A Little Stranger » Crafting

Taxiderm-Eevee

Holly — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 12:50:49 +0000

Imagine if our favourite Japanese characters were real and lived among us? Taxiderm-eevee is a piece of rogue taxidermy, exploring what it would be like if my favourite Pokemon, Eevee, were a real animal that had been captured and preserved for future generations. Imagine what we could learn from this fascinating creature!

Taxiderm-eevee is an original work created for the Beware the Tall Grass show, November 18th at Kidrobot, London. He sold on the night.

Russian Dolls for Codename: Babushka

Holly — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:56:53 +0000

Thank you to the guys at Flatties for having me as a part of Codename: Babushka. This is such a great idea for a project and i’m really happy to be a part of it! There’s 15 artists involved in the project (head here to see a list) each artist’s set is then split up, muddled about with the other dolls and put back together at random, so you will receive 5 pieces of original art from 5 different artists! A Set of 5 russian dolls is £140, they also offer a payment plan, details here.

Codename Babushka is designed for the ulitmate blindbox experience and collectors in mind. Russian Dolls have been sent to all the artists below, each artist has a nest of 5 russian dolls starting at 5.5″ and shrinking down to 1.5″. They have been commissioned to create 5 artworks which will fit back inside each other. Once completed and collected up at Flatties HQ we will mix them all up and put them into blindboxes.

I handpainted my wooden dolls with acrylics in thin layers, leaving the woodgrain exposed underneath. They are then sealed with layers of lacquer for protection and shine. Each doll in the set is inspired by a different animal, going up in size: Hamster, rabbit, red panda, lemur, ram.

Coraline Custom Doll

Holly — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:51:02 +0000

This Coraline doll is a little project i’ve been doing in my spare time since February, and i’m really pleased to finally have her on my toy shelf all finished. Now i just need to finish customising her mini-me! I had been oohing and ahhing over the Lalaloopsy dolls i’d seen in friends flickr streams, back around Christmas you couldn’t get Lalaloopsy’s over here (I’ve recently started to see them in Toys R Us and Tesco, but they’re so much dearer than in the US) As soon as I saw Mittens Fluff ‘N’ Stuff with her blue hair and button eyes i just had to make a Coraline. So my friend Lauren was kind enough to send me a lalaloopsy doll (and her mini version, so she can have a dolly of herself!) from the US.

I made all her clothes from scratch (you can get the patterns here) and made her hair bows from polymer clay. I didnt’t make the boots (oh how i wish i knew how to make doll shoes!) just painted them yellow to match her raincoat.

Get the patterns here

Lots of In-progress shots….

This is how she looked when she arrived, complete with a mini-me!

Pink striped jumper: Testing out my jumper/top pattern by making one up in this stretch pink glitter fabric.

Working on the jeans: This is the first pair i made, which i decided were too baggy. I refined the pattern making the tighter and added elastic braces to keep them up.

The yellow raincoat: Complete with hood. Just needs some fastenings in the front, i used clear snap fastenings and tacked them to the inside of the front panel so they can’t be seen when the jacket is closed.

The star jumper: I got these navy glittery over-the-knee socks on eBay and used one to make the star jumper. I kept the ribbed cuffs of the sock for the neck and bottom hem. The little stars were all cut from felt and glued on using tacky glue.

The rainboots: I bought some YO-SD boots on eBay, which were close enough to how i wanted them to look. I cut the extra straps off from around the heel using a sharp scalpel and glued the hole shut with super glue. I gave the whole of the boots a light rub with fine sandpaper so the paint could grip it, and painted them with citadel acrylic paint.

The hair bows: I wanted to replace the lalaloopsy’s stock hair bows, which are moulded to her vinyl head. I started by cutting them off best i could, leaving a flat platform i could then stick the new bows to. I decided to make Black Cat and Moushka faces for the bows, so i started by making some basic shapes out of sculpey, then baking them. I did the eyes first like this so i could bake them and position them on the faces once hardened.

Fixed the eyes onto the black cat face using a little blob of sculpey. Building up the shape of the face.

I’ve baked the face again here, cut away the excess on the eyes using a scalpel, and sanded down with fine paper; leaving the eyelids as a raised bump. Here I’m adding the ‘lip’ all around the left eye. One more bake and i’m done!

The cat and mouse before they’d had their final details added.

A quick dusting of white primer to help the paint go on nicely.

