Happy Birthday Dear Blog!

Happy Birthday Us! This is the 52nd posting, so one year has passed since your beloved fearless leader took the helm of the S.S. MECO Blog - so far, no ice bergs in sight! Soon we will be toddling around unaided, throwing small fits, and otherwise generally soaking up life as we know it. 

On a side note, do I know how to mix metaphors, or what?

It is also the last weekend in September. Can you believe it? Well, I suppose if you can't, there is no reasoning with you, but either way it is true. This week, besides studying a seemingly never ending group of modules I have to do for work, I have been pondering inspiration. This is not new ground I tread -many have contemplated where artists get their ideas, because it seems a rather fantastical feat for a species not that long out of the trees to have been able to accomplish so much and in such magical ways. My favourite author, Sir Terry Pratchett, wrote once that inspiration sleets through the universe randomly as small energy packets, which strike quite randomly and create that elusive muse of inspiration, and we are totally helpless to where it lands and what note it strikes. Often, unfortunately, these inspirations hit absolutely the wrong sort, and you have some duck being struck with the notion that it could cure the common cold, or some poor illiterate schlock in the 14th century having a really good idea for an iphone App - totally inappropriate and such inspiration is thus wasted. Some people act as a lightening rod, and there is no end of ideas that are gathered - if they happen in the right time to the right person, then magic happens. Others never get an idea and remain uninspired for their entire lives, sadly. There might be some help, though  ... Jim Davis - upon being asked where his ideas came from - answered eloquently in one word "Schenectady". Never been, but I suspect it is a magical place of wonder if that is where inspiration is found. It was a rather oddly inspired answer, either way.

In truth, who knows how we come up with things, we just do. Often for me, my inspiration grows gradually and organically (with helpful heaps of...well, you can carry an analogy too far, so I will stop now). At any rate, I try something, it doesn't work, I go another way, it does - an answer invariably presents itself. Very rarely, however, does an image form in my mind that is exactly as I make it in the end. Occasionally, however, I get one of those flashes of inspiration and what I dreamed, becomes real. I had one of those inspirations this week, in fact. My friend, who is an author, was telling us about her work. She tends to work in the romance genre, and specifically the bodice-ripping, bosoms heaving, heavy breathing, questionably legal/moral/or impossible to do without the aid of a llama, two dwarfs and a feather kind of romance novel.   To be honest, I don't read romances (being a science nerd who likes explosions and men in brightly coloured lycra suits and/or riding around in police boxes), but as I listened to her tell of her latest book, and her forbidding us to read it lest we look at her in a funny way,  and mentioning a rather scathing review that made me wonder why the person felt it necessary to read a romance book from stem to stern when every one KNOWS where the author is leading up to in such literature so it couldn't have been THAT much of a surprise, I had a vision of one of my bathing beauties reading her book, totally scandalized by my friend's book, but unable to put down her summer reading material because it had a grip on her very soul.

In short, Deidre was born. She appeared in my mind exactly as she appears in this blog, and I sculpted her with no aid from my moulds at all. She is all free style, baby!

Deidre, as with Miranda and Penelope, started out with a wire armature. Deidre is looking a little bit simian here, but no worries, I gave her a slightly larger skull. 

I changed her ears a little too - these ones were a little too "elf", or possibly "golem". 

I straightened out the hands too, and ended up remodelling the fingers. If you ever wonder if your doll is looking right, take a picture. You will see immediately the flaws that you don't see in real time. 

 Here is when I decided she needed a bigger head. Also, Deidre has a little more meat on her than the usual girls you find in the dollhouse community, , so I realized - her neck has to be fleshed out a bit more, so I added more clay. 

Deidre, painted. I painted her before she went into the oven this time. I needed to get at her lips because it would be impossible after the clay was set. This did mean gluing a few things later on to keep them from separating in the curing process. She has a purple bikini with little polka hearts, and her nails have all been painted. I wouldn't have painted her flesh tones today, except I kept managing to get bits into the clay, so to  keep her looking like she hadn't been rolling in mud, I flesh toned her with paint. Shame, too, because her hands had just the right kind of lucency but I couldn't let them say as they were because then they didn't match up to the arms. 

When I first envisioned her I saw her as a blonde girl, and I used a tannish colour of embroidery floss. It is curious what hair will do for the head, and it really made her quite pretty.  

