I can't seem to stop...

I mean.... I just wanted a Sailor Moon wine glass. That's all I wanted. This one wine glass I found on Etsy. If that seller had just responded to my messages and sold me the wine glass, none of this would have happened. I never needed a massive collection of nerdy wine glasses! Even after I did the pirahna plant glass, I felt satisfied with what I'd done, I didn't feel like I needed more. But then the idea of a nerdy set happened and I felt that fire in my stomach of a really good project, and it's really just gotten out of hand. I just lost control of this somewhere along the way.

I have three more glasses to show you. And a fourth in progress. Aaaaand right this second as I type this I just got ideas for like three more that I desperately want. I'm gonna hold on to those ideas though, we're gonna let them sit a bit before moving on them. Let's focus on what's done.

The first two are their own set. I had a set of plain wine glasses I wanted to paint because I really wanted a set of galaxy wine glasses. So while hanging out with Shannon one night that's what I did. Just to be clever I did a layer of glitter paint, a layer of silver and then a layer of black, so the interior of the glass is shiny but the outside is galaxy. You can find a hundred different tutorials online for painting galaxy, I'm not going to go into it here.

When I was done I liked them, but I really wanted them to be nerdy somehow. Suddenly I realized I have multiple fandoms based in space! I looked into the idea of getting vinyl stickers for Serenity from Firefly and the TARDIS. I had some trouble finding ones small enough, since usually people buy these to go on the back of laptops or car windows, not wine glasses, but I found a few I thought might work. Maybe. I did still have concerns about the durability of the stickers on things that were going to be washed frequently, but I figured it was worth a shot.

And then. That moment. You know the one. I realized what I really needed was to sculpt Serenity and the TARDIS out of clay around the base if the stems. It was a risky plan, I wasn't at all certain if I could make something that actually looked like Serenity. I knew I could do the TARDIS, that was easy. So I started with Serenity, figuring if I was gonna fail it was better to fail right away. And things went better than expected!

When making the TARDIS I did my best to keep the clay unattached to the stem of the wine glass, I would have loved it if it could have been loose and spinny on there, just like the real TARDIS travelling through space. But unfortunately it stuck during baking and I didn't dare try pushing too hard on it to get it loose out of fear of breaking something. But it still looks good. There you go:

They're less clay intensive than my others, but I'm pleased with them. They make a nice little set and I'm not unhappy with my slightly awkward looking Serenity.

So, to make up for the last clay intensive wine glasses, I decided to do the MOST CLAY INTENSIVE WINE GLASS YET. The thing was, I'd finally come up with my Final Fantasy wine glass idea. How great would it be if my wine glass was. Moogle, with the glass being his head? I could get a spring to put his bobble on so it would bounce around and it would be so damn adorable. It took one quick hardware store trip to find the right spring, so I went and got me another big brick of white clay.

Stu and I had recently finished the Final Fantasy 13 series, and I loved Mog in that, so I briefly considered making my moogle that specific Mog, but I eventually decided I didn't necessarily want to represent one specific Final Fantasy alone, I wanted a general Final Fantasy glass, so I needed a more generic moogle that would be my Mog. His face took some tweaking to get right, I wanted his round little cheeks and I realized pretty quick he needed a jaw to go with it. 

I made his nose and his bobble out of Sculpey Souffle clay to keep them light and less likely to just droop. I made his body out of clay all the way through, which I knew wasn't a great idea but I was worried about getting the shape right with a foil core around a wine glass stem. And it did give me a nice stab-able object to push the wire I built his wings around into to keep them supported.

I had a little trouble deciding on how I wanted to accessorize him, I couldn't choose between having him hold a book or wear a shoulder bag, so I actually created a Facebook poll to get my nerdy friends' opinions, and book won by a landslide. So I made him a little book, anchored his bobble as well as I could, and he was ready to bake.

