I'm still trying to get used to my new camera and catch our conure flying, but until then I'll post the landing that we managed to catch...

Hello xo Personally I love when round eyes really play up that roundness but you can definitely use makeup to attain some balance if you want to go for a different look. If you want to make your eyes

Dragonrat Jewellery

You might still have room for another label sheet, yes? This gorgeous label with Red & Black frame, was found on Sweetly Scrapped (click on the label below to see the original post, with lots m…

I’m a buffalo wing-lover from way back; of course, around here we just call them wings – the buffalo part is assumed. Even so, I should clarify that even in Buffalo, not all wings are

It’s no secret that I have trouble staying still. In the last two years I’ve moved to Liverpool, then back to Nashville, then to NYC, then back to Nashville, and I’m now getting r…

Finally, I've managed to come up with a way to make faux feathers that I am just about completely satisfied with. I'm still keeping the specifics under wraps but the gist of it is such: I've switched from fabric to foam. "Celaeno" Dark Angel Wings available at TruWings The results are: 1. Saved Time by Not laminating with glues or epoxies and waiting for the multiple layers of fabric to dry, hoping there wont be air bubble spots on the reverse side. 2. Shape. Finally achieved a compound curve, the shape I've been striving to achieve for months now. 3. Texture. I'm still playing with this one, and I think I've got it right on the next batch of white feathers. 4. Durable and still super light weight. Maybe not more durable than laminated fabric but certainly more crowd friendly. Flexible and forgiving. 5. Color. Okay so the black is still not as black as I would like. It's an issue of reflectivity. Real feathers reflect light in a manner which is extremely difficult to replicate accurately in black. This is why I started with black, knowing it would be more difficult to get a satisfying result than working with white.

Crochet Dragon - Smaug From the Hobbit: I'm pretty excited about the upcoming movie The Hobbit, but it's still a few months away. So in the meantime, I crocheted my own Smaug. He is known as Smaug The Magnificent, Smaug the Golden, the Dragon of Erebor, and Bilbo also ca…

An airline chicken breast, also known as a Statler chicken breast or a Chicken suprême is a chicken breast with the first joint of the wing still attached. I prefer airline breasts over regular boneless breasts both for the presentation factor, and for the juicier meat it delivers.

So, I know i'm a little late posting this since Halloween has now past, but I still need to show how my costume turned out. In the last post, I left off having begun making the mold of the mask sculpt. I'll get back to that but first I need to show how I made the rest of the costume. The vision I had for the costume was for it to be intimidating as a large hulking monster. It didn't exactly come out a big as I wanted But It was still good enough. So, what I did was I bought some 4 inch thick sheets of upholstery polyfoam (the kind you use for couches and pillows). I bought it at hobby lobby because it seemed to be the cheapest place to get it, though it still was about 30 dollars in total. Anyway I bought the foam in order to create a "muscle suit" to make me closer to the imposing size of the character Kurse. So I found an old tight fitting longsleeve shirt that I cold glue the foam pieces to. I also bought a cheap electric kitchen knife to cut the thick foam with, since it can be difficult to cut with just scissors. So you can see the progress picture below of the chest and abs cut from blocks of foam. They were glued to the shirt with 3M spray adhesive. So after I cut out some more muscle pieces out, my brother helped me glue them to the arms and this is what it looked like. After starting the foam suit, I continued with the mask mold. I finally bought some more plaster and finished layering the front half. I didn't get any pictures of this but after it was done I pried the two plaster halves apart with some screwdrivers stuck in the wedge holes I had made in the edges with clay. I had no problems taking them apart after some careful prying, thanks to the vaseline mold release. So once they were apart I was able to easily remove the clay and styrofoam head and was left with two decent looking mold pieces. That is the face half in the picture below, and it came out pretty clean with only a few minor air pockets. So the next step was to cast the mask with silicone rubber. Unfortunately It isn't too cheap but I bought some PlatSil Gel 10 silicone rubber from BITY Mold Supply. PlatSil Gel 10 seemed like the best choice because it had high tear resistance and also was translucent. This was most important because translucent meant it could be dyed different colors. So I was able to mix it up with some black acrylic paint which surprisingly doesn't cause and problems with the curing of the silicone. One of the feature of PlatSil Gel 10 is that it has a very fast cure time (only 30 min) but this means the working time with it is very fast (6 min). This can be a bit of a problem if you have to spread it out over the entire surface of the mold and you don't have any to waste. It took a couple coats of slilicone on each of the two halves of the mold and then also another coat along the seam once the two halves are closed and pressed together. Again, I should have taken more pictures of this process but hopefully you get the idea of how it worked. This picture below shows the first coat of silicone in the back half of the mask mold. Somewhat to my surprise, the mask turned out very good with very few problems! I used the entire 2 pounds of silicone but the mask was still quite thin. Fortunately, this type of silicone is very strong and durable so despite some thin spots, it retained it's shape and held together very nicely. The neck could easily be stretched over my head to put it on and there was decent air flow space in it since it didn't fit extremely tightly against my face (unlike my previous red skull mask). So all in all I was extremely pleased with my latest rubber casting project. You can see me wearing it below along with the foam costume which I made more progress on. The mouth of the mask didn't match up with mine exactly and it stuck out quite a bit in front of mine but I could still open and close it slightly with mine. Unfortunately, Halloween only a couple days away at this point so I had to work very fast to get the suit done and the mask. Sadly I was not able to completely finish the costume in time but this picture below is as far as I got with it on Halloween night. After finishing carving the foam muscles and gluing them on, I glued some cheap greyish black fabric over the whole suit. Also I forgot to mention the shirt was cut open in the back and then had vel-crow attached to close it. This allowed it to be taken on and off easily. The suit was acceptable, but it wasn't as done as it was supposed to be. I wanted to make the shoulders bigger and put some foam spikes on them. Also I wanted more detail and color in general, to make it more accurate to the actual Kurse look, but I didn't have the time. As for the mask, it also was not done since I wasn't able to attach the foam horns that I had made. I was able to paint it a reddish color on the face which turned out ok. The most disappointing thing I have learned about silicone is that the only thing that sticks to it is more silicone. The only reason this acrylic paint worked was because I airbrushed it as a very light coat so it wouldn't end up cracking and peeling off. It does still rub off if handled too much. The reason I wasn't able to attach the horns was that the glue I used wont even stick to the silicone rubber. So the only way to attach them was to stick them on with more uncured rubber and let it dry to secure the foam to the mask. Since I didn't have any silicone or time left I just had to go without them. Heres a picture of Kurse from the movie "Thor: the Dark World" for comparison. Not as acccurate as I wanted it to be I guess. The horns would probably make it look better though. So take a look at the rest of the picture taken on halloween night and decide for yourself if it was a success. It didn't creep out as many trick or treaters as my red skull costume did last year but oh well. Here are the horns that I made and wasn't able to attach. the are coated with latex and were supposed to be shaded with black spray paint but some of them got a little too much color. This is after halloween, I just placed the horns on it to take a picture of what it should have looked like. They still will have to be cemented on once I get more silicone, but who knows when that will be. So all in all it wasn't at all a failure but it just wasn't the level of greatness I hoped to get when I originally had the idea. In hindsight, i should probably not try to be a character from a movie that hasn't been released yet since there aren't many good reference pictures to use an I should also start a project like this even earlier in the year, like the beginning of September. So with that said, Happy late Halloween I guess... More posts to come next year, in the mean time check out Wrightworks on blogger!

