Let's Craft Something!

This is what I was planning on posting last week when I had that terrible day-long migraine.

Do you remember my Freebie Friday that was about making your own porcelain dough?  Well, there was a reason that I shared that with you all; I had recently searched for it for an upcoming project/costume.  I'm still afraid to spoil the surprise because I think it's pretty original and awesome.  I'll hopefully be posting some of Zach's as we work on his.  I don't know if Heather and Mike are going to be sharing any of their photos.

So, consider this the beginning of my hints.  I decided to work on a headpiece that will hopefully make my character a little more recognizable as herself.  We're steampunking the original characters, and Zach was a little afraid she wouldn't be as recognizable in the garb, so I'm trying to take extra effort to incorporate things associated with her.  I know this sounds really cryptic, but I hate to just reveal it and ruin the surprise for those who don't know!  Bear with me, please.

First, I made the dough.  I didn't have enough for the complete recipe, so I halved it and so far I have plenty.  It took maybe half the ball to make this much.


I tried drawing a template for the starfish, but it always ended up looking wonky, so I scrapped it and tried using a star cookie cutter.  It looked even worse, so I free-handed one.  Amazingly enough, it worked!  And it looked pretty darn good, if you ask me.

I baked it for an hour in a 170 oven (which is as low as my oven goes) and left the door cracked.  I took so many precautions because I really didn't want this little guy to crack.

I let the oven cool for maybe another hour to where I wouldn't have to use a potholder -- mostly because I was afraid rapid temperature changes would crack him -- and sat him on top of the oven.  I let him sit there for about 2 more hours to make sure he was good and dry.


After raiding our paints, I found a buttery yellow acrylic paint and did a nice few coats with a paintbrush.  After that dried, I took a toothbrush with a chocolate paint to give nice, coarse strokes.


I let the brown dry and then used the toothbrush to flick yellow specks on him.  Unfortunately, in my attempts to make it even, I accidentally did more than I liked.  So, I let him dry again and painted a light layer of brown with my fingertips.  That allowed for some little streaks and covered the bright yellow compared to the chocolate color.

I liked how the layering of the specks under the brown gave him a more porous effect.  I wanted to press a sponge into him before baking, but it didn't quite work out.  He dried quicker than I thought and it ended up just mushing him, so I decided I'd try to achieve that with paint.

He's not quite done yet.  I still have another layer or two of dough to put and bake on there, but he's coming right along!  I feel like this was the hardest part of my pretty little headpiece and the rest should fall in place easier.

Sorry about the image quality... I just took the images that I uploaded to Instagram and posted them here.  I've had an unfortunate case of not-being-able-to-look-at-the-computer-screen-too-long due to my headaches.  I've also been unusually tired.  Maybe I need to get blood work to see if I need to up my Synthroid dosage...again.  Sigh.

Anyway, that's your clue for the week as to my costume!  I'm not going to say yes or no to any guesses, either!  Hopefully it will get to be glaringly obvious for those of you in the anime/video game fandoms.

Alright guys, let me just start off with something I just noticed before I go into my weekend.  Holy crap where did those almost 400 pageviews come from the other day?  I usually schedule my posts in advance (when I'm not writing them last minute, which is a common trend as of late), so I don't always see my pageviews.  To be honest, I hadn't looked since maybe Wednesday, so when I jumped from 1,000 to 1,358 in a week, I was surprised.  I had a spike of almost 200 on Thursday.  So, woah, holy crap where did these pageviews come from out of the blue?! 

I hope you liked it and decided to stay!  Please do comment and feel free to follow on social media. :)

As far as the blog goes, I'm planning on doing a post toward the end of the month on my experiences with going poo-free.  I've been taking periodic pictures of my hair to show my transitions.  Don't worry.  I'm not going to make you sit through a vacation slideshow photo presentation of my hair or anything.  Besides, it will only be one month.

I've also decided a little bit on an upcoming project.  A few friends and I are doing a group costume for this year's Anime Weekend Atlanta.  I just hate to spoil the surprise before it comes together!  I'll hopefully be helping Zach with his, too.  It's going to mostly involve sewing, but also a little imagination and construction, as well as a little sculpting and painting.  What on earth could it be?!



Remember me posting about sewing patterns last Monday?  Well, between Zach and my grandmother I think I've decided to at least give it a shot at making the steampunk dress I bought a pattern for.  Now, I'm planning on buying the cheapest non-tulle fabric I can to give a practice run.  I really don't want to spend a lot of money on fabric just to give up in the middle of it or to mess it up.  I'll definitely keep you posted on that!


Sometimes, I feel like I have a million things going at once.  Of course I want to spend time with Zach, Benni, and my little Booger.  I want to play video games.  I want to craft.  I want to play Dungeons and Dragons.  I want to read.  I want to craft.  I want to blog.  Ugh, all these things I want to do!  I have them almost all going at the same time, but I feel like I get nowhere with them.  Sacrifices, I guess.  (Enjoy the silly collage.  If you want, it enlarges when you click it.)

Now, on to the sadder news.  Zach and I received news late last week that one of our friends' mom passed away.  This was a friend that we spent almost every day with during last summer and had been friends with since high school.  We were all very shocked because, although we knew she wasn't in the best of health, she was still relatively young.  He is an only child, his father passed away some years ago, and only really has his grandmother, aunts and uncles.

I'm not saying this to be depressing.  He has always been a bit of a loner and will deal with it in his own time.  He has all of us and his girlfriend who has helped him tremendously throughout this whole ordeal.  We just don't think he's dealt with his feelings yet or gained closure.  If you have a spare moment, send your thoughts, prayers, well-wishes, good vibes, or whatever it is you do to this little family in Alabama.

I hate to leave you on such a sad note, so here's a picture that always makes me laugh:


See you guys soon.

In throwing around ideas for one of my steampunk costumes, I decided to make my own headpiece.  The main focus of the headpiece is going to be a starfish. I toyed around with several ways to make this, including buying a real starfish, but ultimately decided to try it with clay first.  I wanted something lightweight because it would be on my head, but durable because I am accident prone.


I ran across a blog post by Puffy Little Things where she shares her recipe for homemade cold