Countdown.....

It can't have escaped your notice that something festive is looming on the horizon.   The shops are full of it already and it's not even Halloween yet.  Granted the past few years have been anything but festive so I suppose we can all be excused for looking forward to this year's festivities rather more than usual.

Last year, due to circumstances, I didn't manage to make anything at all in the run up to Christmas as I was barely clinging on by my fingernails.  However, I'm determined that this year is going to be different.

I've already started several small projects in the house, with a view to making it really cosy and welcoming.  We should be able to have family and friends here this Christmas and I fully intend to make the most of it.

I'm also determined to make some festive-themed miniatures and the other day I took, as my Scottish grannie would have said, a turavee. 

For those unfamiliar with Scottish vernacular....

Turavee: a wild, extravagant mood, a strange turn, an odd notion or fancy. 

I'm well known for taking turavees.  PP always knows when I get a certain glint in my eye, and start taking measurements, making notes and Googling furiously, that I am in the throes of one, and wisely steps back to let it run its course.

My current work-related turavee concerns the days in advance of Christmas...  the period known as Advent.  Back in the day, when I was a young child, an Advent Calendar consisted of an A4 card and the doors opened to reveal a little festive picture behind.  Then when I was a older, there was a little piece of chocolate behind the doors.  

Since then, Advent Calendars have gone completely batshit crazy.  There's literally no product that can't be found in them.  There are the obvious decadently indulgent ones, like wine, or gin or chocolate truffles, but I've recently seen ones with tea, coffee, cheese(?!) and more intriguingly, fabrics, haberdashery, and (be still my beating heart) ...... stationery.

You can see where this is going.... can't you?

Yes, I have decided (against my better judgement) to make a Mini Kits Advent Calendar.  I've thought about doing one before, over the years, and fortunately, each time, commonsense prevailed as I knew it would be a major mission.  I've also always left it far too late.  However, this year, I think *fingers crossed* I got going at just the right time.  

It's partly because I have boxes and boxes of assorted components from kits I've designed over the past 30 years, partly because I want to mark my countdown to retirement, partly because I'm a stickler for giving myself impossible tasks and partly because I'm deranged.  

Some of the kits will be new, some will be revisited from many years ago.  I've calculated that I'll need to make up 500 individual packets (that's 20 complete calendars, each with 25+ individual kits)

Over the past few weeks I've been gradually working through my list of kits, adding to a growing collection of boxes, each containing one day's kits.  Every available inch of worktop and desk space in the workroom is covered with them, along with the various components for the kits I'm still working on.  I reckon I'm about half way through, and true to form I've kept the trickiest ones till the end.  I'm aiming to be able to start sending them out at the beginning of November, so I have 3 weeks in which to finish them all which will be a stretch.

On Friday I belatedly realised the scale of the task I'd set myself and briefly considered throwing in the towel, but one glance at all the kits I'd already amassed confirmed that I'd have to keep going.  I also have several commission orders pending from the KDF online showcase, which I'm gradually working through too, as well as a few special festive miniatures to go on the website, so to say I'm a tad beleaguered is a massive understatement. 

Off course I have nobody to blame but myself.  I'm just hanging in there, imagining the sense of achievement and satisfaction I'll have when all those little packets are neatly labelled and boxed up, awaiting despatch.

However, this will definitely be a one-off. There is no way I'm EVER doing it again.  Sometimes I just have to get something out of my system and move on. 

I know just what Small Dog would have said at this point....

SD: *sceptically* Murm... I seeriyuslie hav KNO IDEER whye yue embarkt on this paytentlie kompleetlie insayn projekt.  Ai dispare. 

And I am in complete agreement with her.

*sigh*