The finished cat and moushka, ready for a coat of clear lacquer

Here she is all done! I made the rainbow hair bows from some satin fabric i had scraps of, and padded them slightly so they cover the cut off bow underneath. The stand was a large metal bear stand i bought on eBay. I had to mod this metal stand to fit by cutting off the top portion of the upright part, it’s made for a much taller bear, then bending the bottom of the clamp at 90° to make it short enough to hold her under the head. You can see between her feet where i’ve bent the clamp to make it shorter. The colour is ugly, but it does the job well (her head is so big and heavy she needs a sturdy doll stand) I hope lalaloopsy release some cute doll stands soon!

Project Blankie: Update 8

Holly — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:38:13 +0000

A Mini update on how Project Blankie’s coming along! Ive been so busy with other projects i’ve only had time to make a few squares since the last update, although im eagerly awaiting a few squares all the way from America!

Project Blankie is a huuuge sofa throw i’m making out of simple 5″ knitted and crocheted squares. If you knit or crochet i’d love for you to join in! I will be sharing pictures of my progress on the net and hope it will inspire my crafty friends from around the world to knit or crochet me a 5″ square and i’ll add it to the blanket, so the whole thing will tell a story. How cool would that be?!

More about Project Blankie (with a pattern for knitting or crochet!) here

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I think this Hello Kitty square took about 3 hours to make, but it was worth it!

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Flying Ducks – NES style

Holly — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:15:18 +0000

We made these flying ducks for the wall a couple of weeks ago but its been super duper busy round these parts and i haven’t had time to get my bum in front of the computer and blog ‘em! They’re based on the game Duck Hunt on the NES. Here they are in all their glory, i’m well pleased with how they turned out!

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Duckies in progress,Having the dog popping out from the back of the telly was Jonjos idea, i think he’s really cute, until you see he’s holding a strangulated duck, bleh! While i was looking for the sprites to make these i came across this neat flash version of the game

Video Tutorial: Lace flower brooch

Holly — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:17:17 +0000

This weeks tutorial shows you how to make this pretty lace flower brooch – Mothers day is coming up March 14th (May 9th in the US) the and this makes a great gift! Click here to visit my youtube channel

Week in pictures: lucky streak!

Holly — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:37:19 +0000

I’m having a bit of a lucky streak this week, on Thursday my Zelda heart container cupcakes won 2nd prize in the valentines contest on Instructbles.com, then the next day I won tickets to Hospital Record’s Q+A+E. Yippee!! Other than that a quiet week for week in pictures, i even managed to go to a party last weekend and not take one picture, bad Holly!

I got the recipe from Laurens Recipe book. They were really easy to make and taste exactly like Millies cookies! I even made a wheat free version for one friend who dosen’t eat wheat, by substituting the self raising flour for gram flour and a quarter tsp of bicarbonate of soda. Next i’m going to try making the double chocolate ones mmmmmm

This is the latest cross stitch im working on, but its a little cryptic for now as its a birthday present and i don’t want to spoil the surprise!

Also putting a smile on my face this week: Parties / looking forward to Hospitality / Running outside for the first time since before christmas! / being jealous of Vicky’s tan / Random snow / Ikea trip / Fluffy-on-the-inside thermal tops

Video Tutorial: How to make a pin cushion

Holly — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:57:01 +0000

This weeks tutorial shows you how to make this cute pin cushion from scraps of fabric. Its really simple and quick to make! Click here for the free pattern and video tutorial!

Applehead Dunny Cross stitch pattern

Holly — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:24:30 +0000

Toys meets crafting in this original cross stitch pattern I created inspired by my custom ‘Applehead” Dunny. This is a unique A Little Stranger pattern you won’t find anywhere else!

Design is 110 x 70 stitches in counted cross stitch. Avaliable in my show now!

Project Blankie: update 7

Holly — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:23:05 +0000

Project blankie has been a bit neglected as of late, all alone in a box in the cupboard. I got everything out a couple of weeks ago and started sewing it together to see how it’s coming along. There’s still lots to do but i feel like the end is in reach! If you knit or crochet i’d love for your to send me a square! Just drop me an email hollystanway [at] gmail.com

One thing i noticed once i started assembling it is how pink it is, now i’m not saying thats a bad thing but project blankie has been going a loooong time (almost a year!) and back then i was living on my own, now i live with Jonjo i don’t want to subject him to a Hello Kitty hell house Here’s what it all looks like so far, some of the squares aren’t sewn on, i want to intersperse them less pinky colours, i’ve been working more lime greens and blues into it (i got this super pretty wool that reminds me of mermaids!) I’ve been promised a few more squares from Massachusetts which i’m really excited about getting, if you’d like to be featured on project blankie drop me and email! See all the squares so far here.