The Prop (And Armor) Blog

Why is it the only time I remember to update my blog is at 6 am in the morning before I go to sleep? I can't even think straight much less explain what's happened to me in the last busy couple of weeks. Oh well. I'll try later...

The horrible Velvet thing. Not that I mind velvet much (REAL velvet, not the fake plushie velvet fabric you use in run of the mill craft projects), but it's just so damn slippery. It seems to alter it's very nature (not to mention the laws of physics) just when trying to machine sew it in a straight line. It takes a lot of extra care and time...

I've been trying to get my taxes done this week, so I haven't been able to finish my latest pony plushie. (Only one extra-curricular project allowed at a time, folks.) I will answer all my e-mail presently. (I've been getting a LOT of spam to sort through lately, although I do have Mailwasher so I can bounce it back into the ether. HAAAAA!!!!!!)

I'm supposed to work on normalizing my sleep schedule this week. We'll see how that goes.

VELVET! HATE IT! HATE IT! HAAAAAAAAAAATE IT!

This week I got stuck in a bottleneck project involving lots of hand-sewing and vinyl, and ripping of things apart and starting of things over from scratch. (Infuriatingly, I've got a bunch of stuff that I'm ALMOST finished with that I could probably finish if I could eke out an extra day. Hopefully by the end of the weekend, my schedule will be normal again.)

I'd rather go through an economy class tour of hell with the world's strongest three year old kicking the back of my seat all the way than endure another week like this, but at least the weather lets me keep my window open and fresh air pouring in.

I'm keeping up with e-mail as fast as I can. (Got a lot of styrene inquiries so I'll get that sorted out soon as well.)

At least I have things to do. Here's a random list of things that are bumming me out:

*The price of styrene has gone waaaaaay up. It's almost twice what it was when I first started buying it. And I bet if the price of oil goes down, it will still remain astronomical. (Not that I'll stop offering it for sale myself,--I'll just have to find a cheaper source for it.)

*Testor's have decided to redesign the labels for their small bottled enamel paint. Said label redesign involves making the lettering on the label so small that you need to use a magnifying glass to read it. Also, the only thing differentiating glossy paint from flat paint are two small letters placed in front of the color name that are about .00000000001 picas tall. (So if you buy some testor's paint, take it home and use it to paint your item only to have it look like crap, it's not because they changed the formula. It's because you picked up the wrong paint. Which is very easy to do these days unfortunately.)

*Friends, I know you want me to make more My Little Pony Plushies. I will do so as soon as I have some spare time to do so. Trying to press the issue by showing me auctions where crappily put together plushies made from terry cloth are selling in the thousands of dollars is not a wise idea, particularly for someone who just poured 35 hours into making a giant, hand-embroidered fancy plush, only to see it sell for a pittiance because she didn't have the time or the wisdom to market it properly. Please stop reminding me of this horrible failure on my part. It does nothing to motivate me and only depresses me making me LESS inclined to work on similar projects in the future. I know you mean well, but please, stop it.

*Dear Scientists. Would you please drop everything you're working on now and develop ways to make vegetables taste like candy? The doctor says I need to eat more of them and unless something happens to make them taste less like bitter, juicy cardboard, that's just not going to happen.


That's about all I have to say for now! I have some new project pics that I have to post on the website (and I might get around to that the next time I go out of town and need something to occupy me at my parent's house... Not sure when that will be but, soon hopefully...)

Thanks for the birthday well-wishes, folks! Sorry for the lack of updates --I had my nose to the grindstone the past couple of weeks doing a lot of prop projects. I wanted to finish most of the easier stuff so it wasn't all bottlenecked behind some of the more major long-running armoring/costuming projects that I'm working on. I want to tuck in and get all of that finished before the summer con season sets in.

I've been selling a lot of styrene lately too. I have to go down to the Cities this week and pick up some more of it while I'm down there visiting. If the weather permits, that is. (We're in the middle of a snow/ice storm but it's nothing major from the looks of it. So far. I should probably wait an extra day before leaving, just to be sure.)

I signed up for a lot of birthday clubs this year and managed to get free breakfasts from both IHOP and Perkins. I didn't get any birthday coupons from Noodles and Co., Caribou or Orange Julius this year. (I wonder if they discontinued their old e-mail clubs and started up new ones with new offers/conditions. I wish they'd tell people whenever they do that. >_<)

Anyway, just wanted to get you up to speed on what I've been doing. I'll answer your e-mails as soon as I can! Thanks again!

