Horns, cheap and simple

For Dystopia Rising, sometimes a list of requested donations goes out. On that list this time was a request for horn that were light and big. You can defintely buy these, but sometimes the directors put things on the list for people to make.


One of the marshals who runs the costume area made a comment I couldn't ignore even though I'm trying not to take on crazy amounts of work right now. :P

Anyway, I sat down and fiddled around a bit. I wanted to make these as simply and cheaply as possible. D.R. already costs a ton to play.

What you'll need:
Toilet rolls tubes or any type or rolled tubes
Tape
Scissors
Modge Podge
Paper Towels


I started but cutting down the rolls into strips or roll. Once I had enough I began building the horns. This is a lot like putting togeather a puzzel but you sometimes have to modify the pieces so they'll fit inside each tube. Use the tape to connect your card board strips into smaller circles as you make the point. Just keep fitting them into eachother at an angle and curling the horn till you get a shape you like. Something like this first picture.

Once you're happy with the shape you can move onto the covering phase. You can't just jump right to painting as the card board will have huge gaps. By covering it with something like paper towel it'll fill in those gaps fairly well and give you a nice texture on the horns. I layed down a layer of modgepodge first. Then applied the torn up paper towels to the wet spot and covered that with more Modge Podge. I didn't repeat the whole layering here, but I'd recommend doing that just to make the horns stronger. Ttap the wet paper towel down into the rings a bit to accentuate the horn spirals a bit as you go. You'll have to let this dry over night before moving on to painting. Don't worry about the messy base yet. We'll get to that later. here they are with the modge podge all done.

Here's a pic of them after they've dried and had their first layer of paint. It's at this point you can get a bit fancy with the painting. Drybrushing, inking, etc. I just did a layer of brown for now. The right pic is them dry. YOu can see a bit of texturing and color splotching already. 

This last part, connecting them to something, is always the hardest. I generally just use elastic. Just make sure you use a color that would disappear into your hair. This part is easy. Make a hole then add elastic. If you don't want them to move around much add knots on each side of the horn. Make sure you have them where you want them on your head.

Other ideas are to attach them to head bands. Or to use screws into wigs. etc.

As always have fun. if you have questions feel free to ask.

Winter is Coming Glass Pendants

In this post I'm trying something new. I keep seeing those focal pieces with the picture behind the glass bubbles. I have a big batch of them so I plan to make a few Game of Thrones House pendants.

What you'll need:

Round glass focal
Your design to be placed on the back
Cork for magnets
Moleskin for necklaces
Bails
E6000 glue
Modge Podge
necklace or cord for necklace


The first thing you need to do is print out your images. I used some Game of Thrones pictures. You need to size them to the focal you are using. The easiest way to do this is to place the focal over the image and trace around the focal as closely as you can. Once you cut out your circle glue it to the back somehow. Depending on your printer the image shouldn't smudge when you put Modge Podge over it.

To start with you want to use your glass cabochon to make a circle on your paper. Once you get that circle cut out (and may scavenge the rest of the image for more cabochons like i had to) you'll have to put Modge Podge on the back. I used a paint brush. Place the cabochon to you paper and use more Modge Podge on it to glue it in place. If you're getting a milkiness in your image place the whole thing paper down before repainting it and press, that'll push all the bubbles out and give you a clearer image. 

The back will look something like this once its glued down and re-glued. It'll feel a bit plastic-like on the back, don't worry about it. If you have edges that didn't stay flat clip them with tiny scissors and do another gluing.

This is how they should turn out if you did everything right. How the image sits is up to you. It's all a matter of preference.

This is what you'll get if you scavenged the rest of the images. I made ones with the house sayings and ones with the house names. I have plans for another post on how to clear up the blank space, but really you can do anything there.

Other examples of images that came be used. I had some glass cabochon's left so I filled them. Then I discovered some of my metal backs left with their glass so I made a whole set of Sailor Scouts! I think I like the glass ones better because the glass magnifies the picture.

The last thing you'll need to do to these before finishing the backs is to attach bails so you can hang them on necklaces if you'd like. Bails are little metal pieces with a loop that you can use to make these into necklaces. They look like this. And a good, non-asian market, seller with a good price can be found here: https://www.etsy.com/transaction/208041901

You'll want to glue these on with E6000. In some cases it might have been best to glue them on first, but I'll have to experiment with that to say one way or the other. Give them a day to fully dry.

This is what mine looks like once I glued the bail on.

After you're happy with you pieces and your bails are glued on tight you can cover the backs with moleskin so nothing rubs on your skin. I've seen other do this with cork or regular cloth, but over all moleskin fabric or even scraps pieces of mirco suede is nicer on your skin.

This follows the same process of construction as the circles. Trace your glass cabochon, cut, and glue the piece on. Don't do a second outer layer of glue though. That'll take away the nice feeling of the fabric.

These glass cabochons can be anything from necklaces to magnets to whatever you want. You could even decorate an entire table with them, resin it over, and have something fun to look at. It's all up to you.

Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, etc. I"m always up for a chat!

Covered note books

Ok, I lied a tiny bit. i was sure I wouldn't be able to post but these last few days I've been out of wedding things to plan, so I've been doing busy work.

At my bridal shower I was given some very awesome and much needed household items like a shower rack and a new bedspread. We only had one bedspread big enough for a bed before this one. The box was wrapped in some very pretty paper so I saved as much as i could and brought it home.