Before I put him in, I had this thought. Hey, maybe I should fill the cup with foil to kinda prop up the bobble during baking. And then I dismissed that thought, figuring I was being paranoid. You already know what happened. He'd been in the oven for less than ten minutes and when I checked on him his bobble had completely flopped over and broken off.  So I frantically pulled him out, propped it up, added more clay and propped it this time.

I think I'm establishing a new policy where every time I think, "Hey, maybe I should..." I'm just gonna do it and see what happens when I actually listen to my intuition.

This time, I wondered if I should build a foil seat under Mog to keep his body from sliding, but what was definitely crazy, right?

So he went back in the oven. The bobble was propped, but when I went to pull him out of the oven, his body had detached from his head and slid to the base of the wine glass, which had also caused his legs to snap off. Abso-fucking-lutely perfect. He'd also formed a few cracks in various places, which didn't really surprise me based on the thickness of the clay in certain places. That's why you're not supposed to have such thick clay spots. So, I pulled Mog out, let him cool, and used super glue to put him back together. I then spent some time carefully smoothing fresh clay over his cracks to cover them. I was super meticulous while smoothing on the fresh clay, I wanted my patches to be as invisible as possible, but I figured I'd have to paint him to really cover them. I figured I'd have to do that anyways, it's so hard to work with white clay and not get it all linty.

So I rebaked him with the fresh clay. Nothing terrible happened this time aside from a few small reappearing cracks. I had to sand down the patches a bit, but otherwise he seemed okay.

The next step was painting him. I've been using acrylic enamel paints on my polymer clay lately, it seems to hold up better and still gives me a bit of gloss like I want. So I gave Mog a nice bright coat of paint and he looked great. I needed to put him back in the oven to bake the paint and I figured that wouldn't be a problem at all.

Sigh.

I open the oven when he's done and his damn cute little butt is back on the base of the wine glass and the bobble is 100% broken off and dropped into the glass. The only thing I can do is pull him out and wait for him to cool. I managed to tip him upside down and get his body slid back into place so that it would cool in the correct shape and I just set the bobble off to the side. When he was cooled his body was stuck in place again, but the lump of white clay at the base of the bobble had cooled in a bad shape so it wouldn't fit neatly anymore. I managed to solve that by heating the bobble up again and then mildly burning my fingers as I pressed the piece into it's spot on the back of Mog's head to make it cool back into shape. I then nearly super glued my fingers to Mog's head when gluing the bobble back in place, but I finally got it there. It wasn't perfectly neat, but I put a few thick layers of paint over the seam and figured I'd just leave it. Ladies dig scars, right?

I had no intentions of baking him again for the fresh paint. I figured it is possible to air cure the paint, and I don't dare put him in the oven again. His body seemed stuck in place, but I ran a ring of super glue over where I knew the crack was anyways just to be safe, since I knew it wasn't actually attached, and called him done.

He's perfectly darling, and I love the way his bobble actually bounces around because of the spring, but I do know that thing is going to dip into my wine all the time. I'll just have to make sure it's nice and clean. I've already dropped my Scuttle into my wine with my Little Mermaid glass, so it's just more of the same.

Like I said, there is also another glass in progress, but you're going to have to wait to see what that one is!

Happy Birthday to me!

It's my birthday! and my husband sent me flowers at work!  Aren't they pretty?  The card with them was amazingly sweet and made me cry.
(willfocus.com is the site of my coworker who is a photographer and took the pics.)


























Also, I do have a new project to post.  I recently decided to learn to read Tarot cards, so I got ahold of a deck (Shadowscapes by Stephanie Pui Mun Law- http://www.shadowscapes.com/index.php- good LORD it's gorgeous. I love this artist) and I wanted a fancy box for it to go in.  So I bought a plain one from the craft store and decided to decorate it.  I'd seen several things on Pinterest about staining wood I wanted to try using tea and steel wool soaked in vinegar.  So I made an absurdly strong cup of tea from some tea I'd bought ages ago, and didn't like.  Bigelow's Constant Comment flavored with rind of oranges and sweet spice. icky.  The tea painted on the wood as a rather orange color, which concerned me.  I was afraid I was going to end up with an orange box.  However, when I added the coating of vinegar and steel, the son of a bitch turned pitch black.  Not what I expected.  I was hoping for brown.  But black is better than orange.  So I added some decorative gold paint, and using the gel medium for transferring pictures I'd read about, added a Seal of Rassilon (from Doctor Who) to the top.  It looked appropriately Celtic and mystical for a Tarot box, while being completely and utterly nerdy.  I am happy about it.

