Evil Dead Replica Chainsaw. It's a Faux-saw!

For the last month or so, I have had to share my hubby with his shed. He comes home from work, spends a few minutes with Little O and myself and then he's off to the shed again. Same deal on weekends too. Boy am I glad his latest project is done with! I have my husband back - whoohoo!

Well this is what Mr O has been working on ... a faux chainsaw (or Fauxsaw). Mr O turns the big 3-0 in February (yes, next year!) and he has his big B'day bash already planned right down to his costume which is what the Fauxsaw is for. Can you keep a secret? Shhh . . . . he's going as Ash from Evil Dead so he needed a chainsaw that he could "attach" to his arm. After searching for an old chainsaw in the classifieds in the hopes he could just gut it and maybe mod it a bit, he gave up due to the fact that even second-hand those things are damn expensive! So he decided to make one from scratch. He used mostly recycled items and bits and bobs from his shed. (his shed is a treasure trove for man-craftiness).

Okey Dokes, well I suppose I ought to tell you about the Fauxsaw . Mr O used some mdf to make the base and he fibreglassed the entire outer to achieve a smooth effect. The blade is also mdf and the actual chain itself is a bike chain so it will be safe to carry around on the night and is thankfully not sharp at all. The caps and details are lids from bottles and coffee tins etc. Mr O is quite resourceful indeed. He even used a sink drain cover for the vent at the side. So once it was all put together and fibreglassed, it was spray painted and the details were painted on to make it look a little roughed-up. Now all that's left to do is add some blood splatter and Voila! Fauxsaw complete! I am super proud of Mr O for the awesome job he did on this, he's such a smarty bum. :)

Action shots to come after the party (so still a few months to go!)

Thanks for reading!

Happy Crafting, kiddo's!

P.S. If anyone would like a more detailed description of what, how, whatever, drop me a line and I'll get Mr O to give you the info in his more technical speak! lol

Kurt Cobain for the Battle of the bands Challenge on Plush You!

Thanks for bearing with me while I make all these changes to CottonSpool. I am trying to pretty the place up around here and so far, it's looking like an absolute mess. I promise it won't be like this forever, I just have to try and figure out this html junk. Gosh, it's really driving me nuts! lol

Anyways, I have been a busy girl lately. There has been weddings and birthdays and all sorts of things going on around here. I have still been crafting like crazy only I keep forgetting to take pictures so I will have to go on a picture-taking binge to catch you all up.

So I just finished my Kurt Cobain plush for the Plush You Battle of the bands Challenge! You could choose any artist/band dead or alive so I chose my childhood crush Kurt Cobain. He was one awesome dude until ... well, you know. Anyways, I could never do him justice but I did my best to capture his expression and look from the famous MTV Unplugged show which is rumored to have been designed to look like a funeral, some even say it was a message from Kurt regarding the tragedy which was to follow.

On to the details! I designed the pattern completely and specifically for this challenge. He is made in a "waldorf style" and I use the term verrry loosely. He has a molded face including a nose (which is not so prominent and you probably can't hardly see on the photo). I used a cotton jersey type material for his skin and felt for his facial hair, eyebrows and guitar. The jersey was wonderful to use and it allowed just enough stretch to make it easy to work with and not too much stretch that I was going to end up with bumps and elongated limbs etc. lol. His hair is tea-stained acrylic-mix wool which I hand dyed specifically for Kurt's hair. I used a tutorial to make a sort of wig which then gets sewn on to the doll to keep it all in place but unfortunately I can't find the site again so I will have to do some intensive "googling" so I can give credit to the wonderful person with the tutorial.
I made all of the clothes as well, The jeans are made from an old pair of my own jeans and I distressed them with my quick-unpick and some rough sandpaper because as we all know, Kurt liked his jeans well worn in (Oh I love the grunge look). I was a little disappointed that after many a trip to my local thrift stores, I couldn't find any khaki green/brown knit sweaters to cut up for Kurt's infamous cardigan so I ended up having to use some cotton that I had in my stash but at least the colour is pretty close. The mini Con's (Converse All Star) are made from felt by me and I think they turned out super cute! I may just have to make some for my daughter too.