I don't want to jinx myself, but it appears I have the sound problem fixed. A friend of mine gave me a dedicated sound card so I've got that installed in my computer and things seem to be working so far. (The sound isn't fading away or crackling.) I'm still not sure what the problem was-- I guess when one wants to install a new piece of hardware on their computer, they just have to assume a million things will go wrong and carve out enough time to fix any potential problems. (My messing with the BIOS made an extra monitor appear in my Control Panel Display settings, so I had to figure out what went wrong and set that right so I didn't have my cursor flying off of the screen continuously.)

If only the rest of my current problems could be fixed so easily....

I received a ATI Radeon HD 4770 video card from a friend and just got it installed today. While the video part of the sound card is working well, it seems to have completely killed my sound. (The strange part is, that it didn't kill it right away. I seemed to have working sound for awhile, then it faded out and died. I futzed with a few things, turned the computer off and on and the sound came back, then, after a few minutes, it died again.)

I can't seem to google my way out of this problem (I can't find anyone else whose sound seemed to "get tired and die" after installing a video card. It just either didn't work altogether from the start or it did.)

I tried everything I could think of based on what little knowledge I could glean--I tried going into the BIOS to reset the computer settings, but I wasn't sure what to do. There was nothing I could see that would allow me to enable the motherboard sound card again. I really don't think anything I could find there, short of a "click this to make sound go now" button would be of much use to me since I have NO IDEA what any of the stuff on the BIOS even means. I don't want to futz with important core computery stuff if I don't know what it means...

My drivers are all up to date so that's not a problem. I tried going into the Device Manager and disabling everything that wasn't a part of my old Realtek Audio system, but that hasn't helped bring my sound back. I tried messing with the Sounds and Audio Devices area in the Control Panel, changing everything back to the way it was before the video card installation. Nothing is working.

I really really want to keep this card, but if I can't get my sound to work, I'm going to have to take it out of my computer. I NEED my sound. Any help ANYONE could give me would be greatly appreciated. (Even if all you know is a place or forum where I could ASK for help, that would be...helpful.)

I don't want to waste any more of my e-mail answerin' time fixin' my sound. PLEASE HELP!!!!!

Well, it all started with the ebay auctions. My pony plushie went for far less than I hoped it would (I figure I made about 2 dollars per work hour on it.) Although making it was fun and I learned a lot of skills which will, I hope, help me in future projects, I just can't afford to make anything like that ever again, unless it's to order for a price I dictate. (It's not like I was expecting it to run into the thousands like some of the crazier plushie auctions, but I was hoping the final bid would be more than twenty dollars above the "entice-you-to-bid-but-I-don't-really-expect-it-to-remain-this-insanely-low" opening bid...) A longer auction and more promotion might have helped, but I needed the money for the plush before the end of the month, so my hands were kind of tied there...

I was flooded with an unusually high volume of e-mails and interest this past week, which was good, but it was also tougher to keep track of it all. I also tried selling a couple of items on the Cosplay.com Marketplace and accidentally got my PM usernames and e-mail addresses mixed up. I'm just not used to doing business there. It was like trying to juggle chainsaws and cats while trying not to hurt myself or any other living thing. Not fun. (I'll definitely have to be a lot better prepared if I try selling more finished stuff in any non-ebay venue in the future...)

I had to go down to the Cities earlier in the week to take care of some business and to see my ailing parents whom I hardly ever get to see these days. I did manage to get a lot of e-mail answered before I left, but I've still got a lot to deal with. Please be patient. I WILL get back to you as soon as I can.

..Sorry things have have been very hectic around here lately. That's because I decided to sell every cosplay thing that's accumulated in my apartment for the last couple of years, (Which means I have to take time out to fix it up since it's been sitting in a box or a closet for the last couple of years.) I also finally finished another MLP plushie and posted it for sale on ebay:



http://www.ebay.com/itm/MY-Little-Pony-FIM-Sonic-Rainboom-Costume-Rarity-Plushie-/140688094631?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20c1a9f5a7

I also have some kanzashi and a lot of other sewing/cosplay projects at deep discount:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/aa_chan/m.html?item=140687644573

If you could get the word out about the auctions, I'd appreciate it. (Consider it an early birthday present). Hope everyone else is having decent weather these days....