Gilded Cage Corset

If you follow my craft page on Facebook, you might have seen that I recently entered a corset decorating contest held by Orchard Corset.  The challenge was to embellish one of their corset styles using whatever material we wanted to.  Well, the results are in, and though I didn't place I consider my results a win for me.  I'm happy with my new corset, which probably wouldn't have been finished without the motivation of the contest.  There were some really nice entries you can see in OC's Pinterest board.



It was slightly frustrating and labor intensive, but also an enjoyable learning experience that I managed to squeeze in between my other projects.  (...and the main reason I didn't get a new witch BOO't available for this year.)



For my concept I wanted to do something with spooky trees similar to some of my witch boo'ts, but I stumbled across a raven in an image on Pinterest called "The Doorman" by Katya Horner that sparked my creativity.  I liked the idea of an illusion of a gilded cage where it looks as if you are looking in at a raven in a cage or out from behind a gate/cage at the raven in the woods.



I chose to use their 345 corset.  I purchased one that was slightly uneven at the bottom edge, so I wanted to try my hand removing the binding to correct it, anyway.  I figured the single boning channels would work well as part of the cage bars.  While I had it apart to trim the lower edge I removed the boning and labeling the pieces to put them back in order.  Removing the boning would prevent it from rusting when I dyed the beige/tan color with RIT's Aquamarine and Denim liquid fabric dye. I diluted just a little before applying it with a sponge brush.  I avoided dying the boning channels only because I was going to paint them anyway, and they are thick and would take longer to dry.  It is hard to see the two-tone color variation in the pics, but I was sorta going for a blurry shadow look for depth behind my imagery.



Once I had it dried, I wanted to try a few different mediums on my wearable cotton twill art canvas.  ;)  I drew the raven and branches in place with pencil before going over it with permanent marker.  I know marker isn't the best choice, but I really didn't want to make the panels on the corset too stiff with paint.  This corset has not been broken in, and I imagine it still needs to do a bit of stretching to conform to me.  Once I had the design on I started painting the boning channels black with craft paint.



Next, I brushed a thin coat of bronze craft paint over the black channels.  I also traced over the spiral designs with a mix of slick fabric paint in black and metallic gold that made a darker antique gold before adding some painted faux rivets to the channels.  In hind sight I find it just a little too dark to contrast with the black silhouette branches in some lighting.  I would like add a little more gold and go back over them.




After I was done decorating the corset, I found some brown bias tape to replace the bulkier double-layer tan twill binding that came on the corset.  The brown actually matches with the bronze paint pretty well.  Originally, I was thinking about using black binding and painting it like the boning channels, but opted not to thinking it would make the binding stiff and rough at the edges.



That's pretty much everything.  You can see more of the progress pics and supplies in the Pinterest board created for the contest here:
https://www.pinterest.com/mieljolie/so-you-think-you-can-decorate/

Though I really love painting my witch boo'ts and other decorative projects, it's kinda cool to be able to wear your creations.  I had a lot of fun on this.  I really want to try another.  I found an irregular 426 long line Orchard Corset in tan, but it will need way more correction before I can decorate it.  Should have some costuming and props to show in the meantime.

Lockhart's DADA Pop Quiz and Pixie Hunt

This post is a continuation of the projects we attempted for the 2nd Annual Harry Potter themed birthday party we held back in November.  To keep student busy while we prepared the House Cup Award Ceremony and End of Term Feast, we sent them to the DADA classroom where they took a 54 question Gilderoy Lockhart pop quiz and helped return escape pixies to their cage.



Pop Quiz
The quiz was, of course, essay questions all about the professor with all facts taken from the books, movies and even the Pottermore website.  It was pretty tough coming up with 54 questions about this supporting character.  I printed the 3 page quiz on longer legal-size paper, which I planned to stain like parchment with watercolor as pictured.  We expected students to fail miserably in answering most of the obscure questions, but we were surprised by their knowledge of everything Lockhart.  Two student just about had full marks and there were many humorously clever answers that we read aloud.  Students all got a signed glossy photo for their effort.

- Would you like a copy of the quiz?  Find a PDF here.  And, you can find the answer key here.
- Or, why not try taking the playbuzz version to see how well can you do?

We wanted to give the DADA classroom some elements specific to 2nd year.  So we came up with the following simple projects:



Framed Pictures
In the Chamber of Secrets movie, Lockhart's office was littered with framed pictures and paintings of himself, so I scoured the internet to print as many pics of Lockhart that I could find.  I trimmed the printouts and covered all the framed photos we had in our house gathering them into our DADA room.  (We must look like obsessed fans of the actor, Kevin Branagh.  Hahaha)  I tried my darnedest to find a decent pic of the large oil painting of him painting himself, but alas, I did not succeed on that one.