Deidre, up close. I think I nailed the whole shocked look, although if you do look past her hand, you can see she is trying to suppress a nervous smile.

 Of course, now I needed something for Deidre to be shocked by. I took a screen shot of the cover of my scandalous novel, and I resized it and "floated" it over a pre-existing scanned book cover - such as on this site. I resized again to fit the cover I wanted. I found that the actual pages of the book supplied were too small, so I did an image search of "book pages",  did a little copy/paste/resize magic, and had pages for my book. I didn't fill my book completely up with printed copy (although that was an option), I just wanted the pages to be "open" for Deidre to read. 

 Just a sample of the covers I could have used. 

 Deidre, reading. Okay, they did what? With the what now?  What is next?!!?

 OMG. Really? How was that even possible?!??

 Hey! No reading over her shoulder! Whoa. Paragraph 3, second sentence in....ooooohkay then! I think we can call it a night right there.

Hope you enjoyed the evolution and corruption of my poor Deidre. We will leave her to read the rest of the book, which should be an education in itself for this lovely shell on the beach. 

I will leave you today with a tutorial on how to make a book, and I hope you enjoy it! Until next time, my slightly tarnished angels...

 

 

There and Back Again...

Today is a very special day indeed. It is Hobbit Day! As you are aware, September 22nd is the birthday Frodo and Bilbo Baggins share. Certainly there will be a party in the Shire, and maybe the Sackville Baggins won't show up - we can only hope. 

Oh yes. It is also the first day of fall.  It feels like it too. Given the sightings of fat birds waddling around beneath the trees and trying to go inside when an opportunity of an open door presents itself, there might be an early winter, but I suppose we will see. 

I am also excited today, as I got a new cosplay outfit. One of the local seasonal Halloween stores brought in the 11th Doctor costume, and I am just over the moon, or possibly the untempered schism of time.  Last year I desperately tried to put this costume together before the Halloween party I was invited to go to actually happened (finding a fez is strangely difficult for some reason, given we have Shriners in town). Granted, the party and the invite were about 3 days a part, so there wasn't a lot of time to prepare.  In the end, I floated in as a Flamenco Dancing Vampire, which was fun, but again not my first choice, no matter how cool I looked.  If you follow ...what am I saying...OF COURSE you follow Dr. Who, there are only two more episodes before my boy Matt regenerates to Peter Capaldi. When Matt started out his 4 year term as the Doctor, he wasn't well received by most ("Ten" had a strange lock on a certain set of young girls who were enamored by his moody Emo ways, and they just weren't interested in the "toddler in the Tardis", as Matt was known for a time) , but he had me from "hello".  I found him to be brilliant, and  it will be sad to see him go. Well, now he won't go to far, as he is hanging in my closet (that isn't creepy at all). What I found interesting in the store today, however, was that for some reason there was a song playing on the sound system repeating the words "doctor" over and over, and the young lady who helped me find the right section - looked like Billie Piper (aka Rose Tyler). It was like the universe was smiling on me purchasing this outfit - weeping angels sang, etc.

On the side, sadly I was never a Rose fan.  She just got on my nerves, mostly because she was mean to my all time favourite companion Sarah Jane Smith and she hung on the Doctor like cheap perfume. I was happier than most when she was stranded in a parallel universe, but I digress. 

So, beyond plugging two out of three of my favorite shows (the third will remain Star Trek), what did I do this week? Well, this was the weekend of the annual Pedlar's Market for MECO.  Our day started off like this...

But the sky cleared, and it looked more like this...

 Shopping and visiting was done...

We met new people too... Hi Linda!
 

There were treats and lunch....

And treasures found...

 And a good time was had by all. I snagged this mushroom (possibly a candle holder?) for 50 cents. It had originally been scheduled for a gnome house (and there is gnome place like home, as you well know) but the developer never showed up. I kept seeing it as one of those delightfully nasty Amanita Muscaria mushrooms, which are infamous for populating happy woods of children's stories, mainly because of their bright and cheery colors -sadly, bright colors tend to be nature's way of saying "Don't Touch!" so mixed messages there.  On the side, and apropos of nothing, I was a mushroom in a skating exhibition in my misspent youth, and also spent a semester studying mushrooms ... true story. 

Fairy Folk sitting on an Amanita Muscaria aka Fly Agaric

 My first task was to rid myself of the brown and gold, which again - wasn't fitting into my vision. I also removed quite a bit of straw from the top (failed roofing from a previous attempt) and glue - oh so much glue. Once the surface was clean and prepared, I gessoed.

