Burlesque

No no no! I’m not talking about that Christina Aguilera vehicle! I’m talking about the real deal! This set is for a gal with a burlesque act. I’ve really pushed the envelope here and took miniature painting all the way up to 11. This one took longer to paint than most sets because my poor eyes kept aching, which was a sign to stop and go outside and make fun of my next door neighbor’s dog.

I have to admit I had a tiny panic attack when I saw the amount of tats I had to paint. But there’s no panicking in the Sweatshop! In the end, it didn’t take long to do them all. Whew. Crisis averted.

The kitties!

This is the Queen of Hearts costume. It gave me an excuse to dig out my silver leaf, although in the end it looked like I just made the crown out of aluminum foil.

The fun house costume. It was at this point when I wish I could see this act in person.

I am able to use the leftover tulle from my wedding dress for the bustle. Since it wouldn’t fit into the doll, I’ve screwed eye hooks onto the back so the bustle can be detached.

The flapper.

Lucille Ball…I believe the recipient’s stage name is Lucille Highball. Ha!

This last doll is super tiny, but it didn’t stop me from trying to paint a name onto the name tag. After that particular exercise, I realized that perhaps I needed to remove myself from the sweatshop for a little while even though I was sad it came to an end. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a dog next door that needs to be laughed at.

Peace, Harmony, Comfort, And Joy… Maybe Next Year

Since the world didn’t come to an apocalyptic end, we can all breathe a sigh of relief and carrying on with our celebrations!

Here’s a little tribute to one of the best holiday movies ever made!

The Neverending Story

If you grew up in the 80s, you’d probably be familiar with this little fantasy film, based on the Michael Ende book of the same title. Raise your hand if you cried when Atreyu’s horse Artax sank into the Swamp of Sadness.

Clockwise from left: Bastian Bux, Atreyu, Falkor, The Childlike Empress, and the Gmork.

In the beginning I was reluctant to make this set because of my shoddy sculpting skills and that making Falkor means I’ll have to work with fur again (shudder). But mousse clay is exceptionally forgiving and I solved the fur problem by needle felting a big wodge of wool so it’s more compliant and eliminated shedding altogether. One of the last places I went to when I was back in NY was M&J Trimming, my home away from home, and picked up some iridescent bits to make Falkor’s body complete. Ms. Irene don’t play around when she’s serious.

How many you gals (and guys) out there were obsessed with Atreyu? The actor himself cleaned up nicely—the morning show here did a profile on Noah Hathaway not too long ago and all I gots to say is: Hubba hubba.

The Auryn

Bastian Balthazar Bux

Thank goodness for the macro option in my camera. If you’re to peer at the book closely with just your naked eye, you won’t even be able to read the title. Apparently there’s a betting pool happening amongst my friends determining when I’m going to go blind.

Here’s the Childlike Empress holding a single grain of sand, the only thing remained of Fantasia other than herself. All Bastian had to do to restore Fantasia is to make a whole lot of wishes on it. Luckily, he chose to avenge himself from the bullies with Falkor rather than to raise his mother from the dead.

The Gmork, the servant of the Nothing. Since he always looked to me like an unfinished puppet in the movie, I chose to paint only his head.

And yes! You can definitely open Falkor up and put the rest of the dolls inside.

While I was expressing interest in making this set, a friend sent me this photo. It’s quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and believe me, I’ve seen plenty of funny things.

It’s rather genius when you think about it!

The Real Deal

Remember my gingerbread house from last Christmas? The one I made out of felt and glitter because any sort of sugary treats left out defenseless in the open is subject to ant attacks in my neck of the woods? Well, Marian of Sweetopia has modeled a version of my house out of real candies and cookies! Yum!

One of these days, I am going to make me a real one! In the meanwhile, I’ll just keep salivating over Marian’s!

The New Toy

While I was in the States earlier this year, I caught my dog snoozing on a Dick Blick catalog. After I finally succeeded in rolling him off from it, I noticed he had been sleeping on a page advertizing the new Silhouette Cameo Electronic Cutting Tool.

What this thing does, is you can design whatever you want and it’ll cut the shape out for you!

So you can make your own stencils,

or other miscellaneous products!

Now, I wasn’t about to get it, but the Hubs talked me into it and I had to extract about half the stuff I had planned to bring back to Oz with me so the printer would fit into my duffel bag. So far, he’s been the one using it, but I certainly can’t wait to have a go at it! I have a project in mind that may just require the use of this fabulous printer! Here’s a hint: The dolls may be wearing goggles and watch parts! Can you guess what genre I’m talking about?

Boogeymen

I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a very long time. No, it’s true! There’s a list and everything with some of my favorite boogeymen on it! It sort of started when I was still teaching and the 7th graders and I would try to recount the plots of all the horror movies we’ve seen in 15 seconds or less. Hey, I never said I was a good art teacher. Anyway, when this request came up I pounced on it right away. Unfortunately, Hellraiser didn’t make it into the set…although I’d have a heck of a time looking for just the right size needles (or needle substitute) for that particular Boogeyman!

Freddy Krueger, the ultimate Boogeyman. Hey, anyone remember the “Nightmare on Elm Street” TV series? “Freddy’s Nightmares,” I believe it’s called. I always thought it’s a bit of a rip off from “Tales from the Crypt,” but no one in my circle chose to acknowledge that because they’re too preoccupied with New Kids on the Block or scrunchies to care.

Jason Voorhees of “Friday the 13th” movies. These ones are always fun to watch on the US free-to-air television. Since it’s so heavily censored, you never actually got to see Jason murdering anyone so in the end, you feel a bit bad that he seemed so misunderstood by all.

Oooh, I don’t know about you, but I loved the Rob Zombie re-make of “Halloween.” There’s a back story to the origins of Michael Myers and everything. I guess I liked it so much because I had a student back in the old days whom I believed would either grow up to be quite a savvy politician or a cannibal. Either way, this is a kid that would end up on the evening news one day and young Michael Myers reminded me so much of him!

Yes! Leatherface! Based on Ed Gein! I took a class in college called Evil in Literature and was disappointed since we were assigned to read “The Story of O” and “Venus in Furs” and then we watched the bizarro “Tokyo Decadence,” which made me suspect that the professor kept whips and chains and latex-based gimp wear in his nightstand. But he redeemed himself when he showed us “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” one day in class, which was why I didn’t opt to drop his class after all.

Lastly, Ghostface of the Scream franchise. These were fun to watch, although, if pressed, I’d mix the plots of all 4 movies into one giant one.