You might or might not remember that I promised a little knock- off the other day. It'll cost you pretty much next to nothing, and I'm pretty sure you will laugh all the way to the bank because yours truly is about to save you a whopping £118! (don't ask how much that is in $, but it'll be a lot of dough.)

How do you feel about these babies:





Minoan earrings that, according to Anthro, give you some sort of divine powers. And they'll give THEM aforementioned £118. For a bit of brass. You WHAT? I don't think so, people.

Ready to kick some Minotaur butt, guys? Go and pour yourself a pint.

Yes, pint.

Then grab the empty can, carefully cut it open and do this with a sharpie:




Just estimate the length, it totally depends on what size you want your shinies to be.

CAREFULLY cut out your shapes, the metal is really sharp. Keep away kids, cats and clumsy significant others! You'll get this:


Sand down the edges. Please don't skip this step, unless you feel the urge to decapitate yourself with your new earrings!





Now, bend the metal strips into shape. I tried to make mine resemble the original, but again, it's totally up to you!





Now... I am lucky enough to have a crazy talented Man in the house who used to paint wargaming miniatures. He does not paint anymore, but all the equipment is still there. You might want to enlarge the following two photos (click on them!), just to treat yourself to the full range of, well, INTERESTING shades available to yours truly.








Snot green is my all time favourite, but I went with Mithril Silver, followed by a coat of clear varnish. I'm pretty sure you could use spray paint or even nailpolish instead!




Oops- I forgot to mention- before I started slapping on the paint, each shiny got a little hole at the flat end.
Anyway, it won't do any harm if the brushstrokes are visible- the original Anthro version seems to be brushed brass, so no smooth surface there.

Now, let everything dry out nicely and gather two beads of your choice, two headpins and two earhooks.


Assemble.



Take a final picture:


... and sit back to imagine what you could do with the £118 you just saved.

Notes: I made a couple of mistakes. I applied one thick coat of paint rather than to thin coats, so little "blobs" of paint accumulated at the edges, and at some points, the green permanent marker still shows through.
I also did not make the little holes smack- bang in the middle.
But since this is so ridiculously easy, I'll just have another go and experiment a little!

I hope you are a bit inspired. Now, go spend £118 on something that's REALLY worth it!

I told you yesterday that The Man came up with and idea.
When I was sketching simple stuff I thought I could make out of felt for the Easter Tree, he looked at the bunnyrabbit- face I had drawn and said "That's be cool as a cat nip toy!"
Bless him, I hadn't even thought of that. So here it is, the birth of the catnip bunnyrabbit.






Sketch yourself a bunnyrabbit on an old wine box.






Cut it out.






Draw outlines on felt of desired colour twice, flip over template after first one.






Cut out, leave a bit of felt around the outlines- you'll use them to sew along them. Sketch and stitch on a cute face. Stitch together with the sides with the outlines on the outside. Begin half way up the chin, go 'round the ears and face till you arrive on the other side of the chin. Turn inside out, a chopstick might help to accomplish this.





Stuff with dismembered pillow, add catnip and sew the opening together.







Place in front of picture of soon- to- be- ex husbands utterly adorable doggie and take a shot together with new best mate Valentine, the Voodoo zombie.
Be proud of youself, crack open that wine and relish looking at your kittehs enjoying themselves with a good, healthy dose of pacifying catnip!

Thanks to The Man, he was a real star during conception and birth both of Valentine and Bunnyrabbit. Credit where credit is due!

Told you... there's more to come.

The wee ghosties I showed you were white because I had to paint them. I had to paint them because I burned them. I burned them because the model clay, FIMO, I used was bought in Germany donkeys years ago and did not quite accomodate for gas marks. Boo. Hoo.

What I originally intended was this:






A badly taken picture of The Blob.
Or a glowinthedark ghost.

Wanna make your own Blob wee ghostie?
It couldn't be easier, promise.

What you'll need:





Some model clay (I was lucky enough to have glow- in- the- dark FIMO in my ancient stash), something to roll it out on, something to roll it out with, a headpin (or eye pin or some wire, whatever you have), a bead and, conveniently, some round- nose pliers. Don't have any? Never mind, I bet you can improvise.

So, what's the science behind summoning ghosts?

Take a little chunk of your modelling clay, soften it up, form a ball and flatten it real flat. Like...flat- flat. If you have a can of BUAV approved deodorant (the slim one many gals have in their purse anyway), that's great.
Use the lid to cut out a circle.





Now, thread the bead on your eye pin and punch it through the middle of your FIMO circle, like this:






Carefully coherse the FIMO disc around the bead. It will, if you do it gently enough, ghostify itself.






Now bang it in the oven to bake (if you burn it, you better have paint ready!!) and either use a thin sharpie marker or acrylic paint to give the wee bugger a face.

You can, if you have managed not to burn yourself or your ghosties, now attach them to some earwires and either give them away (as I will tomorrow to my bestest- loved colleague Barbara) or keep them for yourself.

See, told you it was easy!

You can make pendants, garlands, decorations, cat toys (okay, better not.) and favours.
Have fun, and let me know if you help growing the ghost population. I would absolutely LOVE to see yours, now that I've showed you mine!

I would like to thank my family, the academy, our postman and all the unnamed FIMO sweatshop workers who made all this possible.
And, on second thought, maybe even The Man whose eyes lit up yesterday when I started ghosting away, when I was a little embarrassed about my own pleasure about how well they turned out. He told me he loved them. And me.
If it wasn't for him, there'd be no wee ghosties.
Thanks, babe. I love you too.

Happy haunting!