Signed Photos and Simple Peacock Quill 
The desk in the classroom was littered with some of the professor's things.  Some of the images I found of Lockhart were actually signed already.  So, I printed up some of these in 5x7 glossies to pass out to students.  ( you may notice the one on the right is actually signed as Branagh.  Oops.  Hehe) And, of course we had to have a peacock quill to sign them with.  We made one at the last minute by floral taping a tail feather to a pen with the barrel removed.  Then, I wrapped the stem with green string.



Textbook Covers
I didn't managed to find many decent pics online to use as book covers for the 1st and 2nd year textbooks used in the Harry Potter movies.  I did find a few lower resolution ones, even a couple from the obnoxiously long list required by Lockhart.  Some needed a little photoshopping to clean them up, but they looked convincing enough wrapped around random books.  I made one complete set off of the textbooks reworking the tiny thumbnail images on Pottermore to fill in the missing covers I couldn't find.

• Magical Theory
• Standard Book of Spells - Grade 1 and 2
• History of Magic
• The Dark Forces
• Magical Drafts and Potions
• A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration
• 1000 Magical Herbs and Fungi
• (We already had "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them")

I only managed to find three of Lockhart's books.  I'm amazed at the attention to detail on these books used in the movie.  They are:

• Guide to Household Pests
• Break with a Banshee
• Year with the Yetti

So, the Pottermore images had to due to complete the Lockhart set, as well.



Pixie Hunt
We've sewn quite a few pixies in the past.  And, now my mom is making smaller ones to infest our house.  We decided to make another game with them.  We created a cover for our pixie cage like the red one in the movie (Sorry, not pictured).  Then when we lifted off the cover, the cage was wide open and empty.  We asked the students to perform a quick hunt to round them up in the class room.  House points were award to those who found them.  (You may have notice Harry hanging out in the back of this photo.  Daughter made me my very own Potter Pal Puppet for Christmas!  She's getting so crafty on her own.  Best present ever!  )



With the quiz, framed pictures, signed photos and book covers, there was a great deal of printing in this portion of our party decoration.  But, we lucked out when our local friendly printer, Minuteman Press (who were super friendly and helpful), was having a special on color copies for half price!  Perfect timing!  Yay!  It ended up costing well under the $20 I had budgeted for all the book covers and photos.  I was even able to print some more candy boxes and labels (not pictured).  I tried a couple new versions that I made changes to.  Also, worked on some designs for wizard cards, but they are far from usable, yet.  Maybe this year.

After classes we tallied the house points and met in the Great Hall for the Awards Ceremony.  The daughter says the Lockhart Quiz and the Degnoming were her favorite things.    The winners of the house cup, Slytherin (boo, I think they cheated.), received boxes of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and a bottle of Butter Beer.  Some high scoring students also got gobstones marble sets in their house colors.  I still have a few random things left to share like our birthday cake.  Stay tuned!

Hogwart's Birthday Party 2nd year - Aragog's Cobweb Maze

This past November's 2nd annual Hogwart's Party had many more games this year.  After opening ceremonies and the de-gnoming detention, it began to get dark outside.  It was a perfect time to encouraged students to wander around the Forbidden Forest at night, right?  Here are some details of one of the scarier after dark events, Aragog's Cobweb Maze!



The weather forecasted rain for pretty much all of Saturday, so we knew we'd have to do any outdoor activities on Friday (even through the dark of night).  When student came back inside from the degnoming, we drew attention to the line of spiders heading from our main bathroom out through the Great Hall window.



We hinted that following the spiders out to the forbidden forest they might see what was up.  The line of spiders actually started appearing from the bathroom shower drain meandering all the way out through the great hall passed the fireplace to the window.



(Our party being just after Halloween, we found tiny plastic spiders for the floor and the perfect vinyl window clings for the shower wall and mirrors for up to 80% off in the clearance bins around town. Yay!)

With about 25 acres of land out here growing wild, we had the perfect location between a couple of small hills for our Forbidden Forest.  And, there were just enough trees to hang the giant cobweb maze that would outdo our measly porch from years ago.  (The kids had requested this cobweb maze.  I may have mentioned the one I made back in my youth a few times.  We had transformed our closed in porch into a cobweb maze for Halloween where Trick-or-Treaters had to wind their way through the webs under the glow of an eerie green porch light to get to the front door for treats.)  So, I found a few bags of artificial webbing and some plastic/rubber spiders here and there, and we had our maze.  But, this time we used both white and black webs.  The white webs were pretty easy to spot in the dark and kept the students on the path, however closer toward Aragog some black webs were mixed in that are nearly impossible to see..and easy to walk into.  (Hehehe)  The webs also got lower and harder to pass by.



