My monday morning

Here is a hint as to my Monday Morning after staying up to sew pajamas for kidlets.
I like this guy's creativity.

Deck the Halls Zweintel (Part 2)

My apologies to my German friends. I looked up the spelling of Part two and didn't find what I wanted so I had to guess.

Previously you may have seen my efforts to create a Halloween Village. The material was a plaster type paste that I sculpted while wet and let it dry then I sanded and painted, then added rock/sand/trees to create the landscape.

My efforts now have been put towards the Christmas village. Luckily I only have to deal with White as my main color. But there are textures and dimensions I must consider. This time I used Styrofoam. Not the crunchy kind that has holes, rather the kind you find in your boxes that is made up of small balls pressed together. The cool thing about Styrofoam is that it can be cut with a hot knife. And it is very lightweight. AND I don't have to wait for it to dry.

This time I made sure to make the pieces smaller so I can store them in a box in the attic.The shelf is the same one used for the halloween village. Also I added water. Another techique that I had to learn to do. This has been a great challenge. The expense of the Water (Epoxy) was more than ALL of the styrofoam for the whole village. I am going to have to find a better source for the Epoxy.


Below are the pictures for the village. Unlike the Halloween pictures, the night time lighting did not do well so I used a flash.

There are closeups to follow but here is what you see in this overall picture
#1 The village Duo, Cello & Violin
#2 Little girl greeting her father
#3 Paul's Pub
#4 The Dairy Shop
#5 The Winery
#6 The Milnery shop
#7 Joy's cottage
#8 The Inn

Here is #1 the Village Duo


#2 Little Girl greeting father.


#3 Paul's Pub and the arrow is pointing at the stairs I carved into the hillside. Also the Cheese Head guy that is selling cheese from the Dairy shop.



#5 the Winery


#7 Joy's Cottage



This is the play area from a distance. The town furniture store on the hill and all the children playing in the snow. The #1 scene is in closeup below.


I found the Snowball fight at a thrift store for $4.99 and it is a Dept. 56 scene. I got a good deal on it. The grandkids love watching it. Don't know if they think that snowball will fly off or what. The ball is animated and swings on the stick from one boy to the other.








This is the site of the Mill on the right side of the village.


Here is the largest of the two water techniques. There is irredescent tinsel embedded in the epoxy that shines at different angles and lighting. I also put "Buffalo Snow" around the edges which soaked into the Epoxy by accident, but it made the edges of the water look like it was turning into ice so it worked out great. After it all dried I added more "Buffalo Snow" to create a bank of snow on the edge. These are glued in. Buffalo Snow is a fake snow that is celluose based and will wash away with water so if next year I want to change it I just need to wet it down.



Those of us who live in the Canby/Oregon City area are familiar with the wood carver that lives along 99E highway. This scene is in honor of him. The log cabin and his stump out in front where he carves.


Here is the Alps section of the village.



#1 Placing the star
#2 Ski Lodge/Chalet
#3 Stairs I carved into the mountain side.


#1 Placing the star again such humor with these figures. Can you really believe the horse will stay still while you stand on his back to place the star???



#2 The Ski lodge/chalet plays music and the skiers go around. BUT when I bought this there was no lights. I opened it up and installed battery operated rice lights I bought at Ikea. The arrow on the left shows the RED tape I used. Only if you are down at kid level do you see this. The arrow on the right shows a skier that has an amputated arm. . .it broke off when I was installing the lights. So I call this event the Special Olympics Winter version.




We are still in the Alps section and this is a second mill. There are more deer here and a carriage goin to the mountain.
#1 Second water technique
#2 Deer eating snowman nose


Here is #2. . I just love the humor of this scene, the Deer eating the Snowman's nose (carrot). The grandkids love it too.



If you have reached the end of this blog then I am honored. Most people just look at the pics and that is good too. I put in the details for those of my friends that are interested in learning of hearing about the techniques, errors and successes I achieve during my creative process. If you can look at the pictures and see the village and scenes and never really notice the landscape unless I point it out. . .then I was successful. Every bit of that styrofoam was scupted and textured. I did not leave any of it in it's store bought condition.
The figurines have been collected over the past 10 years. The majority of them are the less expensive version. And many many of them I have picked up at thrift stores. I want all my villages to be kid friendly for 2year olds and up. So if something gets chipped or broke it now has a story behind it. . .and it makes it fun for me to shop for replacements.
Thank you for viewing and enjoying my efforts.

Decking the Halls

As the days grow shorter in daylight I seem to feel an urgency that I must get things done. Part is my own clock ticking away. But I think the majority of this feeling is triggered by the overwhelming commercial push to buy BUY BUY!! before the deadline of December 25.
Sigh. . .wait. . . Slow down. . . Breath!
Even though I feel rushed to have the house decorated for our Open house this weekend, I wanted to feel good about the winter season and the solstice coming up.

