Oh, Wolverine, what did they do to you?

I've been kind of busy lately, helping with my sister's upcoming wedding (I love you Kimberly!)  So fewer tiny stuff and more regular-sized stuff.  But I did manage to pick up a new arrival.

The saddest Wolverine ever.  I got him for ten cents.

Yes, he is missing two of his claws on one hand.  Yes, he's in a permanent sitting position. Yes, a lot of the paint is worn off of his body (even, scandalously, his rear end).

I want to show you what he looks like now, because hopefully I'll be able to give his legs some joints and spruce him up to better-than-new!  Happy arting!

Rapunzel Rapunzel, how many bottles of shampoo do you use in one go?

I got this Rapunzel at a garage sale, basically for free because her hair was so messed up!  Look at this!!  I've always wanted a Rapunzel in my dollhouse, so much so that I tried to make one myself!  I'm not crazy about my sculpting, so I'm not going to relink to that, but it's on the blog!  Somewhere!

 

I used a little bit of fabric softener and a lot of water and brushed it all out with a wide-toothed comb.  The tutorials all say to use a wire wig brush, but... I'm a rebel.  No, I'm not a rebel.  I just didn't want to buy it. She did lose some hair, but that's okay!  That's the magic doll detangler.

 

I might get someone who's a prettier braider to rebraid, but basically it's pretty awesome, huh?

Happy arting!

Blue Dog Blues

I went ahead and made an imitation George Rodrigue.  For those of you who don't know his work... he's super famous for painting this blue dog, based on his own deceased dog and the myth of the loup-garou. 

I went ahead and used one of those scrapbooking frames to frame it, and a fancy invitation to paint on.  Happy arting!

Vanity Shmanity.

 

I got this vanity from the dollar store.  As you can see, the drawers are a facade.  They pried off pretty easily with a pocket knife, and left a convenient hole.  So what I did is I made three drawers that actually worked, using small glass beads as the pulls.

 

I used a elmer's glue as a crackle medium.  Now, how to do that.  First I painted the whole thing white with like eight hundred coats because the cheap stain kept making it pink (then I gave up and let it be pink).  This ended up being a good thing, because you should have a contrasting color under the color you're making it.  Then I spread white glue everywhere, waited for it to dry (mostly), and painted over it with this revolting mustard yellow.  I know the drawer is crooked... that's fully on purpose.  I wanted some dumpster-dived, well-loved vanity that looked like it was repainted in the 1950s and left out in several terrible storms. 

 

I wanted it to look old and kind of trashed up; I even included a carving, done by a friend of mine.  My initials, and a darling art friend's initials, in a heart!  Thanks Lindsey!  I painted some lace turquoise to add a little extra color to the front.

Monkeying Around

Today I made a tiny sock monkey!  I went for t-shirt materials that look like the same colors in a sock monkey, and just went to town!  I tried to keep similar construction, too, to add to the look!  T-shirt materials, if you don't sew them too tightly, remain loose and can fray a little to give the appearance of a knit. I used seed beads for the eyes and less than one cotton ball to fill it.

I think this little fellow is a tad too large for the house, but they make oversized sock monkeys too, so it can work.

Something pretty awesome I've found is that the scrapbooking section of most craft stores have tiny picture frames!  And, if people send you fancy letters they're usually in fancy envelopes, which work pretty well as watercolor paper!

Check it out, yo!  My first tiny picture for the tiny house.

Oh oh oh it's magic, you kno-o-ow.

Okay!   I am for sure getting back in the art scene, I mean it!  Right now I'm making a Murphy bed for the dollhouse, but while that's getting rigged up, I have a tutorial for something a little more full-sized.

Made of a chopstick, hot glue, and paint!  I used a satin finished paint on this one and I think it looks a lot like wood. After that I did a wash of black paint, to get into all the crevices hot glue made.

And now I'm a wizard.

So.

There's that.