Sunday 26 February 2012

The great Pony Room Reorg - volume 10

Now that the door is in place, I feel motivated to get moving on the Pony Room Reorg again.  So off to Ikea Roomy and I went!

My goal was to get a glass-doored display cabinet to house my custom Ponies, mainly the customs I've received from other customizers.  We'd made this trip before, but were stalled by the fact that the local Ikea was in the process of moving to a larger store and didn't have all their stock available at the time.  I was also on the lookout for some storage boxes to organize my accessories and other little pieces.  Just so we're clear, the trip wasn't all about me, Roomy was on the lookout for some storage solutions for her hobby room, too.

Somewhere around five hours later, we emerged from the Giant Ikea with flat packed furniture in tow and headed home to start building.

 Lucky for me, Roomy actually enjoys doing handy stuff like building furniture.  She had the new cabinet built and set up within an hour of our return.  I might also mention that, although within the budget, this cabinet was quite a bit bigger and more expensive than planned.  Well, at least it gives me room to grow.
Front Row: Evening Orchid and Supernal Sparkle, both by Pop-Girl; Back Row: Stevie and Elvina, both by Princess FireFly
The custom Ponies are enjoying their new diggs.  There are no fears of dust, ick, and spiders now!

Elf

Friday 17 February 2012

Glory Star

Glory Star was another quick G4 custom.  Her base was a Rainbow Dash and her inspiration was G1 Glory.  Her TAF symbol are silver stars, some with metalic purple tails.  Her wings are also touched with silver and metalic purple.  Her eyes have also been repainted.  Her hair is Dollyhair Sour Grapes, Water Nixie, and Moonlight.
Elf

Saturday 11 February 2012

Pumpkin Harvest

Pumpkin here was actually done in the autumn and came about rather by accident.  It was a few weeks prior to my panel on customizing at N2U con, and I was in need of a G4 bait to show how the neck mechanisim is different from the other generations.  I had pulled out an AJ double I had with the intention of beheading her, but as I was fiddling with her, I came up with the idea behind this custom.  So AJ kept her head on and another G4 got baited.

Pumpkin Harvest's symbol is a harvest of grains and vegetables from the Autumn.  Her eyes were also repainted.  Her hair is original, but was given a gradient dye with Rit fabric dye.  She bears a resemblance to an early custom I did, Autumn Harvest.

 
Elf

Saturday 4 February 2012

The great Pony Room Reorg - volume 9

Do you see these kittens?  (OK, they're two, but they're the youngest cats in the house by far, so they're the kittens.)

These kittens are the reason for the following post.

When we first moved the Pony Room downstairs we put a sliding plastic door up to keep the kittens out.  That worked for awhile, but then the kittens pulled the hook that was holding the door closed out of the wall and got into the Pony Room.  Bad.  So we got a second sliding door to add to the first one.  The doors met in the middle and could be tied shut.  Problem solved, we thought!
sideways slidy doors
Wrong.  Now the doors had enough give that the kittens could squeeze underneath.  Bad.  Now the Ponies are unsafe in the Pony Room!  What's a girl to do?  (At least the kittens have gotten out of the chewing phase!)  Luckily, Roomy came to the rescue with a friend who's a handyman and was more than willing to help us with our problem.  He suggested an innovative cat-proofing solution sure to astound the ages!
A Door!

Our Friendly-Neighbourhood Handyman then proceeded to go above and beyond, building walls to support the door, hanging the door, spending lots of time making sure the door was straight and worked well, framing the door, and putting up drywall.  All that's left for us to do is paint the "walls."
A doorless Pony Room
Roomy and Handyman Francis taking measurements
The walls go up.
Door!
Putting up the drywall.
 And that's it!  In the space of about four hours I now have a Pony Room that is both secure AND easy for me to come in and out of.  This, my friends, is a good day!
Elf