Here are some pictures for my German friends to enjoy. Our tree Tannenbaum is decorated with apples, gilded walnuts, Strohn Sterne (star stars),Morovian stars, and natural animals, fox/owl/hedgehogs and Candles. . .yes Candles, real ones.



When American's see these candles thier first reaction is Fear. They must think that we light them and walk away. No no no no. Even in Germany they don't do that.
We light them for about 15-30 minutes at a time and stay in the living room to enjoy it. Now there are regular tree lights on the tree as most American trees. But there is not an over abundance of them.







We have a small collection of items we have brought back from Germany that are very typical. All wood.




Over the years I have become enamoured with clear or glass looking items. Here are two displays of a Santa/reindeer then a picture of the ice castle.





The Globe Theater in London. (Shakespeare's theater).


Then there is the corner with my bit of humor in it. I just love these pigs/hippos/elephants.





Next set of photos will be the village. And the outside of house.

Painshill Grotto

Open for business this year. . .Painshill Grotto. Enjoy your Halloween festivities with us. Skel & Sons Grotto UnderKeepers.

Warning there are many pictures.
So Painshill Grotto is completed for this year. I say that so you will know that I plan on adding to it as the years go on.
Also. . .these pictures have been an excercise in my photography skills so please bare with me. I have just learned how to decrease the shutter speed to the point that I can take in the dark or low lighting pics. AND I used the tripod so I wouldn't wiggle while the shutter was open.

Here we go.

The Autumn side of the scene has been done for a while now. I have added the pile of leaves and the gate to the fence.


On the other side of the fence is the Halloween Carnival, we'll get to that next.




Note the Gate and the Tree.arrows pointing at them The tree is the favorite figure of Grandson Emery. He is only 2 and still he knows that the "man fell into the tree".



Now for the Carnival, this is taken in the actual lighting. So you see the Gypsy looking into her crystal ball. Someone selling pumpkins, Children bobbing for apples and of course all the ghosts are out in force. Note I have created a path and the plants along the front edge. You will also see the hillside to the Grotto in the background on the right side. and the beginning of the skull fence.





Now for the Grotto. This is actually in 7 pieces. So I can set it up with the sides open like a book. . .. or closed in this case. You view the Grotto from the front where there are two semi circle fences made with skulls. And a Scull Gate. Here are two pictures one is with Grotto lights OFF (I'll explain later)



And with Grotto Lights ON



The Grotto is painted with Glow in the Dark paint. So it has a slight yellowy/green cast to it in daylight and then at night looks like the pic above.
When I built the Grotto I used a box knowing I would be hiding small Rice Lights inside. I drilled holes in the "ceiling" of the Grotto and pushed the Rice lights through. They are Blue in color. Let me tell you this was a tedious task but I LOVE THE EFFECT.

OK. . .onto the Skull Fence. Our grape arbor was trimmed down for the winter (or should I say Jerry HACKED it down). After I got over my mad. . .I went out there and salvaged what few vines I could and let them dry. Some are old enough to have what appears to be BARK on them. Great texture.
I found at Rite-Aid a Skull Bracelet with plastic beads. They were 70% off. So I bought all 6 at 43 each. My only problem was the HOLE for the bead was in the top of the skull and I need them to be ear to ear. So out come the handy Dremel tool and I drilled them myself. I then used the florist wire I had handy and "Wove" the fence and glued it on to the semi circle mounds I created. Voila! Skull Fences.



Now for what is ontop of the Grotto.
Another Thrift store find that made me giggle all the way home was a replica of Haggrad's house in Harry Potter. It has changing lights and sound effects.
I also found at Rite-Aid at 70% off a garland of skeleton's. They are made of plastic and were "stiff". So I performed surgery and "un-stuck" them. I created some animated figures.
There is the Trumpet player ( I found an old brooch that was a trumpet and the scale was perfect.
The "Hear No Evil" "See No Evil" and "Speak No Evil" trio are all sitting on the cliff edge to the Grotto. As well as a hanging Skeleton.





Now for the inside of the Grotto. At this time there is only one major figure in there. It is of a man climbing a spire while rats (arrows pointing at some of them) and a skeleton are around his feet. There is an open grave with a decaying body in it.
There are also some bones and gravestones around.
I hope to increase the inside of the Grotto next year with more scenes. But this is all I could do this year.
None of my pictures came out of the Hill that is to the right of the Grotto. But it looks good too. I just have to get those lights inside the houses to make it look great.

Here are pics of the whole thing in true light. There was a lot of effort and learnings in this project. Having never tried to Sculpt before I am surprised at my results. As well as the Landscaping.





It took me about 45 hours and $60 in supplies. But alot of the supplies are left over so I can make more. I am not including drying time. This had to be made in stages as I mentioned in previous blogs. I think doing it in Summer is a better idea. You can leave the segments outside to dry in the sun. I had to bake the smaller sections to get them dry enough to pain. The humidity was TERRIBLE.
Now. . . . pondering. . .do I have time to do the same thing for my Christmas village. . .