Unicorn and T-Rex Roller Derby Trophies

Hello! As it's coming up to the end of the year, my roller derby league recently had the annual aWARDs ceremony (our league is named WARD, geddit? ~___^), where we recognise excellent contributions to the league! Obviously, we needed trophies, but we had a fairly limited budget. DIY to the rescue!
 

I was originally thinking wood for the bases of the trophies but then I started thinking about cutting thirty pieces of wood ... and sanding them ... and I decided that I didn't want to do that! Plus, not only did I have a limited budget, I also had a very limited time span to actually construct the trophies between work and other commitments (i.e. one day).

 

So I wandered around the hardware store under I stumbled upon the plumbing section and found these push on caps! They are solid white plastic, and pretty cheap! They did come with some raised writing on them, but a quick sand with my Dremel got rid of that! I will note here that if you're going to sand plastic, be sure you wear appropriate safety gear because there was plastic dust EVERYWHERE. A dust mask + goggles are a must, and if you've got one of those CSI style plastic coveralls then that probably wouldn't go astray either! ~___^
 

After sanding (and wiping away all the dust!) I super-glued my animals to the bases. I got my animals at the Reject Shop but unfortunately they didn't have enough horses for the unicorns. So some zebras and donkeys also got re-purposed!
 

I made horns using some Sculpey - I only used a tiny bit from my stash so if you were buying new, one little pack would be more than enough.
 

After baking for about ten minutes on a low heat and letting them cool, I super-glued them onto the relevant animals.
 

And also one dinosaur! Dinocorn? T-rexicorn? Unisaurus?
 

 

A couple of coats of gold spray paint made them look all shiny and special and then all I had to do was stick on the names of the trophies (I printed them onto white card and attached them to the trophies with double-sided tape) and give a quick coat of sealant. 
 

Here they all are, ready to be awarded!
 

Although I made the trophies, I didn't have anything to do with collating the votes to determine the aWARD winners so I was very pleasantly surprised when I was awarded Most Improved NSO! So one of the golden T-Rex trophies came back home with me; we're buddies now.

- Lisa xx

Diminutive Dinosaur Display Doodad

Hello! Do you know what your house is missing? That's right, a dinosaur display stand that is perfectly sized to hold one mini cupcake. It's just so practical!

 

Mmmm, ok, so I'm lying about the practicallity thing, but it is cute! And easy to make! And involves both dinosaurs and cupcakes! (I've sold you on this now right?)

Awesome. So, here's how you can make your own!

1. Gather three plastic dinosaurs of approximately the same height. This is important, because you don't want your display stand to be lop-sided. You'll also need a jar lid. Mine is from a jar of korma curry paste (yum!).

2. Paint everything with nail polish. I used Rimmel "Be a star" (for the pink dinosaur), Rimmel "Grey Matter" (for the grey dinosaur), Revlon "Midnight Affair" (for the dinosaur that looks black but is actually dark blue), Revlon "Grapefruit Fizz" (to make that same dinosaur glittery), and Revlon "Black Lingerie" (ooo, risque!) for the jar lid.

3. Once everything is dry, arrange your dinosaurs like shown in the picture above. Place the jar lid on top of them and use a Sharpie to mark where it sits.

4. Remove the jar lid and put a bit of E6000 glue on each mark. Leave it a couple of minutes so it becomes tacky, and then carefully replace the jar lid.

 

5. Leave the stand for 24 hours to ensure the glue is properly set.

Ta-da! It's all done! Huzzah! ^_^

 What do you think? I hope you like it! I've still got heaps of dinosaurs, so I think you'll be seeing a few more prehistoric crafts around here ^_^

I'll see you in a couple of days - with a WIP that I have *finally* finished! Yay! ^_^

- Lisa xx

Pterodactyl sweater clips

Here's a fact about me: I *love* toys. So when I found a tub of dinosaurs for $2, I simply couldn't resist bringing them home. Then I set to pondering what to make from them ... You may remember that a while ago I made some dinosaur brooches; I decided to tweak that project just slightly to make Pterodactyl sweater clips - yay! ^_^

It's been very rainy and windy here lately, which is not optimal weather for spray painting, so I painted my Pterodactyls with some emerald green nail polish. Painting them in this way does take longer, but they turned out very shiny and not sticky at all (which can sometimes be an issue with spray paint).

 

One thing to keep in mind if you are painting plastic with spray paint is that the original colour of the plastic can affect the final look. I didn't have any problems with this nail polish, but some others I tried were too light to get a good colour, especially if the dinosaur was originally dark brown or dark green. To counter this, you could spray paint them white first and then apply the coloured nail polish or spray paint and then give a coating of clear polish if there is any sticky residue.

To make these Pterodactyls into sweater clips, I just used E6000 to attach a badge back to each one and then threaded chain between them.

 

I used a rather long chain because I like my sweater clips to have an almost necklacey drape to them, but of course that is up to personal preference! ^_^

I have another dinosaur craft to show you next week, but then I still have heaps more dinosaurs to use up! Any suggestions for what I should create? ^_^

- Lisa x