Well that's it, that's how I did it! If you have any questions or any comments -  I would absolutely love to hear from you.  Check out the other entries when they are posted on the Plush You blog very soon. I am sure there are going to be some truly awesome designs.

Thanks for reading and Happy Crafting, kiddo's! :)

Please excuse the mess!

I'm having a major overhaul of my blog and it's a 
friggin disaster. I'll have it all fixed up tomorrow 
but for now, the stupid new design tool is making 
me want to throw my laptop out the window so 
probably best if I go and have some time away 
from the darn thing. 


Like Arnie said ... "I'll be back..."

Little heart vest

Just a quick little vest I made for the little one before the weather got really cold. It's made from polar fleece and it was my first try at reverse applique. I made the neck waaaay too wide so I ended up putting a couple of little pleats in the front which turned out pretty good. In "real life" it looks like it's supposed to be like that so that's good. I made the best out of a mess up! I'm getting good at that, considering I mess up so damn often! lol

In case you're wondering what the heck she is doing in the photo, she is raking the lawn for me. She likes helping Mummy around the house, now if only I could get her to do the washing, the mopping, the scrubbing, the gardening .... lol. One day I guess, when she starts asking for pocket money, I'll be ready with my list! haha

By the way, don't look too hard at the background, our lawn was not looking so great at the time, hubby might have gone a little crazy with the lawn mowing and kinda scalped it. Ooops!

I'm a bad, bad blogger... tsk tsk tsk

So, I've been super busy with rellies over and participating in my first Craftster swap (or any swap for that matter). As soon as I get some batteries for my camera (which seems to chew through them like they're going out of style!) I'll take some more pic's from my sewing binge and post. Truly, I will. Cross my heart and all that crap...

Happy Crafting!

:)

Sewing Binge

So, I've been on a total sewing binge lately. It's coming up to Winter here in the land of Oz and Madam Muck (my daughter) doesn't have any Winter clothes yet, being that she outgrow's everything so fast at this age, so off to the fabric store I went. I got some great remnants which are perfect for her size. I also headed to the thrift store where I got about 3 metres of fleecey tracksuiting material (the jumper in the picture is made out of it) for $1! Score! Who could argue with that, hey!? I L-O-V-E a bargain. :)

So she's got a lot of light blue Winter clothes but at least they are all different. Anyways, this is the first. I made her the pants and the jumper (sweater) using pretty much no pattern at all because I totally suck at patterns. I seem to have this subconscious thing where I just can't do what I'm told and always have to go and do it my own way which probably explains the amount of screw up's I've made! lol

Oh yeah and Pssst..... I'm working on a pattern for a toddler trench type jacket which I will post a free pattern for when I work out all the kinks (and the whole pattern to PDF thing).

Happy Crafting!

:)

Meet Neville...

This is Neville. He's a Yowie, which is basically Australia's version of Bigfoot. He's my entry in to the Schmancy Olympic Challenge. Neville is a funny character. He pulls funny faces and tries to re-enact King Kong with the Olympic Torch but he's a really great Snowball thrower which is exactly why he was representing Australia in the Opening Ceremony.

He was so much fun to make! I must have sketched about 100 different creatures(ok, so I exaggerate a bit. 20 then!) before deciding that Neville was the one. Unfortunately though, he just didn't turn out the same as the sketch because here in West Oz, we have literally 1 main fabric store (which I can't stand because the people are rude and completely unhelpful) and I couldn't get the fur I wanted to use or get the colour either so I was kind of bummed about that. But he does look a lot like the original sketch just with shorter hair.

I made his little outfit myself too, including the shoes. Those shoes nearly had me in a hissy fit. I just about didn't enter the challenge because I just couldn't get them right. I eventually had a brainwave and decided to try and use my daughter's little Ugg boots to get the basic pattern from which seems to have worked out pretty well. I'm happy with the boots now, thank goodness!

I'm happy that I entered the challenge and it really pushed me to use my brain and create something completely my own which I'm pretty proud of, especially seeing as I haven't got a whole lot of experience in making toys like that. He may not be the best in the challenge or even in the category but I'm happy with him and most importantly, my daughter loves him! She loves him so much that she's already pulled one of the Olympic rings off his vest! lol

I hope you enjoyed meeting Neville and I can't wait to see everyone else's creations!

Happy Crafting!