Owl-o-lantern

Crafting season begins.

Every year around October 1st, I get the crafting bug. First there's Halloween, which means pumpkins and costumes, and following close behind is my daughter's birthday. After that it's just a few quick weeks to the Christmas season. Basically, this means I'm crafting like crazy from the turn of the first leaf. This year has been no exception. I've been so busy in fact, that I'm a bit late posting my Halloween creation.


We let Zoe pick her own pumpkin this year. She was very decisive about it, pointing insistantly to a rather large and bumpy specimen and then insisting on a second, smaller one as well. Originally, I had planned on keeping it simple, and just going for a basic jack-o-lantern. Of course, this is not what ended up happening. After pondering the dilema of ending up with two pumpkins instead of the one I had planned on, it dawned on me that it would make a really good head and body. I'm not sure why I haven't seen this arrangement before - it works really well, and could be adapted to any number of animals. We went with an owl - which seemed like a really good non-scary Halloween design and perfect for our toddler's first pumpkin, but just about any animal would work.

Here's how to make your version:

Materials: two pumpkins (one big, one small), a crayon or marker, metal skewer, carving tools, carving knife, a few toothpicks, and a lantern.

1. Draw your creature out on paper.

2. Cut out a circle around the stem of both pumpkins - make the holes roughly the same size. Set the stem sections aside. Since the head won’t be sealed to the body, it’s a really good idea to also cut a hole out of the center bottom of the body pumpkin for drainage. Otherwise, it will fill with water and start to rot if it happens to rain. Trust me.

3. Gut the pumpkins as usual, and thin the walls from the inside to allow light to pass through more easily. I used a bent grapefruit spoon for this, but there are also tools specifically for this purpose that you can buy.

4. Turn the smaller pumpkin upside down and place it on top of the large one so the holes line up. Look at the gap between the two. Make any necessary adjustments so that the head rests flatly on the body – you will probably need to shave down any high spots so there is as little gap as possible between the two pumpkins.

5. Take the head off. You will reassemble the creature at the end, but it is easier to do the next steps on each pumpkin separately. Using a crayon (or a sharpie if you are really confident), draw the basic outlines of your design on the body, and then on the head.

6. Carve out your design (I used wood carving tools), but don’t cut all the way through. The thinner you get the wall, the better the light will shine through. If you don’t want to carve very deep, you can always thin the wall from the inside of the pumpkin.

7. Once you are done carving both pumpkins, place the head back on the body. With the head in position, find two spots on the back of the neck (see drawing) where the head and body are touching pretty well. With a marker or skewer, make a mark on the body pumpkin just below this spot. Break a toothpick in half and insert one half into each spot on the body deep enough that it feels secure (you may need to use a metal sqewer or drill bit to start the hole), but so that at least ½” of toothpick is sticking up from the body in a way that the head will rest on them. Now place the head back on the body so that the back of the head rests on the toothpicks. These will be in the back, so don’t worry too much about them being seen.

8. Use the scrap pumpkin pieces from the stem holes and the drainage holes to make any ears or other add-on pieces and attach them with broken toothpics to the pumpkins.

To put a light inside, just take off the head. I used a camping lantern for mine because the enclosed design really isn’t meant for a candle, but if you want to use a candle, you could always cut another hole out of the back of the body.

Happy carving!

Assemblage Creatures

As these things often do, it all started with a seemingly innocent idea that turned out to be incredibly dangerous. After my needle felting project, I got what I thought was a brilliant suggestion from my husband when he jokingly pointed at a package of steel wool on the table and said that I should try felting that next. Being someone who loves to use things in ways they were never intended, I thought this was a great idea and was even happier when I tried it and found it worked wonderfully. And what creatures do you make with steel wool? Why, robots, of course! And if you’re going to make steel wool robots, you’d better wire them with LED eyes. And so I started off on what I thought would be a fantastic project. I bought the finest steel wool I could find. I ordered bronze wool to use as an accent color. I bought hundreds of clearance sale LED Christmas lights, and different kinds of switches and batteries. I started cutting up soda cans to use as a kind of breast plate to feature the switches and knobs on the robot’s chest. I was really excited until I came across a little piece of information that stopped me dead in my tracks. Apparently, steel wool + battery = FIRE.

This was a problem. I had visions of my cute little robot friends being responsible for unspeakable carnage. Could I really sell artwork that had the potential to burst into flames? In the end, the answer was no. Not wanting to ditch the entire project, I decided I had to abandon either the steel wool or the LEDs. Due to the further complication of the steel wool being prone to rust, I decided that that was the ingredient to eliminate. I would have to find some other material to make up the bodies. So, what to replace it with?

Last summer I taught an art class with a group of kids from an arts organization called Little Black Pearl. Since I work for an environmental organization, I tried to come up with a project envolving recycled objects. In doing my research for this, I came across these fabulous assemblage butterflies by Michelle Stitzlein and fell in love with them. From that moment on, I was itching to give it a try, but I would have to figure out a way to do it that would not be a rip off of her work.

