In between Tasty Planet 2 work and wedding preparations and site development and story building and a hole slew of other things that will eventually get finished (siiigh), I’ve been helping my brother in law with some costume construction. He really gets into Halloween like me and my husband, and this year he decided he wanted a head cast so he could sculpt all kinds of masks and prosthetic pieces. The whole family pitched in and helped.

Plaster of Paris Head Mold,1st Layer

Doing a life cast is a whole lot easier with three additional pairs of hands. We changed how we did a few things – when prepping the mold for the ultra cal, we bound the old together with a few plaster bandages down the seam AND wrapped it duct tape,and my brother concocted a different type of stand for the ultra cal cast.

Casted Ultra Cal Head

It’s definitely not a process for the faint of heart – stick to buying an armature head or a foam head if you’re a bit claustrophobic. Or have problems breathing. Or if you have an allergy to vaseline. Please, be really careful if you do attempt a head cast (especially if you go the straws-in-nose method).

With Hanukkah just around the corner, and Christmas, Kwanzaa, and a boat-load of festivities on the way, why not make a gift this year? You still have time!

4. Ornament/Key Chain

Holiday Ornaments

All you need is a little Sculpey and some time. There are plenty of tutorials and projects to work from over at the Sculpey site, and many more scattered all over the web. The little guys up above I made last year with plain white Sculpey, and then painted with acrylics.

5. Screenprint/Paint Clothing

Napoleon Screenprint Tie

If you have the time, the gear, and a little bit of time to practice, you can screenprint a shirt, tie, you name it! I used EZ Screen Print, which is a great ‘no-chemical’ way to make screens, but I found that the shipping was so much for the special paper, and I wasn’t using the screens to their full potential. So another method of putting a desired image onto fabric is using the freezer paper method! Much cheaper, and works just as well I find! You do need a little more time to do it, and a little more practice, but you get *fantastic* results. Here’s a few good tutorials, but there are lots of other ones out there – investigate and decide what works best for you!

Yoki the Dragon

If you know someone who is into plushies (either making or receiving them) or you yourself enjoys making stuffed animals, there are many cute and cuddly patterns available online for you to give (or to buy, make and give). This winter solstice season, why not give Yoki to someone you care about, created by DIY Fluffies. I just love this little guy – I’ve made him three times already in a bounty of colours, and have changed bits of the pattern each and every time.

Thunderbride, Thunderbrides maid and Thunderbride mini maid (for the flower girl)

Some shirts that I designed and screen-printed (with help from the hubby) for a bride (my sister!) and her bridesmaids (include me!) to wear pre-wedding. Sigh, if we only had one more person in the wedding party – we would have had enough for a baseball team.

Not bad for my first pattern! Still have to work out some kinks.

Dana

The dragonfly’s a timid thing,
He’s very pretty, too;
His lacy wings are clear as glass
And delicate as dew.
I don’t know why the dragonfly
Has such a fearful name.
I never saw a dragon
That was nearly half as tame.

Geoff

My nephew is going to be born. any. second. now. Give or take a few days. And we’ll be ready for him (with a cute and cuddly giraffe). I had some leftover material from Mitch so I made Geoff (or ‘Raff the Giraffe, from the adorable Funky Friends Factory).

Bite Me! as Performed by Potatoes

A good thing about having a recovering right wrist is I have a lot of reading (sigh, yes, and TV) time. One of the books/graphic novels I have been enjoying as of late is Bite Me! by Dylan Meconis. It’s a funny vampire tale of epic proportions and chickens and I just got my printed copy in the mail last week. You can read it online or buy the printed version; it has a very nice shiny cover, real pages and it gets rid of the complications that are involved in reading a webcomic. Instead of clicking a button, you turn a page! No need to worry about your Internet connection if you do it old school.

As for the image above…well…there was a contest for Bite Me! that I just had to enter. A friend introduced me to the comic long ago and I felt that spending a weekend dressed-up* with painted potatoes and eggs was the best way to show my respects for it…as can be seen here. I must add that later the potatoes were made into mashed garlic taters. (The scene is from this page by the way)

*is it really dressing up if the clothes are from your everyday wardrobe? sigh.

Babies! I just can’t get enough of ‘em!

Zoey, Mitch and Edwin

One (three?) of the babies gifts from my husband and I were these cute and cuddly creatures that I made (and James gave the thumbs-up to) from the very fantastic and wonderful Funky Friends Factory. I had such fun making these guys, and everyone really liked them.

Oh so cuddly.

There is a baby shower this weekend for my sister-in-law; I’ll be decorating cookies and decorating and icing a cake (hopefully). My hand should be ‘fine’ by then! Its a jungle-themed shower (to go with their baby room) and it’s been a ‘cute’ journey of getting things for the shower, making pictures for the baby room, making shower gifts, and making The Lamp.

In the Jungle...

The lamp was a great group project, starting with me and my mother-in-law going off and getting a plain lamp, which is harder than it sounds. We needed one with a flat base, and a rod that we could enclose in bamboo. Now that I think of it, it probably would have saved us time if we just made the entire thing from scratch. The shade on the lamp was awful, so we got a separate shade. Back home, my mother-in-law covered the lamp shade with new material and glued cork to the base, while the mom-to-be and I sculpted the animals and leaves out of sculpey. We had my father-in-law drill some bamboo (its not completely hollow!) and remove the lighting switch while the sculpey figures were painted.

I think it’s cute. I think the baby probably won’t care (BUT in the years to come, will look back on a photo of it and go ‘gawwww!’).  (I made/painted the monkey and the lion.)