I really enjoy doing this blog and I hope that when you read these posts, all of you out there are able to feel the love that I have for this hobby and all the people connected to it. I am always interested in what is going on out in our little world and love the sharing and exchange of information that enables us to improve our skills and broaden our interests. There are many nights when I don't go to bed because I am totally engrossed in reading or composing a new post or working on a project that I want to post about. But in all of this focus of what brings me joy, here is what I hate....
I HATE DROPPING STUFF ON THE FLOOR! It always seems to occur when I am really needing to add that final or crucial piece that I only have only
1 of, and PING! or Whoopsie!!!...... it is gone onto the floor and I can't find it! I get down on my hands and knees( and that takes longer now to do than it used to) and I spend mega amounts of time trying to locate that one lonesome piece that I desperately need to finish the current project. Having now gotten down onto the floor, I find ALL the bits and pieces, that I had looked long, hard and unsuccessfully for when I needed THEM, but its only NOW that, they show up!? I pull things out, pat the floor and get my face down onto the area rug to see if I can see the missing piece at ground zero, but still no luck. Talking to it doesn't help either. Neither does it respond to crying. Eventually I find myself giving up, but getting up is just as difficult as getting down, and and when I come up empty handed..Grrrrrrrr!? Anger and frustration is not far behind. Giving up means that I need to take my mind off that problem and find a new one, so I begin another project and compound the mess I had already started and then, just when I get to the part when I need to add that one single piece;....... PING!!! ....
Oh the "Joys" of making minis.
elizabeth
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Hi Elizabeth! I'm not trying to be smart here by offering you two pieces of advice, I'm just trying to help you. Have you ever thought of putting a tray on your work table to work on? Your pieces would not fall very far. The second advice is to take a piece of duck tape and tap the surrounding floor area with it. You never know, you could hit the right spot and the missing piece would stick on the tape. Especially when you're working with jewelry findings or making flowers. As soon as I wash the dishes, I'll send you the pics. Hang in there a bit longer. The bed is not dressed yet because I can't decide what I want. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteHi Lucille! it is always nice to hear from you, and the advise is really good. I have 3 rolls of duct tape that is just sitting and waiting for something to do. I can finally put it to good work and believe me... Work it Shall Do! hahah As you've seen my work table is rather cramped, but I do have plastic shoebox lids that I use as trays, so we are both on the same page there.
DeleteAs far as your bed goes, Lucille, Please don't rush it on my account. I would much rather you do it slowly and well then be unhappy with it and have to redo it and/or not ever be satisfied with the end product. So no worries. I'm just excited that you are doing something for
yourself and motivated to get it completed. Yay,Lucille!!!!
elizabeth
Your words tell the story of every miniaturist! Things go pinging off whether you use fingers or tweezers, sometimes never to be found. Bad as it is to lose bits for a project, imagine my friends horror when she dropped a Pete Aquisto silver baby spoon - all of 3/16ths on an inch long - into carpet and couldn't find it. Luckily her sharp eyed other half found it later in the day.
ReplyDeleteHi Susan! If I remember correctly on your posting of the tiny toy trains you made with your grandkids; you made way more wheels than you knew you were going to need. You did this because you anticipated loosing some so you were planning ahead. You are such a wise woman, Susan!
DeleteI can feel ALL of your friends pain and horror of loosing a Pete Aquisto silver baby spoon!
I was vacuuming a family room carpet, and noticed that the diamond had fallen out of my wedding ring! Talk about a needle in haystack! I turned the vacuum off right away with my heart in my throat! I turned on every light in the room, no luck! I had opened the blinds and just happened to turn my head at the right time, in the direction of the beam of sunlight that just happened to bounced off the diamond in a remote corner of the room. I prayed a prayer of thankfulness then, let me tell you! The finale could have been digging through the Electrolux bag!!! Yewwww!!!!????
elizabeth
This made me laugh so loud, I read your post here to my husband because he has heard me swear the most profanities when this exact thing happens.
ReplyDeleteThat corned beef was my bane, ever few minutes I was yelling "crap" my hubby would say what now?
"I dropped another damn potato on the floor, a brown potato on my brown floor"
ahhhh... we all sound like crazies at that time don't we?
ps Lucille has some good ideas ;)
Why Jane.....? Corned beef should make you happy, not a hot crossed bun! hahah If you had trouble with a brown potato dive bombing onto a brown floor, (one potato, two potato,,,,) how about a gold jewelry finding on a gold and black carpet! Camouflage City! Oh my achin back. I'll sacrifice my spine, for a mini gold finding. Yes, this hobby brings out the crazy in us all!
