Have you ever wondered?...

...Do you know?
Why a witch's' shoe has a curled up toe?

 

One day Miss Witch put on a shoe,
but there's one thing she failed to do.
She didn't peek inside that pump.
She didn't spy a creeping lump.

Instead she brushed upon her heel
a squishy feel that made her squeal.
For in her slipper, beneath her flipper,
she almost squashed a unseen nipper.

A spider with fangs and reflexes quick
and venom that makes one feel quite sick.
It's bite caused her a great surprise.
And, the toe it bit grew twice its size.

The toe, it turned five shades of blue,
and oozed with puss and smelly goo.
The spider faired no better, I'll say.
For two of its legs were sprained that day.

For weeks this pair of grumpy gimps,
Miss Witch and the spider, walked with limps.
But instead of arguing 'bout who's to blame,
Neither again would wind up lame.

Vowing her shoes would possess ample room
Miss Witch saved the future spiders from doom.
Because any witch will tell you clear,
it's not just your toes at stake, my dear.

And, now you, too, know why they chose
Those goofy shoes with the curled up toes.
But...What's up with those pointy hats?!
Think there's room in her belfry for bats?

by Mieljolie, ©2012




Finished painting a 2nd witch shoe from the batch I posted about way back here.  This spider themed one is for my sis.  I'm calling it "Spider Webs".  She had claimed it 2 years ago when I first posted about them.  But, even though the three shoes were almost finished then, I had set them aside for other projects.  It's taken a while, but I finally got around to putting the last touches on this one.  Well, maybe.  Just one last thing I'd like to do.  I want to find a spider to hang from the toe.  I will probably try to make one out of polymer clay.



This is one of my favorite shoe styles from what we've made so far.  I think I may make some more little loafers like this someday.



Just one more shoe from the set to finish.  It's the super tall one.  I probably won't have it finished for this Halloween, though.  But, the 9 year-old daughter also painted her first boot!  :) 



She helped us assemble a batch of the small boots, so I let her have one to paint however she wanted.  She was glad to shred paper strips and mix our paste, but I couldn't convince her to get her hands dirty sculpting.  Said she didn't like the feel of it.  Such a girly girl.  :)

 

And just so ya know, it says "Puka Ville", not "Puke Ville".  Tee hee.  She meant to write "pooka".  Those are little bunny-like pookas playing atop the heel.  The other side has some houses. I think it's going to be fun pulling this out when she's older. I should let her paint one each year. :)
 

These might be the last new witch shoes/boot you see for us this Halloween.  I may keep working on a larger boot, but I've got a lot on my plate right now.  Until next post, be craft-tastic!

Miss Witch's Ogrehide Witch BOO't available in time for Halloween

Miss Witch's Ogrehide Boots

Miss Witch met an ogre named Clyde,
who quite unexpectedly died.
He was useless in life.
Always caused others strife.
But, his hide made fine boots when dried.

Miss Witch then went for a ride
in her new boots of green ogrehide.
She blushed top to bottom
when asked where she got'em.
"Off an ogre named Clyde", she replied.

by mieljolie, ©2012



New Witch BOO't finished and available on Etsy!  This is a small sized one standing about 8" tall and 7.5" long and is painted to look like an ogre's hide all stitched up into a boot.  It has an eye peeking out on one side and a colorful spider on the other with a few flies landing everywhere on the sides and tongue. 


There are two more flies on the tongue in front.  I used a brown nylon cord for the lace. I had thought about using a color that would match the bright green stitches, but decided the brown would tie in the tree stump heel better.

Close up detail of the spider and a fly on the left side and of the eye on the right side. (Click images to see larger versions)  I think I've been inspired a lot by the many spiders we seem to be finding around our house these days.  We've seen orb weavers, wolf spiders, cob web or house spiders, and our family favorites the many colors of jumping spider, among others.  Jumping spiders are the only ones we allow to stay inside.  The are fairly harmless, secluded, and territorial.  So, they keep all the other creepy crawlies at bay. The rest get cupped up and sent back out to the "wild".

It was rather relaxing (and just a wee bit tedious) painting all the stitches.  I may revisit this theme again in the future.  But perhaps in a more deliberate symetrical fashion or just on portions of a boot. 

I'll be trying to finish up some larger BOO'ts next along with some costuming.  One boot may have a haunted house theme.  Hope to have at least one more completed by Halloween.  **Knocks on ogre-hide boot's faux wood heel**  ;)

BURN BABY BURN (A Boogie Bogie) - Paper Mache Pumpkin Pump available on Etsy

When the rays of the day were all gone,
Miss Witch let loose on the lawn.
In her new pumpkin pumps,
she jumped on a stump,
and boogied 'til the break of dawn.

