When life gives you lemons...make a lemonade stands!

Boy, those Mondays evenings come and go far too quickly.  I keep trying to get to the blog, but you know how it is, life gets in the way.  And sometimes it's the fun things in life.  What kept me busy last Monday evening?  Playing with the mice!

When you have collected for 22 years and been a dealer for 16 you are bound to end up with a few broken mice, and by a few I mean a couple of boxes of them.  How does this happen?  Sometimes I'm just clumsy, some happened in shipping, some happened while digging through the inventory bins, and a few I even bought that way.  Oh, and let's not forget that I have pets...I have found several dragged from a desk still in their plastic bag and found later in pieces around the house.  My darling yorkie even managed to tear open the corrugated cardboard box from Her Christmas Music Lesson and gnaw the pieces off their base.  Thankfully, she has not repeated that experiment.

Many people would be upset that their expensive little hobby had met with such a tragedy.  Most dealers would file claims with insurance companies (if you do, they keep the mice).  Some dealers even sell off their broken pieces.  I have a hard time parting with any broken pieces because each represents a new potential.  So every so often I play with my broken mice and create new mice from the parts.

Now if a mouse has just come apart at the glue spot on the base, then I give it a quick dab of glue and it is good as new.  I don't consider that broken.  I'm talking about pieces that need actual repair work.  The majority have broken legs, one or both.  Sometimes it's the bases that break or the ears or another part on the piece.  I'm no expert at repair and I am always reluctant to just glue it back together the way it came because it usually looks awful.  Add to that the fact the heirs to my collection have said over and over that the first order of business after I'm in the ground is to sell off the bulk of my collection and I'd prefer they were selling pieces in good condition, not poorly repaired items.  And with those reasons comes the fun part.  OK, so maybe I also enjoy doing this just a bit too.

I float most parts from the original piece and then glue the broken parts back together.  Now I am left with a bunch of bases, mice and parts.  As I am working I look at a piece and get an idea of what it looks like it might be doing.  For example, you can see in the photo I have taken the piano from Her Christmas Music Lesson.  The bench seat was beyond repair, but made a good footstool.  I had a Hipster whose hula hoop had broken from his body, but left the part still glued to his body.  I put the three together and the Hipster was the perfect height to play the piano when on the footstool.  It also hid his hoop remnant stuck to his belly.  I added a broken Christmas Belles mouse and a couple of packages and voila!

I don't re-paint the pieces so they have some chips and other flaws where the paint has been removed, but most are hidden well enough for my taste.  If there is a glaring white spot I'll hit it with a little chalk to tone the color down.  It's mostly just simple rearranging of the parts.

This photo shows a broken Dragon Dress Up and Halloween Night.  I soaked their broken feet off, re-glued them on, made some base repairs and then swapped them.  The old Halloween Night is now a Hagrid's Hut with his dragon Norbert.  I have it in my Harry Potter Wizard School scene.

The little mice left one the one base are in my Tricks or Treats display.



So as you see, when life gives you lemons (or broken mice), make lemonade.  I'm still waiting for a broken Kissin' Katie.  When life hands me that lemon, I am making a lemonade stand...