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The place we've volunteered to decorate is aimed at kids. The building is a historical landmark, the theme is House of 1,000 spiders. Until I started thinkg about what I can't
do, it seemed like a piece of cake. We can't nail anything into walls, since this is the oldest surviving wooden structure in San Diego. Thumbtacks on the tops of door moldings is about it, so if it doesn't already stick out, we can't attach anything.
We'll have 4 bags of spider webs, along with the plastic spiders that come with them. my guess is the 4 rooms plus hallway are about 900 sq. ft. Since we can't scare the kids too badly, I am making cute spiders out of papier mache, polymer clay and styrofoam balls with chenille stems.
Anyone with ideas for how to decorate the place, other than just sticking spiders on the floor would be a big help. The pics are up here somewhere from last year, but I'll put them here to make it easy. 
We didn't do the decorating last year, but will use some of their ideas. Here are some of the spiders I've made for them so far.
 I put up the pages. Not sure if it's more of a pictorial than a tutorial, but anyone with any 'sperience can follow the steps. If not, my email is always open.
Tombstone tute Anyone who is collecting links to projects is welcome to link to this one and any of the others at my site. I have a list of how-to's here. If you have one you'd like to add to my list, just contact me. Tx!
Tags: Celtic Cross Tutorial
Scrubbing this guy wasn't as hard as I'd thought it would be, but it did take a couple of soakings to get some stubborn spots off. There was one dark spot that was vaguely eye shaped, so that became the left eye. Then I drew on the rest of the face with a blue colored pencil and Thomas cut it out with the Dremel. 
Pinata alcohol ink was used for the color. Calabasa Orange for the main color, some Sunbright Yellow for accent and Havana Brown for darker stripes. Can't see it? Me, either, unless I look really close. Lesson learned here was to put the colors on separately, not on top of each other. The orange just overpowers it all. Some of the brown does show, but vy little of the yellow.
All in all, I'm very happy with him. He just needs a name and a coat of Urethane.
Tags: Gourd Jack
I scored 7 gourds from Freecycle today and am looking for advice from someone with experience. Some are green some are almost totally dry. Hoping to turn them into JOL/birdhouses. 
Tags: Gourd
Three emails in four days asking what I'm up to has lead to this picture. If I haven't replied to you personally, this one's for you. Celtic Cross Tombstone ready for first layer of pulp.
Three jacks waiting for paint details.
Seven witch hat ornaments drying.
One finished skull. Hanging jack drying. His friend is on the deck below.
Jack to the left need face cut out, some trimming and a paint job.
Two vine-y hands and one vine-y foot drying after first layer of pulp. Large jack in the back will have his face around the stem. I think. All papier mache.
Tags: Papier Mache Tombstone Jol Jack
First the computer goes on. While the puter is warming up, the shred box comes out. Tear up some newspaper, then some cheap typing paper, bingo and ultra cheap toilet paper. Repeat while dealing with email. Check what you made yesterday.
The hand on the patio isn't drying fast enough so it comes in to put in front of the fan. The balloon with 2 layers of orange-y yellow crepe paper and one of cheap typing paper is dry, so it comes out to await the next layers. Back out to the porch, the biggest jack I've made so far is taking its sweet time to dry. It's propped carefully so the vy long stem will dry the right way, so I can't bring it in. Make plans to take a fan outside, turn the other jacks so the sun will hit them and back into the house. The shred box is full enough to fill the dutch oven if I add more tp. Cram it full of paper, fill with water and turn on high. Listen for the pssshhh that means the dutch oven is boiling over, give it a stir to release the air and turn it down to med/high; let it go for half an hour. Meanwhile, finish tearing up the paper in today's pile and attempt to clean up the area.
While tearing, back to email. Answer a message from Susan at HS, groan that I won't make the CalHaunts meeting again in May, and pick up the plastic bin with yesterday's processed pulp in it. Crumble, crumble, crumble the damp pulp. Turn off the heat on the dutch oven and make some toast. Refill coffee cup and make some more coffee.
While at HS, check out the SEI for this month's Mad Lab challenge. Balls eh? Okay, Evil Jan, we'll see what I can come up with. What was I going to do? Oh yeah, get the new fan out of the box and take it out to the patio. Two hours have passed already. How did that happen? Pulp has cooled some so it's off to the bathroom for a bucket of cold water. Haul (groan) into the kitchen and set up the blender. Fill the blender, process and pour it into the towel that is inside the colander that is over the empty pot. Refill blender and process. Pour over first batch in the towel and refill the blender.
While blender makes noise, squeeze excess water out of pulp in towel into colander over smaller empty pot. Empty wettish pulp into plastic bin, return to blender and turn it off. Pour water from smaller pot into dutch oven. Replace towel in colander, empy blender into it and refill. Repeat until all boiled paper has been processed.
Return to computer to check email and break up clumps of wet pulp while you read. Contemplate lunch, but first, mix up pulp for the balloon with the crepe paper. Glue on the face printed up earlier and arrange pulp around it. Race to wash hands and answer phone because you forgot to turn it to Do Not Disturb. Finish balloon and set it in front of the fan.
Dinner time. Did I have lunch? Who has time for dishes?
Tags: Papier Mache Addict
My condo porch is a work station. That's where all the papier mache sits to dry and polymer clay awaits further embellishment. It's also where the neighborhood cats like to investigate and my new neighbor's dog flops to watch me.
Sunday I'm sitting at the table looking at several half-finished projects and deciding which way to go with them. All are papier mache this time. Sidney (dog) and Element (6-toed cat) decide to supervise. Sidney is on her leash watching me. Element is on the table supervising. When Element decides he's bored and needs a scratch, he gets up and sees Sidney. Signey sees Element and is interested. My hands are glue-y and I if I pick up Element and move him to safety, I will have sticky cat and furry hands (and possible scratches everywhere). So I act like nothing's happening and let them decide what they're going to do. Element jumps off the table, back raised, and walks sideways over to the edge of the patio and out onto a beam where Sidney can't reach him. Just sitting there twitching his tail and acting like "dog, what dog?" Sidney's tail is wagging and she's looking like "I just wanted to say hi".
In the polymer clay world, we call anything that gets into our clay an inclusion. Guess it's appropriate that both dog and cat are black so I now have black pet hair inclusions in my projects. Did I mention that neither of these animals belongs to me?
Not really Halloween, but may give someone inspiration. Geico is running commercials using the song "Somebody's Watching Me" and it brings back a creepy memory.
When that song came out, I was working in a donut shop in the middle of the night. Strip mall near the border of San Diego and Tijuana. Store front is all glass windows and I was always seeing the border patrol chasing illegals through the parking lot. Sometimes the alarms would go off on the few cars in the lot or on one of the other stores.
3 am, nobody is open but the donut shop. Cops, security guards and assorted night people come through occasionally and sit in the shop to take a break, get a hot cup of coffee and a fresh donut.
The radio is turned up so I don't feel so alone. Outside it's mostly black through all those glass windows, just a small pool of light from the shop. On comes that song and a shiver runs up my spine and I'm suddenly aware that it's very possible someone IS out in the parking lot watching me. So what song comes on next?
Thriller Dj's can have a twisted sense of humor.
Here are the latest as of New Year's Eve Eve 2008 
Tags: Bead Spiders
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