But, her hell-raising romp was through,
when she had kicked off her left boogie shoe.
It flew to the east
hundreds of miles, at least.
Where it went, she never knew.

It was spotted on NASA's radar,
as it burned by the shining North star
An unexplained blip,
on a short little trip,
nearly causing a 3rd World War.

by mieljolie, © 2012



Getting jazzed up and into the Halloween spirit again!  Check out my new Witch Shoe on Etsy!  This one's kind a has a retro rockabilly meets disco flare to it.  It was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed the challenge of a new shape to work with.  I did something a bit different by opting not to put the moon on the toe this time.  Haven't abandoned the moons completely or anything, though.  Just trying new things.




So proud of myself for getting it done and listed in time for Halloween. It's only taken two years.  (Ack, so long!  Really sorry about how few I finished last year.)  But, honestly, I definitely find listing them to be the most stressful part. So many details to figure out. I hope I've done an adequate job, especially in displaying and describing it.  I'd rather play in the paper mache paste and paint.  :)

Anyhow, I'm working on a small boot with an unusual theme that will probably be done next.  Then, I hope to put some finishng touches on another shoe for my sis and then on to a medium or large boot that may or may not be up in time for Halloween 2012.  Wish me luck, inspiration...and a steady hand! 

DIY Low Cost Banners

We just attended our second regional burn event, called Flipside, over this past Memorial Day weekend. (These regional events were created after the original Burning Man event in Black Rock City, Nevada.)  With around 2500 people, it was lots of fun even in the almost unbearable Texas heat.  You may be asking, "What is a burn event?".  If so, I'll get to that later in this post.  I have a feeling it's going to be a long explanation.  :)  But, the main point right now is that we got to camp again for three nights in our "Yurtle" with our themed camp, "Gypsy Steam Circus".

In planning for the event, I wanted to make some signage for our camp that we were sorta lacking at Myschievia, our 1st burn back in Oct.  Voila!  This is what I came up with:





I'll explain how I made them in a moment.  Now, for explaining what a "burn" is for those not "in the know".  Being so many things to so many people, it's difficult to define. But it's partly about "radical self reliance", artistic expression and being a part of a unique temporary community.  I think it's best described as a temporary escape from and letting go of the "real" worlds daily stresses to live ever so briefly in the moment.  Probably the toughest concept for most attendees to get their heads around is that at these events you are not allowed to sell/barter ANYTHING.  The only thing you may purchase there is ice.  You have to bring enough supplies to survive for what could be up to 6 days.  And, if you bring it in, you have to take it back out with you, including trash (well, minus what you deposit in the port-o-potties).  No commercialism or capitalism from the outside world is allowed.  Everything is on a volunteer basis.  Even safety and maintenance people are volunteers.  They refer to what is created as a "gift economy".  Everyone chips in their part to help out.  And, everyone seems to have something unique and wonderful to offer whether it be food, drink, clothing, art or entertainment.  These smaller regional burns may not have the population or number of art installations of the big one (at 20,000+ attendees), but it was still amazing.  What we think makes it so special is all the many themed camps that gift out their own specialties to attendees.  Some of our favorites were the dance floors, arts/craft stations, breakfast and probably best of all hair washings.  There was even homemade popsicles in odd flavors such as Bloody Mary (with stuffed olives), Pickle Juice, and Cantaloupe.   Honestly, with all the camps serving food and drink to try, we brought way too much for ourselves and our camp!


Our own camp's main contribution was to serve some of our members' specialty homemade alcoholic beverages such as "Gypsy Potion", Mead, "Johny Jump Up", "Apple pie" and Skittles Rum among other mixed drinks from our two bars.  We all took turns manning the bars just as the sun started to go down each night.  Before the event, some of our camp member got together and made the pair of terrific portable bars that were painted with circusy red/white stripes. We also had scheduled events throughout the weekend such as a steampunk gadget workshop, glam station with costume trunk free to all, and and an impromptu iced water gun shootout.  I was blown away by all the individual talents each of our more than 25 members brought to our camp.  We even had an abundance of fire spinners/eaters, belly dancers, jugglers, hoopers, drummers...really...you name it.