 Already it is looking fresher. 

The house, first incarnation of paint. I liked the red top and the off white stalk, but the white spots (which are really almost little scales on the real ones) weren't looking right. I just kept painting until I got something I liked. For 50 cents I spent on it, I wasn't too upset when the first try didn't come out right.

I painted some gills on the underside of the cap....

 
 Repainted the top for a third time with polka dots - this is what happens when you listen to Dr. Who Proms while you design, space-time vortexes affect your work. I like how the polka dots work on this, it gives an anatomical fact the case of the whimsies. I did a little decorating around the opening too, although that may be revisited. Its not bad though, all ready to go on to stage two, some woodland folk moving in. Probably not these guys, though, they tend to make too much noise and they generally sing one song with one word - La. This can annoy the neighbors, which is why they are out in a secret spot in the woods in the first place...

To conclude today, I have added a little film to inspire you on a woodland folk scene....Take care and don't cause any scandals (or at least not too many) by going on grand adventures with dwarfs and suspect wizards , my dear friends, until we meet again...

The Conundrum

It seems like forever since I wrote in this blog, and probably for you as well, as I know you miss me desperately when I go away - right?  I said...RIGHT? Of course you do, I knew that, its just nice to hear, that's all.   It has been a hectic two weeks for me, what with a regular avalanche of relatives,  and with teaching fresh-faced students the magic of what I do for a living,  and finally more a recent gobsmacking surprise that have left me more than a  little stunned (and it is hard to be clever when one has been gobsmacked.) Quite frankly, I feel like I have been riding a bull lately. Of course, the first problem with riding a bull is that it isn't a very good idea even if you and he are on a first name basis. The bull really has issues with the concept, and even could be said to be miffed if you try it. The second problem, and generally the bigger of the two in riding the bull,  is the whole mystery of how to get off its back without the bull "driving home the point" that it doesn't like anyone to ride it in the first place.  It really is at that time you appreciate the timely appearance of  the temporal equivalent of a rodeo clown. Now I said "rodeo", mind  - if a circus clown turns up - shudder -  I frankly would be inclined to take my chances with the bull. I think my rodeo clown is due, so things can get back to normal as I leap over the fence and ignore the man in grease paint behind me frantically waving oversized and brightly striped underwear in my friend bull's face so I can get away. 

Anyway, we are solidly into September, with Summer giving us that one last little kiss before she walks away and leaves us to miss her terribly. Already there is a slight chill in the air, even if the days are 30 C. Next week we have our Peddlar's Market, a sure sign that winter is coming, as members dig out their forgotten treasures from their closets, to sell to other members who will then transfer them to new closets. The circle of life, really. 

Today, I worked on my wine cellar. It is starting to take shape. I am still madly considering lighting it, and went out and found these: 

Festive lights are starting to appear in the box craft stores for the upcoming Halloween, and I picked these up for $6 or so. I was quite smug about them, until I discovered the lights I thought were clear, were actually purple. Not quite what I had in mind, needless to say (yet, I did). Probably I will have to wait until Christmas supplies (a.k.a. next week) come out for the clear ones, or see if I can scope out a battery box plus lights elsewhere. Once I get the right colour, however, I think this is going to turn out really rocking. Eventually I will build the box up to hide all the light casings, etc. In order to do this I have removed all the hardware and the lid. I will do something else with the lid a bit later, I imagine, or something to pair it with the main box. 

 I gave my cellar a nice plank ceiling, and stained it. Eventually I drilled through, and still have to hide that a bit. Its all good. 

 In the meantime, I went on to my second piece of furniture for my cellar, this lovely "cast iron" table above. It is a very delicate laser cut piece from Karen Benson. I am quite pleased with the kits I have put together already - she is also fairly reasonable in her prices, and I like that too. 

The table, deconstructed. There are "extra" pieces in this kit, one option to make a plank table, and another to make a glass top. Since this is a cellar, and it will be a working table, I chose to keep it more rustic with the plank table. 

 A closer shot of the pieces. Note the delicate size of these pieces compared to the ruler and paint brush. This is the kind of project that you find yourself very religious with, because if  you use even the wrong kind of pressure on those delicate little pieces, there just is no coming back, so you pray like mad until you are good and done.

