Sunday, September 13, 2015

Tales of Trial and Terror: Bat Wing Shoes, Polymer Pumpkins, Watery Witches... Oh My!

Its been entirely too long since I've dabbled in anything outside my sewing bubble.

Partly because fabric has officially overtaken my craft room, but mostly because I still haven't been reunited with the supplies and tools I have stored at my momma's house back in Canada.

When I was invited to participate in a closed Halloween swap, I jumped at the chance to let my creativity really flow-- the chance to make someone happy with Halloween goods is an odd pleasure of mine. I think mostly because other than people online, there isn't many people I know who are as enthusiastic about Halloween as I am. I also seem to be the most creative/productive when I know I am making something for someone.

Anyway, this swap gave me a really good excuse to get reacquainted with old crafts, and discover new ones. There were many frustrated sounding "crap"s and "damnit"s heard from the closed doors of my craft room... but despite the sounds and words, I was having the time of my life. How I missed creating halloweeny goods.

Once upon a time, I used to dream of working with polymer clay.
That time has long since passed in favor of other things, mostly grown up things-- like job searching, bill paying, and spending my liquid budget on sewing supplies.
Now that I have the excess of time again and some wiggle room away from sewing, I brought down the unnecessarily large box of white clay from another time I tried getting back to polymer clay creation-- the time I knocked off eyeball hair bows. By the way, I ended up buying liquid polymer clay and it does wonders, I tell you, wonders!

I wanted to make pumpkins... many many pumpkins. Instead I ended up with one. One's a start!


At one point it had a stem; a cute swirly one.
Alas... when I was spraying on the seal, the force of the blast knocked it off the table and smashed it off. I decided to keep it off because if the short fall was able to break it off, then surely dangling from a phone would break it off again. Next time I'll make a thicker stem and try attaching it to an inner wire.
It was also my first time using this brand of seal-- it's from plaid, it's their Matte seal. I can't give an opinion of it because unlike bicycle riding, I forgot the do's and don'ts, and used it under humid conditions-- crap. It remained tacky several hours later, despite having a 30 min cure time. Opps.
Well, one neat aspect of this little charm is that I gave the face a coat of glow in the dark paint... so when the lights are off, its smiling face remains seen. I wish there was a way for me to show just how adorable it is in the dark.

Next, I wanted to make bat wings for shoes.
I don't remember where the heck I saw the project; likely pinterest or facebook; but I knew I just had to make them.

"OMIGAWD BAT WINGS!" totally what Khan is saying.

Well, they turned out pretty successful... after a few failed attempts at making those blasted holes!


I had to bust out my entire arsenal of hole makers. First to be used were my very under used metal punchers inside the coffin which I had purchased at a liquidation mall. No wonder they were under used, because all they managed to do was create an unsightly dent.

Second up was yet another under utilized item from my sewing room... the hole punching pliers. Alas, twas not to be little pliers... you stink at making holes! Maybe I didn't have enough wrist strength for you, though...

I sat for a moment and mulled over my failures, and decided it was because they were not sharp enough. So armed with a 50% off coupon, I went and bought the punches (in blue) from Joanns. After using the plethora of hammers in our household (from rubber to industrial), they did nothing but marr the leather like the rest. I kept them, in case their failure was of my own inexperience... and because the tips were cone shaped, unlike the ones I already had.

Feeling a little defeated, I sat for another moment...
Then it dawned on me that I had the home pro LR that my brother had given me!
There it sat on the shelf, untested on real leather... hmmm.
I made sure to pet it and pray to the sewing gods that my money wasn't invested in vain in this thing, buying all its hard-to-find accessories.

It cut through with a satisfying plunge. Suuuuucccessss. I do wonder what the long term ramifications of making many bat wings are though...

Last but not least, I bought myself a cheap palette of water colors. After water coloring a strip of bacon onto a post card for a friend, it gave me a real taste for the medium-- the palette she had given me was one of those crayola ones with a limited range of color. The one I bought was no different in quality, but had a few more colors to play with.


I had planned to paint this for a little bit in a way; it's from a little halloween party favor; a tiny little notebook. I simply forgot about it until I wanted to add a little bit of everything to the box to be swapped.
I changed the colors and a few details a bit but the image/concept stuck with me for years. I was actually really surprised it turned out the way it did... at first it looked like a horrid mess with no definition. I kept adding too much water, then loading my brush too heavily. Some dabs took too much off, and some dabs moved the paint to a really weird spot.
After it dried, I took an ink pen and created those hard lines; it cleaned it up remarkably well. Funny how a few harsh lines can affect the overall effect of a piece. Perhaps I may even continue to water color... maybe even take a class? One can dream.

These aren't the only contents of the box, mind you. Just ones that took a little more effort on my end to complete-- things that make good...

Trials and terror! Muahaha...

11 comments:

  1. Bootwings and your drawing look amazing! And the little pumpkin is sweet as pie!

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    1. Thank you! It was a lot of fun trying to get to know other lost crafts =)

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  2. Dearest, I'm so glad you enjoyed the crafting for the swap! Your creations are truly amazing, and I marvel at the simple greatness of those bat wings. That is going to be one lucky recipient :)

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    1. Oh thank you for hosting it, it was something to work towards during a blue period-- gave me something to do instead of worry all day, heh.

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  3. Ooh, Halloween swap! A great reason to try new things. Fun! :D

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    1. Yes! It was such a needed distraction-- couldn't have come at a better time =D
      I love doing swaps!

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  4. Y'all need to beware of Mari Mortem, because she is psychic, and you never know what secrets she will unearth.

    See, I really needed a spooky purse. I have been wearing all these gothy clothes recently, and though I'm not matchy-matchy, my Montana West purse was *so* not doing it. So I was going to make one. It was on my project list for the next few weeks. Then I opened this box of wonders from Mari, and on top was a FABULOUS Halloween purse! My jaw literally dropped. And I never use "literally" when I mean "figuratively."

    And on TOP of that the box is full of more super stuff! The wings are as amazing as they look. I don't wear boots (because Florida), but I do have bearded dragons. So those wings are going to get a slightly different use. Stay tuned.

    The little pumpkin is adorable, and the pic here of the watercolor doesn't do it justice--I love it.

    She piled a whole bunch of other stuff in there--stickers and ribbons (I'm addicted to Halloween ribbon) and candy and...and...well, I just hope she's my swap partner again next year.

    I'll be getting some pics of my pile of loot and putting them over on Facebook and my blog, Spookymoon.com, so stay tuned.

    THANK YOU MARI!

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    1. I am ecstatic to see you enjoyed your box so much =D
      I really didn't know what I'd put in at first, and then Ms Misantropia said I could do it all if I felt so inclined, hehe. I did! I do hope we get to do this again next year. I had a lot of fun putting the box together.

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  5. Well, aren't you the clever girl! I love everything you made and obviously so does your swap partner as she already got it! Jeez, I just drove into the city today to mail off mine, and I know it's going to take at least three weeks to get where it's going. ;)

    That didn't give too much away, did it?

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    1. Thank you =P
      I am already compiling a list of possible things if this were to happen again next year.

      I'm not good at hints so I didn't notice anything ;P

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  6. What fantastic creations! I adore them! I really want those boot wings!

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