With a group this large, we needed a presence.  We looked into having banners printed, but it was pretty costly.  We had planned for a few banners at about 2x3 ft for our bar area, which would have cost us well more than $50 a banner.  Yikes!  My brain got to working and I figured we could make them a LOT cheaper.



I decided to use old bed sheets for our banners.  I found a few for a $1 a set at the thrift store.  I ripped to size, hemmed, and primed them with latex interior paint.   My original idea was to just paint the designs by hand, but that was going to be way too time consuming.  So, I opted for a different  quicker solution.

Now, I've transferred images with nail polish remover before.  I may have mentioned this in many previous posts including the spellbook here. But, I kept seeing posts on other craft sites and blogs about using Mod Podge or gel medium, that stuff for decoupage. My original thought was just to transfer my b/w laser copies to the sheet to be painted in with color.  But, low and behold, I found out one of our camp mates works for a copy center!  Ho ho!  I had access to cheap color copies!  Yay!  I sent them files that were tiled to fit on 11x17-sized paper that I could tape together before transferring.  The important part, that I almost forgot, was that I needed the image to be a mirror of the original to be legible when I was done.

So, after I primed the sheets and trimmed/taped my backward tiled image together, I glued it to the primed banner face down.  Now you're probably thinking, "What?!  You just screwed up you banner, man! You glued it face down?!".  Or, maybe not.  Anyway, this IS what you're supposed do.  Once it dried, we got to work dampening the paper and rubbing it off gently so that only the image was left on the banner.  Pretty cool, huh?!  Yeah, I thought so.  Plus, another camp mate was also a graphic designer and came up with another banner design, which we also transferred:



They were really fun and kinda stress-relieving to make.  :)  It took a few attempts to get all the paper off.  And, some of the image did come off with it giving it a very old and weathered look.  Though, after a few banners, we realized that rubbing with the grain of the paper helped to get it off cleaner while removing less image.  When finished, I sealed the image with more Mod Podge and then a coat of waterbase indoor/outdoor polyurethane varnish.  Here's a cost break down:

One twin bedsheet $.50
One Gallon Indoor Latex Paint (clearance) $9
Paint Brush/Roller (on hand)
Tape (on hand)
22 11x17 color copies (gifted) but would be about $11
8 oz. Mod Podge Gloss (with coupon) $3
8 oz. Waterbase Polyurethane Varnish (clearance) $4
12 1" Grommets  (dollar store, not shown in the pics $1
TOTAL COST for two 2x3 ft and one sign 1.5x4.5 ft = about $30

WAY cheaper than the printed banners, right?!  And, I've probably got enough left over to make a few more, which I was going to make until all the costuming and another project stole my attention and time.  I'll tell you more about that in my next post, shortly.

My 2nd Spellbook

This is a spell book with various removable recipe and poem pages created by request for a craft swap to match a witch BOO't. It is similar to the one I made for Missing Willow a while back.



There is a moon with a spider on top of it on the front and a spider on the back. It is made using cereal box cardboard covered in tissue paper and painted over. The cutout designs on the front and back are something new I wanted to experiment with. I used nail polish remover to transfer b/w laser printouts of drawing I made in Adobe Illustrator to the covers.



I believe there were 32 pages in this book. All pages were printed on a laser printer and colored by hand with markers, colored pencils, and a white paint marker. I aged the pages with watercolor paints.



I took a small sampling of what is in our own family spellbook that I've been working on since before 2006. I wrote most of the poems myself, including the one above entitled "Stingy Jack" based on an Irish folk tale. The left page is a pumpkin carving ritual and directions for baking pumpkin seeds.



The page above is for preparing bugs for food and a couple recipes. This practice is known as "Entomophagy" and is common in some countries. I wrote the humorous poem bordering the instructions.



The above pages were created/included for my craft swap partner whose birthday happens to land on Nov. 2nd, which is the Mexican holiday "Dia de los Muertos", or "Day of the Dead". I wrote my own epitaph known as a "calavera", which is a holiday tradition. Sugar skulls are a very popular decoration in these festivities. So, I also added a couple recipes and instruction for making her own. I also included a page for a wonderful recipe (not pictured) for "Pan de Muerto", or Dead Bread, which is really good.



The pages are removable like some scrapbooks with a ribbon tying the pages into the cover. Right now there aren't a huge amount of pages in her book. But, I'm hoping she will make many more for it with her own recipes.

I'll be posting project #3 next up. It's a teensyny house for teensy living things.

