Stoney Mask FO

So the mask we were making for Salvbard was for a birthday LARP that Majes had created for my birthday. Salvbard was playing an Earth Fae, and we wanted something that would really play up that aspect.

A couple of coats of textured spray paint really added to the effect.

The pattern (see previous post for pattern details) was totally doable, although a bit fussy. There were parts that could have been done as symmetrical pieces for each side of the face, but were not, to our moderate irritation.

I added some reinforcing pieces behind the mouth front, around the eye slot, and crossing orthogonally behind the longitudinal head strips. This added a lot of necessary structure and kept the mask from experiencing strong shape bias.

Ultimately though, I am super pleased by how this came out. The major complaint about it was that due to its shape it did get fairly warm, as it trapped the wearer's warm breath against them. It was received well though and got worn far more than I feared.

WIP Stoney mask

This weekend Salvbard and I started a project that combined both of our strengths. I am highly detail oriented and am skilled at handwork. Salvbard has great 3D computer modeling skills. It has been a lovely gift to get that time together; I love what a fabulous team we make.

We started with this pattern: Bio Mask version 2 from Paper Craft Square.

We ended up with 14 pages of pieces, but the software lets you have control over pattern piece layout.

Even by the time that we had cut them out, I was pretty excited to see how it would work. We put them together marked sides inward. Opps! That made everything reversed, but fortunately that was not a problem for our application.

Each piece was creased along the marked vertices, and then we needed the 3D app to figure out how each piece fit with the others. So much folding and creasing! I love the faceted surface texture this produces, which is perfect for what we wanted this for.

Inside you can see the tabs used to glue each of the vertices together. Each edge segment actually had a tab included, so only half were needed. When possible, I tried to alternate which paper piece provided the tab for additional stability and to minimize bias.

So much fun! We need to finish the piecing tonight in order to get the finishing done before this weekend, but I am really looking forward to it.

Journal Making Part 1

Please excuse any weird formatting of this post. I am trying the Blogger app rather than posting from my laptop. It is an adventure!

Today I met up with some friends, and we started making journals, using a tutorial from this site. Now I have a bit of a journal problem... namely that I like journals a whole lot and tend to buy them faster than I use them up. So clearly journal-making was totally up my alley!

I am not really sure why this is something I have never done before. I certainly had all of the skills that feed into it, along with all of the supplies. This meeting we cut and scored covers, folded (pre-cut) pages, assembled punched holes for sewn bindings, sewed and glued the bindings, and clued fabric to the cover. Part two won't happen until next month when we get together again. Stay tuned!

I have to say I was really impressed by how straight forward this process was. And I can see how these would make great gifts if I was so inclined later. I am very grateful to the super crafty people in my community who are happy to share techniques. I wouldn't have thought to try this by myself.

Wreath Ornaments

Lately I have had ornament making on the brain, since I like to include ornaments on the tops of little gifts or in cards. One of the latest Stormtroopers 365 even had the troopers making ornaments. (If you haven't seen this project yet, it is super cute.)

This year I have been focusing on origami wreaths, altought I had hoped to do some felt mittens like those seen on Handmade Homeschool. Maybe next year.

The little wreaths are easy, especially if you have access to a paper guillotine, and are a great way to use up some of my 8"X8" scrap booking paper. One page makes exactly one wreath. Or two pages makes two wreaths if you alternate paper types.

These were a great project to do with Chiquita as well. Although she is often frustrated with origami, this was a project she really took to. The 3 wreaths seen here were made by me, but she spent hours making these in all different types of paper as gifts for friends, family and teachers. Each one is fairly simple but has beautiful results.

Community Art Show

Warning: photo-heavy post ahead. Recently Chiquita's school held their annual community art show. Every year I am completely blown away by the talent of all the kids, parents, and staff at this school. This year was no exception.

There was a surprising amount of work in clay, which I thought was really cool. I loved that there was so many pieces at all different levels of experience. This little dragon in particular I thought was super spunky.


And this snake was really neat too. I'm sorry that this photo doesn't show the texture better, because it was such an interesting combination of smoothness with minor dimpling mimicking the scales.


There were wonderful paintings in acrylic, like this incredibly peaceful one:

And more in watercolor, like this quirky iguana:

There were several paper sculptures made from origami, like this beach scene:

They didn't stop on the small scale though. This model of the titanic, made mostly of paper with some plastic and wood, was over 4" long.

There was even some collage work, like these two images of tulips made entirely from greeting cards. What a great idea of how to use these!

I saw more fabric work than last year, perhaps because of the popularity of Laura's Sewing School. I saw a few mini quilts in addition to Chiquita's blueberry skirt that we submitted to the show.

I think my project next year will be knit or crocheted though. There were not many pieces of these types. The major exception was this whimsical crocheted trout by the local artist, Mara Bradford that I absolutely love. Free-form crochet is so amazing.

Every year I walk away from this event feeling super inspired, and it so cool for the kids to see art valued this way. I am full of ideas I want to try and things I want to make now.

Letting Go

Do other people find it hard to let random neat pieces of paper go? I took our 2006 (!) calendar out of the kitchen this week. I had had this idea of using the images in some sort of paper art, but I need to face the fact that I just won't. They are just larger than the size I like to work with. Would any one like a free dragon calendar. I'll even pay postage. Email me at om1y at nmatrix dot mine dot nu.

Index card book

A while back I Need Orange posted about her idea of having a teeny tiny scrapbook. I loved this idea! Similar to ATCs, this was yet another way to avoid feeling intimidated since it is of such a small size. I do actually like working big, but I find I often do not have the time or space to work as large as I did in college (or even as a kid).

So I stopped by the campus book store, and sure enough they had a very similar thing. The pages are a little too small for collage, so instead I am using mine right now to glue in cut-outs of pictures that I find in magazines or Chiquita's Weekly Reader that I might want to draw later. I had been avoiding doing this in my moleskine because I was too worried about the cut out pictures not being archive safe. Here though, they can all be together, and I don't need to worry about them harming any other work. And due to the ring binding, it can sit completely open to work in, which is really nice.

Additionally I am keeping a list of prompt ideas as suggested a few episodes back of the Creative Mom Podcast. The size of these pages is great for themed prompt ideas or sections of EDM prompts that I didn't do yet.