Bless the enablers

A few years ago, Ryan and I went to Ikea to buy some Billy bookcases for the basement.

While we were there, I saw a package of chair shaped wall hooks that were exactly traditional scale.

I picked them up, put them down and picked them up again. Ryan watched me do this and asked why I was hesitating.

"They are the perfect size," I told him. "But I already have so much stuff. Do I really need three more chairs?"

"Mom!" he said with more than a little bit of exasperation. "They're ten dollars! If you want them, just get them!"

So I did.

My current hobby project is on hold while I wait for more supplies to arrive.

I needed something fun and easy to make so I went through the prop making stockpile and decided there was just enough wood to make a desk.

Seth cut the pieces for me. He was worried they wouldn't be square enough, but I told him it was fine. This was going to be a cheap, dorm desk that had been demoted to the barn. Square wasn't strictly necessary.

There wasn't enough wood to make a chair, but that's okay. I already had one.

What would we do without our enablers? Thanks, Ryan. It turns out I really did need that chair!

Building... something

Last October, I dismantled my battered indoor arena backdrop, with plans to rebuild "right away."

I'd found the original corrugated cardstock walls came at JoAnn Fabrics, which is no longer in business.

Fortunately, a quick google search uncovered a new source.

It seemed silly to ship less than a dozen pieces of paper, so I perused the site until I found some other potentially useful items.

Yesterday, I dug up the box of cardstock, fully intending to build an indoor arena with corrugated "metal" walls. Then I saw the brick paper, and things went another way.

With only the vaguest plan in mind, I jumped right in to my new project. The first step was mounting the paper to foam board with spray adhesive.

It became obvious pretty quickly, that this paper was not designed for this purpose. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get the bricks to line up properly.

I knew that seam was going to bother me, so I cut out some individual bricks...

and glued them over the offending areas.

Not perfect...

but so much better!

Somewhere along the way, I also cut out and framed two windows. The "glass" is Breyer box plastic.

I sprayed the entire thing with Dull-cote to make it a little less shiny, and added additional shading with Pan Pastels.

A good day's work.

This project - which is not actually an indoor arena - is going to need another wall. I didn't have enough paper for that, so we're hold until my new order arrives. I suppose I could use the time to circle back to the original project, but who am I kidding? That indoor arena is going to have to wait a little bit longer!

Da fence

Over the weekend, Seth and I took Piper and Tang to Lowes.

The holiday decorations were out in force.

Heh.

Someone - not Piper - got over excited and had a little accident. 

Eventually, we found what we were looking for.

One of those boards is going to be my indoor arena's new arena fence! 

We bought it, took it home and cut it down to size. I located the wood veneer edge banding I'd used to build the other section of fence. Happily, I had a good amount leftover!

I cut it to size with a pair of craft scissors.

Then I ironed it onto the board.

Old fence, new fence.

After some weathering with watered down acrylics and pan pastels, the two sections are almost identical. For the first time ever, my indoor arena has a corner!

Next up: Rebuilding the wall!

Staying the course

I knew this was going to be a complicated month, but I didn't expect it to happen so quickly! Yesterday was a lot, so instead of working on my IMTM project, I painted props.

Most of these were sculpted and 3D printed by Jake Heaps of Break the Mold Studio. I've had them for, um, kind of a while.

The mounting block and grooming tote where painted more than a year ago, when Olive was still alive and well. At the time, I thought it would be fun to make olive my official 1:9 scale stable color.

Things are very different now. I had to decide if I wanted to pick a new color, or risk being the person who is forever stuck on their much loved but no longer living horse.

For the record, I am totally that person.

Olive green it is!

I actually love this color. Even without the Olive connection, I'd be happy with this set.

The comb is from Handcrafted by Kari. Emma contributed the hair.

Hopefully, things will sort themselves out a bit and I can get back to tack, but in the meantime, I still have a lot of little things to paint!

Shedding season, part two

I guess I should have waited another day before I said March was going out like a lamb. Today, we woke to a clogged drain and water all over the basement floor. It's minor, especially compared to the Great Flood of 2022, but still, I could have done without this.

So instead of going to the barn this morning, I'm waiting on the plumber. 

No one likes waiting, and water issues make me anxious. I decided I needed a small project to keep me busy. After looking at yesterday's barn photos, I landed on this: Karen's SleekEZ grooming tool.

The body of tool is made from a leftover scrap of basswood that I shaped with an X-acto knife and sandpaper.

The blade was sourced from a box of aluminum foil.

It's easy to pull it right off the box, although, of course, it's better to do this after the box is empty (sorry, future self).

As is, it's much too wide, but that's an easy fix with tin snips.

Using my pictures of the SleekEZ as a guide, I carefully cut a small slit along one end of the tool with the X-acto knife. Once it was started, I used the toothy side of the blade to make it a little deeper and wider.

I dry fit the blade, decided it needed to be narrower, trimmed it with the snips, dry fit it again and then glued it in place.

At this point, it could have been done, but I wanted a logo.

I found the logo online and used photo editing software to create several different color versions and sizes. After printing, I chose the best one, cut it out and glued it in place.

I used pastels to even out the color differences and weather the tool a bit. When I was satisfied, I sealed it with ModPodge. 

Ta da! One tiny grooming tool!

Then, since the plumber still isn't here, I made a pair of shedding blades. The one with the brown handles was first, and I don't like it at all. It's proportions aren't right, and the overall look is clunky. The red one is also not perfect, but it's solidly good enough.

March is shedding season, and now my dolls have the tools they need to get their horses ready for summer!

In this day and age, you can find perfect, 3D printed versions of all your tiny stable needs. I love that, but also, I think there's value in making some things from scratch. This was a good project for me this morning, and I am pleased with the results.

P.S. The plumber just called. They're on their way!