Halloween 2015: Mermaid costume and spooky sweets review

Hello! So, Halloween is over for another year. I adore Halloween; I'm always so sad when it's finished! I've been told a few times this year that my hair looks like "mermaid hair", which is SUCH a lovely compliment that I decided to go as a mermaid for my costume ^____^

Rebecca and I were planning on hitting our regular rink for their Halloween skate session and then a party afterwards so I wanted something that would be comfortable enough to skate in.

 

I figured leggings and a skirt would be a practical combination and when I found this gorgeous shimmery scale fabric at Spotlight, I knew I was on the right track. I used this tutorial by Cal Patch to make my own pattern for the leggings and, aside from making them a little tighter around the knees next time, they worked out wonderfully!

I'm not yet at the stage where I feel comfortable enough wearing only leggings, so I also made a circle skirt with the same fabric. This video tutorial by Annika from The Pineneedle Collective was extremely helpful for this, but as my sewing machine was still broken at this stage, I had to get a little creative with sewing it together. I ended up doing the entire thing on my overlocker, and not hemming the skirt or adding elastic to the waistband. I'm a little worried that the waistband fabric will eventually stretch out; if that happens I'll have to reverse engineer in some elastic, but it was fine for a costume.

For the top, I printed out a picture of clamshells and used them to make a freezer paper stencil. I mixed up some light blue and light green fabric paint (I just diluted the colours I had with more white fabric paint) and used sponge brushes to add the blue on the top and green at the bottom. Then I used a brush dipped in both colours to mix them together in the middle of the shells and create a colour gradient look.

And then I put silver glitter all over them! One can never have too much glitter ^___^ Lastly, I made some hair accessories simply by attaching, with E6000, hair pin backings to some shells and starfish I had in my stash  (hoarding from childhood holidays *does* come in handy! ~___^)

The day after Halloween I hosted a crafternoon, and took the opportunity to test out some spooky recipes!

The strange pink lumps below were meant to be the Bloody Popcorn Brains by Not Quite Nigella, but mine are not quite as pin-worthy! My popcorn turned out really sticky, so making them into any real shape was seemingly impossible. I just ended up blobbing down lumps, adding some raspberry jam and calling them Blood Clots! They taste amazing though and are perfect for a special dessert treat or for curing diabetic hypoglycemia (I'd personally opt for the former!). 

 

The Spooky Worm Halloween Jello by A Spicy Perspective was voted "grossest-looking" by my guests; some wouldn't even try it due to its appearance! I'll grant that it's creepy looking, and the tapioca pearls lend an interesting texture to the jelly, but Scott, Rebecca, and I all quite liked the taste. I used lime and grape jelly and they turned out these lovely pastel colours, which went really well with the "witchetty-grub" lollies I found in the supermarket (I couldn't find plain old jelly worms like the recipe called for anywhere!). I used little ramekins as my moulds, but the jelly didn't come out cleanly. No matter, I think it looks even more gross this way ~___^
 

I'd never made chocolate bark before, and I found The Pioneer Woman's Halloween Bark tutorial very helpful even though I didn't follow her recipe completely. I melted white cooking chocolate, poured it into a tray lined with baking paper, and then pressed in salted pretzels, Star Wars character cookies, mini M&Ms, and pop-rocks. After sitting in the fridge for a while, it was ready to be broken up and served! This was the most popular dessert at the crafternoon; the salty-sweet combination was considered most superior by my friends ^____^ I personally think that the addition of the pop-rocks makes it a very appropriate Halloween treat as there is something rather creepy about your sweets making random cracking noises ...

Scott's favourite was the coffin cake; which is just a plain chocolate cake with peppermint icing. Can't beat the classics, I guess! I got the coffin-shaped pan from Spotlight and it does have a cross indentation on it, but that didn't show through very well on the finished cake, so I added my own with writing icing.

