Welcome to Night Vale posters, art canvas, and earrings

Hello! Recently I did a Welcome to Night Vale swap on Craftster and since my swap partner has received her parcel, I can share with you what I made! ^___^ If you haven't listened to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast yet, I highly recommend you do! It's really fantastic, and this post will make a lot more sense if you do.

The thing I'm most proud of is this WTNV themed art canvas. Whenever I start an art canvas I think that I have nothing to put on it, but after digging through my stash I usually manage to find more than enough - it's a great way to use up random bits of stuff I've been hoarding too! ~___^

I used a Kaisercraft wooden cloud cut-out covered in glow-in-the-dark paint for the Glow Cloud (all hail ....).

The musical notes (i.e. the weather) are also wooden cut-outs, but these ones are from Typo. I drew the Night Vale eye on the white one with a felt-tip pen.

I used "thickers" (still can't get over that name) to write out Night Vale, and the quote below is written in felt-tip pen also.

 

I'm not exactly sure where I got this plastic cactus from, but I figured it was perfect for representing this friendly desert community. I cut off the bottom stand with scissors and attached it with E6000 glue.

 

My swap partner said that one of her favourite characters was Fey, so I used stickers to add the numbers Fey read aloud down the side of the canvas.

This side of the canvas is kinda Carlos the Scientist themed; he discovered that the clocks in Night Vale aren't real, and I headcanon him as wearing thick glasses so I used clock patterned pattern and glasses washi tape for this part. The pocket watch is a jewellery component that I brought at Spotlight and then discovered is faulty - the glass face is meant to be removable, but mine didn't budge! I used my trusty felt-tip pen and some white card to add Carlos' discovery to the inside of the pocket watch and I attached it to the canvas with string, a small piece of leather, and a lot of E6000.

 

There is also an instruction from a local community group; they huddle in the hole in the vacant lot behind the Ralph's, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

 

The top of the canvas has more wooden cut-outs from Typo, these ones spelling out the end of a rather popular Night Vale quote: "If you see something; say nothing, and drink to forget." I don't condone this behaviour (you shouldn't be seeing anything in the first place) but I did have these wine glass cut-outs and I couldn't think of a single other thing they'd be useful for.

The bottom of the canvas has another one of Fey's numbers, Khoshekh the floating cat, and a warning against rabbits.

 

The other side of the canvas expands on the rabbit warning: they are not what they seem. These ones seem like even more wooden cut-outs.

I even added a little something on the back of the canvas. Strex is seriously creepy, so I think this is the best place for them.

All the papers I used were from mini scrap booking paper pads that I brought from Spotlight. They are really fantastic for canvases of this size as you don't get nearly as much paper scraps leftover.

I also made two paintings; they are just acrylic paint on card stock, but I think they would look quite good framed. I left them as is to mail, however, since postage costs are already high enough without adding more weight to the parcels.

 

I really liked how the galaxy effect turned out, although I think it could have possibly been a bit darker. Basically I watered down my acyclic paint so that it worked more like watercolours and added purple, blue, and black all over the page in random splotches. After it was dry, I added the words, the black edges, and the silver stars. I might make another for myself so I can play around with this technique a bit more.

It's difficult to see, but I also added some very watered down iridescent medium to the black edges of the page; it gives it a subtle sparkle that looks really pretty in real life.

 

This art piece was made using the same technique as my Princess Leia and Han Solo quotes where I just used masking fluid to write out the quote, painted over it with watered down acrylic, and then removed the masking fluid once everything was dry. I went around the words with a felt-tip pen again; I think it looks more impactful that way.

 

Lastly, I made these Big Rico's Pizza earrings; these were super simple to make as all I had to do was glue earring backs to the pizza charms I had already made.

 

I made the 'packaging' (I use the term loosely) with more scrap booking paper, mini stamps, and some pens. My drawing skills aren't top notch, but hopefully my Hooded Figure is a little spooky looking?

 

In return I received this wire crochet Hiram McDaniels sculpture;

 

 A wood-burned quote block, Glow Cloud card, and stickers;

And a tiny Glow Cloud scarf with a wooden-burned scarf ring.

Have you ever done a craft swap before? This is the first time I've swapped with someone I don't know, and I must say swapping with friends is a lot less stressful! 

I'm currently working on something just for me, which is even less stressful ~____^ I'm trying to improve my knitting skills so I'm making a hat with ribbing and colourwork - two techniques that I haven't tried before. It's going pretty well but my hands aren't used to knitting and are so sore! Luckily tonight is roller derby training so tomorrow my legs will be sore which will take my mind off my hands ~____^

- Lisa xx

Time to play video games! An upcyled BMO clock

Hello! As you probably already know, I really like Adventure Time. In fact, I'm watching it right now. And getting very distracted from writing this blog post. Ahem, anyway, turning my back on the plight of Tree Trunks, I was hunting around my craft room for inspiration and found an old metal clock that was truly crying out for a makeover. I didn't take a photo of it before, but it was browny beige and very ugly. I gave it three layers of white spray paint as a primer and then I got to work with my acrylics!