Wanting to go the assemblage with salvaged objects route but still not quite sure of my plans, I went to ReStore – a fabulous thrift store run by Habitat for Humanity that is filled with every type of building supply you can imagine. That’s when I stumbled upon track lights. It’s funny when you really take a look at something you’ve seen a million times and suddenly see a new potential. Instead of a light, I suddenly say a body, neck and head. The head even moved up and down and could twist from side to side. It was perfect. I picked up a couple different styles and also grabbed a bunch of random items that caught my eye including some casters, pipe clamps, and tiny bolts. My next step was to clean out my kitchen drawers and cabinets, where I managed to liberate several pairs of tongs, a mellon baller, my spare cocktail shaker, a can opener, two wine openers, and lots of other random stuff that I had never used.

Next, I laid everything out on the counter and held things up to eachother, trying to figure out what to do. That’s when I noticed the pasta tongs that were just screaming to be antlers. I took them out the shop and sawed them off their handles with a hack saw and ground down the cut edge at the grinder (a tool I got when cleaning out my dad’s garage, having no idea what I would ever use it for). Then I took the pieces over to the drill press that my husband had picked out of the garbage last spring (yes, an industrial drill press – it was the best dumpster dive ever!) and was able to easily drill holes to attach them to the “head” of the track light. And so it went. One piece at a time the creatures took shape.

Though it seemed I was on to something, there was still something missing - there was no color. Everything I was using was either white or black, silver or brass. Now, I love neutrals, but only as a backdrop to a punch of strong color. The last thing I wanted to do was discover that I had just built a blank canvas that needed to be painted. There are plenty of artists who are painting 3D “toys”, and I’ve heard from friends of mine doing this that it is roughly the equivilent of painting a 20x20 canvas. I had no desire to tripple my work, not to mention the fact that this just wasn’t what I was going for. But still, they needed something. That’s when I remembered the Monster Boxes I made last year – metal boxes covered in felt. Why not just use fabric? Afterall, I often work in fabric, and am very comfortable with it. I decided to go with brightly colored fur, covering only the torso sections so that all of the attached parts would still be recognizable.

  

Once the fur was in place, they seemed to come alive. They were cuddly, yet still industrial. Cute and still a bit dangerous - perfect. I was so happy with the group that I did something I’ve never had the guts to do before – I applied to a gallery show. And was accepted. It was a real whirlwind – I had one week from being notified to hanging, and then a few days to the show. The show was called TOYth, and was for a new non-profit here in Chicago called Prak-Sis that uses empty spaces and turns them into temporary galleries. It was so strange to be hanging my own work instead of someone elses, but it was really great to have finally done something I’ve always wanted to do.

The show’s down now (it was only a one night event), and I’m trying to decide my next move. Do I try to get them into other shows? Do I list them for sale on Etsy? Do I make more? Do I move on to another project? It’s all happened so fast, I’m a little at a loss for what to do next. I think I’ll try a couple of other galleries, and if they don’t pan out in the next couple of weeks, I’ll go for Etsy. If a gallery responds, I could always pull them off Etsy or make more if they have sold in the meantime.

Needle Felted Animals

For a while now, I’ve been wanting to learn needlefelting. I kept seeing all these adorable little wool creatures on Etsy like this and this, and really wanted to give it a try. Since a new skill requires new tools and materials, the easiest way was to get a kit. I found this great bunny kit from fancytiger and was lucky enough to get one for Christmas (after I sent my husband an email asking for one and then reminded him to check his email – ok, I guess that’s not luck, but that’s the only way I can avoid gifts like travel flashlights).

I made two projects from the materials in the kit, and discovered a couple of things about needlefelting.

First let me say that these things take longer to make than I thought. One little bunny (about 3” tall) took me about an hour. Now, maybe this amount of time would go down with practice, but that’s a chunk of time for something so small. On the other hand, once it’s done, it’s done – you don’t need to paint it or sand it etc. like you would with another media, so that’s nice.

Second, there’s the pain. Yes,it’s true I’m a bit of a klutz, and I’m not as carefull as I should be when handling dangerous objects (on my left hand alone I am currently sporting a large burn mark from baking Christmas cookies not to mention the permenant scar from a wood carving incident), so of course, I hurt myself. Your working with a very sharp needle and jabbing it into a small fluffy object that you are holding with your other hand – it’s kind of inevitable that you’re gonna stab yourself. It wasn’t really that bad though, I barely drew blood, so no big deal.

Overall, I found the experience kind of fun, not necessarily something I want to do lots more of. Yes, the creatures are cute, but there are so many other ways to make creatures. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll try it again. I’m kind of hesitant to go and buy a bunch more roving (raw wool) at this point, but I’m gonna hang on to the needle. It may come in handy for voodoo dolls and such.