Steampunk

My Grandpa was always such a crafty fellow. He could make something out of nothing and loved using found objects (halved walnut shells as scary fingernails on a giant hand, pistaccio shells as weird little singing faces . . .). My favorite of his creations were his watch sculptures. He would take apart watches and use the gears and springs and whatnot to create intricate sculptures of trains, motorcycles, and castles. I was in awe of the detail. (and I wish I had some pics to share!)

When my Grandpa died, he left all of his watches and watch parts to me. They sat in my basement for the longest time. I had no idea what to do with them. Then one day, about 3 months ago, I decided to try my hand at making a watch train. How hard could it be, right? Um, HARD. I tried and tried, to no avail. And it didn't help that I was trying to hold the pieces together using a glue gun (FYI: glue guns = not a good choice for gluing metal!). I was disappointed. I was annoyed. Heck, I was angry! My hubby, not wanting me to be in a fowl mood (probably a good thing - I tend to cuss like a sailor when I'm mad!) suggested we buy some epoxy to try. He also suggested to make something other than a train (since it obviously wasn't working out).
So I started with an owl. Some of the gears reminded me of the eyes of a great horned owl. And he turned out pretty cute! I was digging through the pieces and noticed one reminded me of a hummingbird. So I made one. Another piece looked like a dragon head, a robot, a cat . . . and so started my watch sculpting.
And the epoxy works much better than a glue gun!This is the latest owl I'm working on. You can see others in my etsy store! http://ickydogcreations.etsy.com

As promised . . .

In my last post, I promised I would share my finished ferrets . . . so here they are!

This one is definitely a ferret! He's an alchemy bid that I won! The purchaser, Wikkit, wanted a plush ferret to honor her beloved ferret Pug who had recently passed away. This ferret is made with both faux fur and oppossum fur (yes, real oppossum fur). His tail is a real mink tail. I think he turned out fabulous!

And this is Astrid. I think he looks like a porcupine! I used the same pattern that I used for the ferret, but the nature of the fur lends itself to more of a porcupine feel! I used real raccoon fur for this guy. Which happened to be a pain to turn! (took me 30 minutes). I think he's pretty cute!

Fun with Fur

Going through boxes in my basement, I found a very large stash of fur. Meaning pelts, fox, coyote, raccoon, and bobcat faces, tails, and scraps. What to do with all of this fur . . . .


Hey! Why not use it in my plushies?! I mean, I use FAUX fur, so why not use the real thing? Well, that's just what I did. I have 2 plushies right now using tails (coyote and raccoon), and I'm working on a custom order of a ferret. I have 2 ferrets that I'm making - one completely out of raccoon fur, and one out of opposum fur and faux fur (I don't have pics of these yet, but they will be posted in my next update). Here are my 2 finished critters:

The top one uses faux fur and a coyote tail, the second one is tweed, microsuede, and a raccoon tail. Working with the tails is easy - just like attaching any other tail. My 2 ferrets, though, are proving much more troublesome. I'm having to do a lot of the sewing by hand.
That's it for now! My next post will have the ferrets!