And that's it! Gosh! Did you have a fantastic Halloween? I hope you did, and that you dressed up! I love hearing about and seeing other people's costumes ^____^

- Lisa xx

Three Addams Family crafts

Hello! Do you like the Addams Family? I really hope you said yes, because today I've got three easy and quick crafts inspired by our favourite creepy family to show you! I didn't watch heaps of TV or movies growing up, but the Addams Family is one that definitely sticks out in my mind; I wanted to be a cross between Morticia and Wednesday when I grew up, and spent a good portion of my teenage years dressing entirely in black to achieve such a look ~___^

This first project is one that I have been meaning to do for ages! I don't know why I put it off for so long as it wasn't difficult to do and I really love how it turned out ^___^ I prefer having black pillowcases since otherwise they do tend to end up stained by my hair dye, but if you wanted to make your own you could really use any colour. I do feel like black is apropos though!

To make them, I ironed the pillowcases to get most of the wrinkles out and wrote out "mon cher" and "cara mia" onto them with white chalk.

Then I used a paintbrush to go over the letters with white fabric paint. I did about three layers of paint to try and get the lines a relatively even weight; they're still not perfect but the extra layers also helped the white letters pop more against the black fabric.

I left them to dry overnight and then gave them a quick iron, with a cloth over the letters to protect my iron. Depending on what type of fabric paint you use, you may not need to iron your project but it makes me feel a bit more confident that it will survive the wash!

I think these would be perfect for a housewarming gift for a couple, or maybe even a wedding present! Depends how kooky they are, I guess ~___^

Next up is the craft that inspired this whole post: a Morticia quote canvas. This is seriously the easiest craft ever!

I was feeling a bit uninspired one day so I was digging around in my craft room and came out with a blank square canvas and some black glittery letter stickers. I decided that there really isn't any other colour best suited to black than more black, so I painted the canvas with a mixture of black paint and glitter mod-podge. I slopped it on nice and thick to give it some texture and then when it had dried, I just glued on the letter stickers.

I know gluing stickers may seem a bit strange, but they're made for attaching to paper and so weren't sticking as well as I wanted them to. I've put this canvas in our lounge room, and when the sun hits it it really does sparkle! Which is great because, after all, black *is* such a happy colour! ^___^

My last project was going to be something different to this family motto necklace, but I had a total craft fail and couldn't rescue it in time! I'm sure it's still salvageable, but it's going to take a bit longer than I had hoped.

So, instead, I got out the sculpey and whipped up this necklace. I used the same technique as the derby name necklace I made for Electra Fire, but made it bigger as the Addams' Family have got quite a long creed! In case you can't read it, the motto is "Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc" or, "We Gladly Feast on Those Who Would Subdue Us".

I made the pendant from black clay, stamped it with my tiny alphabet stamps, added holes with a thick needle, and baked it for 20 minutes at about 150oC. I wanted a tarnished metal look, so when the pendant was done baking, I covered it with silver acrylic paint and, while it was still damp, rubbed at it with a tissue to show some of the blackness underneath.

I used a fine felt tip pen to add some black in the indentations of the words and then I added the chain by threading jump rings through the holes. And that's it! A pretty necklace, but not just pretty words ~___^

Until next time, do do do do *snap snap*

- Lisa xx

Another watercolour and a puff stitch headband

Hello! How are you? I hope you're doing well! I finally finished my second knitted hat ... and it's too small again! Argh! This pattern and I are obviously not meant to be >___< Thankfully, this time it's only a tiny bit too small so currently it's blocking and I hope that when it's dry I'll be able to wear it. Fingers crossed!

While we wait for it to dry (which is probably going to take a while because it's still SO COLD here), here are two little projects that I made recently ^___^ I used liquid latex to make yet another watercolour quote art - I just really love these, ok? ^____^

 

I like the little sploges around the edges, but I need to work on making sure there isn't too much water in the middle to create the muddy colours. Less is more in this case! I just need to keep practising ^___^

 

I also crocheted this puff stitch headband, with some gorgeous hand-dyed yarn from Beks who knits. I used a 4mm hook and simply crocheted a long puff stitch rectangle, and a smaller puff stitch square, sewed up the ends of the rectangle, and sewed the square over the top of the join.

 

Both of the seams are hidden on the inside of the headband, and I think the puff stitch works really well to show off the colours in the yarn.