This is me, using the tiny plastic packing case as a jig. It took me a while to get these fiddly bits in place as they are almost too small to hold, and eventually I realized that building the frame and then adding the table top was an exercise in madness. I ended up building part of the frame, gluing on the tabletop for, and then adding the leg brace piece to that so I had more to hold. Again, teeny tiny little pieces, but well worth the occasional "poing!". Certainly far more intricate and delicate than I can achieve with my relatively clumsy tools.

The Finished Table! I did not use acrylics to paint the legs, but water colours, which worked as a delicate stain. Time will tell if it is long lasting. For the top, I used the water colours again, this time in ochre. I am pleased. 

I felt my door needed a little more attention. Here I am, painting a thin strip of cardboard black, which I later cut into rectangles which I further cut down to make hinge-like bits. I finished the hinges off with a dot of gold paint. Mmmm...gold paint.  I also made a "cast iron" door handle as well from a strip of this painted paper.

Voila, one "old oak door with cast iron hinges and cast iron door knob" (patent pend.). Yeah, by the way, you caught me ... I was working on this while I was letting glue dry on my table. Always a good idea to have more than one project on the go, so as to avoid that whole "is the glue dry yet" syndrome we are often afflicted with.

I decided to make a few bottles for my honeycomb. I did buy, of course, bottles from Karen Bensen, but felt they were a little "flat" when I went to use them in the stands. They are better as stand ups, so I will use them as such. These are tiny little polymer clay bottles. I started off with a ball of clay, and lengthened it and tapered one end to make a suggestion of a bottle. Once baked, I stained the bottles with green water colours, and then painted details on with acrylics (such as labels, and changed the wine colour, as any self-respecting oenophile wouldn't exclusively collect white wines only (or I suspect this is the case. You never know with some people, though).  I finished the bottles off with my trusty gold pen.

They don't stick out in real life as much as they look to be doing in this picture. However, this is a good shot of my new table, and the wine barrels I made the last time. I have also made some accessories, and you will have to use your imagination because I didn't get pictures yet, to add a little charm around the place. It is definitely taking shape now! 

That is all I had time to do, but I didn't also want you to think I had forgotten our date, and hopefully you have enjoyed your visit here  once more. To finish off, I thought you would enjoy and/or be inspired by  seeing another little wine cellar, this by someone named "Dany".  Until next time...

Happy Labor Day!

Possibly Labour. Spelling is always a game and a half, and it always depends on which country you call home. Canadians like to mix it up a bit anyway just to annoy people, using a little American Version, and a little BritishVersion ... its naught for nothing we like to call ourselves a mixed salad country. Anyway, what ever day it is to you, hope you are having a happy one! There is definitely a fall feeling in the air today, of the very earliest kind. I noticed shadows far too early today over a neighbor's outbuilding, and there is a hint in the air of the on-coming season. Not cool Mother Nature, not cool. 

It has been a hectic week, and the last few days I have had a chance to relax a little before things rev up again. I was given a bookshelf from work, one that had outlived its usefulness, and was just in the way there (to hear certain of my coworkers tell the tale, anyway). This was serendipity, as I was looking for a few more storage ideas, and free and useful are always music to my ears. The only thing I needed to do, and there is always one catch of course, was to find  the little dohickeys that support the shelves, which had somehow disappeared from the bookshelf in our big move a few years ago (although the shelves themselves were present and accounted for, which means someone took it upon themselves to remove the hardware, for what I can only assume was for evil and mischief,  or possibly it was donated to a charity, as a lot of things disappeared in the name of charity as well, but I digress).  Back to the shelf thingies - easy right? Well, of course you have to find them in the gigantor box stores that pass for hardware stores, when you don't actually know what the little thingamajiggers are actually called - for laughs, go in to a hardware store and ask for a thingamajigger, and watch the floor clerk break down into uncontrollable sobs.... ah, good times, good times! Lucky for them I was in a generous mood, so after  little googling for  the name - they are called "shelf pins" - I went forth to find them. In one store, I asked a clerk where I might be directed, and I was ushered to "Area 51". Really. "Area 51". 

At first they denied all knowledge of the coveted shelf pins, but I knew the truth was out there, and my detective skills ruled the day and I tracked the little daleks down.  They were not the ones I had hoped for, and I needed to drill out the holes in the book shelf to make them fit. Which meant I needed a decent drill. And some bits. I did mention, free bookshelf, right? Happily everyone - including hardware stores selling drills and bits - are currently having back to school sales, so I got a heck of a deal. 

