Expletive deleted..............

In the words of Emo Philips, some mornings it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.

This homily is particularly pertinent to the last few days, when whenever could go wrong, has.
My to do list has been pared down to within an inch of its life, which means that the remaining tasks are VERY IMPORTANT.

One of these VITs is to print out copies of our shiny new catalogue, which has finally emerged from draft form through a process of blood, sweat and tears. Regular readers of this blog will know that I wage a continual war with the printer, which for reasons best known to itself has declared a jihad on every document or photograph I try to print.

This weekend it has excelled itself, by enlisting the help of the print spooling application program, the result of which is that whenever I try to send a file to print, a large warning box pops up telling me that Windows has encountered a problem with the Spool Application thingy and can't fix it. Then my whole system grinds to a halt and I have to reboot the laptop.

This sort of underhand behaviour is what I have come to expect from the printer but it has really excelled itself this time. Having spent 3 hours yesterday trying to fix the problem, I was hopeful that having had time to reflect overnight, the printer might have repented of its wicked ways and go out of its way this morning to be helpful. However my optimism has proved to be unfounded. Not only is my network printing still skew whiff, Perfectionist Partner's computer, which is connected directly to the printer, is also having problems.

It's going to be a l-o-n-g day......

Cold feet.................

The recent spate of very cold, icy, frosty weather has been playing havoc with small dog's dainty little paws.

After only a few minutes outside she is pleading paw frostbite and has to resort to a warm human lap to warm them up.

We have suggested fur-lined paw warmers, which met with a very cool response. Apparently paw-warmers are tantamount to animal abuse and small dog was not to be moved on the matter.

In fact she presented the following evidence in her defence.............

Multitasking..............

I seem to have overcome my inertia and have been working like a demon for the past few days.

My 'friendly' countdown timer informs me that there are just 10 days to go so I'm belatedly moving up a gear and ticking off items on my resurrected to do list with abandon.

There have been a few sticky moments........most notably when we decided to check whether our lovely new display stand would fit into the back of our very small car. You may remember that we designed and built the stand it for Spring Miniatura, which we attending in our campervan, so the height was not our foremost consideration as we have lots of headroom in the van.

However, it will most definitely NOT fit easily into the boot of our car, backwards, forwards or upside down. As a result we have had to dismantle it, and even then it's a tight fit. We might have to resort to sawing 6 inches off the bottom of the sign 'legs', which is not ideal, as that will mean re-drilling screw holes to attach it to the shelf arrangement............ don't you just love it when the solution to one problem immediately spawns a whole collection of new ones?

That aside, we are making some progress. I am doing well with my traditional Victorian toy shop window display, which will form the basis of a series of home workshop sessions early in 2009.

So if I can just keep up the momentum for the next week, everything will be done and dusted.

*look of complete and utter 'Oh, really???!'*

Procrastination is the thief of time.............

With just 14 days till the Kensington Christmas Festival, I am raising displacement activity to undreamed of new heights.

Having revised my 'to do' lists, and whittled them down to only the most urgent tasks, instead of cracking on and actually completing any of them, I got it into my head that clearing out the cupboard area behind my chair in the workroom was far more important than anything to do with fair prep.

Now, granted. Those cupboards were a mess and had been crying out for a tidy-up for ages, but as I opened the doors and started clearing off the shelves, even the displacement goblins were screaming in my ears...........

"LEAVE IT ALONE! HAVEN'T YOU GOT ENOUGH ELSE TO DO?!

By the time I came to my senses of course, and realised the folly of my actions, four cupboards had been emptied and the contents lay strewn across the desk, worktop and floor.

I could have wept.

What WAS I thinking??????

Of course there was nothing else for it. I then had no option but to sort everything out, dispose of the rubbish (0f which there was a fair amount) and re-organise the cupboards.

The upside of this is I have now liberated half a cupboard, cleared out a load of junk, and used the remaining space in a much more sensible manner.

The downside of this is I am now so disastrously behind on my to do list that I have been forced to jettison yet more tasks, which I have no hope of completing.

This of course may have been my subconscious intention in the first place. After all I now have four tidy cupboards, and pruned my to do list in the process so there may have been an element of method in my madness.

