Happy Countdown! This year I’m doing #hARToween, and the prompt for the first day is PUMPKIN. You may think I’m cheating to use a stamp. Ahh…but see I also drew and made the stamp. Okay, not today, but I figured I’d give myself a little cheat for the first day.
I even made a tiny video:
Dangit, I knew I forgot something when I uploaded my last video. My preciousssss blog!
This week I used the Little Windows cabochon kit again, and it did not disappoint. I love these.
Tomorrow, the Countdown to Halloween begins. This year, I’m using a prompt list from a Mastodon friend, Mother Suspiria. Here it is if you’d like to follow along:
I like it because so many prompt lists try to be different by being way too specific, in weird ways. This is just straight-up Halloweeny. I’m kind of crap at drawing, so this will be 31 days of good practice.
Happy Spooky Season!
This week’s video was a fun challenge. I had to sculpt a ghost dog in an interesting position. Even if it wasn’t entirely successful, there are context clues. I really enjoyed painting the little nighttime street scene.
Lots of clay, lots of paint, lots of terrible, terrible jokes.
This week on My Messy Desk, I made a little trinket box from the 6-in-1 mold set by Little Windows. I am not sponsored by them, they just make wonderful stuff. I made the dish, then flipped the mold over to make the lid. It even had a template I could have used to cut the vintage Halloween image to the correct size, but I didn’t use it, because I didn’t notice it until I put the set away.
Of course, I made the whole thing twice, just not on camera. I wasn’t liking the first one anyway, then the image lifted on the lid, so it was a bust. Funny, I thought I was ahead of the game when I got started on Monday. Yeah, not so much.
This mold was a lot of fun, and I suspect it will be showing up again in the future.
About a year ago, I started working on a bunch of stuff. Among them was a retro-horror channel called Old and Spooky, where I would discuss 20th century horror. I was almost done with my first video, when disaster struck. Disaster named ADHD. I accidentally deleted my data, and thanks to Microsoft (it’s complicated, but they suck) I could only restore a tiny amount.
I was devastated. I couldn’t look at it for months.
Then I started My Messy Desk, which is a whole lot of fun. Problem is, there’s a lot of downtime while I wait for things to dry or cure or whatever, and I don’t have much else to do. I decided to work on Old and Spooky during that downtime. It felt great. It feels great. And now, the first video is out.
It’s about one of my all-time faves: Dan Curtis. If you don’t know who that is, I bet you do know Dark Shadows and the Kolchak movies, right? Well that’s Dan Curtis.
Here is my inaugural video. My reading is a little stiff, but that will get better with time. Overall, I’m pretty proud of this. *flexes*
Another shadowbox this week, and it’s a doozy. Well, the outcome was pretty simple–though I really like it! It’s just that the journey to get there was…complicated. Mostly mold-making, because that’s always time-consuming and complicated. But soooo worth it! I will be using this little guy forever.
Tags: #crafts #art #ghosts #halloween
So, I have a YouTube channel. Well, a new one. Sort of. And since I’ve updated on time (more or less) for a whole month, it’s time to announce it here!
It’s called My Messy Desk, and to avoid filling my entire house up with little makes, I give everything away. Or at least I will once it’s grown enough to get the comments. I only want five! FIVE. Eventually.
The important thing to know is TURN ON CAPTIONS. There’s no voiceover, and if you don’t turn on captions, you’ll miss my scintillating commentary. And spackle jokes.
What I do there won’t always be spooky, but for the next few months, all spooky, all the time!
Just figured out why I’m seeing a lot of Bruce St. John Maher pieces on eBay. Turns out he died about a year ago. He was 70, so not terrible innings, but living forever would have been better.
Maher was a pioneer in glass making, inventing the kiln techniques he used to create his work. He was also a gay rights activist in the SF Bay area.
If you search for him now on eBay, you’ll find a bunch of very under-priced necklaces. They even have a bit of stained glass! Tiger-Tiger also has a bunch of pieces, at more usual prices. I am glad to have the two pieces pictured here. I don’t think I’ll buy any more, as I would just be collecting it, and his work deserves to be seen by the masses.
It’s that time of year again! That time when I get the urge to buy Halloween creations from wonderful artists. I’ll be getting one or two things a month in the run-up to our favorite holiday.
My first grab is from Raggedy Ruth Creations. She makes doll scenes of all kinds, and when I searched for Halloween items, it was difficult not to glom everything. I settled for my favorite, this spooky ghost in a window. A good kick-off to the season!
I just had to make one more diorama.
It took a lot longer than I expected it to. Like, a lot. Every day I’d wake up and think, today, I’ll finish! And I did not finish.
I learned a lot, though. I bought a soldering kit, and soldered something, and it worked! I made my first wire tree, and was pretty pleased with the result.
Overall, I like it, though it has too many flaws to put it in the shop. I shall happily keep it around as part of my collection. Maybe someday I’ll give it to a friend.
