Craft room revealed

Yay! I have a craft room! Haven't had a chance to take pictures before today because both kids are sick, it was Tiny's birthday on Sunday, and I've been desperately making up photo books of the kids to get printed because the Giant Husband accidentally deleted all the photos on his phone!

So, when I say the craft room is finished, it's not quite. I'm still working it out. I'll probably still be working it out for another six months. Because it's a working space more than a decorative space, so over time some things will need more convenient places, and others will be pushed into the background. But here we go anyway.

This is my main storage area and of course the dollhouse. We went through a million different ideas for a table to put the dollhouse on. At one point I suggested building one, thinking we'd get a sheet of MDF and screw pre-bought legs on. The Giant Husband hijacked that idea and decided MDF was nasty, and pine was too cheap, but he was going to build a table. But it got too ambitious and started sounding ridiculously expensive, (and like it would never happen), so I decided to go with my original idea of two (very cheap) Ikea tables, even if they were black, to leave more money for other stuff.

 The dollhouse needs a good dust, and some minor repairs, so the furniture is all in boxes under the table for now.

A closer look at my storage area. There's a space left for my overlocker (which should be delivered tomorrow), and heaps of fun stuff in boxes. I brought the ironing board and iron in, because I'm a terrible housewife, and only ever iron when I'm sewing. 

The boxes are Sistema Storage boxes. They usually come with compartment trays in them, and the way their clips work - they're designed to act like a hinge, so you don't have to take the whole lid off, put it down, think "I'll put that back when I know I'm finished", then spend 45 minutes looking for it later. Sometimes planning for the fact you're disorganised and unreliable is a good thing!

Some of the boxes still aren't labelled. Some are empty. Because I want to get some cheap, toolshed type shelving to put in the wardrobe to store more boxes of stuff on. So some stuff isn't in it's permanent home yet because I'm not sure if it's going to stay up here or go in the wardrobe.

The other side of the room has my shelves of dolls and craft/sewing books and my little Aldi sewing table. At least one doll is naked because I completely forgot to dress her until I uploaded this picture. The dolls on these shelves are going to move around about nine million times before I settle on their actual places.

And of course my little table can be wheeled under the window and unfolded when I need it. I've got a feeling though, that within six weeks, unfolded under the window will be it's permanent home.

And of course my three favourite things in here?

A folding step stool, because I'm short and it's easier to have one just for in here.

A cereal box rubbish bin. It's easier to get little threads and scraps of paper to stay in here than an actual bin.

And a make-up case sewing box. I bought this years ago when I was trying to find a sewing box. They were all hideously expensive, garishly cute, or had no way to separate stuff inside. I like this because it wasn't expensive, it's plain and it has trays inside to separate things. I'm not showing you the inside though because it's a horrible mess!

So that's what I've been up to. Hopefully now that I have my own space, I can be a little more productive!

Cu-Poche and Nendoroid

I recently decided to buy a Cu-poche. I've wanted one for ages but somehow I've never bought one.
While I was looking online for a Cu-poche, I kept coming across Nendoroids. And I couldn't help noticing that there are more Nendoroids, more places sell them and they tend to be a little cheaper. Which led to the question "Do I get a Cu-poche or a Nendoroid?", and because I have no self control, the obvious answer was BOTH!

If you don't know what Cu-poche or Nendoroids are - they're small, posable, plastic figures with big heads, usually based on characters from anime or video games or movies. They're not overly expensive, usually under fifty dollars, although before we moved, our local EB Games (video game store) had them priced closer to two hundred dollars! They're about ten centimetres (four inches) high and come with accessories, and extra faces and hands that can be interchanged between figures of the same company.

So here's a quick  comparison, with terrible photos, taken on my phone, at night. I actually know absolutely nothing about the characters they're supposed to represent, so don't be surprised if I don't know why they have weird stuff going on.

This is my Nendoroid

My first impression was that she is cute as a button. I seriously fell in love with her straight out of the box! And she came with a whole heap of accessories!

There are weapons that strap to her arms and legs and a radio and planes and some sort of battleships type table thingy. None of the accessories are really my style, but there are a lot!

She also came with extra faces and hands. . . and arms, and legs, and glasses. Nendoroids aren't very posable in themselves. They're jointed at the neck and hips. Posing of the arms and legs requires removing them and replacing them with other parts.  This particular girl has hands that pop off and her arm is made in two pieces - the puffy bit and the lower bit. These attatch with pegs and can swivel at the joint though.

