Batcidentally in love!

Yesterday was Not. My. Day. It was supposed to be my day off, but for reasons unbeknownst to me, I fell out of bed at 7 am. I mean, what the heck? So I went to lounge about on the couch with a coffee, read some blogs and make the most of it... and the phone rang. A dear colleague (luv ya, Barbara!) had an emergency and could not open the shop, so I duly went and did what a girl has to do. Sit in a badly airconditioned betting shop yawning her head off for 7 hours.

After crawling back home (man, I never felt so tired in my entire life!), I thought I'd just go back to where I left things and went about reading blogs, doing more yawning and pretty much being a waste of space when The Man suddenly stirred and shook his leg... onto which a fat spider had decided to climb.
Let's just say I spent some time on the middle floor, hyperventilating and shaking while the knight in shiny armour unarmoured himself in the quest to find the eight- legged freak. He thought it had made its way into his jeans, so he took them off, took his shirt off, examined the stuff properly and still couldn't find the foe.
Turns out the bugger sat under some furniture, but was eventually found out and politely asked to leave the house (with a gentle nudge towards the neighbour's door!)

With enough oxygen in my bloodstream to last me for a week without breathing, I thought I might as well do something useful (who said washing up? Are you kidding?) and get crafting. And that is where I batcidentally fell in love- have a look.

 The man decided that too many owls spoil the broth, so for my second shadow box (I have three of those ugly frame things going on!) I went with another favourite critter of mine: the Common Dozy Bat.
So again, some doodles first:

 Here they are, the prototypes.

After that, again transferring them to cardboard and some cutting- this time I went for an easier option and only cut the wings and bodies. Even lazier, they only got painted with my new brushes The Man got me the other day (together with a beautiful bag of beads, am I spoilt or what?) and his good old miniature paints.

 Heck yeah, he got me chocolate, too! :)

Bob helped me to prepare the frame, which I had spray painted while the bats dried. A piece of firewood ( I had to go into the basement to get it. Not happy.), some more potpourri and a bit of string, here we go:

The final result: (sorry about the lame pictures, it was pretty late and I had to use the flash)

Closer:

CLOSER:

Love them! Honest, the pictures don't do them much justice, if I may say so myself.

Yeah, and that's 2 out of three! The next one, I hope, will be nutty. Err. Any guesses? :)

Linkin' up:

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Owlrighty then!

No envelope of doom project this time, just somrthing I've kind of had in my head for quite some time now.

Owls... don't you just love them? I am lucky enough to sometimes at night hear Twit and Twoo somewhere near my garden, and it always puts a huge smile on my face. Whats more, Leeds has owls in its coat of arms and even its own owl trail.

So, of course I had to jump on the huge bandwagon of owls going on in the blogosphere. What I wanted was a shadow box with owls on a twig, and it all started with this:

I can't help it, my owls always look either startled or displeased.

After sketching them, I went on to cut the shapes (bodies, wings, eyes and beaks) and cover them with fabric from two shirts I'd kept in a drawer for far too long.

While that stuff dried, I disassembled the ugliest shadowbox frame thing I've ever seen in my life, so ugly I don't even want to post a picture. Lets just say it combined a green frame with pink paper flowers, 'nuff said.
The frame got a nice, black coat of spray paint, the rest went over the rainbow bridge never to be seen again.

What I needed now was a twig. Trip to the garden, a ninja- like assault on a tree, job done.

The kitchen table work space during assembly:

Boys and girls, I would now like to take the opportunity and remind you that hot glue is called hot glue because it is HOT. Ouch. Don't ask.

After a bit of feeling immensely sorry for myself, trying in vain to get sympathy from The Man without looking too stupid (again: it is called HOT glue for a reason!) and holding on to an ice cube for a while, this is what I had- meet Twit and Twoo!

Clever girl that I am, I dug out some potpourri we bought at ALDI roundabout Christmas time to make the whole thing look a bit less empty. Smells nice, too :)

Here's the final result against the backdrop of my craft box.

A closer look:

For now, it's kept safe from the cats on the living room wall, but I'll find a better place for it. I might even put it away 'til September or so, since the thing looks more like autumn than summer to me. But for now, I have the owl- shadow- box- thing out of my system. Unfortunately, I had another shadow box idea involfing twigs and jewellery storage, but that will be left until my finger has healed from where it was cowardly attacked by hot glue.

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