Doctor Who Scarf

Well, here it is.  Loom beading is very tedious.  I had to end it rather abruptly, because I ran out of thread on my loom. I thought I'd cut enough for the pattern that I was using, but I must have made a mistake in my math somewhere.  It's fine, this is plenty long enough.  I had some mild drama with it- if you look at the fringe on the end of the scarf, that was the color I'd originally selected for my purple segments.  Once I actually started getting it worked in, I hated it.  It was not the right color at all.  I tried to push through, figured I couldn't do anything about it now.  But the hate grew too strong, and I bought the much nicer color you see here.  Replacing the segments I'd already done involved CAREFULLY cutting the weft thread and avoiding the warp threads, which is much, much harder than it sounds.  I eventually realized I could just crush one of the beads with my pliers to get easier access to the weft, but apparently crushing a glass bead wrapped around a thin thread can occasionally cause damage to the thread- so I had a few warp threads cut that I had to figure out how to patch.  It was a bit awkward and knotty, but I managed.  And there are no visible flaws from this.  And as you can see, I ended up using the original purple color for the fringe.  It works.  I love it.

Beads!

So, I love acquiring new hobbies.  My newest one is beading.  I found these pictures online:

http://crafty-tardis.livejournal.com/407311.html#cutid1

http://crafty-tardis.livejournal.com/407311.html#cutid1

 

And I had to have it.  If you're not sure, that is a small beaded version of the Fourth Doctor's scarf from Doctor Who.



You know, this guy:

geez, he looks like a nutter butter.  But that's why he's fun. 

Anyways, I've thought before about knitting the scarf, since it's one of those things that any self respecting crafty nerd is required to make. (along with the Firefly Jayne hat- I have the materials, I swear I'm gonna make it soon.) But what on earth would I do with a 20 ft long scarf?  It would be impossible to wear, except in costume, and when am I ever gonna have a chance to do that?  Also, UHG 20 feet of plain scarf knitting.  Just the thought puts me to sleep having nightmares of endless boredom.  But then I found the beaded necklace.  That is perfect.  I can wear that.  And we all know how I love to mix nerdy into my daily wear. So I immediately went out and bought a bead loom and taught myself bead weaving.  Not like it's hard, Shannon and I learned together, and she can do it no problem.

Of course, it wasn't good enough to just copy the pictures I found, I had to go to the official Doctor Who scarf site and carefully research my pattern and colors.  I ended up buying beads for it twice cuz I had such a hard time finding colors I liked.  Even now I'm not entirely pleased, mostly with the purple color I got.  But the person who made the necklace originally is selling them on Etsy for $125 each, which I think is majorly overpriced.  If I really don't like this one, I'll sell it for half that, and remake one for myself.  Selling this one might make me feel better about how much I've spent on beads.  I'm almost 3/4 the way done with it, and it's taken some time. I really don't want to remake it, but I will if the details bother me.  You know, cuz I'm crazy like that.  I'll put pictures up when it's done.

I've also been making a lot of other random jewelry just cuz I had the tools and supplies, since I now have a basic beginner's beading kit.  Maybe I'll post some pictures of the other stuff I've made.  I'm pretty proud of it.  I also want to learn kumihimo, which is Japanese round braiding.  It can be done with beads, and you end up with cool round ropes of beads.  I may run to the craft store on my lunch break.

I was knitting that shrug for my Rinoa thing, but I needed a break from knitting, so I put it away.  I'll finish it eventually.

River Song's Journal

So, I'm also a big Doctor Who fan.  Big.  I mean, I'm completely in love.  I cry regularly that the Doctor hasn't shown up yet to take me travelling with him.   The tenth Doctor is my favorite, how can you not love David Tennant?