Deleteelizabeth
Dear Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteYes, we can certainly appreciate the tinyest things flying out of our tweezers etc. Can you imagine the fear that strikes when my son or grandchildren take it into their heads to vacuum the work room!
Fortunately they are now well taught to check the floor for anything possibly or even vaguely mini.
J.
Hello Janine, I should be so lucky as to have ANYONE take it into their heads to vacuum ANY room!!!! If anyone ever gives it a passing thought, they let it PASS! And as far as checking the floor, they would as soon step over it as to think of bending down to pick anything up. I did not do a good job of teaching my children to see the puff balls as big as rabbits behind the doors or the hair that is lying like a bathmat in front of the sink! When I have told them it is time to VACUUM they look straight at me and say they just did!;( as we both stare at the variety of tiny nasty bits littering the floor). And so my friend, There is NO DANGER of any of them taking it into their heads to vacuum my workroom; hahahhaha I think I'm safe.
Deleteelizabeth
Your blog entry made me laugh. Been there done that... and it certainly is difficult getting up again. My worst occurrence was a number of years ago when I was sewing a miniature rabbit. I had spent ages sewing tiny stitches into the last leg to complete the rabbit. Cutting the thread off when I finished, I dropped the leg on the floor. Unfortunately my dog thought it might be tasty and swooped in before I could retrieve it. He was a lot quicker than I was!
ReplyDeleteHi Sharee! I think I am speaking for the masses tonight! We all have stories to tell of the hazards of this hobby. It seems we can all relate to how we lose things in one way or another! Your loosing the "last leg" of your mini rabbit journey was just too funny! I can just picture it. as I have two dogs that hang around the table silently eyeballing what ever I happen to be chopping on as I am working at the table. I have had the most trouble holding onto styrofoam balls which I have been using a lot lately to make a variety of fruits and mini veggies. As I told Lucille earlier, I do have a tray that I position in front of me but those itty bitty balls bounce as well as spring and they bounce farther and fly faster than a 747 and those 2 pooches of mine, thinking that I am throwing them a crumb, have been seen to pounce and snarl at each other, each trying to consume those faux fruits of my labour. The up- side to this is that they actually sniff it out for me. (Thank you Max, thank you Sadie Bear) Otherwise it would be gone with the wind.
DeleteI hope that your dog did not acquire a new taste for rabbit .heehee
elizabeth
I feel your pain! The bain of my existance was when I was doing dolls. No-hole pearls and UBER tiny Swarovski crystals where always falling on the floor. After a while I just started ordering extra because I could never find them. Funny thing, one time I found a tiny pearl while I was petting my siamese cat. I guess it had flown into her fur and stuck there from the tiny drop of glue that was on it.
ReplyDeleteDale
(see below Annie, for the reply, Dale)
Delete*LOL*... I laughed the way you´ve describe the hassel getting down....and up from the floor. Uhh... I know how timeconsumining crawling around with both hands padding the floor. Not to mention the glasses on, glasses of... glasses on...
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing :-)
Hi Annie! I had to chuckle at "the glasses off/ glasses on" comment! Too true! Since I have started back into minis I am now up to a 2.50 in reading glasses which I find myself wearing more often than not and ALWAYS now when I'm on the computer. Added to this is the variety of magnifying glasses, those attached to lamps. 6 free standing table lamps, 1 clip on light and 1 over head light and it is still not enough when I have lost something on the floor! Part of the reason is that there are gaps and spaces just big enough for stuff to drop between, roll under, and fall behind. So even though I am like you crawling around feeling for what I dropped, it could be looking right at me between the walls of a stack of paint drawers or IN a paint drawer! Case in point, today, I was painting the frames of some tiny oval framed pictures of the Eiffel Tower. I had opened the bottom drawer of a 3 drawer unit where I keep my acrylic paints. I was holding the frame and the brush in one hand and had bent down to close the drawer with my left hand when....PING! The frame went down into the drawer! WELL, at least I knew where to look for it. So I put down the brush and began taking out the bottles, first a couple then a few more and then MORE!? Where was it??? I ended up taking out the entire contents of the paint drawer, close to 30 some odd bottles and there it was, all the way at the Back of the drawer!!???( how did it do that?). The plus side is that I discovered that I had 12 different colors of green, when I thought I only had 2.
