The lollipop “tree” project is done (yay!). I’m pleased how the two boards turned out and it was fun to reconnect with my paints and paint brushes. I refined the original sketch of the juggling monkey. He’s more cartoon-y and now has roller skates (easier than trying to draw monkey feet). Here’s the sketch:
And here’s the finished panel:
The other panel sported an elephant balancing on top of a ball. Here’s the sketch:
And the finished panel:
I used gold spray paint on the boards and acrylics for the characters. The red and blue areas were given extra treatments of glitter paint. Because everything is better with glitter. Am I right?
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Today I pruned my two little grapevines. Hopefully I did it right and hopefully I didn’t jump the gun and prune them too soon. I figured since we were having such a mild winter so far that maybe it was a good idea to go ahead and take care of that task. Grapevines, apparently, need a lot of aggressive pruning in order to produce fruit. Since this is only my first year growing grapes (they’re supposed to be a seedless Concord variety), I din’t expect to see grapes for at least another year. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the fruits of my labor. Check out the wreath I made from the pruned vines:
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I was inspired recently to take up pencil, pen, and paper and start drawing again. There are a few people I can thank for this, among them is the muse Necessity. I volunteered to help but on a carnival at my son’s school in the spring and have found myself on games and crafts. Below is a sketch for a monkey that will (hopefully) adorn one side of a lollipop “tree”. This will be a pegboard with lollipops stuck in the holes. Some pops will have painted sticks. Kids can pick a pop and if theirs has a marked stick, they also win a prize. The other side will likely have an elephant, but I haven’t finished that sketch, yet.
So, monkey see:
Happy Halloween!
This year CJ decided he wanted to be an Angry Bird.
Specifically, he wanted to be the blue Angry Bird (though I think the blue bird looks more sleep deprived than angry).
I would have to say this costume is the awesome-est one I’ve made to date. It’s based on a blue Angry Bird plushie we picked up back at the start of the school year.
The costume is made with fleece, an old t-shirt, and a lot of stuffing (two lage bags and change worth). We found a sweatshirt hoodie that nearly matched the costume fleece. The eyes and eye bags are appliqued on with black thread. The beak is also appliqued on with stuffing inserted. The inside of the costume is the old t-shirt. It helps hold the stuffing in and isn’t quite as warm as fleece would have been. The arm holes were made a little big. This was a serendipitous accident since it allowed for a little ventilation. The costume was quite warm with all the layers and stuffing.
Not to be out done for cute, Z wore his monkey suit:
Eventually, Z will get his own costumes, but for now he has the hand-me-downs from big brother. This monkey costume is from the McCall’s pattern M6105: Toddler’s Costumes by Tom Arma.
The original pattern has footies on the costume. You’re supposed to put non-skid material on the footies, but I was never able to find the right material. Eventually I gave up and cut the footies off and added elastic cuffs. This makes much more sense for a toddler who’s walking. Plus, how else is one supposed to show off their Scooby Doo socks?
CJ and Z are ready to strut their stuff and head out for a fun night of trick-or-treating.
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Yesterday CJ and I visited SunSpots in Staunton, VA. They were having glassblowing classes where a participant could make a glass ornament, pumpkin, or witch’s ball. CJ opted to make a witch’s ball. Here are some pics from our visit:
Inside the studio. The instructor gets a glob of clear glass from one of the ovens. It's toasty warm in here.
CJ watches the instructor roll the glob of glass on a metal table and add colored bits of glass called "frit" to the clear glass.
Back into the oven it goes. The frit is melted into the clear glob of glass and the whole thing is heated up to prepare for blowing.
The glob of glass is rolled on the surface of a metal table. I'm not sure why. I believe this acts to center the glob and compress the glob onto the rod.
The glob is shaped into something more globe-like by spinning it in a wooden, ladle-looking tool. Not surprisingly, these ladles are kept in water between use.
Back into the furnace again to heat up the glass. Now we're ready to blow. CJ stands at the ready. A rubber tube is attached to the end of the glass-blowing rod.
CJ got to go through the whole procedure three times. Most of these pictures are from the first two times. The first time, the ball got too big and too thin and clearly wasn’t going to survive the annealing process. The second time looked more promising. Unfortunately though, the second attempt didn’t survive the annealing and shattered at the top. It was also too thin. They let CJ come back for a third try the next day. The artisan was a different gentleman and much more experience than the one the previous day. We hope this third try came out okay. We couldn’t stay to pick up CJ’s witch’s ball the next day and it was supposed to be mailed to us. Hopefully it is on its way and will arrive intact. CJ is really excited to see is creation. He had a blast trying his hand at glass blowing and was happy he actually got to do it more than once. It looked like fun. I hope I get to try it myself sometime.