 

Having the square sewn over the headband squeezes it together a little bit to create a subtle bow shape which I love, and it's perfect for keeping your ears warm in cooler weather ~___^

 

Also recently, my DIY the Look feature for Cut Out + Keep went live! I curated ten projects from Cut Out + Keep that I thought were perfect to help you recreate Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's style and I think it turned out super fun! Check it out and let me know what you think ^____^

- Lisa xx

 

Hipster Vulcan cosplay for SupaNova Perth

Hello! Scott, Rebecca, and I weren't really planning on going to SupaNova this year ... and then the week before we decided to anyway! We missed out on Oz ComicCon earlier in the year, so I'm really glad we did end up going ^____^ Of course this meant that we needed cosplays! I was being a bit indecisive about repeating one of my old cosplays, but in the end decided to make something new. The WA roller derby grand final was the night before and even though I was just spectating, I knew I'd want something simple and comfortable to wear the next day - that much screaming and cheering takes a lot out of you, you know! ~_____^

So I hurriedly threw this costume together, 100% from things I had lying around my house. As I awkwardly explained to one girl at the con, "it's like a hipster Vulcan, like on shore leave kinda thing, like just casual?" Ugh, words. Anyway, from head to toe, here's how I put this costume together ...

 

 Flower crown: I made this a couple of years ago at my "it's my birthday, let's make flower crowns" party ~___^ I used two bouquets of foam roses, one white and one pink, and thin floral wire. The foam roses come on bendable wire steams covered with florist's tape so all I had to do was bend them into a circle shape, alternating pink and white roses, and add small amounts of floral wire to hold them into place.

Eyebrows: I think I went too subtle, but I did actually change the shape of my eyebrows so that they were more straight (mine usually curve down a lot more!). To do this, I put a small amount of glue stick on the end half of my eyebrows (which, despite the internet assuring me this would be fine, I was very nervous about!) and then did layers of powder, concealer, foundation, and then more powder to cover up my eyebrow. Then I used an eyebrow pencil to draw them in again, but in a more Vulcan like shape. And, wonderful news, it all washed off really easily that evening, and my eyebrows weren't harmed at all - yay!

Jewellery and accessories: My glasses are my regular ones that I wear everyday, my necklace is one of the galaxy necklaces I made a while ago, I brought the Saturn pin from One Happy Leaf, my Starfleet brooch is made from sculpey, and my pointy ears are from The Reject Shop - I actually found a whole Spock costume there! Unfortunately, it's for children so the top doesn't fit ; _____ ;

 

(This pose displays what Rebecca calls my "angry model" look! ~____^)

Shirt: I had an old t-shirt in my drawer that I never wear anymore because it's a bit too big. I used a stencil from Typo to paint on the L,O, and E, and painted in a little Vulcan hand in place of the V ^____^ The shoulder ... things ... are from Spotlight and all I had to do was fold up the sleeves so that they were a bit shorter and then sew the shoulder thingies on top. I also cut the shirt into a cropped style, with some ties at the front. I wish I had have cut it just a little longer though, because I was a bit worried about it riding up at the back!

Skirt: This skirt had been in my mending pile for aaagggggeeeesssss because once when I was doing some cleaning, I got some cleaning spray on it which left little bleach marks - ___ - I had been planning on dyeing it so the marks weren't visible anymore but instead I did the opposite - more bleach! After bleaching it, I washed the skirt in hot water and left it to dry. Then, I got out my fabric paints and a sponge brush and went to town creating myself a little galaxy ^____^ I'm not 100% happy with it, but I think it's pretty good for my first try at galaxy painting. The only thing I wish I had have thought of was that most of my old clothes are too big for me now - including this skirt. I wore a belt but it was also slightly too big so I spent a lot of the day trying to tug it back up! All I need to do to fix this is take in the waistband slightly, and then I'm sure this skirt will get a lot more wear! ^____^

 

Tights and shoes: I also wore blue tights (they match my hair!) and, although they don't show up in any of these photos, my Doc Marten Mary-Janes. Cons always involve a lot of walking and standing, so comfortable shoes are a must!

Bec revisited her Princess Mononoke costume this year - she made her entire outfit save her earrings and shoes! Her cape is faux fur, her jewellery is made from sculpey and faux leather cording, and I believe her dress and top and made from cotton.

