Halloweeny: 1 Matchbox, 9 Clovers and a Very Strange Day

What a strange morning!

Took the dog for an extra long walk today and found a whole bouquet worth of four leaf clovers. Just kept finding one after another. Eight four leaf and one five leaf in total.

Continued on our walk when the pooch spied a squirrel... annnndddd he was off like a shot. Nooooo! He ran down a steep wooded hill and I stood shouting from the top. Nope, jerk face was not listening. I took my clumsy life into my hands and started to descend the steep af hill. A few feet down and I spied a little bum sticking up out of leaves. It was a god damn gnome! At that moment the dog suddenly took notice of me and came trotting up the hill, pleased as punch.

You can think what you like, but I'm certain Mr. Gnome sent that squirrel to alert a rescue party. Of course I brought him home and I'm pleased to report he's now safe and convalescing nicely. Lu, my beast, is napping from all the excitement.

And now, on to the matchbox...

Rummaging through my work space yesterday and came across some cute Halloween stuff in my stash. While waiting for glue and paint to dry on other projects, I tossed this cute wee spooky matchbox together.

Is it mad creative and an example of fine crafting skills? No. Not in the least.

Is it adorable and does it make me smile? Fuck yeah!

Hope your day is weird and filled with wonder too xo

Halloweeny: Money Paw

 Have you heard of monkey paws and their ability to grant wishes?

Only problem is, as with most wishing mechanisms, everything gets turned sideways and you'll regret not heeding that old adage "Be careful what you wish for". Why can't monkey paws, leprechauns and djinn just let us be rich and successful rather than ply us with their this trickery!?

This paw is quite harmless as it's made from a skeleton hand salad tong and not a real monkey.

I chopped up the hand to give the proportions I wanted, then sculpted up some monkey flesh using air dry and paper clay.

For the nails I used acrylic press on nails and grunged them up a tad. The 'fur' is wool roving.

And to get that sort of shiny dehydrated mummified flesh, I painted the piece with black acrylic paint mixed with Mod Podge.

Now, if you knew this monkey paw could grant wishes BUT you were also aware that it was a tricky bugger... how would you phrase your wishes so that you didn't get scammed by the sneak?

Halloweeny: Spooky Wreath

Ok, maybe it's more cute than creepy or spooky, but the nice thing about Halloweeny is that that doesn't matter one pip!

This is made entirely with stash and DollarTree finds. I honestly just threw a bunch of stuff at it until I liked what I saw.

I started with a regular wreath frame from DollarTree and wrapped some burlap around that. Then covered the burlap with spanish moss. That completed my base.

On top of that I added pingpongesque eyeballs, plastic bones, leftover fake leaves and flowers from my crown making. There's a few googly eyes in there and fake spiders and ants crawling around. 

I cut lengths of tea-stained cotton and tied them together to make a 'ribbon' to hang my masterpiece. Finally, I used my hot-glue gun to make some spidery type webs which was quite cathartic given I'm usually fighting to get rid of those wispy bits.

Do you think I'll actually get some goblins and ghouls visit this year with this hanging on my door? If not, no worries, I don't mind eating all the halloween candy one bit.

Halloweeny: A Talisman

I was asked to create a protection talisman. A proper one. One that looked like it meant business. Of course I obliged.

It had to be small, and scary, and include some metal.

The thing about protective talismans is that they SHOULD be scary. Do you want a little puffy floof of a dog protecting your space? Or a snarling hell hound that drools and bares it's teeth to any potential interlopers up to no good?

And so I created a little skull, an emblem of death, yes, but also an emblem of old spirits, and ancestral protection. Atop the skull is a protective bindrune. 

A crown of 13 steel pins is ready to poke, stick and jab when need be.

There is natural wool poking this way and that, a natural protective material. Wool that keeps us warm. Wool that keeps us safe and dry. Wool that provides a homey safety. 

The final touches are a pinch of spanish moss. Often used to stuff poppets and used in revenge spells, but here it's a warning: 'I am prepared to seek justice if necessary'. There's red cotton thread with intention tied in it's knots. And finally a hand-forged iron nail. Iron being a strong protective material that repells the magic of others and keeps the holder safe.

What would you add to your own protective talisman? 

Halloweeny - Baby Pinhead

I feel like I haven't properly celebrated Halloween in about a million years. So this year I'm putting in an effort and going to try to cram as much creepy into the season as I can. 

First up: Baby Pinhead

To be fair, my husband spied the creepy doll heads at the Dollarstore and exclaimed "BABY PINHEAD!". I was raring to go but then I couldn't find pins anywhere. Is there a pin issue I don't know about? Has Covid somehow led us to a national sewing notion shortage? No idea. 

The husband suggested that I use little nails instead. I scoffed "Ummm, he's called Pinhead, not Nailhead you plonker" but then I realized that the poky things in that dear cenobites head do look an awful lot like nails. So, nails it is.

Painting this little weiner-schinzle took way longer than I anticipated. You'd think a slap of white paint, a little shading, but those damnable squares took forever to get right. I tried to get the "pin" placement as close as I could to the original character design.

Once the wee dastardly face was done I wondered what the heck to do with him. Right now he's nestled atop a terrarium, a studded leather bracelet for a neck, and keeping an eye on my dining room. Maybe one day he'll sprout a body. Until then he'll wait patiently, no tears of course, they're a waste of good suffering.

Make a Super Cute Bookworm!

Do you know good_and_strange over on instagram? If not, you absolutly need to check out her wonderfully weird creations. Recently she posted a how-to for creating a pocket buddy. I was absoloutely inspired by that project to create some bookworms.

Can you even stand how cute this guy is?! Ugh. So stonkin' cute!

This project is far from perfect, but who cares! Sometimes you HAVE to make something fun and silly and imperfect. Basically, you NEED to make one. I don't make the rules.

Because I love you, and because the world needs more bookworms, I've made a video to encourage you to make your own loveable little buddy.

Enjoy :)

Altered Canvases

Recently, I joined an altered canvas swap. Take a 5" x 7" canvas, and add all sorts of glorious elements to make something pretty. It was just the thing to give me a kick in the inspiration. 

Wanting to play and experiment I ending up creating several canvases.

I added flowers, wax, lace, paint and just embraced the process of play.

How cute are these two?!

You can snag these canvases over on etsy if you're looking for a little mixed media piece for your space.

And if you're making your own altered canvas, I recorded a walk-through that you might find helpful.