Seriously, no human being has the right to be that cute.

Anyways, one of his on again off again companions is miss Queen of the Badasses, River Song.  She is awesome.  and she also does quite a bit of time travelling on her own.  And she and the Doctor are travelling in opposite directions on eachother's timeline.  Very confusing. They never know where the other one is, and what the other one has done.

As a result, River carries around a rather unique journal that she keeps track with, so that when she meets up with the Doctor, they can compare notes, figure out where they're at and know what they can talk about without causing spoilers.  Time travel and foreknowledge and all that jazz. 

 

Based on my previous posts, I'm assuming you see where I'm going with this.  I found a really good tutorial online for how to make this journal. 

Right here: http://storybooksong.tumblr.com/post/11131545977

And I WANTED it. 

It just so happened that weekend before last Caleb and Zach went out of town for a Grand Prix tournament for Magic.  Marissa and I got ditched.  Aaron and Amanda went too, so that meant I got to be the babysitter.  Luckily, we did get Caleb's parents to agree to take the girls one night so that I could have one night where I could do whatever I wanted.  And I suggested to Marissa that we do this.  she is also a big Doctor Who fan, we became fans together, watching it on Netflix.  She liked this plan. 

So, Corey had been spending a few days at our house because of a long weekend off of school.  He has just started Doctor Who, so he didn't know River yet, but he likes the show.  Friday afternoon I took Shannon and Eloise to Caldwell, and hit the craft store, leaving Corey happily playing Skyrim.  I ended up spending about $30 for the supplies to make two journals.  Marissa had offered to take me out to dinner that night, so I just paid for the supplies.  the journals were about $7 each, and then at the Hobby Lobby I found a big bag of scrap leather for $7.  IN TARDIS BLUE.  I about had a heart attack when I found affordable leather in the right color.  I was planning to paint over it anyways, but it was so much better to have the right color to begin with.  I didn't learn how much better until later.  I bought paint and glue as well. 

Anyways, that night we went to Chili's for dinner, Corey came too, and then we went to Hastings and rented Fright Night, because David Tennant is in it, and we hadn't seen it.  At home we watched a few episodes of Doctor Who first- Corey was right at the end of the first season, so he didn't really know David Tennant yet, so we just picked up where he was.  Plus the Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston is very good, and David Tennant's first episode is my favorite.  I didn't mind.  I made margaritas and then we put in Fright Night and made these:

 Mine's the one with the bigger lines.  I feel we did a pretty good job.  Cutting the leather was AWFUL.  we used scissors and x-acto knives.  I found a spot on the base of my thumb where if it gets pushed on makes my whole thumb tingle like it's asleep.  and I hit it so hard my thumb was numb for two days.  I also bruised my hnd in various ways and had sore muscles from how hard I'd had to work to cut the leather.  We got out pumice stones and used those to rough the books up to make them look more worn- River's journal has clearly had the crap kiced out of it.  We scraped at the leather, the corners, the edges of the pages, everything.  I made some tea and mixed some cocoa in, which we sponged over the edges of the pages to make them look yellowed and older.  Marissa plans to just use hers for decoration, so she did a more accurate spine, which you can't really see.  When we were gluing the leather we realized really fast that stiff cheap leather would not allow the spine to bend if we did the correct looking spine.  Mine was originally an inverse of hers, with just small pieces glued on so I could actually use mine, but in the end I didn't like it.  I went back to the Hobby Lobby and got a small piece of soft, nicer leather and redid the spine so it looks much better.  It was then that I learned how good the blue leather was.  the new stuff I got was brown, and was impossible to rough up at all, because it just scraped the paint off, which I then had to repaint, which would smooth out the roughing.  I managed to get it a little beat up, but it wasn't easy.  It would have been a pain in the ASS to do that if all the leather had been a different color. 

Anyways, there they are.  and I love it.  I don't know what I'm going to write in mine, I'm terrible with journals.  But I'm gonna come up with something.