Bec also made a gorgeous sculpey mask ... which got a bit up close and personal with the floor and broke ; _____ ; 

 

Scott was really unsure about doing a cosplay this year but last minute he decided that he would be a Hooded Figure from Welcome to Night Vale. He wore black jeans, black shoes, and a black t-shirt, then added a hooded robe, a tactical vest, black gloves, and a ninja hood (basically a snug fitting hood that covers up the front of your neck). He started off also wearing a black gas mask but found it a bit too hot in the convention center; with the hood of his cloak pulled down low his face wasn't visible anyway. His sign is made from balsa wood which I just painted onto with acrylic paints and attached to some cotton string with hot glue. His outfit was very popular with other convention goers and he was asked to have his photo taken several times ^____^

 And, of course, I couldn't resist having a photo either. Scott and I don't really have any photos of ourselves up in our house, but I feel like this one needs to be framed ~____^

As you probably know, last week I was the Crafty Superstar on Cut Out + Keep and now all seven projects are done and up on their website! Yay! It was a lot of fun seeing my projects revealed each day and I'm so glad I've finally been able to share them with everyone - it was so difficult keeping the brand new projects a secret! If you have somehow escaped seeing my daily Twitter and Instagram mentions of this feature, go and check them all out now!! ^____^

I also picked a winner for the beanie giveaway, using the highly scientific method of flipping a coin ~___^ Congratulations to Molly who is now the proud new owner of a tiny, tiny hat! ^___^

Next week I've got a fun jewellery tutorial for you, and hopefully I'll have an update on how my next knitted hat is going - my aim this time is to make it so it actually fits an adult! ~____^

- Lisa xx 

Tattoo art inspired coffee cups

Hello! I think it's because I've been watching waayyy too much of those tattoo shop reality TV shows but I've had tattoo style designs on the brain lately. I designed a little skating badge and then when I was brainstorming present ideas for my friend Steve, who is a body art aficionado, I decided to tweak it a little and came up with these fun mugs!

I don't drink coffee, but I'm still kinda in love with this design! I want to make one for myself; I don't know if "but first, tea" has the same ring to it though ~___^

 

To make them, I used some plain coloured mugs and Pebeo porcelain pens. And of course a tattoo flash inspired design! After designing the image in Illustrator, I printed it out onto regular paper and cut it out to use as a stencil. I used a pencil to lightly stencil the basic shapes of the design onto the mug.

Then I went over the line work with a black porcelain pen. Getting the lines straight on a curved surface is a little tricky, but slow and steady does the job ^___^ Next I coloured in all the shapes - yay!

You can see that my colouring in isn't the best ... the Pebeo porcelain pens don't give the best coverage for large surface areas. That said, they are much much much better than the porcelain paint you get in pots - that stuff is so streaky! It's very strange since they are made by the same company.

 After I'd done the colours, I went back to the black pen to thicken some of the line art, write on the words (I copied the Cute Tattoo font for these btw), and add a little bit of vintage tattoo style shading. I won't be allowed to touch a tattoo machine any time soon, but I like the little touch of grunge the speckles added ^___^

I'd like to try some other brands, because I think being able to properly paint (as in, with brushes) would allow me to add more detail and get better colour coverage, but I do really like how the Pebeo paint pens look on the grey mug - they came up quite true to colour which I was pleased with as I was a bit worried they'd all look muddy!

 

 The Pebeo pens say that they are dishwasher safe after 72 hours of air drying, but my personal tests have shown that to be untrue. Well, I say personal ... one of my work colleagues put a kitty mug in the dishwasher. Not pretty! So, to hopefully keep these designs in place longer, I baked them in the oven on the lowest setting for a couple of hours. Even so, I included a little mug care sheet in the gift bag which suggested only light hand washing be applied to these babies!

I think birthdays are mostly over for the next couple of months, so until October I plan to only do selfish makes ~____^ I'm currently working on a hat, and then ... I don't know! I'm much more indecisive when it comes to making things for myself then I am with making presents for others. So, help me out: if you were me (and I was you!) and you were making me a present, what would you make? Reading your comments will be like my birthday! ^____^

- Lisa xx

Welcome to Night Vale posters, art canvas, and earrings

Hello! Recently I did a Welcome to Night Vale swap on Craftster and since my swap partner has received her parcel, I can share with you what I made! ^___^ If you haven't listened to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast yet, I highly recommend you do! It's really fantastic, and this post will make a lot more sense if you do.