At the end of our maze was Aragog (or, as we say, one of his smaller relative) protecting what the students were supposed to retrieve. We would award house points for retrieving three rare acid green glow-in-the-dark spiders (not pictured) from Aragog's web for Professor Snape as potion ingredients.

 

For scale, here Aragog is on our Jeep at about 4-5ft across from toe to toe.  That is pretty small for a full grown Acromantula, who is supposed to be the size of a small elephant. But, we had our limits.  This size was creepy enough for the kids. :)



As I've mentioned before, we were on a strict low budget.  This event, including spiders and webs cost us no more than $10 total.  We used mostly stuff we already had.  Aragog is made of masking tape, wire hanger, paper towel tubes, cardboard, plastic bags, newspaper and is wrapped in two rolls of black duct tape.  His eyes were made from plastic bottle caps.  I hot glues tacks into them and just stabbed them into the head.  We had two sizes of paper towel tube and even used the wider tube leftover from one of the duct tape rolls to create the removable joints.  Yes, you read that right.  He comes apart for storage.  Each leg/arm, eyes, his fangs and even his trash bag bum are all removable.  His legs, being all wire wrapped in paper and plastic bags covered in tape, are easily posed, too.  We planned to use him again for the six year when Aragog is supposed to pass on.  Since his legs are bendable, we can put him on his back with the legs all crunched up.  And the fangs may be used in a future challenge.  But, I'm afraid the kids want him to hang around each year...alive.   :(



Also, in the distance near the entrance to the cobweb maze, students could see the lit up headlights of our cardboard flying car stuck in a tree.  The holes in front were for flashlight headlights.  My mom and my daughter helped make the car out of a cardboard box with paper plate tires painted with acrylic paints.  I think I had more fun running around the house with the car over my head.  Vroom...vroom... (Yes, that did happen!)  Due to it's puny size, this tree in our yard has now become known as the "Wimpy Willow".  :(

That's all for this project.  I hope to share some more things soon!

Hogwart's Birthday 2nd Year - Chamber of Secrets Reopened

We hosted our 2nd year Hogwart's Birthday Party weekend for my daughter this past November.  Since the theme this year was "Chamber of Secrets", which is the daughter's favorite book/movie, most of the new projects were inspired by events that happened in the story.  (But, luckily much of our decorations could be reused from last year, too.)



When our guest arrived around 3pm on Fri, a flying car was stuck in a tree just in view from the driveway.  (Guess some of the students are at it again.)  Once inside, we took their bags and ushered them into the Great Hall to start the festivities.

Over the next few months I hope to share some of our new projects related to the decorations, games and food. You can read the posts on our first year party starting with Part 1 of 4.  I'll start this years party in order of how it went.  Projects will include:

• De-Gnoming the Garden Gnome Hunt & Toss Game
• Aragog's Cobweb Maze
• DADA Lockhart's Pop Quiz & Pixie Challenge
• Repotting Mandrakes
• Aunt Petunia's Pudding Cake

It was a LOT of fun...and work!  So, look for more Harry Potter posts to come.

PUMPKIN PATCH Witch Shoe

Finished a witch shoe that's been in my work space for ages.  I've posted about it before, but finally got the details finished.  I just love how the long narrow shape of this shoe turned out.  (Daughter actually shaped the newspaper toe for me.)



With thirty-one Jack O'Lanterns all over it, I'm calling it "Pumpkin Patch".  Each JOL has a different expression.  Some are happy.  Some are sad, scared, surprised...a little of everything.  It reminds me of a pumpkin jewelry set I created for a craft swap a long while back.  They'd probably go well together.  :)  It's fun to come up with different faces for them.



One is in the center of the buckle in front.  Three in the inside sole.  Three are on the heel.  And, the rest are around the shoe along with various fence posts.



I used four copper wires that sort of sprout out the toe with flower beads on them.  And a black ruffle around the buckle to soften it up a bit.



This one is on it's way to New Zealand over the next week.  Should make it there by Halloween.  Hope it arrives safely.  **crossing fingers**

If you don't hear from me before then... HAVE A CRAFTY HALLOWEEN!!!

SKIPPY SCARECROW Witch BOO't

Finally finished a pair of paper mache witch boots for this Halloween. Whew...it's about time!



I've been working on this pair off and on for more than a year.  But, the illustrations are more elaborate then most of my work at this size.  (My hands and eyes just aren't what they used to be.)  There are four different scenes that tell the story of how Miss Witch meets Skippy, the Scarecrow.