I drew my BMO based on my tiny action figure, but I think the button placement is a little off. Ooops! Nonetheless, BMO is very cute and I like how excited he is! I used Kaisercraft colours for the entire painting; BMO's case cover was made by mixing together "Sea Breeze" and "Spearmint", his face is a mixture of "Spearmint" and "Lime". The buttons are the aforementioned colours, plus red, yellow, and black, and the background is "Hot Pink" mixed with a lot of white. I also gave his screen a coating of glow in the dark paint, so I'm hoping that this evening I will be able to see his screen glowing like he is a real computer ^___^

"Video Games" is written in Lobster font and "time to play" in TallAndSkinny font (which I can't find a link to unfortunately). To transfer the fonts onto the painting, I printed out the phrases and coloured in the back of the paper with a lead pencil. Then I placed the paper onto the painting, and traced around the letters with the pencil. You just have to make sure your paint is really, really dry before you do this, otherwise you might get some smudging around your words >___<

I saved the original hands from the clock and while they don't totally match the rest of my painting I think they still look ok. I am not sure where I will hang this new clock up, but I think it will be best in the lounge room, where Scott and I *do* spend a lot of time playing video games. The great thing about this clock is that it means that every time is video game playing time! ^___^

I'm really happy with how this clock has been transformed and it's great to have another Adventure Time piece in the house. There are so many great characters in Adventure Time, there are plenty of future projects left to create! 

Do you have a favourite Adventure Time character? I've done three Lumpy Space Princess crafts so far (including a cosplay!) so I should continue to craft tributes to some different characters now I think! ^___^

- Lisa xx

Alien, bee, and WTNV hair clips

Hi! Have you noticed that the 90s are totally back? I went to a 90s themed ice-skating night last week that was totally fun (albeit very very cold and we didn't actually end up skating since it was so overbooked) and while researching what people wore back then I started really regretting getting rid of my massive butterfly clip collection realising that so much of the clothes in the store right now are very 90s inspired! This is probably not a revelation to most of you, but I'm usually pretty out of the fashion loop so it was for me ~___^ I wanted to make something to go with my grunge-inspired outfit, but the only 90s crafts I could find were scrunchies and elastic chokers. And then I remembered how all the cool teenagers in my town had alien jewellery. I was both too young and too uncool to keep up with the trends as they actually happened, but now I finally have some extraterrestrial hair clips. And only 15 years after the nineties ended! ~___^

I made these little guys with white fimo, but if you already had a light green shade of clay then that would save you some painting time later on. Even better would be if you had glow in the dark fimo! I didn't know this existed until just now, and I desperately want some. Anyway, I rolled the fimo into spheres, squished them flat with my palm, and then pinched in the sides to give these aliens some Cumberbatch worthy cheekbones. I squeezed a plastic straw into a more oval shape and pressed it into the clay to create the outlines of the eyes and then baked them in the oven.

 

I painted the heads with Kaisercolour acrylic paint in lime, the eyes with black acrylic, and then gave them a couple of coats of glow in the dark paint. I used Tarzan's Grip to adhere them to the hair clips and then they were done!

 

They do glow, but they have a bit of a streaky look so I think the glowing clay would work much better if you were to make these yourself ^___^

For my 90s outfit, I did my hair in what I seem to remember being called "alien buns" (this is probably entirely wrong though); basically two small buns on the top of your head with the rest of your hair out. My clips weren't dry by the time we left though, so I didn't get to wear them that night. Still, I think they're pretty cute (in a creepy kind of way) so I think I'll still get some wear out of them ^___^

 

I had two hair clip bases left over, so I also made these tiny bee clips. They were ridiculously easy to make! The wooden bees are from the scrap booking section of my local craft store; I just spray painted them silver and glued them to the clip backings.

 

I really like how these look against my hair, they're so pretty and delicate which is a bit different to my normal creations ~___^ These pictures have also reminded me that I need to redye my hair soon! The red that turned my blue into purple has faded out quite quickly ...

 

 

While I do still have purple hair though, this next craft seems especially appropriate!

 

I wear *a lot* of hair bows (that, and the baby face, probably explains why a lot of people assume I'm still a high schooler) and I hadn't yet made a single piece of WTNV fancraft; two birds, one stone, you know?

I made this by crocheting two tubes, one large and one small. I placed the small tube on top of the larger one, and then pinched and sewed them together. I wrapped some yarn around the middle to make it look a bit neater and then sewed on the little Night Vale moon/eye/thing that I made from felt.

 

I sewed this hair snap onto the back and it was done! It makes a rather oversized hair clip ...

But it also functions as a smashing bow tie! ^___^ I can really only wear it this way with button up shirts, but basically it just clips in between the buttons.

 

Scott and I were brainstorming ideas for more WTNV crafts last night, so you may see more of this fandom here soon. I'd recommend listening to the podcast, if you haven't already! And that's it for me tonight, dear readers, so ...

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

- Lisa xx