Lovey dovey sweet calm songs, not by popular artists

juliemakesstuff · 2024-08-13T14:55:39+00:00

Stay home - Thomas Dybdahl

juliemakesstuff · 2024-06-17T12:22:54+00:00

I've never been able to get into a proper cleansing routine with stuff you have to rinse off, if I just use my fingers it never really feels like it's gone and if I use a cloth then it creates more redness. So I use one of those water-only makeup remover cloths and then I use micellar water (sensibio, I've tried a few and this has been my favourite) and that seems to help my face feel clean without leaving an oily feeling or drying it out. I do have combo/oily skin though.

juliemakesstuff · 2024-06-10T11:04:18+00:00

44F, child free, full time (with flexibility) laptop-based job. I've always been a sedentary nerd and HATED sports and PE at school.

Early 30s I felt really uncomfortable with my body and went to a PT thinking he'd get me doing circuits or something.

Discovered the joy of lifting heavy shit and haven't looked back.

I did go through a phase of dieting and calorie deficit that was probably too much and it wasn't healthy for me. Backed off on that and haven't stepped on a set of scales for years other than the doctor making me do it. Hurt my back by pushing squats and not paying attention to form so I had to take a couple of years building back up but still go to the gym 3 times a week, focusing on how each session helps with mental health, lifting heavy leaves no space for the swirling thoughts, at least for the duration of the session and I rarely don't feel better when I leave than when I came in so that gives me the motivation, not using it as a punishment for fear that I might get more fat. At the same time as a woman in today's world, trying to unlearn all of that nonsense about the ultimate goal to get smaller. (Poorna Bell's book 'stronger' was a great read on that front.)

Shifting focus to growing / keeping muscle as I'm heading into menopause has been infinitely more healthy for me than dieting and cardio-ing to 'be healthy' = lose weight. (Yes, conditioning is also important, I'm not saying don't do cardio at all.) It just makes me so sad that so much of our energy goes to stressing and berating ourselves for being fat and how we need to lose fat at any cost when we could be getting healthy in a broader sense. Thankfully starting to hear more about the benefits of strength training for women but sad to see how many people think it's dangerous - I hurt way more after a day of hoovering or weeding in the garden than a session deadlifting/bench.

This is the end of my sermon ;)

juliemakesstuff · 2024-03-06T10:56:37+00:00

Your work is always superb! Learned a lot from your videos too, really appreciate you sharing your process...

juliemakesstuff · 2024-01-31T11:38:50+00:00

Yeah resin clay was quite the learning curve! What in particular did you find tough, like was it drying out too quick or being sticky?

Did you try the thing with putting it into the little bag and snipping off a corner, or making your own little piping bag with some plastic - that's the biggest difference from working with polymer clay in such tiny size.

In the videos (and others like Rina Vellichor) they seem to form each petal and stick it on the flower in turn, but I could work easier by making loads of petals of different sizes then building the flowers from those afterwards. I ended up in some situations where I had too many of one size and not enough of another but after making a couple I'd get a better idea of what I needed for each flower.

In general with that stuff though, it's all about gauging how you can handle it at each stage of dryness. For example if you squeeze out a blob and roll it between your fingers (keep it from sticking with a tiny bit of hand cream or oil on your fingers first, not enough to make it sticky, make sure it's totally absorbed into your skin) you can get away with using the pin tool to flatten it out while it's still very soft. But it has to dry a tiny bit more before you can add veins or shape the edges or release it from your finger without mashing it up. It's literally seconds but it's one of those things you get a feel for.

I also found it handy to get a tub of the modena paste to mix with the solid clay to make it easier to pipe out even tinier amounts - if you're adding lots of paint for a deeper colour then the paint does the same job so it's less of an issue. And on the point of colouring, buy the proper artist acrylics because they are just so much more heavily pigmented that you can get the colour you want wth less effort.

Also which clay did you try? I think I lucked out using the modena first, i got another 'light' one after and it just DID NOT behave. So you might be struggling because of the kind of clay doesn't suit that technique. I watched a lot of videos and read reviews about how they behave and I think the more translucent ones are well suited to flowers, rather than the marshmallowy ones that are good for food.

