Hope your HALLOWEEN is Purrrfect!!!

Hope you're enjoying your Halloween. Thought I'd share this adorable witch cat that Hullabuoy sent me at the end of last year.  It's taken me SO long to post it, because I was still tweaking the witch hat we added to it.  I'd been delaying posting it, because I thought it would be a nice Halloween post.  Leave it to me to wait til the day of!  So, without further ado, here is Crookshanks, the witchy kitty. (Daughter named it, of course).

She hand painted this kitty on a styrafoam buoy with a decorated wooden wand and fabric ears attached!  The wand is removable.  Cathi (Hullabuoy) possesses mad painting skills!  I enjoy seeing all her work, especially the buoys.  You should definitely check out her facebook page at Hullabuoy and Mcathi Designs on Etsy.

The hat was made with the usualy cereal cardboard for the brim and newspaper cone top, all paper mached so that it is really stiff.  We had to cut slits to be able to place it on the kitty's head over the ears.  Best part, is Cathi had the forethought to supply the decorations that we added to the hat.



We love it!  It sits on top of our Harry Potter themed book case all year long.  Thanks so much, again, Cathi, for sending it to us!  So proud to have a piece of your talented work!

Here be Dragons!

Well, I was going to attempt some fairy wings for the daughter and I to wear to faire in a couple weekends.  But in my first experiments, I somehow managed tiny dragon wings instead...hmmm...it's all good, cuz I'm going to an event this coming weekend where the theme is "Here be Dragons".  Love those "happy accidents"!!  :)



And the coolest part is they GLOW IN THE DARK!  Neat, huh?!



Isn't that cool!!  It will be really great, if there are lots of blacklights around.  Glow-in-the-dark works best under the blacklights.  I also love how the light can pass through the membranes.



I used hangers for the main frame that fits into the back of my bodice/corset and thinner 19 gauge steel wire for the fingers.  The tape extends about a 1/2" past the tips, so I can nudge people with them and not take out an eye.  They're are a small set at about 14" long.  This will be a good size to practice traversing crowds in, if we plan to make larger wings for fairies. 



These were pretty easy to make and feel realy cool.  I started by wrapping masking tape around the wire frame, adding extra tape at the knuckles. I covered the tape in glow-in-the-dark fabric paint, which is rather translucent and gave a nice bone color.  I accented the joints with a brown marker. 

  

Then, I used Mod Podge to make the membranes. Who knew mod podge was so stretchy!  They turned out really flexible.  Won't be easy to tear these.  The trick is to paint the Mod Podge onto paper and when dry, rub off the paper with water.  The brush strokes add a kind of veiny effect close up.
Hope you've enjoyed this post.  I'll be away most of this month having fun.  Until I get back, keep bein' crafty!

IMMOBULUS!! - Pesky Pixie Problems Solved

Yep, our house is infested with cornish pixies, again! 

We've had a couple requests to make a few more pixies inspired by the Harry Potter books/movies, so we got to making some improvements while we were at it.  We'd been having some frustrations with the eyes and wings.  We chose to use two colors of Alova Suede Cloth for the bodies.  We made a few minor alterations to the hands, feet and body shapes and decided to use fabric covered wire for the antennae.  The eyes were the most trouble. We couldn't find any more of the acrylic ones we had used in the past.  Then, just recently we discovered a fabric store that sells the larger 19 and 21 mm eyes. But, they were only in brown. So, I ended up using the dremel tool to grind off the brown irises as best I could. I found the 21mm were easier to remove completely.


She cut all the pieces and sewed them together while I helped to turn them, attach the eyes, stuff and hand sew up the opening.  Then, she attached the jointed arms and legs while I sewed on the heads and made them each wings.  So happy to have figure out some wings for these!  And, they are so simple!  I'll get to that more in a bit.   First, here's a pic of each one.  (Of course, they each turned out different as usual.)

Pixie #1 - Wizzopuff 



Pixie #2 - Fizzbang



Pixie #3 - Dizzleboom



Can you believe these were all made from the exact same pattern?!  :D  We haven't given them names, yet.  Daughter just helped named them for us.  Now, for those WINGS!


I made several attempts at them with different materials trying to come up with a light-weight wing that light would pass through.  You may remember  glimps of my glue on wire attempt back here.  I've also tried cellophane, tissue paper, mod podge, tulle and something called "Press and Seal". Each one had different plusses and minuses.



But the best wings I came up with were made with packing tape and a laser copy. It's an image transfer technique I've experimented with a long while back. The wings seem just barely stiff enough not to need wire support.  I made two separarte pieces for the upper and lower wings. And sandwiched a pin back between them. I'm still working to conceal the pinbacks a little better. 


That's all for now!  Mom also experimented with some more polar fleece and even flannel pixies that I will post more about a little later along with an eye experiment.  You may not hear from me for a while, though.  We've got a few events coming up this next month.  But, I'll be back in full on crafting mode in November.

UPDATE:  Now you can own one of our pixies or make some using our Cornish Pixie Pattern/Tutorial available in my Etsy store (mieljolie).