Hong Kong photographer Wing Shya shares his work and private photographs from the sets of director Wong Kar Wai.

Every relationship has to face troubles and tough times in life, but it does not mean that it is an end of a relationship. You should give a second chance to your love and show your hopes to your love partner. Here you can find troubled relationship poems for him and her that help you […]

I'm still working on our Halloween costumes, but I wanted to share these wings with you now. Just in chase I'm no the only one making wings this week. I know you can buy wings for pretty cheap these days, but I'm picky and I wanted something more realistic. Something more Tinker-bell like and not so much butterfly. This is what I came up with. In darker light they appear clear and in the sunlight they sparkle. They're dramatic and fancy, yet sturdy and cheap to make. That you need to make them: - Solid Galvanized Wire -pliers or similar tool - electrical tape or duck tape - glue gun and glue sticks - transparent gift wrap -optional glitter paint -paint brush -ribbon -elastic band ( you can use 1/2" or 1") length varies I bought my wire at Walmart. I got the roll for $3.50. I was able to make three sets of wings and have a ton left over. You could use a wire hanger, but for this price why mess with that. making the wing frames: Start by cutting four pieces of wire. Two pieces of the same length for your top wings and two of the same length for the bottom wings. The longer the wire is the bigger the wing it will make. Next cross over the ends of the wire and twist them. You may need pliers to help. After twisting the ends, form the wire into a shape you like. I would have a clear image of the shape you want in front of you before you start. I googled fairy wings and found a few shapes I really liked. after shaping the wire wrap the twisted ends together with tape. Then wrap the top and the bottom pieces together with tape. It should feel sturdy when you are done. Time to cover them in gift wrap. I bought mine at the dollar store and had enough in one roll to cover all three sets of wings. Cut a piece of the wrap just larger than one wing. The wrap is attached to the wing with hot glue. Run a small bead of hot glue all the way around one side of the wing. Then lay it on the cut piece of wrap. Trim the edges and repeat on the other side of the same wing. Then repeat the same process on all four wings. When I was finished I painted on some silver glitter paint. I tried to use strokes that simulated fair wings. You can skip the paint, I like the clear iridescent look as well. Next, I wrapped the center in ribbon. I measured a strip of elastic to wrap around the shoulders and glued it to the center. Then I reinforced with another wrapping of ribbon and glue. That's it, they are ready to wear. I only had to buy the wire wrap and paint. I paid $6 for three sets of wings. You'll have to come back in a few days to see the rest of the fairy costume.