my anatomically “correct” heart pocket
A Loverly thing…
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Category Archives: ARTSY
Acacia
it may have been picking up all the branches after the storm that inspired acacia…
she is needle felted with embroidered rings on her feet. i wish i would have taken more process pictures, but i was going through a bit of a creativity block until she popped into my head. i just started felting and made her in about two hours. it wasn’t until i was gathering curly willow that i remembered to take pictures.
i decided to dye her arms a greenish brown so that the branches would look like they were growing out of her arms.
back to the kool aid… lime + cherry = pretty green. i brought the dye to a boil and just held her arms in the dye bath until enough of it soaked in.
i wrestled with wire for about an hour until i was sure the branches were not going to move and voila!
a new love. Acacia!
oh, and i made her some hot pink fruit to hang in her branches.
Kiyoshi 淳 ! needle felted umbrella bat
Meet Kiyoshi 淳!
last week i set out to needle felt a bat with wings made with umbrella parts. his wings turned out better than i thought they would because they have a full range of motion despite the wool. when i was almost done felting him,i decided to try a cabbage dye to give him a blue-ish grey color.
FIRST i chopped up some pretty red cabbage
i let it boil for an hour and drained it. i didn’t want to use alum to set the dye, so i added vinegar to the cabbage water and the color instantly turned from a deep blue to a bright pink.
i added mr. batty.
he was very pink and looked very unhappy. i let him boil for 5 minutes.
‘mmm smell that cabbagey, wooly bat soup.
thankfully, once i rinsed him there was no smell cabbagey smell at all but he was drab – very drab.
not at all the pretty blue-grey that i was going for.
in order to save mr. batty from his drabness, i mixed blue raspberry kool aid and black cherry kool aid until i got a very deep blue. i closed my eyes, hoping this would help and not hinder mr. batty’s color situation, and dunked him in the pot of blue. i boiled him for about 20 minutes to let the dye set and woila! the perfect shade of muted purple i love it!
i hand dried him with a blow dryer so that the metal umbrella parts would dry quickly then i lightly needle felted him all over to tighten up the loose wool. this morning i made him some socks and freckles and gave him a name…
淳
Kiyoshi which means the quiet one in Japanese.
Donny: sugar foots#3
i finally got over my fear of polymer clay! i have had a stash of translucent and flesh colored clays for years now, but have been too afraid of phthalates to use them. i knew when i started making the sugar foots that i would have to get over it. sugar foots need teeth and sugar foots #3- donny, need a leg to nosh on.
i broke out my small toaster oven that i have not used since moving a year ago and wrote on the top in large permanent letters: CRAFT OVEN ONLY so not to poison toast lovers that may be tempted to use it. i set it outside, of course, and got to sculpting feet and teeth. i wanted donny to be eating a chicken foot, but i don’t do well felting small objects so i decided to make a human foot out of polymer clay for him. i started off using gloves (so the phtalates wouldn’t get me) but threw them out as soon as i started blending browns to get a brown that would match my skin color. three feet later i made the perfect foot for donny and threw it in my outdoors craft oven while holding my breath( so the phtalates wouldn’t get me). i ran inside and sat by the window and watch for smoke. fifteen minutes later the foot was born and donny got his personality.
i searched for a tiny bottle of ketchup…but the tabasco works better, i think.
my sister would like me to remove his nipples, but bunnies have nipples too!