Deleteelizabeth
HAHAHHA! You know Dale, I hear you! styrofoam balls are a dime a dozen, Swarovski crystals and those no hole beads are not cheap and the frustration of loosing them must have really hurt! Much like Susan's friend loosing the Pete Aquisto silver spoon and me the diamond from my ring. The funny thing is that they are all equally valuable. Each means something special to each of us and the fact that we put so much effort into trying to reclaim it shows its importance. I think I have looked AS hard for a piece of fimo cheese on the floor as I had for that diamond. Jane calls it crazy, and yet it is such a fun kinda crazy to be. I had thought of getting a DustBuster and putting a piece of nylon stocking in front of the filter, which was something I had read in Nutshell News long ago, but I keep forgetting. If and when you start making your dolls again,( and judging by the pictures that you showed you should), that may be a way of re gathering your sparkles without loosing them and the beads to the carpet or your cat. If the idea of Vacuuming with the Dust Buster is not your cup of tea, well I know just the person to ask, she has some VERY well-trained grandchildren that are use to it. hhahah
ReplyDeleteelizabeth
p.s. I am glad to hear from you again, and I hope that being with your friends near and far, will help comfort you and ease your sadness. God Bless.
Hooray! I'm not the only one who hears the "Ping"! The worst sound is the vacuum going - ping! crush! ping! gone! Also glasses on glasses off. Well it's a huge problem for me now as my close up has become much much better but only within 18-20 inches. Perfect for mini making as I prefer my eyes to magnifying glasses. Then there is the wedding ring diamond! Brings back an instance when I was helping hubby on a Sunday in the cabinet factory we owned when you do what you have to do to deliver the goods. He was running some wood planks through a planer and I was helping on the other side as the planks came out. As I dusted off my hands between rounds I noticed no "bling" on my engagement ring. I went down in tears as I looked at a rather large accumulation of saw dust and wood shaving. Stop the machine! Both of us looking the Mt Everest of shaving piles. Finally the tears took over and the reality was diamond was gone. I remembered my mother's words as she used to say "do on Sunday, undo on Monday". (sounded better in Portuguese). So off to the car we go to go home and I reached down to pick up my purse on the floor in front of me and "bling"...there was the little devil. Now the tears were of joy! By then, I felt a little teased and somewhat disappointed as Joe had promised to get me a bigger to compensate for the loss! Sorry for rambling but feeling a little reminiscent this morning. Good mini day to all.
ReplyDeletefats
Whoops...just noticed I signed in as beauxminis...just me fats!
ReplyDeleteWell Hello Fats! That ring story beats mine all over the head! I can picture the 2 of you all covered in sawdust and I can understand your worry dismay and yet, we (women) would never think of taking our rings off as they have become a part of us. ( in my case, I don't wear anything on my fingers any more as the glue and paint are my current adornment) I am so glad that your story had a happy ending too.( after all the sweat and tears) These stories that everyone is sharing is great fun! You are lucky that you and Joe didn't decide to Vacuum the car at that time, or that you weren't over at Janine's when her grandchildren are there to voluntarily vacuum the car for you. ( I'm still not over the amazement of that!) hahah
Deleteelizabeth
JIJIJIJIJI. ¿¿cuantas veces nos ha pasado eso a los demás?? miles y te agachas y buscas por donde ha caido y cuando te cansas de mirar...aparece en el lado opuesto.
ReplyDeletePaciencia....es el lema en este hobby.
Besos
You are so right Marian, It has happened to thousands of others but when it is happening to you at the time, all you can think about is "WHy Me? What did I do to deserve this??" This hobby's down side is being down on the ground for so much of it. hahah LIke you said, you are looking in one place and it turns up on the opposite side of the room! It is wonderful, crazy, aggravating, gratifying, satisfying, challenging and frustrating hobby. But we love it anyway, don't we? (Well, at least while everything is still on the table) heehehe
Deleteelizabeth
Sí, exactamente correcto Marian. ¡Este pasatiempo es todo acerca de paciencia!
ReplyDeletefatima
Yes Marian and Fats, Patience IS a virtue that we must all concede to whether we want to or not! We very soon learn it is in the fine print, as soon as you become involved in this Marvelous hobby of ours. Thanks everyone for sharing, your stories!
Deleteelizabeth