Author Archives: zefiart

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About zefiart

Blogger, DIY-er, poodle lover, graphic designer, dog groomer, recycler, artist, wonder woman in my spare time.

the problem with plans – and sneaky previews

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plandefinition

I was talking to a friend this morning and the topic of plans came up. You know. Plans are those things you make only to change them along the way. Or fail to follow through with entirely.

I don’t know why this is… I mean, surely, you make plans cause you want to get the things you plan to do done, right? Obviously. But it never seems to work that way. At least not in my life.

I make plans all the time: I plan the days I’ll groom (my job), the days I’ll do some gardening, the days I’ll work on dolls or other projects. I’ll also plan to do housework – well, that one is doomed right from the start. I never get past the planning stage of that one unless I’m expecting visitors.

So, why plan when it seems that by the very act of planning I pretty much guarantee not achieving what I planned.

Maybe making plans tempts fate, maybe I just jinx myself.

todolist

Plans are different to To Do Lists. A To Do List is a list of things you’d like to get done in a day, week, month, lifetime. A plan is something something more concrete… it has a timeframe, usually…  for instance, today I planned to garden. Then I slept in till 9.30am. Took 2 hours to feed animals, have breakfast and drink 2 cups of coffee. Then I went to the local market to buy fresh bread.

Gardening? Its way too late to consider that now!

I think I may forgo making plans entirely. I’ll stick to To Do Lists and Suggested Things I’d Like To Do This Week/Day/Month/Lifetime…

Seriously, you know how I mentioned I’d love an entire wall of chalkboards? It’d be one way to keep my To Do Lists front and center.

Anyway. Moving right along.

What have I been doing that’s kept me so busy that I haven’t posted for a few days? It sure as heck wasn’t gardening.

Yet somehow, some things are doing well despite me. Like my camelia, loving its new spot on the porch and blooming!

camelia

Ditto the pink geranium which is looking lovely!

pinkgeranium

I’ve been playing with dolls again! I started on 6 new dolls all at the same time, I finished repainting them and now I’m on costumes. They take longer. But I got in the zone the last few days and lose myself in it.

Here are some sneak previews – more pics to come when they’re finished and I’m ready to list them in my shop.

Can you guess who they are?

cersei1joffrey1jonsnow1tyrion3ygritte1

Answer: Cersei, Joffrey, Jon Snow, Tyrion and Ygritte from Game of Thrones!

Bad photos, I know, they were taken in my office using my mobile phone – the good pics will be taken when they’re all finished.

What fun it is to remake dolls. I saw there are tiny irons for doing craft/doll type stuff. I want one. Can’t afford to spend money on that right now, but its on the Things I Want to Own One Day list.

z

comments…

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I was told by a reader that they couldn’t leave a comment cause they were asked to sign in or something. That’s really wierd. I’ve just checked my settings and they are as I left them: anyone can comment, no requirement to log in anywhere.

Very strange.

I’m confused.

…Still.

This is becoming a permanent state of being.

Let me know if you find any other issues and I’ll try to fix them. Don’t hold your breath though.

(grin)

z

my last blogger post

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I decided to bite the bullet. This will be the last post I do on Blogger. I’m not going to delete the blog, just begin putting new posts on my WordPress site.

It has to happen sometime… I may as well jump in.

I haven’t finished tweaking my WP site but I figure I’ll learn as I go. And you’ll forgive me if things stuff up… right?

Up till now I only blogged for fun. Now, while I’m still blogging for fun, I’m also trying to get more exposure for some of the things I do – like the doll repaints I’m selling in my Etsy shop. Its a whole big world out there and I’m really lost in it. There is just so much out there and I don’t know where to start or where to go!

I’ve been on ebay the longest, I think that was the first thing I did when I got online: buy stuff on ebay! I love ebay!

Then I built a website for my art, then for my poodles, then morphed that into a hub leading to all my web pages and ‘stuff’…

I’m on Facebook of course. I resisted for ages and then one day my cousin Zefi asked me to join cause she was tired of people contacting her thinking she was me. I use it all the time now, both to keep in touch with friends, to share stuff, buy stuff and keep in touch with the local community and hobby groups I belong to.

I’m on Pinterest. That was easy… I love the way it acts as a kind of library for ideas as well as a source for research. A great place to find inspiration.

I opened a CafePress shop and sold quite a few of my poodle design Tshirts. I don’t do much with the shop any more, but I still sell stuff through there which is nice.

Then I opened an Etsy shop which I did nothing with for years…

I joined Instagram last week. It seemed the right thing to do. I’m still trying to figure it out..

I started trying to setting up my Google+ page or whatever that’s called. I’m no where close to figuring out how that works or what its for… sharing pics like Instagram? Sharing posts like a blog?

