Teapot

I was bored. I needed something to do, but there wasn't anything that needed to be done. I couldn't think of any practical things to make, so I decided to paper mache my teapot.
I like paper mache. It's easy, it's therapeutic, it's time consuming. Yeah, it has actually taken me weeks to finish this thing.

I covered my teapot in clingfilm and paper mache'd the front half of it.

And I did the same with the lid 

After it had dried, I had to get the casts off the teapot and lid. The lid cats came off easily and brought the clingfilm with it, which I could just peel off the back. The teapot was a bit more tricky, perhaps because of the way I'd wrapped the clingfilm around it (I completely surrounded the handle and spout for better coverage). With this, I eventually worked out that I could push at the edges of the cast until it came off. I thought it would break, then I thought that wouldn't matter too much because I'd be able to repair it. Then it didn't break anyway. 

I tidied up the edges of the pot and trimmed the excess off the bottom of the lid. For some reason the lid cast wasn't big enough to fit on the pot cast. I made a top and bottom for the teapot from some cheap card, glued them into place and covered with a layer of paper mache. 

Then I stuck the lid onto the top, with more layers of glue soaked paper to secure it into place. 

After all was dry, I painted it white.Then I waited for that to dry before squirting blobs of blue paint at one end and green at the other. 

I spread the two paints from the edge to the middle. At first I washed the brush when switching between colours but as I got closer to the centre that wasn't necessary - the point is to blend the shades.

 I added more paint to the thing as I went and kept painting until I was happy with the result. 

I was quite please with this, but after it had dried I decided it needed another coat. First, I painted the very edges (because they weren't covered properly), then I set it down and started again.

Now it's finished :) when it's dry I'll hang it on the wall.

Seb's Birthday Card

This week was my nephew's first birthday. I made him a card. I wanted it to be something he could appreciate, being twelve months old, so I decided to make it collage style, with loads of different textures.

I cut out some shapes and made a basic train picture with them. The engine is felt, the cab is foam and the chimney is corrugated paper. I glued it all down onto a piece of corrugated cardboard. I didn't glue the leftmost part of the cab just yet. I had plans for that later.

Once dried, I cut the card out and turned it over. I mirrored the image on the front using coloured paper, and glued it down.

Then I cut out some wheel shapes from a textured, glittery card and stuck them on. It had to sit under a book for a little while because the wheels wanted to curl up. I did the same on the front, but for some reason I don't have a picture of that.

Next I cut a piece of purple card for the back. I made a crease and cut a tab into the edge of it, like so:

Then I smothered it in glue and slotted it into the back of the train (where I hadn't glued the foam sheet down)

For the background, I first glued a blue cellophane sheet to a piece of white card.

Then I found some green fabric. I cut strips of it and made rough little snips along the edge of each one. Then I went down said edge, pulling the fibers apart a little, to make it fray.I did take pictures of this step, but they're rubbish so you'll just have to imagine what I mean.
I glued all the green strips down, layering them over each other, like so:

Now to make the track. I cut strips of kitchen foil and glued them onto the 'grass' to make the runners.

I cut two long thin strips off my cardboard box, and glued a piece of fabric around each one. I stuck them down to make the edges of the track.

I glued the whole scene onto a piece of corrugated card; the aforementioned purple card was stuck to the back of this.

After everything had dried, I trimmed it to size.

Then James added some finishing touches for me. He glued on some white fluffy stuff (I think it's a cushion filler or something) and added a bar onto the train's wheels.

Finished! When I gave this card to Seb, he proceeded to hold the thing by the 'grass' and shake it. But it didn't make any noise, so he tired of that pretty quickly.