Bill, the school sock elephant

This is Bill. He is a grey school sock elephant. Because the school socks were a mismatched pair, one being slightly smaller than the other, and slightly different shades of grey, he has a kind of pie-bald effect and slightly odd ears. I like it that the toes of the socks were a little worn and so his ears look a bit moth eaten. I hit a major dilemma when I realised, that because one sock was rather small in the foot, Bill's head was going to end up a tiny bit small, so I had to improvise, and now Bill sports a snug blue fleece beanie with matching scarf. 

On Monday Bill will be reunited with his original school sock wearing owner, of the same name, I hope they will be very happy together.

Project inspired by the book 'Sock and Glove' by Miyako Kanamori

Ghostly platters

I snapped up three silvery platters in the charity shop this week, for £1 a piece, that will be just perfect for serving ghostly nibbles on. They go very nicely with the one shown in the invitations pictures. I found the twig with the grey lichen in the forest the other day and was rather taken with how the dull lichen contrasts against the shiny steel, and how similar the formation and patterns were together. I've been spraying it with water, but don't think it's going to hold up till Oct 31, so I captured it here while I could.

Season's greetings

I can't think of a better time to start a blog about the stuff I like to make in RL than Halloween. This time of year inspires me more than any other, even Christmas. I suppose because my dusty, falling-apart-at-the-seams, Miss Haversham kind of style sits very well with all things eerie. This year I decided to really throw myself into the spirit by holding a Halloween 'gathering' (smaller than a party, but more than a few friends), so there will be more than the usual smattering of spooky projects on the go.

And without further ado - here are the invitations! I was wondering what to do for them, when I stumbled upon a pdf archive of gothic novels (Poe, Shelley etc) and it occurred to me how much atmosphere is lost in this impersonal format, rather than reading the stories from the faded pages of an antique leather bound book. And at that point I thought - how about making miniature gothic novels as invitations?! 

A prototype was constructed, using two pieces of 4mm black foam board to make the thickness of the book, and a stock vintage book jacket image was sourced, tweaked to make it look even more menacing, and worked into the paper jacket design. The collage on the left page uses a Victorian bat species illustration, a tiny day of the dead woodcut, and a ghostly spectre button. The right page: a repeat layer of the book jacket, cut through to reveal a human skeleton diagram and the invitation wording. 

The finishing touches were a single miniature dried hydrangea flower, a frayed brown organza knot and a ribbon tie, to keep the little novels closed until guests receive them, sent in black tissue paper lined envelopes.