As a footnote to this disclosure, my horoscope this morning, read as follows:

"You may be conflicted today between your high ideals and the practicalities of your current obligations. If you have let your chores pile up, you may not have the luxury of taking time off to enjoy your weekend. Complaining won't help. Don't procrastinate; just stay focused and get as much done as possible."

*Ahem*

Global slip-up............

Much of my time over the past few days has been taken up in searching the planet for some tubs of porcelain slip tint.

And when I say planet, I do mean, planet.

I have emailed distributors worldwide, in an effort to track down the most elusive of colours in the slip tint pantheon......California Sunrise.

I sense blank looks and puzzled shrugs, so let me explain.

I work in porcelain. Well not IN it, obviously, but it is the medium in which I create the little toys and dolls. The raw material is porcelain casting slip, which is specially formulated for high-fire bisque dolls. It used to be available, pre-mixed in gallon tubs, in a wide range of 'flesh' tones, from Brown Velvet African-American skin tones, through Oriental, and American Indian to very pale Pink Blush tones.

However a few years back, the U.S manufacturer changed from selling pre-mixed tubs in the full range of colours, to selling predominantly white slip, in conjunction with small 4oz pots of slip tint, in all the colours, which could be mixed with the white slip. The obvious advantage to this was not having to keep stocks of the bulky tubs in all the required colours. I could just have a few tubs of plain white, and a selection of tints, and mix up small amounts as required. After all, a gallon tub of say, Brown Velvet, would last me for years and years, while other colours might only last a few months. The cost differential between a gallon of slip and a small pot of tint was also substantial, so it made good financial sense to embrace the new system.

Now, strictly speaking, I don't make dolls. I make miniature people who live and work in doll's houses, shops etc, so the normal very, very pale 'doll' colours were too pasty and washed out for me. So I chose California Sunrise as my flesh tone of choice. In spite of the name, it isn't a perma-tan orange tone, but a softly sun-kissed, healthy colour, and after years of using it, I have boxes and boxes of assorted limbs, bodies and heads all in the same flesh tone.

So far so good.

However, when I got down to my last pot a month ago, I rang the one and only UK distributor to find she was out of stock! Not only that, she'd had it on back order but her latest shipment from the US didn't include it.

No matter. I thought I'd go straight to the source and placed an order for 6 pots from the manufacturer. Only to receive an email informing me that they had no idea when they would be replenishing stocks.

Impasse.

Hence my trans-global distress messages over the past few days. I'm getting desperate now as I'm down to my last few eggcupfuls of slip, with no prospect of easily finding more.

And no, sadly it's not as easy as changing to a different slip tint. This is because it took me years to find the perfect colour, and also because I have substantial stocks of limbs which wouldn't match with a different colour. Which would mean that I would have to make hundreds more limbs in the new colour to go with new heads and bodies.

Not a problem I wish to have to solve.

So my slip tint search continues............watch this space............

Micro minis..........

I have just finished painting a batch of very tiny babies. When strung they measure just under 1". Painting their faces is a very painstaking process.......trying to get the tiny irises and even smaller pupils just right is a real challenge. Just the slightest slip and they end up looking cross-eyed and I have to start all over again.

I am used to working in very small scales, including 1:144, which is the correct scale for a dollshouse to go inside a 1:12 scale house. I have a working train set which is 1:900, for which I still have to create the landscaping.

However, this really takes the biscuit for pushing the boundaries of what is achievable in small scale.

Absolutely incredible! *shakes head in disbelief*

Pleats plus............

When in the midst of chaos, I always find that doing a calming task helps relieve work-related stress and anxiety.

Pleating is one such task.

The rhythmic, repetitive motion of pleating silk ribbons is most definitely calming. Not only that, it is one of those lovely tasks where after a set period of time you can actually see what you've done and experience a warm sense of achievement. A whole pleating board covered with rows of neatly pleated, colourful silk ribbons is like a balm to the soul.

Small dog agrees. No sooner had I spread out a drift of multi-coloured ribbons than she suddenly appeared like a small hairy genie, and leapt up onto my lap to observe the process. I think she finds it calming too and we both entered a trance-like state as row followed row.

Yes.

Yes you're right.

I need to get out more.