Art Nouveau Inspired Witch Boo't

Yes, it's yet another paper mache witch BOO't to add to the series. This one was created for a craft swap. Knowing this and a couple other swaps would be coming up, I started a stash of boots back at the beginning of this year with the help of my mom and daughter. I took progress pics as we worked to use in an upcoming tutorial. So, you will be seeing many more boots on my blog before October arrives.



my partner liked Art Nouveau style. So, I thought I'd try something a little different with this boot. I did many new things including cutting away parts to make windows, adding brown to the color scheme, texturing the brown parts with tissue paper, lacing the ribbon with beetle beads, and using a transfer technique to apply a few of the images like the lettering and the images repeated on a spellbook cover.



There is a witch reaching up to a swarm of luna moths on one side and a rabbit next to a caulron on one side. There are also moths and lady bugs on the heal and tongue. I glues cardboard leaves around the cutout frames. It also has a hand-painted polymer clay spider hanging on the toe and three beetles on the laces.



Above it a close up of the beetles laced into the ribbon to give the appearance of wings, which I did one other time on a different boot. Most of the imagery is hand-painted. Though, as I mentioned, I did use a transfer technique using nail polish remover to apply the praying mantis and luna moths to the corner cutouts and to apply the lettering for "Cackle" to the tongue, which was inspired by an old vintage postcard.



Later I will be posting about the matching spell book that I made to go with the boot. There are be five items total that I created for this swap. So, stay tuned for item #2, which will cover something that is also witchy.

Stash Buster Valentine's Cards

This Valentine's Day the daughter and I decided to use some of our existing craft stash to make her school Valentine party cards, instead of buying the typical cards that kids just toss in the trash. We found some spare pieces of cardstock, loose pom poms and various google eyes. So, we made "love bugs". She wanted them to be removable so the kids could play with them.



We wrote up the poem in the car on our way home one day. And, with a little help from Adobe Illustrator's stock brush borders and a nice font called "Algerian", we designed a simple card the night before her party.



After printing the cards she colored and cut them out herself. Instead of trying to cut the circle for the bugs to fit in with scissors, I showed her how to punch out most of the circle with a regular hole punch. It took us three well aimed punches to remove enough of the circle. She signed the backs to pass them out. I put another small circle at the center top of the heart to be hole punched for a possible ribbon to be strung through. But we didn't end up using it.



Feel free to use this card for your own personal St. Valentine's Day cards perhaps for next year. A pdf of a 9 card 8.5x11" layout is available here.

Pirate Sunbrella (and a witch boot update)

So many things I want to finish this month! Oh dear, what's a girl to do?! I've been so busy trying to get my steampunk costume going that I've not been able to finish painting the witch shoes. But, more on that later. Right now I'd like to share a revamped paper sunbrella I painted for past opening weekend at TRF.



I wanted something pirate-style for my outfit. And, I got a bit of insomnia just before we left obsessing on all the things I would forget to bring to faire with me. That on top of being stumped on how to continue painting the witch shoes. I distracted myself with, what else, but a new project. :) I'd been meaning to try this one for a long while now. Not sure what possessed me to buy this pale pink paper umbrella with my SO in chinatown back while I lived in near Los Angeles, California. I've had it for over 10 years now. But, it started calling to me to paint it. So, I did...in just one evening!

I'll have to get some better pics of the details. His eye is actually bloodshot and it and the dot border are the only things bright white. The eye is kinda funny. It looks more like a telescope bugging out that way. Maybe it should have been more steampunk than pirate. :)



It came in really handy that sunny faire weekend. After I got back here I gave the umbrella to my mom for her garb. What can I say? She wanted it. And I just can't say no to her. :) Good news is that I have another of these bamboo framed umbrellas that needs to be totally recovered thanks to my daughter when she was young. I want to put silk on that one, but don't think I'm ready to attempt that one just yet.

***** WITCH SHOE UPDATE *****

Anyone wondering what happened to these? I just haven't been feeling up to painting the shoes. I've been stumped. I think I have the two smaller ones figured out. But I'm not happy with them just yet.



The small orange one is the furthest along just needing something on the green band, heel and perhaps the orange toe. And, I haven't found a dangly spider just right for the toe, yet.

The orange/purple shoe with the JOL's and flames has really stumped me. It's really busy and is making it hard to think up what to paint on the purple. I have a bonfire on the heel area and was going to paint some demons dancing. Not sure if that will turn out the way I want.

I've started the moon toe of the large green shoe. I want to add black cats to the large green shoe. For some reason I just can't stop pondering on painting them. One the other hand, I keep thinking of Frankenstein when I look at the shape and color of this shoe. Which should it be? Zombies or kitties? lol

Well, that's all for now. Wish me luck that I get these shoes finished before Halloween along with my costume!

