Holiday season puttering - L (project update)

I made staggeringly slow progress on my projects over the holidays.  In addition to holiday related business, I kept trying to organize the sewing room and getting distracted by little projects.  The sewing room is still chaos.  And I didn't finish almost anything.  But here's what I DID do:

 Craft foam armor
There are a ton of tutorials on the interwebs.  I won't repeat them.  I used regular paper to make a model.  I used that as a pattern for the craft foam.  I didn't seal the craft foam with glue.  I did heat it to shape it.  The heat seemed to seal it a bit.  Then I spray painted.  The paint makes it brittle.  Then I used Rub n'Buff.  Turns out, you can put Rub n'Buff directly on the foam and it works OK.  Yes, it's more expensive than spray paint, but I am impatient.  Also, I feel like the heat shaping wasn't really necessary since the foam was forced into shape by gluing.  I do think that heat sealing is a good idea but use care since heat can make the foam shrink.

I used hot glue to put the pieces together.  I used Rub n'Buff to make the finish look more like metal (it's wax based so it looks more 'solid').  Then I used scrapbooking brads that look like rivets to decorate.  I looked at ways to use hot glue to add design but I don't have a steady hand or any drawing talent.  Luckily it peels off.  Finally, I used diluted poster paint to age the finish.  Being water-based, it doesn't stick to the armor at all.  I had to rub the surface with a paper towel to get any paint to stick.  Then I had to quickly rub the paint off.  The most impressive part of all of this is that I did it while sitting in bed watching old movies.

It was fun, and I'm glad I tried it (especially the wicked spikes).  Not sure if I'll do it again.  I really want to try REAL metal.

Inside view

Next up, since Robin and I are making LOTR costumes, my daughter decided to pile on.  After all, who doesn't want a princess dress?  She originally wanted to use the ivory Eowyn dress as inspiration, but as I texted her pictures from JoAnn's, she fell in love with this teal satin.  We used Robin's pattern and cut a muslin, fitted it, cut the satin and sewed up the main body all on Christmas day.  We ran out of fabric for the sleeves and she had to buy more.  I am donating a sleeve lining and some trim to this project.  Also, she will make a belt and not use the belly-dance belt for the final costume.

I wanted to hurry and make a crocheted and beaded bag to wear to GBACG tea.  I got 80% done.  I forgot to bring extra crochet thread with me to my family holiday get together so I didn't get it done for tea.  I did finish it though and made a little rose on the flap.  It's really little....  see it?

I just crocheted the plastic pony beads right into the bag as part of the double crochet stitch.

While cleaning the sewing room I found these Christmas place-mats  my grandmother was making before she died.  I decided to finish them.  Actually, it ended up being a little more complicated than that, but it felt like a nice way to honor her.  And they aren't actually finished.  But I made a lot of progress... !!??!


Shortly we'll be posting Projects for the New Year!

There are lots.