The green thing is a tablet that should be attatched to one of the hands but it came off when I tried to put that hand on her arm.

On her back is a hole for attaching her stand, and for some reason wings on her lower legs.

So what do I think? She's beautiful. I love her face. I love her colouring. Looking at her makes me smile. AND I had to restrain myself from throwing her out the window.
Her arms fall off. All the time. If not at the shoulder, at the elbow joint. If you try to fit her accessories to her, her arms drop off AND break into pieces. Her tiny legs mean she has no hope of standing up on her own. But she doesn't fit on her stand.
Apparently those are common Nendoroid issues. I'm told if I heat her with a hair dryer she'll go on her stand. Except every time I think about her, her bloody arms drop off and then I'm too annoyed to even try to remember if I even own a hair dryer.

Now meet my Cu-poche

I like her tomboyish, almost scruffy, face and hair. It's cute. She did not come with as many accessories.

She has a stand, a backpack in two pieces, and a tank with a leash . . . I'm not even going to try to work out why.

She doesn't have as many severed limbs either.

Just two extra faces and two extra sets of hands. The Cu-poches have jointed limbs, so you don't have to switch out their body parts to pose them - or worry about losing all the extra limbs.

Her base has a magnet in it, and so do her feet, so she can stand on her base without a stand. Actually, she stand pretty well without the base. She also comes with a stand piece that fits in a hole in her back, like the other girl. With the added bonus that it actually fits in the hole in her back!

She's not perfect. One of her foot magnets comes out, which means she stands better without the base. I'm guessing this is a common problem since the instructions show you how to glue the magnet back in. And I can't show you her wearing her backpack, but that's my fault. I dropped the little peg that attatches it to her back and can't find it.

But here's a picture of her walking her tank .  .  . as you do.

And my favourite thing about Cu-poches?

They come with a little baggie to store all the bits in!

So my Nendoroid is clumsy, bits dropping offy, but beautiful with a bunch of accessories. My Cu-poche isn't a pretty and doesn't have as much stuff, but way more fun! Especially now she has friends!

Looking at Alice, and her shoes and headband, I can't help but wonder if Lol Surprise, or Kelly doll stuff will work with these girls. I definitely need to find out!

Craft room update

I don't want to post pictures of the craft room until it's finished, so I've used a picture of Tiny instead.

Progress is slower than I expected. I thought I'd be able to build all the furniture in one day. Turned out not. The big kitchen benchy thing took all day, and I could barely move the next day. (If you're wondering, the Giant Husband was willing to help, but not allowed. I'm a control freak and he would not have survived.)

And I don't think I realised the sheer volume of stuff I had to sort through! There is an insane amount of stuff! On top of which, the Giant Baby has been having some issues. He's a gigantic ball of energy, some days I have taken him for ten kilometre walks in an attempt to tire him out so he'll sit still for five minutes. It doesn't work. He doesn't stop moving. He never stops talking. Which means by the end of the day, I'm too tired to get too much work done.

BUT now I only have to do maybe one more nights work sorting, then get the dollhouse in there and it'll be all done! YAY!

Nearly there!

 My furniture is being delivered today. The room is getting a fresh coat of paint on the weekend. Then it will be hours and hours of sorting through boxes and boxes of doll stuff, art stuff, sewing stuff, and hopefully by this time next week it will actually look like something!

Craft room plans

 My doll/sewing/craft room hasn't eventuated yet. In fact, I've kind of been taking a break from doll stuff. I've still been doing a little bit of sewing, but mostly for Tiny.

 At the moment my room is on hold until I get my tax refund. And then, of course, I'm going to be on a budget. Ugh. But since we bought so much new stuff when we moved, there's not really any household stuff that needs replacing, so my whole refund can go on my space. Theoretically anyway.
 Of course, I'm being completely insane. . . I mean efficient and practical about it. Planning exactly what I'm buying, how I'm storing stuff. It's possible scale drawings are involved. But it's hard to plan what to store how and where, since most of that sort of stuff is still packed from the move, so I don't exactly know what I need storage for.