It was an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny orange and black painted booty...

...that we made this past week. Actually there were more than one attempt. But, this is what you get to see. :)



Just a few posts ago, I showed you my "A Little Batty" paper mache witch boot above. I called it a "mini" boot. Well, today I have TEENY TINY miniature version. And, it's a pair! Finally a pair that match! Sorta. See those two tiny things in the right of the pic above?



My mom was attempting to make some miniature witch boots to go with her curio cabinets that shes been working on. (She already has the hats and spell books down.) And, I'd also coincidentally had a request to try a tiny size version. So, mom and I worked it out and came up with these.



It was all a matter of getting the pattern pieces right. The less we have to fuss with the shape, the better chance we have of them turning out similar. :) These tiny terrors stand about 1 3/4" tall and 1 1/4" long from toe to heel. They're not completely made of paper mache as before, though. This time we had to add in some clay stuff my sister recommended to get the toe curl. We also used the clay to spackle over the tiny holes smoothing it out. The painting was a real challenge. I knew I had shaky hands before this. But I didn't realized just how bad until I started to paint with my one-haired paint brush. I also tried an ultra-finepoint sharpie for some black details. I think I prefer painting the original scale.



It was also a slight pain to lace them, as well. But I managed it without too many curse words. Had to use a fat needle to make the lace holes. And, since the laces were too thick to double over, I had to dip the ends in glue to stiffen them. Then, I could poke them through easily.



I really admire miniature artists who have the patience for the meticulous details they work with. I've heard that all artist have their own scale they work best in. I'm not sure what mine is, but I'm certain it isn't 1/12th. :)

Thanks for lookin'. And, stay tuned. There'll be more frighting footwear to come in the next few weeks!

Tim Burton Inspired Witch Boot on Ebay!

"Every Halloween night, when the moon is just in sight,
Place pumpkin lanterns on your porch to stay.
They are not very bright, with just a candle for a light.
But they frighten all the dark things away." - Tiffany (mieljolie) 2010

The last Paper Mache witch boot is on eBay here. It should end Sunday evening.



I was trying new things, again. So, the heel is a different shape than the previous boots, tapering in at the bottom instead of flaring out. And, the ankle top is a little shorter. Looking at the stance and shape of this boot really made me think of something in the world of Tim Burton. I love his movies, so I wanted to pay homage to his work (without copying it blatantly). I thought it needed an unusual color to go with the shape, so I chose the purple, which reminds me of a dark spooky night scene. The trees are stylistic, almost cartoony, to go with the creepy mood. I was going to paint some skeletons, but I thought too much white would take away from the toe and heel. Then, when I was painting some branches on the trees, a face started to appear at the bottom in the purple background. It later became the large pumpkin above. Maybe now, some will believe that these pieces do tell you what they want to be. :) That or, I'm just bonkers.



The left and right sides are painted similarly. The left moon is asleep while the right is awake. And, they are wearing a striped nightcaps.



Experimenting with the laces, I relaced this one at least six times in different ways before deciding to add the polymer clay skulls. I was getting bored of just black laces and wanted something unusual. But, the ribbon was too wide and covered to much of the tongue where I had painted another creepy tree. What do ya think? Daughter commented that they looked like little winged skull butterflies. :) I think she's right on there.

Hope you like it! Now, to get busy on some shoes!

"A Little Batty" Boot Available on Etsy!

Just listed this little orange paper mache witch boot on Etsy.com. In the spirit of this boot, I wrote a quick little rhyme about it for the auction:

"As the full moon rises in the midnight sky,
above a lonely graveyard the ghosts fly by.
They've come to greet the boisterous bats,
and scare the fur off the lazy cats." - Tiffany (mieljolie) 2010

It's a mini-sized version standing 6 3/4" tall and 6" long, that I've named "A Little Batty". The size was based on a tracing of one of my daughter's shoes when she was 6 years-old. Yes, she has large feet for her age. She's going to be really tall. :)

The right side of this boot is of a ghost in a graveyard with an owl looking on in an old tree.



The left side has a group of bats flying in front of a full moon above another section of the graveyard with a scared cat and two other ghosts.



I added more bats to cave scene on the heel and the tongue. And, added a few "fiend"-ship pins to the waxed cotton cord laces.

Hope it captures the spirit of the holiday. Have a great Halloween!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/57232042/original-vintage-style-halloween-witch