#circe makes

[youcancallmecirce]

Recent recipients of my creative energy, or Why I Haven't Been Writing, in three photos:

I made about a bazillion masks, worked feverishly on my white tiger cross stitch, got tired of the structure and then decided to make a hippocampus out of thread. I'm so close now to finishing the hippocampus! Then I'll just have to do the water.

Unless I get distracted and start working on something else...

[youcancallmecirce]

Working on a couple of cosplays... What do you think so far?

Edited to add: I used a hard-sided, zippered charger/earbud case for the "yoyo", and 1" PVC pipe for the baton. Both were painted with acrylic paint, and sealed with hard coat ModPodge. If y'all are interested, I can share more about how I made them.

[youcancallmecirce]

More of what I've been doing instead of writing, but definitely not all of it:

I embroidered a memorial piece for my uncle, and a birth announcement thing for my sister's new baby.

I'm learning how to sew knits. I I made leggings for my kid and booty shorts for me, among other things.

Do y'all like seeing what I make? Or should I stick to posting my writing, when I get back to it?

[youcancallmecirce]

Before we started working on Harry Potter birthday decorations, I took the kids to Goodwill to hunt for supplies. We got several cool shaped bottles on the cheap, including for tiny vials with lids. They were perfect, and just what we needed to round out the few I'd managed to gather already.

For most of them, we used labels that I found online, but there were a few I made myself using free clip art and lettering from dafont. (I'll come back and add links in the morning.)

We used all sorts of things to make the "potions". Partially hydrated water beads as mermaid tears; craft store moss as gillyweed; water beads, glitter, glue, and paint for the polyjuice potion...

I discovered that if you put fully hydrated water beads through a food processor with a little extra water and some super fine glitter, you end up with a fantastic gel.

By the time we were done, we had bezoars, eel eyes, veritaserum, wolf's bane potion, pepperup potion, essence of dittany, drought of living death, felix felicis, skelegro, slug repellant, knotgrass, asphodel...

We ended up going a bit overboard with it, but who cares? We had fun. And I made more than just potions...

I'd recently found a little mushroom from a fairy garden kit that somehow never got painted and thought, I could use this! I paired it with a glass votive holder, three wood circles, a wood drawer pull, and more of the moss to make a little "leaping toadstool" specimen.

My daughter found a small animal skull almost a year ago, and it has been bleaching in the sun ever since. We put it inside an apothecary jar, and called it a "juvenile dragon's skull". It's a bit macabre, perhaps, but I thought it was a nice touch.

[youcancallmecirce]

Making my Cat Noire ears!

I sketched out a pattern on paper, cut it out, and traced it onto my faux leather twice, then flipped it and traced it twice more. I cut out all 4 ears, and paired them off, front and back, so I wouldn't confuse myself later.

On each of the fronts, I cut out tiny triangles directly below the points of the ears, then folded the right sides together and stitched the triangles closed.

After that, I tried gluing the fronts and backs together, but that was a complete fail. The glue soaked into the fabric on the back of the faux leather, and didn't adhere at all. Back to the needle and thread I went.

Since I had to stitch them anyway, I decided to sew in tiny black seed beads because why the hell not?

When I had them both done, I stitched them on to a pair of oversized poppy-clips. I'd intended to use a headband, but decided the clips would be more comfortable for wearing all day at MegaCon.

Ta-da! Cat Noire ears!

[youcancallmecirce]

My sorting hat began life as a cereal box (the cone) and a piece of cardboard from the box our new desk chair came in. It took a bit of trial and error, but luckily I just had to cut the box down father rather than starting over. I put it all together using masking tape.

Once I got the basic shape right, I tried to fill it out a bit more with the tape, adding in a few of the creases it had been lacking. (I was only moderately successful on that score.) I also covered the whole brim and most of the cone with the tape. I knew I'd be doing paper mache, and didn't want the moisture to weaken the cardboard.

I was able to fill it out much more with the paper mache. It stop wasn't exactly what I was going for, and in hind sight I realize I should have been using a screen shot of the actual hat as my sample rather than the picture from the blog post I was using as a guide. (The top is brown because I forgot to take a picture between the paper mache-ing and the painting.)

Overall, I'm pleased with the result. I think the paint turned out well--I did one layer of medium-brown, then did a second layer in varying shades to emphasize high and low lights--but I would change the way I did the card board base quite a bit. It's recognizable as the sorting hat, but the features are off and it's not nearly as slouchy-looking as it ought to.

It made a great focal piece for my food table, and the kids all loved it. I'm going to call it a win.

[youcancallmecirce]

I did a Harry Potter themed party for my girls' birthdays, and I made almost all of the decor from scratch. I know it's been forever since I've posted anything, but I just have to share this stuff. (Hopefully I still have followers who will see it, lol)

This is my Mandrake. I am a total novice at sculpting, so I am thrilled with how this turned out! I started with Crayola air dry clay over an aluminum foil armature (totally had to research that first) and while the initial sculpture looked good, it cracked as it dried and then broke completely when I accidentally dropped something on it. (Oops...)

For round two, I stripped the brittle clay away and used Sculpey clay over the same armature. This one took a lot longer, and I think the proportions of the face are off as compared to its body, but that's just being nit picky. Given that it's my second sculpture ever, I'm going to part self on the back and say it's damn good.

It survived baking without issue (I pulled the leaves out so they wouldn't melt) and I added some paint this morning for added dimension. I'm even happier with it now!

I put it on a faux wood tray with little brownie cup Mandrake "seedlings"--the leaves are mint--and this is easily my favorite element from the party.

[thegreenworldshop]

Alice in Wonderland Inspired Leather Triple-Wrap Bracelet with Mad Hatter Quote, $30  on Etsy.