 I've spent a lot of time looking at craft rooms on Pinterest. Which I have to say is frustrating. There are a lot of lovely craft rooms but they require unlimited funds, or unlimited space, or custom built ins. None of which are in my budget.
 Or the entire room is designed around an antique desk, or card catalogue, or curio cabinet that was gifted to the crafter by a mysterious stranger, in a forest, by moonlight. Something beautiful, but without an easily obtainable equivalent.
 I'm also finding a lot of storage ideas. At first I'm drawn to the pretty, artistic, storage. But I'm not really inclined to go that way. I've got a feeling a lot of things I've seen would be inconvenient or impractical in real life. Or only look good until you used any of the stuff, or bought more stuff.

 I've actually had a Dream Craft Room for a while. In my dream room, the walls would be lined with white cabinets, like kitchen cabinets, with shelving above them, floor to ceiling. All the craft stuff could be stored in the cabinets, where it doesn't matter if it's pretty, because you can't see it. And there'd be dolls on the shelves.
 I'm not going to be able to afford to do that, besides the room is the wrong shape, and I would have nowhere for the dollhouse. But I am going to sort of replicate an adapted version of this in one corner, with a modular kitchen counter from Ikea, with two three by three storage cubes from Bunnings on top. We'll probably find a way to bolt the cubed to the cabinet. The cubes will store craft supplies, not display dolls. And the cabinet has a shelf that would be perfect to store my sewing machine and an overlocker (or serger  if you prefer), if I can afford one.

 The big issue with the furniture I've chosen is that everything is white (Which I wanted) but the table I'm getting for the house, only comes in black. I'm considering ways to make it white. I could spray paint it. But the table is coated in melamine, which makes me worry spray paint would scratch right off. Or maybe I could cover it with white adhesive vinyl, contact, stuff. But I'm worried THAT would look messy or peel.
Sigh. I might just leave it black.

Do you guys have a craft room? Or a Dream Craft Room? Or any ideas for storage? Or what to do about the black table?

Four years with a Giant Baby!

I should have written this post six weeks ago. But six and a half weeks ago, I was worried sick that Tiny still had no teeth and Karma decided to throat punch me. Now Tiny has SIX teeth and has spent the past six weeks looking like this -

Especially at 4 am. And the trouble with the baby not sleeping is that I'm not sleeping, which means the Giant Baby isn't getting as much attention as he'd like, which means he's acting out. Basically I had just gotten the kids into a decent routine, and now it's all gone to crap!
 On top of which, when we moved, we inherited two outdoor cats. The cats gave our little dog fleas. And that's how we discovered that our dog is allergic to fleas! I have never even heard of that before! But she managed to scratch herself so badly that she got an infection and was a very unhappy, expensive doggie for a while there.

 Our Giant Baby turned four last month. I can't believe he is so big already. But he wasn't always a Giant Baby, this is his story.
 When the Giant Baby was born he was nine pounds, the midwives commented that he looked bigger than that, even his placenta was enormous, they told me.
 After he was born, I got a bad infection. I don't remember anything about the first six weeks, but I do know that by the end of those six weeks, I was actually thinner than I had been before I got pregnant!
 As I got better, two things stood out to me. One - he cried. All the time. Two - he threw up. A lot. All the time.
 I mentioned it to our doctor. He laughed and told me all babies cry. All babies spit up. It looks like more than it is.
 I mentioned it to the maternal health nurse. She laughed. All babies cry. All babies spit up. It looks like more than it is.
 At first, even though I was dubious, I accepted what they said. And then the Giant Baby stopped gaining weight. Over five weeks he gained less weight than he should have been gaining each week!
 I was going to see the health nurse every week, and she said the same thing she'd always said. When he stopped gaining weight, she said babies do that. Some weeks they gain a bunch of weight, some weeks they don't.
 The Giant Husband called the maternal and child services help line and was told the same thing. They added that his age meant he was in the "Peak crying period" for babies and he'd cry less after about twelve weeks.
 We were dismissed as hysterical first time parents, everywhere we turned.
 And then at the Giant Baby's twelve week check up, he not only hadn't gained any weight, he'd stopped growing too. For the first time, the health nurse looked mildly concerned.
 Completely by coincidence she saw him get a feed that day. Which wasn't particularly interesting. But it meant she got to see what happened after the feed. She was horrified by how much he threw up! She wanted to know why I hadn't mentioned it. She pointed out that he must be starving and must be crying a lot. Why hadn't I mentioned that!?
 On the bright side we were already going straight from the nurse, back to the doctor. The nurse gave us a note for the doctor, and the Giant Baby actually did another vomit display for him. The doctor recommended trying the Giant Baby on formula, he clearly had reflux and possibly had a breast milk allergy. The doctor said formula was heavier, so harder to spit up, but it could also be mixed with a special thickener that would make it even harder to spit up.
 We were never successful in getting him to drink formula with the thickener in it. But with the change to formula he gained over a kilogram in the next week! I made the nurse weigh him on two different scales, about a dozen times before I belived it! By the time he was six months old, he was bigger (in height and weight) than his sister is now at nine and a half months old!
But I still wonder how big he'd be now if that hadn't happened!
 And off topic - I hate baby bottles! So much! This isn't "breast milk is better than formula" snobbery. Formula isn't bad for babies (unless you live in one of those places where it has ground melamine in it, then it's super bad!) But it is so inconvenient and inefficient! If you're breast feeding, it's two seconds to get a feed ready and that's all you have to do. Bottle feeding - ugh! I hate waiting forever for bottles to warm, especially when it's four am and freezing and the baby is screaming! I hate the whole washing them, sterilizing them, boiling water for them, scooping, scooping, scooping nonsense! It's a pain in the bum!

