Roadside toy alert

I've been on a mission in recent months to spot and photograph toys on the roadside. Time to collate them here.

We started with this doll strung up in a tree by the Eastern Freeway, near Hoddle street.

That was quickly followed by the perplexing sheep's horn...

Closer to home I found Little Barbie resting after a night out...

And just this week we added Prudence the Pig, seen inbound on the Eastern Freeway, just after the Doncaster Road exit.

You see, children, there's magical things out there to look at, if you just keep your eyes open.

At the Poissy toy museum

The teddy bears in France drink wine at their tea parties. Of course.

How to make a tiny Christmas hat for a dinosaur

How exactly, I keep being asked, does one make a tiny hat for a dinosaur? Specifically a Christmas one? Well, I'll tell you.

Start by cutting two felt circles, one red, and one white.

Now, cut both circles in half. Cut the inside of the white halves out too.

Glue the white to the red like this. You are making two hats here, by the way. That will stop squabbles amongst your dinosaurs.

Now, the tricky part. Run glue along the straight edge, and fold the half circle over. Clamp the two edges with a clothes peg, or some kind of clip.

Interesting step here. You will find that glue doesn't really work on felt. Maybe I was impatient, but I couldn't get any kind of sticking to happen.

So now, we discard all the felt, and switch to a much more forgiving medium, pretty coloured card stock.

Punches do a good job here. I'm using a 3/4 inch ("big") and a 1/2 inch punch ("small").

Punch a big circle of red, and puns OUT a small circle of white.

Use the nifty trick of punching the big punch around the hole left by the small one. That gets you a ring of white card.

Glue the white ring onto the red card, and cut in half.

Roll one of the hats around a pointy tool. Here, I have used a pointy tool. You should choose something pointy.

Overlap the tiny cone you have made, and glue the overlapping bit. A tiny enough clip will come in handy here.

Your tiny hat is ready! Put it on your dinosaur, and arrange the dinosaur in some kind of terrarium. Merry Christmas!

Encounter in Creepy Toy land

Another new creepy toy just joined the household, brought home from a scout hall trash and treasure. He has a certain something about him, don't you think? I think I shall call him Gerald.

While cruising the shelves of our house, Gerald ran into somebody. Somebody he was drawn to.

"Julia, is that YOU?"

"Oh Adrian, it was horrible!" (Turns out his name wasn't Gerald at all).

Turns out Julia's been here for years. We rescued her (and baby Pippa) from a church op shop in December 2008

... sadly we left her near some paint, glue, sequins and children ... and this is what happened to her.

Well, Adrian, Julia and Pippa are together again now. They have so much to talk about. We may even be able to undo Julia's makeover.

All about my Torso

The lastest arty news is that Cathy (of My Stamps) has worked on a terrific new torso mould. She's offering quality plaster torsos in a just-right size and classic design.

She got me to decorate one - my choice of styles. Well, I gathered up a few trinkets from around the house...

There was this toy swan, which spent the day on the workbench with me at a Michael DeMeng workshop in 2008. It emerged unscathed, but since then, it hasn't been so lucky...

Its head got chopped off in 2011 to get added to an altered Barbie doll (still named Mrs Swan-for-a-Head).

There was this baby doll (the smaller one) who wandered into the scene of action and got rather caught up. The big one is still living on the windowsill.

Then there was this little pie tin, featured in a blog post from 2010 - bought already rusty, it was no longer fit for culinary purposes, so I used it to soak up a little spare paint one day.

And the end result of all of this has been : this! Here's the torso (see how I resisted the urge to attach the wings conventionally).

Here we have the baby doll, strapped safely into her pie tin ...


















Nice back tattoo! This was the very last bit I added.

















And here's some for you to decorate!

A Good Friday creative pursuit ... Amusing Tableaux

Inspired by marvellous things like this artwork by Aled Lewis, I've brought out all the animals (all the good ones, that is - these are by Schleich) and set up some Amusing Tableaux. I think that's what I shall call them. Yes. The word "tableau" doesn't get picked up nearly often enough these days, especially not in its plural form.

Here we have the smartly dressed chickens ...

... the horse in pajamas ....

... the tiger of personal hygiene ...

... and the unnecessarily smug cat.











Let me know if YOU make an Amusing Tableau, won't you?

Ponies, they are the latest thing

So, I went Trash and Treasuring the other day, and came home with, amongst other things, a bag of toys. Some My Little Ponies, and other gear.

Then later in the day I was at stamp club ... we rusted one of the ponies. At least, we started to. It's a time consuming process, and it's quite possible this particular pony wasn't properly primed.

