Spinning Wheel

My parents, in an incredible show of generosity, bought me a spinning wheel for my birthday!  I had been looking for months for a deal on one off of craigslist, but every time I was too late and was getting really bummed every time I missed one.

I picked one out and they got me a Kromski Minstrel unfinished.  So I stained and sealed it, then assembled and here it is!  I absolutely love it, I don't think I could ever go back to a drop spindle.

Draculaura Custom

I did a yarn reroot on this girl and painted her up today!

Blank and ready for blush!

I used some red micro glitter for blush, it didn't end up as glittery as I hoped ^^;

Painted the eyes in white.

Eyeliner.

Outline of the irises, I decided this time that I didn't want to do a black pupil.

Blending white at the bottom and black at the top.

Doing the other eye to match.

Added more blush to the cheeks, lips, nostrils and corners of lips.  The Monster High dolls don't have very deeop details in their sculpts, so I like to brush a little black pastel in those areas to give them the appearance of being deeper.

Eyelashes and eyebrows.

Finishing touches, I gave her some really subtle freckles.  Freckles can be difficult to get to look right, but you just have to remember to work with transparent paints and don't go for 'uniform' spacing.

All sealed, glossed, and with rhinestones put into her eyes!  I didn't realize until I was finished how much she looks like Flame Princess from Adventure time.

Burnishing clay

I saw this really beautiful pot in a gallery a while back and it's stuck in my mind ever since.  It was a black pot, and the designs on the pot were so intricate, but they were created using a matte/glossy surface.  It was also completely black, I love it but it was $450 and I just couldn't do it :(

I got home and got to thinking that maybe I could make myself something similar!  So for now I'm working on a little test piece to see how everything goes.  If it goes well I'll get another clay that doesn't have grog in it, which is not ideal for burnishing.  I would also do well to figure out a way to smoke fire to get it black!

I just coil built a small pot.  If only I could throw!

Smoothed out fairly well.

Final smoothing and the stone I'll be burnishing with.

Augh, I forgot that burnishing just exacerbates any lumpy areas on a pot.  At least I learned how much easier oil makes it to burnish!  Before I only knew to use a little water and it took so long, but the oil!  Oh gosh, it just went on so easy and the burnishing was a dream.  I'll need to do one more round before it's ready to fire, but so far it's been good!

So far though this little test gave me so many ideas for wanting to make miniature pots.  The one here is only about three inches tall.  I want to make tiny red figure pottery.

I'm going to try to get back into this!

Oh no, I've been gone forever :(  I don't know what happened to me, I keep saying 'I've been really busy' but can't come up with any one thing to point to for why I've been so busy.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, I have no excuse!

What have I been doing then?  Most a lot of Monster High customs!

A Lagoona Blue.

Abbey Bominable.

I have a bunch more, but they're all on my flickr if you want to see all of my customs in one place.

Another thing I've been doing is that I won a HUGE lot of yarn off of ebay!

It was 150lbs of yarn.  It's all organized by color now, but I need another bookcase for all of it!  I'll never have to worry about not having a matching color for something again.

Anyways, I'll really try to keep up with this again, just taking pictures of whatever I work on day to day.