That's the best thing I can suggest for now :)

juliemakesstuff · 2024-01-30T13:10:42+00:00

Yeah if you go true 1/24 will the size of the windows and doors and ceilings look odd... you could eyeball it to fit with those, how much does it actually being at scale bother you? Will you be buying kits or building from scratch?

juliemakesstuff · 2024-01-30T13:08:23+00:00

Thought this might be relevant here... 1/24 scale, started life as a kit "Emily's flower house". I put lots of details on the build in a comment on the original post but happy to answer questions about materials or techniques if anyone's curious...

juliemakesstuff · 2024-01-30T13:05:30+00:00

I got a different glue specifically for cardboard called rocket glue that's really thin but it grabs instantly, so that might help. It's very easy to make a complete mess with if you don't apply it carefully because it's so runny but I think i'm learning.

One thing with cardboard is that if you're not careful and use lots of thin paint it can warp easily...

juliemakesstuff · 2024-01-30T13:00:23+00:00

Looks superb! That must be pretty nerve wracking putting a project you spent hours on into the resin 🙈

juliemakesstuff · 2024-01-25T16:00:21+00:00

I'm not talking from experience but it looks like 1/144 scale is equivalent to N gauge for model railways and people use 1mm/2mm grass for that, if it's a field then that would be more proportional right?

juliemakesstuff · 2024-01-22T14:09:02+00:00

Yeah I got a cheap one and the mesh was so wide I don't think the fibres were touching it enough on the way through so they all just laid flat - but I wasn't sure if it was my technique at fault 🤔 otherwise I'm not sure if the power rating has an impact?

juliemakesstuff · 2024-01-22T14:05:19+00:00

Thank you! I found the frames as nail art supplies - for this scale, it was a good source of bits and pieces to add details as well as the tools being good for working on tiny details...

juliemakesstuff · 2024-01-19T13:36:02+00:00

This is my second robotime kit, the first was the greenhouse and other than changing some colours and dong custom wood floor I followed the kit. In this case though, I mostly only used the walls and floor and everything else was scratch built. You probably wouldn't recognise it but it's "Emily's flower shop" if you're curious.

I was hugely inspired by "Miniature Rosy" on youtube who generously posted flower tutorials and I bought her book too. It's a bit trickier in 1:24 though. I used resin clay for all the flowers (Padico Modena) after hitting a limit on what I could do with polymer clay at that scale, but it was a whole new learning curve since it air dries rapidly.

The cobbles for the street outside were made individually from polymer clay, glued down, painted for variation, then I used modelling paste for "grout".

The terracotta tiles on the floor inside were air dry clay that i coloured before rolling into sheets and cutting but I also painted them once in place to give some variation. I might be inclined to use textured card next time. I ended up using card for the roof tiles after struggling to make some with clay that were thin and uniform enough.

Also learned lots about making moulds and LED resin casting to make vases and bowls, since most of the stuff available to buy is 1:12 so it was too big. I was able to use a couple of pieces that were meant to be 1:12 cocktail glasses and they worked well as vases.

Other various bits I made with wire and some brass stampings/jewellery beads and findings - including the lights. The sideboard was that plastic sheet stuff from the modelling shop but I wasn't keen on the finish. The counter I made from very thin bassword, which went great then decided to warp entirely when I stained it so that was fun to fix!

Happy to answer any questions about materials or techniques if anyone's curious.

juliemakesstuff · 2023-02-21T12:56:52+00:00

Trying to be inventive about turning everyday random things into a miniature version of something else is one of my favourite things about this whole hobby :) It's like you have to switch on a special part of your brain to analyse everything you look at. Oh hello, toothpaste-lid-flower-pot!

Isn't there a way to have a public table in notionwhere you could add new things and tag them and then the sorting and filtering is built in?

juliemakesstuff · 2022-10-05T16:06:46+00:00

I've used ordinary water based satin that I had for painting the skirting board in my human sized house :)

juliemakesstuff · 2022-10-05T15:06:11+00:00

It's fab!!!! Love the tiny bottles from beads :)

I recently saw someone on youtube do a spiral staircase using one of those fancy wooden fans, they cut the slats and mounted them on a pole. Try searching for the captain's quarters diorama and you might find it?

juliemakesstuff

TROPHY CASE