We had to remind ourselves that stamp club is meant for rubber stamping. But hey. Read more about SERS here .

Cephalopod over here, please?

Have you been needing more cephalopod-based fun? Catriona can help! She just knitted a fabulous octopus.

The pattern came from a book called Amigurumi Knits, which Jeff found for her.

Raven Meets Mrs Swan-for-a-Head

I've lately been making an art doll for a swap. She is supposed to represent an animal - "The Animal in Me". I achieved this by taking the head off a Barbie doll, adding a head from a swan, and adding an elaborate costume made of paper, and a cool paint job. It's been fun. My doll is ready to send to the recipient, but due to a twist of fate, I still have her here. And the doll sent to me has already arrived! She  is Raven, a devastatingly elegant creation in black.

This is so cool  - they are playing together and getting along so well. Let's sneak into the art room and watch...

Mrs Swan-for-a-Head: "Hey, Raven, wanna hear a secret?"

Raven: "I suppose so..."

Mrs Swan-for-a-Head: "HOOONNNKKKKK!!"

 Raven: "You're leaving soon, right?"









In a side note, I really need to think of a better name for my doll.

Mrs Swan-for-a-Head

I have finished making my art doll - she's for a swap. She has the head of a swan, and the body of a Barbie.

Here she is being made :

The ribbons and stuff are all materials I was considering using. The skirt is here in half-done form. Torn dictionary pages and paint (of course).

And here she is done - WOW! She few right up into that tree in my garden!

My favourite detail - a natty bodice!

How can we not love that swanny face? Delicate lace collar hides the inelegant seam... And all topped off with a smart button hat.

Nice Torso!

I went to Picture to Page, the local scrapbooking show, yesterday, and met Cathy Daulman. She had been telling us (at SERS) about a great new mould she'd made. Yes, a mould, for casting shapes in. That meant she'd carved the original - it was a lot of work. But this the result - a classy torso, cast in quality plaster, for sale at the show, and, I'm sure, from My Stamps.

See, nice classic look, not too anatomical.

So far I've painted it black (just a good base colour - it won't stay black)...

And I've selected a few bits and bobs that looked like they wanted in on this project.

This is a small cake tin, suited to making Financiers and other fancy cakes - it was a bit rusty when I rescued it from trash and treasure-dom, so I never did use it to bake. Just had to add that,   because I want to assure you that my reverence for all baked goods is intact. Here it's roughly painted, but that'll get covered.

And here's a swan. Well, most of one. The head got used in another project , which I must post pictures of properly...

Swanny came from a garage sale too. While elegant, he was pretty messy, and definitely ready for the altering table.

Creative weekend!

Well, it was Trash and Treasure at the scout hall. $3 bought me a bag of goodies, including some bulldog clips, a working fountain pen with ink, three excellent artists pencils, and some ratty old crayons. Which I recycled into pretty new crayons! A fun project, but a little messy, might not do that one again...

Oh, and a creepy giraffe toy with removable head. Hmmm.

Barbie's swan song

I'm working on an altered doll (why? Too hard to explain, just go with it). Here's a little progress.

I started with taking the head off a Barbie doll (had to learn how to do that - here's my handy notes).

Next I sorted through my collection of creepy toys (click on the Creepy Toys tag in this blog to see some of the main offenders). I picked a darling swan, which came with me to a Michael De Meng workshop in 2008, and emerged unscathed.

Now it's 2011.

Uh-oh, this isn't going to end well...

Oh, yes, I can see where this is going now...

This doll has a special feature I wasn't expecting though. Funny looking nubbins on her back. It's going to be a bother to file them off. Luckily I took the time to find out what they were...

Turns out this particular doll can FLY! I've made her new wings already.

How to take the head off a Barbie doll

Maybe you are a Mum needing to mend Barbie after a "haircut". Maybe you are a fastidious collector wanting to make yourcollector doll pristine again. Or maybe you just need to replace Barbie's head with a lizard head. You will need to get Barbie's head off first, and it's not that easy. This post is for you!

Here's the photo you need - it shows what's going on inside the neck attachment. As you can see, we have a round base, then a "T" shaped hook. Barbie's head fits very snugly over these, and to get the head off intact, you will need to ease it over both obstacles.

The trick is to boil Barbie's head! Dunk the whole head into hot water to soften the plastic, and you will find it has just enough give to get it off. You could also try a warm hair dryer, especially if you don't want to spoil Barbie's 'do'. This should result in an intact head and a body. Special note - apparently Ken's head it quite differently attached, and this method won't work. That's gotta be a metaphor.

Once you have Barbie's head off, you can do fun stuff like this!