If none of those links work… well, welcome to my world. And to think I’m not completely ignorant when it comes to computers. Sheesh…

I’m not on Twitter. Yet. Or SnapChat. Or whatever newfangled app is out there now.

I’m so confused. I mean, how on earth do you keep track of (or tame!) all these pages????

I can barely keep up with what I have and I always thought I had a pretty big online presence.

Seriously.

I’d love some advice from other bloggers on how you keep track of, stay on top of and organise all those different pages, apps and profiles online! I realise that its part of ‘the job’ of being a blogger and seller, but I find that I start doing a bit of online work and three hours later I’m still here, still going…

Anyway… I’m going to jump right in, with both feet. I’m not even going to hold my nose. Oh, ok, I’ll probably hold my nose… I guess not deleting my Blogger blog (ie this one!) is a way of holding on to some kind of security while I plunge into the great unknown…

From now on my new blog address will be; https://junk4joy.com.au/

My next posts will be shared from there.

Please by patient when blips happen, as they’re bound to do. I’m not sure how to make sure it all runs smoothly. I think anyone who used to follow my blog will have to ‘re-follow’ the WP blog. I’m not entirely happy with the layout and widgets of the new blog yet so there may be (most likely will be) changes made to the live blog. Just grin and bear it.

z

very distressed turquoise coffee table

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I had planned to post every day this week. Well, more often than once a week anyway. But, as most plans, that one went astray. Not cause I didn’t have things to share, just that for one reason or another I got busy. Or forgot. Or was just too plain tired.

So, without further ado, here is my very distressed coffee table.

What’s it distressed about you might ask. Well… it started life as a brown coffee table. Then it was painted white with a little distressing. Then a puppy or two chewed on its corners. It was stuck in the shed for ages. It was used as a step stool while I built my new grooming room. Then it was shunted into a corner of the shed again… Not much of a good life for a coffee table. You’d be very distressed too!

At some stage I decided I really missed having a coffee table in front of the couch. All this time I’d been using a footstool with a timber tray on it when I wanted to put something in front of the couch. But without a coffee table to fill up with crafty stuff I was being lazy every evening.
Surely you understand that!

So, I went shopping my sheds to find a coffee table for the living room. I can’t say for sure this is it, but this was a quick small table that would fit my needs …for now.

First I had to fix the puppy tooth damage. Then I had to choose a colour. I wasn’t sure what I wanted so I went with a colour I had – which I’d used in the guest room. Plus I’d just bought myself a throw from Kmart in that colour…

After painting it turquoise I wasn’t sure I liked it. Too much is sometimes too much… so I hit it with the sander. I took a lot more off on the top than on the sides and I’m loving the look.

Its like a work of art. Or like a work surface. Pity I’ll cover it with work…

I’m still finding my style for this house, so its a bit all over the place. So much to do. Still. But for now, I have a coffee table I can fill with craft odd and ends to work on while I watch TV. 
That’s gotta be good.
z

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moving. sort of.

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I decided it was time (after over 7 years of blogging) to move to a more professional platform. WordPress.

Great idea. In theory.

I’ve also joined Instagram in my bid to be more professional.

Mind you, I don’t consider myself a professional blogger, I blog cause I’m a show off who likes to brag about all the wonderful things I make and do. Ok, fine. I love to share and hopefully inspire others to have a go. I’m not kidding myself that I change lives or speak great wisdoms. Let’s face it.

I just love sharing things I do and seeing what others do. It motivates me to surround myself with creative people.

So, I decided it was time to take the leap. I bought a domain name. I joined WordPress. I paid to create a blog. Then I found I have to also pay to point it to my domain. Ok fair enough… Tick that. I had to set it up manually. Tick that too. Its not working yet, but hopefully I’ve done it all right…

If it works I’ll migrate the site over to there later.

Now if I can find my brain I can get to work again.

How on earth do I move the entire blog over? CAN I move the entire blog over? Is it even possible to do that or do I lose all my past posts like I did when Shine went offline and I had to start over on Blogger?

I’m so confused.

HELP.

z

plants for sale

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Nothing wrong with diversifying, right? I mean, I groom dogs for a living and I make stuff and I garden. And my garden produces flowers and flowers produce seeds and I end up with more plants and more seeds. Its the circle of life.
As Neil once said on The Young Ones, “we sow the seed, nature grows the seed, then we eat the seed, and after that, we sow the seed, nature grows the seed, then we eat the seed…”
Except for the eating part. I don’t eat my flowers. I admire them. Then collect seeds, sow seeds, grow seeds, you get the picture. As a result I have baby plants growing. I can’t use them all, so I normally sell them at markets here and there. 
Well, I decided that instead of having my plant nursery along the back of the casita where no one sees them, I’d put some out the front of the new grooming room so my customers can see them. That way, if anyone sees something they like they can buy it while I give ‘rover’ a new do.