I rushed home and drilled some holes, swearing gently when I realized the actual horsepower even a cheap drill can have as it pulled me unexpectedly toward oblivion, and congratulating myself on my handyman-like prowess as I plugged in the pins.

Sadly, I hadn't accounted for the thickness of the shelf pin. The shelf could not, would not clear the back of the pin, sam I am. Sitting on top of the pin like this, surprisingly,  does not make for a  structurally sound shelf, so it was back to the drawing board and  hardware store, which is okay because I realized I needed some other goodies - um - supplies anyway. 

Okay, muuuuch better. All ready to be packed full of mini goodness! 

Once that was done, it was on to some projects. I worked a little on my wine cellar, because I got my box of goodies from Karen Benson  that I had ordered a couple of weeks ago and I could proceed again with extreme prejudice. 

Nothing better than a box of goodies to get one in a good mood! I decided I needed to make my 1/4 inch scale double wine barrel holder. 

Karen Benson "The Quarter Source"

Nice, right? She even had little spiggots for the barrels!  

These are all the little bits and bobs that I needed to complete the kit. She recommends wood glue for these kits. I had a choice between fast drying and "regular" (fast drying being 10 minutes, "regular" is 25). However, one uses so little glue that it is better to have the longer drying time, otherwise by the time you apply glue to the last joint (and there were several joins in this piece of furniture) that the first joint has already dried. Well played, glue. Well played. She also recommends to stain the wood first if you want it stained, and to use a stain maker. These come in a wonderful variety of colors and keep the mess down beautifully. I chose "Provincial", because I thought it sounded like something you would find in a wine cellar. 

All the lovely bones. I put a sequin in to show you relative size, although I suppose you can see from the marked mat how tiny this is - but I like sequins, they are like solid glitter...mmm, glitter.

The pieces, stained. I did like the "Provincial", it was what I had in mind (and I understand that is one of the signs of the Apocalypse, but we will worry about that if we start to hear hoof beats).  The marker made quick work of the pieces, and my fingers were only barely stained (oh oh, another sign!). While the stain dried, I started on my barrels. 

This was the tricky bit, as the plastic wasn't truly interested in taking the paint well. I did have to play around a little to get the colors I wanted, and  I eventually went back to my sharpie collection and my trusty gold pen, and thus I was happy.

Starting construction.  I can highly recommend Karen's kits. These pieces went together like a charm! The fiddly bit came when I had to add the second strut onto the spacers, but that was a work of a minute and a little sleight of hand with the tweezers. 

I kind of liked the barrel holder without the trim, it was a little more rustic looking. I did carry on, however, and trim it completely. 

Apropos of nothing, it is interesting how different the stain looks in a slightly different light. 

Look at that tiny spiggot! She pre-cut the dowel, which was threaded onto a little hole in the flat part of the spiggot. Perfect fit! O-M-G. I can definitely hear hoofbeats now! 

My version of the barrel holder, complete...

and in the cellar. I have had a change of heart of what I wanted my wine holders to be. I felt they were a little dark and "cheap" looking, so I got my trusty gold pen out and lightened them up a bit. By the way, I found that this is called a honeycomb. Who knew? Well, obviously not me until I looked it up. 

 

I was feeling that my box needed a little light, especially over the stair case, so I removed a small bit of the roof. I am hoping to find a light source, and I will create a little box on top to hide it all.

 

I stopped there, as I don't like to do too much on one project, lest I start to get impatient and start making design choices that are going to come back at me later and cry "why!"

 These are the wee bottles that I bought from Karen. They are actually laser cut plastic, and once the brown paper is off they will look like glass. They come with wee labels as well.  I will save them, however, until I get the rest of the architecture finished. 

Last but certainly not least, I have been doll making again. I think making these dolls could be addictive. Red hatted girl, I think is named Penelope. She looks like a Penelope, anyway.  To her left is her friend Miranda. She isn't quite finished - she needs a hat, possibly some sunglasses, and she may be missing a phone, which I will sculpt later on. 

As it is September 1st, and as this time of year always makes me think of apples, I thought you would enjoy a little tutorial on how to make apples! If you prefer PC's, I totally understand. 

Hope your "official" last weekend of summer brings you fond memories, and we will talk soon!