Today I wrapped a bunch of old ugly notebooks in the paper. I keep all my note books because I'm always writing stuff down, but some of these books are kinda banged up and really ugly.

Wrapping books is very easy. I learned how to do a lot of this when i was in high school and primary school, but the skills stayed with me even into collage because collage books are damn expensive and if you keep them in good shape you can get some of that money back. Further more, I use the skill a lot in repairing books for people.

Long story short, it's a simple ability, but a good one.

All it takes is a note book, some good glue. I used either E6000 or Elmer's book binding glue. Either works well. Even basic Elmer's glue would work, but I'd recommend using a brush to spread the glue. You want to avoid bubbles from big pools of glue.

Then all you need is the paper.

I cut a piece of paper about an inch and a half to two inches wider than my book. Honestly you can make this wider or small, whatever you want, but I wouldn't go much shorter than an inch or the paper might not hold.

Then I started gluing the paper to the notebook.

What you get is this:

Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, etc. I"m always up for a chat!

Wedding Guest Book, Invitations, and Thank You Cards

Today is going to be a simple blog. I seem to have torqued my left arm which is my main arm. I can't lift much more than a thin magazine without pain so I sat down and started putting together my guest book for my wedding.

I didn't want a book that only got the first page filled with rushed signatures. I figured it'd be nice if I could set little cards down at the tables and let people fill them out at their leisure. I hope it works.

Tools:

Ink stamps I cut myself

Gold ink

Scissors

Paper

The left and bottom stamps I cut myself. They make little cutting tools and flat blanks for cutting your own stamps at most stamp places. THis was a scary procedure because the image I printed didn't want to iron on to the stamp. I had to use a bright light to see the fine imprint it left and cut carefully. Also cut deeper than you think you need too. If it's shallow it won't leave a good stamp impression. 

This is my ink pad. Joann's sells these and so does just about any craft supply.. It runs out fast though.

My guestbook card blanks that will go into the little envelopes. And the little envelopes before stamping.

THe guestbook. We decided we didn't want a plan white book. We wanted something with meaning and came across this book. It has tons of shakespear sayings on each page of the book and is really fun to read. I'm also writing little letters to my future husband in them. 

Items to be worked on:

Guestbook

Envelopes for guests notes

Invitations

Thank you letters

Here is where the main body of work began and why this post is so late. The book is sent to the page where the envelopes would begin to be glued in. 

 I had to stamp each envelope with either a feather or an inkwell then glue them into the book. Stamping is one of those things that is easy but also take precision. I had to make sure the stamp was set within the borders of the paper or it would get on the table, and a lot of this sis done blind in a way because the stamp with a backing makes it hard to see where the actual stamp is going. I messed up a few cards this way.

These are my inkwell ones. THey came out pretty good at least i liked them.

 This is a picture of the envelopes glued into the book. Some of my envelopes puckered cuz the glue was thick. I had to use what i had on hand because my glue stick had dried up. I was not happy about that.

 These are the cards from above with the stamping on them. This was the hard one because i couldn't see the stamps placement due to the block it was attached too and it was attached in an offset placement so it took quite a while to do this right.

Next up on my list of paper works to get finished are my thank you cards. I'm trying to get this all done at the same time so it can be set and ready to fill out then mail. These I wanted something on the envelope as well as the cards.

The ink well went on the envelopes. I began to run out of ink here and had to supplement in gold paint. I don't recommend this. Paint is a fickle medium for stamping with. It's goopy and messy and takes a bit of work to use. I ended up with some blotchy inkwells but overall they looked fine. The benefit to paint over ink is that once the paint dries it won't smear. The ink needs to be sealed, but I'll go into more on that near the end.

These are the inner cards, the Thank You's themselves. They are a very light blue. Originally these were supposed to be my guestbook cards and envelopes, but they were way to big so I decided to use them for the Thanks yous. They work out well that way.


Finally we got our invitations and rsvp cards printed. The middle is our card, the blue will get glued inside and the card on the left is the rsvp which has a madlibs on the back for them to reply with.

Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, etc. I"m always up for a chat!

Cabochon Focals

I'm starting this blog in the hopes that i can keep up with my crafts. Like many, but not all, crafters I have a habit of starting a project only to have the next project grab my interest before i finish the first. I'm hoping to curtail this habit this year. Call it my New Year's Resolution. :)

Beyond that this is just a fun little blog to showcase my crafts. If I do tutorials cool, if not boo. Either way hopefully I'll have something to show for this by the end of the year. My second goal is to post once a week, hopefully on fridays.

Wish me luck!

For starters I'll post my current short project, cabachon pendants.

These are fairly easy. You don't need the tools I use. Something that fits nicely inside your backing would work just fine for cutting too, or use the glass cabachon. Either way works.

It's a fairly simple process. use a cutter to cut out a part of the paper you like, fit it into the silver back to make sure its snug. Then pull it out and glue it down. I use whatever glue is available. In this case modge podge cuz it dries clear and is rather secure. After that rub some glue on the glass piece and fit into the silver back.

What you get is pieces like these. 

The variety is endless. I'll be experimenting later on with just using resin or modge podge inside, to put in different things like beads or little bits of glitter or even words and phrases. The options are as endless as your imagination.

Feel free to ask questions, leave comments, etc. I"m always up for a chat!