 Just before he turned three, his hearing improved enough for him to start talking. And now he never stops talking. He says talking is his favourite thing and he can't stop because his heart makes him talk and he can't make his heart stop.
 Even though there are times I wish it were socially acceptable to gag him (I wouldn't really), I love, love, love hearing his silly jokes and songs.

 Since his baby sister joined us, he has grown up a LOT. He has learned to use the toilet, and dress himself, and get his own drinks and do so many more things that he always refused to do before. He still refuses to wipe his own nose though.
 He has also decided that helping Mummy and "keeping after" his baby sister are both fun things to do.

 Even though he has, more than occasional, fits of jealousy, he's fiercely protective of Tiny. If the Giant Husband has the baby and she cries, you can bet the Giant Baby will run into the room to shout "Don't you make my baby cry!"
 And now that he's bigger, he's finally starting to like his daddy more. It used to be that he would say "Don't want you! Only want Mummy!" Now, sometimes he will even tell me to go away because he's playing with his dad.

 I feel bad that there aren't more/better pictures for this post. But all his baby pictures are on a flash drive that I haven't unpacked yet and now that he's bigger, he either asks me not to take pictures or makes very silly faces.
 I love my Giant Baby more than life. He changed everything and he needs me so completely. I swear he needs me more even now than his sister ever has or will. It's exhausting but very special too.

Birthday rebellion

 I have started an Instagram for my dolls. If you're on Instagram it's poppyandthegiant. I'll still be posting her as much as I ever have (which is NEVER as much as I mean to) but will probably update that more often. . . Unless I forget it exists, which happened with my old doll Instagram and now I can't even remember how to log into it! Sigh. I plan to do better this time!

 I still don't have a doll room. In fact I've started making this face whenever the subject is raised.

So this week, in a fit of rebellion, I unpacked a bunch of dolls and did this on our loungeroom shelves. . .

It's not finished yet. There's a few things that shouldn't be there (like the witches), I don't know what I'm doing with the chair and there's a space next to the Wellie Wisher for a special girl, that's coming in the post.
 Having them out is making me plan things. But whether or not those things happen is going to depend on whether or not I can find my fabric stash before I burn out on the idea.

 Yesterday was my birthday. I didn't want much. We've gotten so much new stuff over the last few months already. I did get two Our Generation sets. An outfit with a scooter and a sewing machine set. Unfortunately I can't show you because I forgot to take pictures and they're currently somewhere in this chaos!

The doll I have coming, is a doll I've always dreamed of having but never expected to get. I bought from my doll savings as a birthday present to myself and hopefully she'll be here soon, so I can show you.

*UPDATE*

Here she is!

An 18 inch Ann Estelle! Unfortunately the lady I bought her off, forgot to send her glasses. Will have to see if I can sort that out but I'm not sure I even mind. The same lady has a whole bunch of 18 inch Ann Estelle in EBay! I have wanted one of these for years but when they were available, I had no money and buying stuff internationally was complicated. I never thought I would find one, in Australia on the secondary market! I haven't had a really thorough look at her yet but she has real heft to her! Clearly Tonner quality vinyl and clothes, an adorable face and some of the most beautiful doll eyes I have seen! Now I count the seconds for the kids to go to sleep, so I can have a real proper look at her!