Thursday, July 31, 2014

Snitch Sampler


I was having trouble deciding what to work on for my day off this week and as I was going through my checklist, I realized nothing particularly appealed.  So I did a side trip and did a project that I hadn't even considered putting on my list because I had deemed it far too ambitious and well, insane given the number of other projects.  While in the rabbit hole that is the internet, I came across a gorgeous quilt that someone had made with all different scraps of red fabric and a few snitches appliqued on.  I of course immediately wanted one, but realized that it was more than I really had time for.

BUT...I modified a version of it.  Instead of small strips of fabric laid out in brick like form, I went with just strips of whatever red fabric I had.  And instead of several small snitches, I went with one larger one that took up the bulk of space on the piece.  And I made it much smaller.  Not sure where it'll eventually end up, but I've got a few ideas.  It took a few hours all in all, mostly helped by the fact that I had all the material, as well as some leftover binding from the most recent dragon blanket.  It's not quilted--I just put a piece of red fabric on the back before putting on the binding, but I want it to be light, and serve as a wall covering.  I still need to attach some loops or something to the back so it'll hang, but as I'm not sure where it'll go, I think I'll hold off on that for a bit.  All in all, well pleased with how I spent the afternoon:)

Oh, also finished up the extra yellow bean bags (25)


Monday, July 28, 2014

Patronus Box

Finally found a proper box for the "Discover your patronus" activity.  Added some camouflage and some felt pieces to the opening just to partially hide the patronuses within.

 

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Checkmate

Finished up the wizard chess project with some iron-on transfers to some pillowcases.  Picked up some cheap white pillowcases, printed out some chess piece silhouettes, and ironed them on.  For the party I'll slip them onto some pillows and plop them onto the chessboard blanket.



Thursday, July 24, 2014

Mandrake Roots

Mandrake root from the movie.


Made a stab at the mandrake root dolls tonight.  Debated over a couple different mediums to use.  I started with hot glue, especially on the face.  I looked at pics of the mandrake roots from the movie and realized that it was more of a melding of features--the nose was still pretty defined, for example.  But the brows were pronounced, the neck melded into the body, the fingers trailed off into root-like ends.  The glue was great for the face and the smaller details, but I used the foam great stuff on the body and limbs.  The nice thing about the foam is that it can be trimmed off if it starts getting wild.  Just have to wait now to see how the foam puffs up.  After I get the faces a bit more wrinkly old-manish, I'll spray them with a light brown, then possibly go back over it with some different colors.





The dolls fresh from the thrift store. Had to cut off some of the clothing.



First layer: I took the glue gun and made some details on the face.  Most important was to emphasize the eye and brow line, as well as to deepen/widen the sides of the mouth.  I made extra lines all over the face as well as the forehead.

Second layer: Adding 'great stuff' insulation foam, mostly staying away from the face (don't want to lose too much detail), but focusing on the limbs.




Next up: spray painting them with a lighter brown.

 


What I realized soon after was that the foam, while very valuable in camouflaging the doll form, some of the foam ended up looking a little...poopish.  So next up is to do some cutting.


I went back over them with some different color paints--darker browns, gold, cream, yellow, just whatever I had available.  


And as a last step: put in some fake greenery

 
And into the pots they go!

Some before and after shots: 




Friday, July 18, 2014

Goblet of Fire

Finished Goblet cup
The eventual cup.  Just need to figure
out a stand to raise it up a bit.
Oh dear, the sting of hindsight. Spent an hour or so paper macheing a large balloon partially to create a goblet of fire cup.  Which was actually kind of soothing and reminded me of the dragon eggs.  Anyway, got done and left it to dry while I went in search of last year's ocean lights to use to simulate the blue fire for the cup.  FINALLY found them--ironically in a bin of Halloween that was right next to the Harry Potter bin.  Oye.

I wanted to try out the flames and the light, just to see if I would need to make adjustments or anything, so I grabbed a plastic pot that I had picked up for the mandrake roots and taped on the flames.  It then occurred to me that I could actually just use the pot that is currently on my porch and filled with petunias.  It has a stand and is very cup shaped.  It's also sufficiently big enough to hold the light and still have room to periodically turn on the light after the 1 hour automatic turn-off.

Sooo...bit of a wasted time in making the paper mache cup...BUT it led to something better.  So it's all good.

Ocean lights in the pot.  Not sure how big or how
many flames I'll use, but this isn't a bad start.

Just had a thought on the stand for the cup--the mattress box from my recently bought day bed is....possibly the right size.  Tipped on its side, it would get the cup high enough.  Would just depend on how easily I could disguise it to not look like...huh.  I also have a stand I inherited from my mom...it has some dragon figures on it.  It's a little smaller, but it miiiight work.  Hmmm...I think I'll have to go search the garage, see if there's some similar items that might work for a stand.


Thursday, July 17, 2014

Expecto Patronum!

Worked on some patronus-centered projects today.  The main one was the book ends project; spray painting the blocks of wood and the doe/stag figures.

These kind of blend in, but fortunately the spray paint kept a lot of the details on these. 

Started to nail these together first, then one of them cracked, so I'm going to instead paint them first, then just hot glue them together.  
Had an idea this morning, an easy way to do Patronuses (Patronusi? Oh dear, now need to know the plural).  Originally the vague thought was to set up a table with some tarot cards that had animals on them and do a whole thing with divination, etc.  But I'm quickly running out of room to put stuff.  So I came up with instead making a box with a hole for your hand, wherein you'll put your hand in and discover your patronus.  What you'll pull out will be a wee little plastic animal that I've spray painted silver.  Definitely doing this for the party, but I'm thinking it would also be fun to do for trick-or-treaters.  They get a wand...and a corporeal patronus--fun, no?

I tried to get a range of animals, but there was a whole large frog pack, soooo, a lot of people will get frog patronuses. 

Here they all are painted silver.  Again, they blend in, but the detail on these is still pretty cool. 
Some close ups of these.  I love the elephant and the sting ray (not shown).

Lots and lots o frogs


I'll need more to cover ALL the trick-or-treaters, but I figure the dollar store might be a good spot.  Part of it was just trying to get enough variety with these.  I feel like I'm pushing it a bit with the sea creatures, so I think I'll just try and keep an eye out amidst thriftstore/$ store shopping.

Oh, also put the final sealer on the tiles, so they're ready to get felt put on them and so are nearly done. Woot!  Also made a set to put out in the Gryffindor common room that were solely Gryffindor themed.   Once they're dry, I'll put a sealer on them, and all the coasters will finally be DONE.



**UPDATE**
Put together the book ends.  Unfortunately the blocks of wood have a few spots that got some paint gummed up, and the deer figures were a little harder to attach--but I think I finally got them firmly attached.  



Finally attached the felt feet to the coasters.  Also put some felt on the House Crest coasters with semi success--the first couple didn't turn out too well.  May or may not offer them up as a prize.

All that's left on these is to tie them up with some of the Hogwarts ribbon.

*UPDATE*
ALL done!  Yay!