So many tasks, not enough time!
I have been SUPER busy the past couple of weeks...Disney planning, trying to loose weight, walking (to help loose weight and to "train" for Disney), cleaning around the house, reading books (to hit my 55 in my 55th year) and, of course, stitching. The first ones are going well, but the stitching, not so much. I can really only stitch on the weekends since I spend the week doing the other things. I'm walking with a co-worker who is perpetually late (although I am able to walk by myself now, when I can get myself out of the house). By the time all that's done, I don't feel like stitching anymore. Thankfully, I can read books and watch TV at the same time, or else not much book reading would be done either. I'm keeping up with my books over on Insta, if you're curious (I think I just finished book #15).
But, on to the stitching. I've only worked on A Girl in a Red Dress at the Castle. Last time I left off here:
Now I'm here:
It's not much progress...1796 more stitches, for a total of 5910/67,500, I'm now at 8.76%, and am 26.38 hrs in (last time it was 18.86 hrs). And I only stitched for two days, both being weekend days. I'm not sure if I'm going switch WIPs this weekend or keep on, time will tell.
Last time, you saw where I cleaned the Duck Room, made a path in the back, and cleaned up my pins (a bit). This week I'm focusing on two tasks, starting to catalog items (although that has a big caveat we'll deal with in a mo) and moving to the front of the Duck Room and straightening up my Mickey ear hats (I haven't touched the Mickey headbands yet, although I don't have many of those). The were on cheap hat hangers on the Duck closet door (and forgive this pic, it's several years old and that area is way more cluttered now, Funkos to the ceiling, the floor covered in plush, and don't get me started on the curios):
Obviously, they didn't all fit due to the limited number of hangers. Since the hangers were made for ball hats, I also had to use various methods to attach them (I did recently change to clothes pins, which plays into this story). The ears that didn't fit were scattered about the room (in their various character categories, of course). I'm always looking online for how other people store and display their stuff, but I haven't found the right "idea" for me in almost every category, but especially ear hats (and pins). Some people have the wall space to mount hangers or to add shelving, I don't. Some people have hats hanging on a rope line mounted to the wall and clipped with clothes pins (like they are on a clothesline), but I never give this idea a second thought because I didn't have the wall room.
Then, it dawned on me, why not attach string to the hat hanger do-hickies and make individual clotheslines. That way I'm not taking up any additional space in the room and, instead of two hats on a row, I could get four or five. Sounded like a plan, right? And the best part is that they could all be together again (I have issues with wanting things to be "together" in their family, the joys of OCD). I quickly found out I couldn't do a line on each row, I had to skip a row for spacing issues. I also tucked in the backs of the hats to flatten them out, like everyone else, to make them hang better. My first iterration:
I very quickly realized this wasn't going to work. The bent hats were driving me insane (I opened them back up) and I still needed the others around the room, which meant more lines. I set about changing them around again, risking the extra rows and adding the hat's brothers, and I HATED the result. I couldn't, for the life of me, get them to look organized after that. I gave that up Wednesday night, but by Thursday night, I decided to start again. After several more configurations, I ended up with this, although I still not happy (and I somehow missed a row close to the top):
Are they too cramped? Yes, yes they are. Is there anything I can do about it? No, probably not, no, especially if I wanted them to live together. And then, like I mentioned earlier, there is still the issue of the Mickey headbands. I'd like them with the ear hats, but I don't know how to accomplish that, at least not yet. They won't work on the rope line and an over-the-door hook won't hold them all.
If anyone has any ideas of how to handle this, let me know, I'm all "ears" (ha!).
Now, on to the cataloging. This is something I have tried numerous times in the past. The last time I tried it, it took me a month to do ONE bookshelf in my bedroom (I have four, not including everything else in the room), and that was probably ten years ago! The software I had became defuct, so I had to buy new home inventory software (maybe nine years ago, unused all this time), which now has a subscription-based model, but the old version still works, so I'm not upgrading until I have to...I'm really hating subscription-based stuff, $10/mo for this, $5/mo for that...it adds up quick. About five or six years ago, I bought a lightbox to make photographing the items easier. It's been sitting in my closet ever since, still in its unopened box. Last year, I bought a camping table for the lightbox to sit on. It's been in the closet next to the lightbox ever since (although I did take it out of it's box to see what it looked like and, thankfully, it came with its own storage bag). Yeah, to say I've been dreading this project for years is the understatement of the decade (literally).
Last Saturday (hence the little bit of weekend stitching), I pulled it all out, set it all up, put the camera on the tripod and got to work photographing the front, back, and bottom side of each item (and sometimes a second set if it lit up). This wasn't even Duck Room stuff, this is MY bedroom. After SIX hours, I had done just the things on my dresser! JUST THE DRESSER! I could not, for the life of me, get everything back in the right place, which also drove me insane. After about 10 hours, I had a ton of photographs, nothing in the cataloging software, and now an annoying dresser top I don't like.
Yeah, I'm not sure how in the Hades I'm supposed to do the entire house. I also realized that my new camera was taking high quality pictures, pictures that will take up a ton of hard drive space. Thankfully, work has an old point and shoot camera that isn't being used, so I got permission to take it home and try it. The MP size of the pics has to be 20 times smaller, so that will help. It was (apparently) a day of realizations, because I also realized that it would be easier to photograph the item, THEN add it to the software one at a time (which will take me a LOT longer than six hours and means I need to start over). I also need to get a barcode scanner (or borrow one from work). Saturday night, I broke down the lightbox and the camping table and put them back in the closet. Whether or not they make it out again in this decade, is up for debate.
I do need a cataloged archive of all my items, not just for insurance purposes (which, as I mentioned numerous times before, most of this stuff can NEVER be replaced, so that's probably a moot point), but because I don't know what I have anymore and sometimes I buy things not realizing I already have it. Since I started cataloging my books, it keeps me from rebuying them all the time. I love it! I also have the Funko app and have all those cataloged as well (although I question if I've done them all). Shame Jim Shore or Enesco doesn't have an app. But, books, movies, music and even Funkos and Enesco figurines are 1/100000 of my entire collection, so the time it will take might be more than the life I have left.
But alas, these are the worries on my brain now and I'm totally open to any ideas you give me! You guys know I'm picky about my stuff, but I will try anything at this point! And let me know if you want to continue to hear about my Disney stuff. I probably should be doing separate posts for all this, but I'm lucky to be posting at all these days. I probably need to learn to actually use Instragram for more than just posting single pictures with a comment!
Have a great week everyone!