but I run my business like a business. Which means if I am not reaching my goals it is potentially because I slacked off too much at one point or another. I know it seems like I am working constantly, but while I do work long hours during the week, not all of them are productive hours. And I do take weekends off. 

     So this time around I am working on all the smaller items before I start on any dolls for my sale. The result is that I have not made a doll in a long time. I have not forgotten how to do it, I think it would take a lot longer than a few weeks for that to happen, but "doll work" these days more often than not doesn't actually mean working on dolls. I still have 8 weeks to work on things for my next live sale and I have a decent stock of small items all finished and ready. I have a few more types of things I need to do and then in a week or two maybe I can work on some dolls. I do that sometimes after all. 
 

Ko-fi/Miniatures Club Update.

     Today was an excellent mail day! I got in my September micro from Maggie's monthly subscription and my micro Anise from Jennifer Scott. I also got a large variety of other things, including a ton of miniatures for the miniatures club. Super fun mail day!

      While I was sorting miniatures I realized I had a problem. I have 2 levels of the miniatures club,  the issue I see is that the miniatures for level 1 and level 2 are not the same. What if someone wanted all of the miniature options? The solution was to make a new tier. 

     Tier one is still $3 a month, does not come with a thank you gift, it is simply a wholehearted thank you from me. It is to help support the blog and I thoroughly appreciate it!

     Tier two is level one of the miniatures club, is $6 a month, and every 3 months I send you a thank you gift for your support. 

    Tier three is level two of the miniatures club, is $10 a month, and every 3 months I will send you  either an extra cool miniature (meaning, more expensive), two miniatures, or a hand made miniature.

    The new tier four is level three of the miniatures club, is $14 a month, and every 3 months I will send you all of the miniatures from both level one and level two of the club (so you get everything, but also get to save a bit of money). With this tier you will not miss out on any of the miniatures. 

     So basically this is still sort of like a PBS pledge drive. Do they still have those? Am I just old? I am hoping to bring in a bit of financial support to make it easier for me to keep on going with the blog. I have different donation levels, and several of them come with a thank you gift. Every donation is appreciated!

    If you want to change your monthly donation amount you can visit my Ko-Fi page and change it. I am not shipping the October miniatures just yet so there is time to change and still time to join. I am weird and I am going to ship in October, January, April and July. I am not making everyone wait until they have been making donations for 3 months. 

   One last reminder; due to insane international shipping charges, that are entirely outside of my control, international members of the club will have their miniatures shipped once a year.

  I have some really cool things for the club and I think it will be a lot of fun. After all, who doesn't like surprises coming in the mail!

Sylvester

     We have a lot of flamingos. And not just a flock of very similar birds, but a nice variety of them. We have 3 different styles of larger birds, 1 or 2 smaller ones (I am not sure anymore, they keep deteriorating), a planter decoration with flapping wings, a pinwheel flamingo, and more recently a wind chime with a pinwheel flamingo on it. I was at Joann's the other day buying glue and saw this guy. He had to come and join the flock. His name is Sylvester and he is awesome. Saturday Travis and I did some weeding under the pine trees and I put Sylvester right out front. He is the only member of the flock that has actual legs, instead of wires, and I love that the design has him standing on one leg. He may be my new favorite. Don't tell the others.

     Sylvester came home with me on Saturday and Saturday was also a good mail day. I entered the Mares in Black Spooktacular Photo Show 2 and I was in need of some spooky accessories for my performance photos. The performance class list is technically traditional, but each of the classes has a spooky twist to it. I have already entered a whole bunch of regular performance pics but my goal is to get at least one set that has spooky elements. These little skeletons should help. 

     Saturday was also a fun day for me because that was the day Ethan asked Elecktra to help him cook supper and told me to go away. OK, can do. So I went and found a silly movie (The Hustle) and Ethan taught Elecktra some more advanced cooking tricks. They both got to discover just why I don't make the low carb garlic breadsticks that often. They are delicious, worth the effort, but they are definitely not easy! The tomato/basil/cream sauce with shrimp was excellent. The presentation was awesome, and all of this was still low carb!

    The Field of Dolls Online Fall show has been extended until October 9th. If you were thinking of entering you have until then to get your entry in to me, and your photos into the show. Uploading ends at 11:59 pm on Saturday October 9th. Judging will begin on Sunday October 10th. There will be a live stream of part of the results and door prizes on Saturday October 16th. I hope to see you there!