Amazon Vendor Rant

This is my only negative experience with an Amazon vendor thus far, and as a warning, I'm going to get ranty.

Megahobby.

I ordered two packages of dollhouse shingles on March 3 with the 3-5 business day shipping option. There was an estimated delivery window of March 8-March 13.

On March 11, I received an email from Amazon saying that they hadn't received a shipping notification yet. Fair enough! Sometimes these things fall though the cracks. So I emailed them and asked for a time frame of when I could expect shipping. I got this response:

hi you should be shipping out soon. Have to check with the warehouse on monday. sorry for delay. thanks

That's a direct quote. I wish it wasn't. No punctuation, the sentence structure is atrocious, there's no names attached to the email... I couldn't believe how unbelievably unprofessional that was. And it felt dismissive. Like... I would have appreciated something like, "I appreciate your concern. I won't be able to check until tomorrow when the warehouse is open, but I'll see what's going on and get back to you." Signed.

So I sent a reply the following morning, March 12. Things went downhill from there. I told them that the tone was dismissive, that the email was almost insulting in its lack of professionalism, and that my question wasn't answered. Given that the maximum estimated delivery date would be the following day, I told that them that I thought it was only fair that my order was overnighted at their expense, or they refunded my shipping. There was no way that a package would get from New York to Alabama before the shipping estimate was up.

I received a fairly prompt response, brushing off my concern that they were being dismissive and not addressing the lack of professionalism. I was, however, told that I should receive my order close to March 13, and that they (whoever they was) would get back to me later that day.

I emailed again the following morning, March 13 asking if we were going to be able to work this out, or if I was waiting to file a claim with Amazon on Friday.

They emailed back, offering to cancel the order or refund my shipping charge.

I sent them a final email saying that they could either cancel the order and refund the full amount, or ship by close of business the following day either priority or overnight.

Three minutes later- literally three minutes- I received an email stating that my order had shipped. The transaction for the full amount showed up in my bank account. I called Amazon to complain about them and let them know that the refund hadn't shown up yet, and sat down to wait.

I received my order today.

For those of you unfamiliar, dollhouse shingles are cut from very thin birch sheets and are fairly fragile. If we're looking at flat rate options, they could have gone snugly in a padded envelope with some extra stuff to secure them, or the best option would have been a medium box, again wrapped well to secure them.

I'm not happy. I'm never ordering from them again.

And my shipping refund still hasn't shown up.

The Harrison Dollhouse, D and E

I did both of these bits kind of at the same time. There was a lot of gluing a couple of things and waiting for them to dry, so I figured I would get started on the next part too!

D deals with getting the bay windows up, and E is throwing the partitions up on the third floor. I found I would have the same problem with the bay windows that I would have with the tower. The directions are all, "Wallpaper/paint first, then assemble!" and I was all, "NO!" so then I had to figure out how to add the wallpaper after the bays were assembled.

My first block was that while there is a window seat, there's nothing across the top of the bay window. It just sort of goes up to where the ceiling is. And you can see it. So that would look funny, because I wouldn't be able to wallpaper up there. My solution was to take thin cardboard (like, cereal box cardboard) and trace the shape of the window seat and cut it out.

The ones on the inside are the cardboard bits. I painted them white to match the ceiling (and trimmed them so they would fit flush with the wall), stained the window seats, painted the outside of the bay walls and then assembled the entire side bay unit. Which meant putting up the walls and waiting for them to dry.

And then putting in the window seat and little ceiling.

As soon as those were dry, I wallpapered both floors of the side bay window unit, getting the ones that face toward the front of the house through the spaces in the front. I have small enough hands that I was able to glue the trim on through the side window spaces themselves, so I went ahead and assembled the front bay unit in the same way.

After it was all dry, I cut out the windows and stained and put in the inside window trim. It was a little tight on the side bay windows with the ceiling there, but I picked the skinnier trim pieces and got it all to fit together (mostly).