I made the cute little sign using a timber offcut and acrylic paint. The large basket they’re sitting in is a galvanised bakery basket I’ve had for a few years. I put some metal legs on it and for the last 2-3 years we’ve lined it with burlap and used it to hold carrots for the horses in winter.

I do love my galvanised metal things!

One of my favourite pastimes is moving things around, assigning new uses to old things, etc. 
I wonder how Wayne will feel about the carrot bin disappearing…. hm. He wasn’t too impressed with the wood box moving to Stalag 13 to house chickens…
z
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easy peg bags

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The other day I found myself with time on my hands…
HAHAHA. As if.
Actually I didn’t find myself with spare time, on my hands or otherwise. I had to make the time. But this was one project I’d had sitting in a bag on the floor of my office for months. I wanted it gone. Seemed like it’d be a waste to just get rid of these tiny little pants since what I planned to do was a simple little conversion: from tiny people pants to peg bags.

I added patches to them to fancy them up a bit, make them cuter… and buttons on the loops.

I secured them to bits of wood or sticks and make hooks out of wire for hanging them on the clothes line.

This blue jean one is my favourite with its red star patterned fabric patch and the stitched star on the other side.

I even had a dress so I included that in my burst of industriousness. That one has been waiting longer than the tiny pants.

The dress actually is a much bigger peg bag, you know, for those heavy duty washing days. 
z

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renovating the chickens’ home (already)

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Turned out the ladder I made for the chickens’ new home was too steep. Well, even if it wasn’t, they refused to use the perch. I’d sneak in every night and grab them and put them on it. The hen would stay but the rooster would just jump off and sleep in the corner on the bottom of the box.
I wondered whether it was the width of the branch that the rooster had an issue with. Maybe something wider would make it easier for him?
Someone in a FB poultry group suggested the box was too open, they needed more protection from the weather…. So, I revisited the whole thing.
This is what it looks like now:
First, I removed the trellis door and cut it down, cutting out a section to make a small door for the hen to get in to the nesting box.
I replaced the branch perch with a piece of timber, sanding the edges off so there were no sharp bits to hurt feet.
I used a large piece of plywood to make the upper door and cut a door into it as an entrance.
Lastly, I used a long piece of barn wood as a ramp. I used offcuts to make little steps on it to make climbing easier. I added a hook to the back of the ramp to hold it securely to the door, and hinged on a walkway leading to the perch.
I mean, what more can I do?
I even sprinkled feed on the ramp to encourage them to explore.
They’re totally ignoring it. They prefer to sleep on the bottom in the corner.
I mean, does it matter? No. They’re safe in their little yard either way, but what ungrateful little sods! I worked my fingers to the bone for this new improved housing and they prefer to roost on the floor!
Sheesh.
I hope the other chickens are more appreciative of my efforts when I redecorate their pen!
z

old window chalkboard #1

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So… as part of the whole getting my mojo back thing, you know, getting inspired and finding the time and energy to finally get to some of the projects mouldering in the various sheds, I have finished a couple of items and started a few more. I’ll be sharing these over the next days, weeks, months even if I get lucky and keep the mojo going.
First up I have this little window recycle. I have two of these little windows. I think they’re king billy pine but I loved the rustic look of them so I didn’t sand them back completely to be sure. I’d say its a good guess as old windows and doors were made of king billy pine which is rare these days. 
I love king billy pine and not only cause of what it is, but cause it reminds me of my toy poodle Billybear… He was the King Billy of my life.

Here is the finished product. Cute. It retains remnants of old paint, mostly on the sides… and where it didn’t I added it to create the framed look.

The best bit of this little chalkboard project, in my opinion, is the rusty old hinge I found and added as chalk holder. Its stiffened up so keeps it shape. Plus I’ve gone over it with a touch of polyurethane to stop the rust from coming off.

If you know me at all, you know I love rust. And old things. And weathered things. I collect almost anything old and rusty. I’m pitifully easy (and cheap) to buy for!
I knew this hinge would come in handy one day.

I gave the whole window a couple of coats of polyurethane to bring out the grain of the wood and to seal it. 

You know, I make a fair few chalkboards. They can be used anywhere, not to mention how handy they are. I’m planning to list this one for sale but in the back of my mind is this feeling I’d love to have a wall of chalkboards…
If only I had more walls in this house!
Really. We have a huge living room with 3 windows, 4 doors and a pass into the kitchen. All the available wall spaces are taken up already. The office is full to bursting with storage and decorative items, so is the guest room… and the kitchen. The only empty wall is in the bedroom but I have plans for that – a photo/memory box wall…
I wonder…
z

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