A Cautionary Tale

 Summer seems to be flying by. We are getting a few little projects accomplished here. One time-saver is the drip system that my husband re-installed in the garden beds and around our patio pergola to water the hanging baskets and my planted pots, making the watering chore easy since it is on a timer. We seem to go through this every year and sometimes mid-summer because our sweet dog loves to tear it. More time for minis. So here is a project that has caused immense frustration, and I'm not sure why I just can't do it! I started it months ago, and here it still sits. I'll share this project status with you. 

And while I am not a negative person or complainer, I do have a Circuit Maker problem to share.

But first, the hen pen. My chicken house was crafted following Julie Warren's youtube video and the instructions from one of her books. It is a very simple little structure that can styled for so many different purposes: a garden shed, a craft shed, a sewing room, an artist's studio. For me, it is inspired by our own hen house which I wrote about here: When the Chickens Come Home to Roost. I love the way the little house turned out, but now I want to finish it with the chicken pen. 

I began early on thinking that I would use bridal tulle on a spool as the fencing. Then I thought that screen mesh would make a better fence, but I have so many problems with both. Last week I reassembled the fence using tulle and it works pretty well, but it is flimsy and doesn't hold it's shape.

I was having a very hard time trying to figure out how to attach the fence to foundation that I had created using half inch square dowels then it hit me to use the 1/4 inch channel trim so that the fencing would fit inside and be supported rather than on top of a foundation. Still I hadn't created a fence that measured accurately and haven't figured out how to attach it to the chicken house and I need a gate, or at least a non-opening gate.

So this looks pretty good, but I'm still not happy.

These sticks that are supposed to be fence posts just don't offer enough support for the tulle.

What a mess, so I decide to paint the roof. It will be a rustic tin roof, slopped so that the rain will run off. I am using corrugated or ridged cardboard from a 6x6 paper pack. I use Platinum gray acrylic paint for the metal foundation then I mix brown, red and yellow for the rust. I think the effect turned out just the way I wanted it to. I then ripped the sticks/fenceposts off the tulle and painted them.

 You can barely see the foundation here--I forgot to photograph it, but I painted it dark gray around the edges, then gray, black, and brown. When the paint dries I smeared it with Modge Podge and sprinkled tea grounds to make dirt. I'll add more to the pen floor later. Maybe some spoiled fruit and table scraps and chicken scratch.

So here it is. Back in a heap. I am so frustrated at this point. The tulle is flimsy and the fence is so poorly designed. Back to the drawing board.

I've played around this art metal mesh, but while the tulle is too flimsy, the metal mesh is too stiff, too shiny--where I want a more aged look. 

But I am not giving up. I love the roof, the floor of the pen, and I like the channel to support the fence. I took a second look at how our chainlink fence--actually a dog run we purchased from Craig's List--was assembled then I purchased round dowels for the fence posts. I'll use the tulle because it is earlier to work with. Instead of trying to build one long panel that will bend around the corners, I am going to create separate panels for the sides and the front, just like the real fence. The channel will hold them in place (as so will the glue), and the tulle will won't hide the interior like the mesh does. So I have it figured out.

Maybe next week. Maybe not. We will leave July 2 to visit family in Texas for the 4th. I haven't seen them in 2 years and I am so excited to be getting out of town! I am excited to finish this hen house project, too. I have dreams of creating a vegetable garden--complete with strawberries and cantaloupe on the vine.

The lesson here: Just don't give up. I find sometimes that I have to let a project sit--often for a long time--to figure out how to solve a construction problems. I've got this one conquered--I hope.

A Cautionary Tale

Now for the Cricut Maker. First, I am not a whiner or complainer or a negative person, but I do feel that I need to share this experience to prevent others from having the same issue and perhaps get some suggestions on how to solve my current Cricut problem. 

I hadn't used my Maker in several weeks--since the last post on Design Space. When I launched Design Space, it did its usual upgrade download. This time, however, I was prompted to select a machine with a screen graphic that had "New" in big bold print. You must look for this screen as the app downloads version 6.10.107 and do not proceed until you carefully understand what will happen next.

I selected "Maker." In that menu, the new machines, Explore 3 and Maker 3 are listed. 

Next I opened my Design Space work screen, not paying attention to my library contents of saved projects. We tend to just click on something automatically because we know what we want. For this project I wanted to make a 50th anniversary card. I had created a beautiful swan card so when I went to my projects, the library was empty--gone--blank--nothing. 

I cried. Literally cried. It was obvious that the new upgrade had erased my library. So all of Manchester dollhouse projects are gone. While the cabinets are built, I have not cut the counter tops. Now I will have to start from scratch. All the card templates that I created for my Cards for Soldiers are gone. 

I went to Cricut.com to see my account and this is the strange part, my subscription to Design Space wasn't there. My credit card wasn't on record. My Maker was registered, but my account wasn't there. I checked my credit card statement and I had been billed June 9th for the monthly subscription fee, but I had no account. I checked email to see if I received notification that my subscription would soon expire. No notification.

I called the Cricut Help Line. No answer.

I activated a Chat conversation and got a Chat Bot. Not helpful, so I requested a real person and got one. I explained my problem to him and he really didn't have any answers, but he was prompting me uninstall Design Space. I decided to clean up the windows that I had open and inadvertently closed my Safari window, ending the chat. So I went on ahead and uninstalled and reinstalled Design Space.

I finally figured out that when I was prompted to choose a machine, I wiped out my library of projects. 

Monday morning I called Cricut Help and had a real person, but sweet as she was and sympathetic as she was, she didn't have any answers for me. She did say that the Chat tech gave me the wrong information to uninstall the app. However, she said that my projects are saved to my cloud, but I can't find them.

Currently I am trying to figure out if my projects really in the cloud someplace, but I don't think they are. I've looked. Or I don't know where to look. I'm not sure if my Maker is connected to the Cloud. So perhaps this is where you come in if you have a Maker. Any ideas or suggestions? 

I have resigned myself to the fact that months and hours of work are gone. I can probably recreate it all. I've stopped crying and I'm not even mad anymore, but I am disappointed in Cricut's support. 

So now I'm off for some retail therapy. The grandpa has taken the 12 year old grandson fishing for the day--or at least until it gets too hot. I hope my next post will have some better news, like I found my Cricut Projects. 

Thanks for visiting.