"Miss Witch flew out on broom one day
Over rows of corn and bails of hay,
When she spied a scarecrow all alone
Perched high upon his wooden throne.

Up so high but looking low,
All dressed up, no where to go.
Crows caused him constant dismay,
Clawing and pecking him every day.

She asked him, 'How is it up there...
So far up there in the air?'.
Staring down at the ground
As crows cawed, he just frowned.

It did no good to try to balk,
For we all know scarecrows can't talk.
Oh, what poor Skippy Scarecrow would give
To sing and dance...just to live.

Miss Witch sympathized with his plight.
She pondered and conjured with all her might.
To cure him of his dreadful frown,
With a charm Miss Witch, she got him down.

Thanking her he tipped his hat,
Skipping away with a big black cat.
Skippy got his wish to be set free.
And, in the distance, Miss Witch heard... 'WHOOPIE!'"

"Miss Witch Meets Skippy Scarecrow" by mieljolie, © 2014

Here is the other side.  These are actually the first images in the series.



Here's a close up of Skippy just hangin' around.

You can own these boots, if you feel inclined to.  They're available in my Etsy store here.  Now to get a shoe finished!  Until then, keep on being Crafty!

De-gnoming the Garden Bean Bag Toss Game

Daughter and her cousin enjoyed the Harry Potter party last year so much they requested to have one again this year.  Yay!  Hogwarts 2nd year it is!  We have a lot of planning and crafting to do before November!  We've got games and many many new creatures and objects to recreate.  Here is one project that is probably my favorite so far.



Bean Bag Garden Gnomes!



We made a total of eight gnomes for a "De-gnoming the Garden" bean bag toss game.  There is one large 12' tall one and seven smaller 10" ones.  Four with and three without acrylic eyes that I started putting on them before realizing they will most likely get scratched up when tossed.



Students (Players) will have to hunt down a gnome; tag it; and toss it over a fence (maybe into hoops) for a possible combined Herbology/Care of Magical Creatures Class.  We may have two different versions of the game.  One on timing and one for accuracy that will earn house points.  Students will get extra points for finding the largest gnome ("Arthur")  Yes, we decided to name them all after the Weasleys since they are the ones that introduced de-gnoming to us at the Burrow in the "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets".



Arthur and Bill



Charlie and Percy



Ron and and the smallest one, Ginny  (Didn't get good close ups of Fred and George.)





I tried to alter the pattern to appear more like the gnome illustration in the "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" book.  About 10" tall with a potato-shaped head.  Couldn't figure out how to make hairy or horned feet, yet.  :)



While we were getting the pattern figured out, we made a couple prototypes.  Not knowing what else to do with them, we decided to paint them as golden gnome angels for our Christmas tree.  (Fred and George painted a gnome that bit one of them in "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" book.)



Looks like Fred getting ready to sneak back into the garden!  Bad gnome!  :)

Working on some Witch BOO'ts that I hope to have listed on Etsy this week.  Just finishing up some details and the poems for them.  I'll post when they are available.

UPDATE:  You can now have gnomes of your own from my Etsy store (mieljolie).

New Witch BOO'ts for 2014 painted by J.Moore of Creepy Creations!

Not only is this pair the first witch BOO'ts finished this year, they are the first matching set of small boots, as well as the first collaboration with my sister, Jamie Moore of Creepy Creations.  My mom and I sculpted this small set for Jamie to paint for a commission.  I then helped put some finishing touches on them.

 

There are two scenes that mirror each other on each boot.  One side is of a witch holding a spider in front of a cat.

The other is a graveyard scene with an owl in a tree and a cat sitting on a tombstone.



For this set I added brass eyelets to the lace holes, which I don't normally do.  It's difficult to get them in those tight spots and tough on my hands.  (You probably won't see these eyelets on many of my pieces.)  I then tea stained some tiny lace for the lacing trying to match the antique white of the moons.  The ends of the laces were wrapped in masking tape and dipped in a metallic gold fabric paint to make them look like metal tips.  I couldn't find a gold to match the eyelets, so I mixed black with the bright gold.  It ended up a pleasantly close match.



Jamie is planning to paint some more witch BOO'ts in the future.  We've been talking of doing more collaborative work together.  So, keep an eye on her Etsy shop, Creepy Creations.  You may see a large boot, another small pair, or even an adorable ornament size we're working on.  Can't wait to see how they turn out.

I also hope to have a pair of small Witch BOO'ts and a shoe available in my own shop this week.  Just need to do some finishing touches.  Wish me luck!  I'll post here on my blog when I do.