another Coraline-related post…

Do I talk about anything else these days?!

I just thought I ought to post some pictures of my finished box for the swap, because if nothing else I know my mommy wants to see them…

So here we go:

Outside of box

the latch is made from two old earrings and a copper wire (that I annealed and shaped wif my own two hands in jewelry-making class *smug*)

–detail view of latch, and Douglas Fairbanks’ handsomely be-buttoned eyes…

outside of box

opened, with everything packed inside

–Those are handmade teeny tiny clay buttons Douglas is sporting, in traditional black.

Unpacked.

The finished Other Mother portrait. I have to find another picture of it where you can see her articulated arm better–there are tiny brass eyelets that let her arm move when you pull the thread, so she in turn pulls the thread that she’s sewing the doll’s eye on with. She also has a very tiny real needle in her hand…I was pretty happy with how she turned out.

Tortoise and little box

And finally, the seeing stone, in its little velvet-lined box–it turned out really pretty (it’s polished polymer clay). I might have to do one for myself, too…

So that’s it! It was so much fun to make…I even tea-dyed the paper for the labels and burned the edges to make it look old… I really think I’m going to look for another vintage cigar box and make another one soon–I have more ideas!

received my Coraline box!

You know how every time you see a box on the doorstep you have that instant where you think in the back of your mind that maybe, just this once, it’s not going to be something like new filters for the vacuum cleaner or a car part or whatever, but instead a mysterious present from a stranger? Well…

fig. 1--mysterious box from a stranger arrives.

Ta-da!

Here it is, Box no. 34 in the Coraline Mystery Box Swap (just to clarify, this was a swap of handmade boxes inspired by the ones the makers of the Coraline movie sent out to various lucky bloggers–these aren’t “official” Coraline boxes). Thanks so much to my little mochi for organizing this, it was such fun to participate, and thanks to Carmen of Carmenland for making this amazingly cool box.

It was *so* much fun going through all the lovely little bits and bobs Carmen made… So here are a bunch of pictures of everything so other people can enjoy all this neat stuff too (I struggled mightily to take decent photos for once, to do the box justice!).

fig. 2--mysteries revealed

fig. 3--beautiful mittens!

fig. 4--delightful notecards, with mice, buttons, and jaunty black cats

fig. 5--a seeing stone, a ghost child's eye, and a kit for buttoning one's eyes

I am in *love*

…with my inspired-by-Coraline tortoise.

He’s got his shell attached now and I just need to do a couple little nit-picky things and then he’s done. He is very handsome, I think you’ll agree:

Aww! Isn’t he cool? I wish the colors in his shell showed up better, but you can see the texture of it at least.

This one gives you a better view of his face (while kind of making it look like one of his back legs has disappeared–it hasn’t, it’s just my elite photography skillz at work again):

And I didn’t want to post a million views of him because I’m trying not to be TOO boring, but he has teeeny little vertebrae for his neck, and a little bone tail, too. ^_^

Well, as usual I’m doing this instead of doing schoolwork so I guess I’d better get back to it–*snivel*–but The Other Mother drawing is shaping up nicely, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to post a scan of that soon.

Stuff for Coraline box swap (in progress)

Just thought I’d post some photos of what I’ve done so far for the Coraline mystery box swap that my little mochi organized. I just got my cigar box today, and it’s so much cooler than the photos on eBay made it look! I was really nervous after I ordered it that it was not right for this project, but as soon as I saw it in real life I totally fell in love with it.

So now that I’ve built up the suspense, here’s the box (my photos don’t do it justice either–the colors are richer in real life):

Isn’t it great? Douglas Fairbanks! *squee* It’s going to look so good with red velvet inside…I still need to hit some thrift stores and find some red velvet, of course–this week sometime.

I’m planning on doing at least one little sculpture for it, maybe two if I have time. Here is the first one in progress (please excuse the horrible photos…I don’t know why I always take such awful blurry pictures. Anyway…). Here’s my little tortoise, all sad and shell-less and nuuuude:

And his shell, the top half, anyway:

Ugh, those are blurrier than I thought! >_<

They’re the only ones I have, though! Anyway… Let’s just move on and pretend we didn’t see those horrible blurry things, shall we? :)

Here’s a really rough sketch for a pen and ink drawing I’m planning — I don’t know how much it’ll look like this in the end… I have some plans for adding some little 3-d touches (kind of pop-up book style), so this is just kind of a concept drawing.

So that’s the news for today–back to schoolwork, I guess. I’m coming to realize that I’m going to have to tag every single post I make with “things I do instead of schoolwork”. Sigh.