The thing I'm most proud of is this WTNV themed art canvas. Whenever I start an art canvas I think that I have nothing to put on it, but after digging through my stash I usually manage to find more than enough - it's a great way to use up random bits of stuff I've been hoarding too! ~___^

I used a Kaisercraft wooden cloud cut-out covered in glow-in-the-dark paint for the Glow Cloud (all hail ....).

The musical notes (i.e. the weather) are also wooden cut-outs, but these ones are from Typo. I drew the Night Vale eye on the white one with a felt-tip pen.

I used "thickers" (still can't get over that name) to write out Night Vale, and the quote below is written in felt-tip pen also.

 

I'm not exactly sure where I got this plastic cactus from, but I figured it was perfect for representing this friendly desert community. I cut off the bottom stand with scissors and attached it with E6000 glue.

 

My swap partner said that one of her favourite characters was Fey, so I used stickers to add the numbers Fey read aloud down the side of the canvas.

This side of the canvas is kinda Carlos the Scientist themed; he discovered that the clocks in Night Vale aren't real, and I headcanon him as wearing thick glasses so I used clock patterned pattern and glasses washi tape for this part. The pocket watch is a jewellery component that I brought at Spotlight and then discovered is faulty - the glass face is meant to be removable, but mine didn't budge! I used my trusty felt-tip pen and some white card to add Carlos' discovery to the inside of the pocket watch and I attached it to the canvas with string, a small piece of leather, and a lot of E6000.

 

There is also an instruction from a local community group; they huddle in the hole in the vacant lot behind the Ralph's, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

 

The top of the canvas has more wooden cut-outs from Typo, these ones spelling out the end of a rather popular Night Vale quote: "If you see something; say nothing, and drink to forget." I don't condone this behaviour (you shouldn't be seeing anything in the first place) but I did have these wine glass cut-outs and I couldn't think of a single other thing they'd be useful for.

The bottom of the canvas has another one of Fey's numbers, Khoshekh the floating cat, and a warning against rabbits.

 

The other side of the canvas expands on the rabbit warning: they are not what they seem. These ones seem like even more wooden cut-outs.

I even added a little something on the back of the canvas. Strex is seriously creepy, so I think this is the best place for them.

All the papers I used were from mini scrap booking paper pads that I brought from Spotlight. They are really fantastic for canvases of this size as you don't get nearly as much paper scraps leftover.

I also made two paintings; they are just acrylic paint on card stock, but I think they would look quite good framed. I left them as is to mail, however, since postage costs are already high enough without adding more weight to the parcels.

 

I really liked how the galaxy effect turned out, although I think it could have possibly been a bit darker. Basically I watered down my acyclic paint so that it worked more like watercolours and added purple, blue, and black all over the page in random splotches. After it was dry, I added the words, the black edges, and the silver stars. I might make another for myself so I can play around with this technique a bit more.

It's difficult to see, but I also added some very watered down iridescent medium to the black edges of the page; it gives it a subtle sparkle that looks really pretty in real life.

 

This art piece was made using the same technique as my Princess Leia and Han Solo quotes where I just used masking fluid to write out the quote, painted over it with watered down acrylic, and then removed the masking fluid once everything was dry. I went around the words with a felt-tip pen again; I think it looks more impactful that way.

 

Lastly, I made these Big Rico's Pizza earrings; these were super simple to make as all I had to do was glue earring backs to the pizza charms I had already made.

 

I made the 'packaging' (I use the term loosely) with more scrap booking paper, mini stamps, and some pens. My drawing skills aren't top notch, but hopefully my Hooded Figure is a little spooky looking?

 

In return I received this wire crochet Hiram McDaniels sculpture;

 

 A wood-burned quote block, Glow Cloud card, and stickers;

And a tiny Glow Cloud scarf with a wooden-burned scarf ring.

Have you ever done a craft swap before? This is the first time I've swapped with someone I don't know, and I must say swapping with friends is a lot less stressful! 

I'm currently working on something just for me, which is even less stressful ~____^ I'm trying to improve my knitting skills so I'm making a hat with ribbing and colourwork - two techniques that I haven't tried before. It's going pretty well but my hands aren't used to knitting and are so sore! Luckily tonight is roller derby training so tomorrow my legs will be sore which will take my mind off my hands ~____^

- Lisa xx