Then the third floor, which was started in between waiting for stuff to dry. Really quick and easy, two partitions and the front gable had to be glued into place. The "secret" room really should be wallpapered before the roof goes on, and there's a little notch in the bathroom where the back roof support goes in that I thought would be tricky to wallpaper after, so I did both rooms. I didn't wallpaper the big room for a couple of reasons. For one, I wanted to put another partition in there and I didn't quite know how it was going to fit and where it was going to go. And then... I had to figure out HOW I was going to wallpaper the room! It's big. Really big. It's huge. And instead of being the 8" ceilings, they go up a long, long way. Four sheets of scrapbook paper is just not going to cover the whole room. But, I've figured out how I'm going to do it so that it doesn't look *too* funny. And I'm making another partition.

I'm almost out of white paint- I certainly don't have enough to do the ceiling for the third floor. I'm debating on a solution that I don't know if it'll look good, or just look funny. Although! I might have some white acrylic paint stashed away somewhere in my craft closet... I'll have to have a look. If I don't have white paint and I decide that my idea is crap, then I'll be doing inside trim (molding, etc) until I can get some more paint in a couple of days. So I don't know what's coming next... But there will be pictures!!

Thursday'ing It Up

My lack of crochet-related updates doesn't mean I haven't done any, I just haven't done anything new and/or haven't taken pictures.

I did re-finish a baby blanket I had for a friend. No picture. It took longer than I thought it would, but it's done.

I made a hat. I used this pattern: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/red-cap-with-buttoned-strap-us
Also no picture. I had a couple of issues with the pattern. The first one, the gauge was NOT accurate. Like, at all. It says that 5 puff stitches should be 2". Following the gauge (more like 1.75") I got a shopping bag. I redid the gauge at 1.5" and I'm afraid it's still a little big. The other problem I had was that the part between the hat and the bib seems to indicate that you cut it and finish it before starting the bib. But then the bib part starts as though you're still attached to the hat. It is a cute hat, though.

I redid some of my food and took some pictures, and now I'm working on a Hobbes (found here) and some more eggs, and then some patterned, colored eggs for [appropriate spring holiday].

I'm So Proud of Penelope!

A while ago, I made a uterus. Penelope.



Today a friend of mine linked me this. Tired of congressmen trying to control YOUR body and YOUR reproductive system? Send them a uterus!

I support this a lot. A whole, whole lot. There have been way too many discussions lately where women and their bodies have been reduced nothing more than reproductive vessels.

Here is the ravelry.com group, which has a whole bunch of different patterns and ideas (including what to do if your local reps are awesome but you're still concerned about what those other ones are doing).

The Harrison Dollhouse, C

This is a relatively short and simple step. Or so it looks in the directions... I have a whole lot of pictures for this one, because not only did I do what it said I had to, but I figured that since I had to wallpaper two rooms anyway, why not wallpaper all six of the bottom rooms?

It started off pretty easily. Take all of the tower pieces and paint them. No big deal. But then the directions were all, "Now wall paper all of the inside tower sections individually!" And I was all, "Um no!" The wallpaper would look SO BAD at that point, and there wouldn't be any trim to cover up the gaps. Do not want. But, it is important to wallpaper at least part of it before the entire tower goes up, because some of it will become inaccessible afterward.

So I figured, instead of wallpapering in sections, I would put the tower up in sections. It glues to the house at the top and bottom (and middle, where the second floor is) and it's not a tight fit with the other tower pieces. So I put up the first two tower pieces.

I then wallpapered the inside on that wall, around to where the tower pieces are, and also glued on the window trim.

And then I put up the rest of the tower pieces. There are some pretty big gaps between each piece, but that will be covered by trim.

And wallpapered from the inside.

I wallpapered over the window openings, and after they were dry, cut out the windows with a sharp X-acto knife.

I wallpapered the rest of the house in pretty much the same way, and I fixed the gap at the back of the stairs in the kitchen. And! Instead of patching over the horrible spots in the middle room on the top floor, I added some birds and butterflies to the room.