with my college theatre organization, we have this weird seniors' party every year. there's this theme and we give out wacky awards to the graduating seniors (the awards ceremony done in a faux Oscars manner). so anyway, some years back, i was asked to help make their awards. it was one of the more creative years and the theme of the awards was dolls dressed to match the personalities of the recipients. so we bought several 9 for 100 pesos (around $2) el cheapo dolls from some roadside store and undressed and redressed them. there were like 20 of them all in all, with others mutilated for their body parts lol
anyway, here's the award of a person we have this inside joke on. no, she's not offended. and yes, that's a man-eater there:
i've uploaded some other of the dolls some time back, here's some of them:
a month or so back i held a contest in my deviantart page. the prize was either a subscription or crafted things, and the winner chose the latter. so for the actual contents of my craft loot bag, i thought i'd try my hand at bookbinding (that, and some boxes and bookmarks). and realized how difficult it would be. so i just made a hardcover notebook jacket of sorts. the main part's supposed to look like narra, or rosewood, and there's just this panel thing in the center with padded velvet and a trellis pattern sewn into it. anyway, here it is:
made it for an art trade. materials: recycled pine, bamboo slivers, illustration board, craft paper, masking tape, black poster paint, gold poster paint, wooden bead, red thread, red ribbon, and a whole lotta varnish.
Those are awesome.. I was flicking through a paper mache book at the library the other day and they were making boxes from old cardboard and some masking tape (not the plastic stuff... ) you tape the seperator pieces into the places you want and then mache over them... I hope you get what I mean.. perhaps you can try that the projects in the book went from bowls to little shelves with draws, boxes and much more.. :0)
If you are interested I can find out what book it was the next time I am at the library, Just drop me a PM if you are.
I hope to see some more of your boxes
that sounds like an interesting technique. plus maybe it would make the structure stronger. i tried just painting just over masking tape before (i covered the whole paper structure with masking tape, but it eded up a bit wrinkly), so i had to smoothen it prior to varnishing. then again, i haven't tried it with papier mache, though i think the papier mache technique will work.
and i'll be posting some more of pics of the others in the next couple of days.
yeah. for friends last christmas. i figured i'd save money last year by just making gifts for them. plus my hands were itching to do some crafting too.
here's another one of them. i call it The Rose Window Box. i found an old circular box in the attic, so i cut up a design from card stock (cutting curved designs from illustration board would have killed my left index finger. lol) painted it black, backed it up with another varnished layer of cardstock, this time with two colours (red and gold) i would have wanted to add more colours, but since the varnish had a yellowing effect to it, i was restricted to shades of yellow and red. anyway, after gluing the stencil-pattern to the lid of the box, i varnished like crazy, to give it that glazed look.
perhaps one of the things i learned from doing box projects involving stencils, over the holidays, would be that it's so much easier to just draw just a portion of pattern you want stencilled, scan this, and just replicate it in the pc, and then print it in thick paper. it makes the stencil pattern a bit more uniform throughout.
ok, this is just a project i remember reading from one of those novelty science preject/exmperiment mags when i was a kid. the goal was to achieve the illusion of a lighted upside-down bulb on top of a small pot with sand, with no apparent means or connection to a source of electricity. i was reminded of it after seeing the nifty upside-down bulb vase-creation in another thread. anyway, i made a crappy illustration to show how this is done.
(1) you need a lightbulb and that screw thingie at the bottom of another lightbulb. (be careful as this involves borken glass and you might get cut) using sandpaper, smoothen the part of the screw attached to the glass shards. then glue to the top of a whole (and working) lightbulb (2). now, screw (3) the bulb to that socket thing they provide small bulbs with (4). using wire (5), attach the socket to the battery (also to test if the bulb still works). now, drill a hole in a small flower pot and attach (6) a small switch to the pot, covering the hole (7). reconfigure the wiring (8 ) of the bulb socket so that the switch is also attached to the circuit, and then place both battery, wires and bulb w/socket inside the pot, making sure that only the glass part of the bulb shows at the rim (9). fill the pot with sand till only the "upside-down bulb" remains visible (10). turn on the switch (11), et voila! you now have a small table curio!
and, knowing how creative you guys are, you can improve and decorate this idea even more.
just to explain: at the end of every school yeay in my college org, we give out "special" awards for the graduating seniors. these awards have titles suited to their personalities, at least from how we remember them. the other year, the theme was dolls as wawards (yes, even for the guys). we bought el cheapo barbie imitations from street stalls (the ones that cost about a dollar for 6 pieces), stripped and redressed them according to the personalities of their recipients.
this one's for a shy, quiet, girl in our org whom we lovingly refer to as... death. the skirt was from a spare 80s shoulderpad i found lying around in the attic, the "shirt" is just ribbons. the boots were painted onto the legs already (i was getting pretty unimaginative by then). the scythe - barbecue stick and cardstock painted silver, the earings just beads diredctly pinned to the doll's head. the coffin was particularly hard to do! i used an origami pattern i made up, spray painted it gold, and used it as them ornamentation effects you have in coffins (which is not saying that you do have a coffin already. ). so her doll set came with a coffin! imagine getting themed barbies like that for kids. hahaha
at the end of every school yeay in my college org, we give out "special" awards for the graduating seniors. these awards have titles suited to their personalities, at least from how we remember them. the other year, the theme was dolls as wawards (yes, even for the guys). we bought el cheapo barbie imitations from street stalls (the ones that cost about a dollar for 6 pieces), stripped and redressed them according to the personalities of their recipients.
this one is for a chinese girl we candidly tease for her chinese looks. the dress and bag is made of ang pao, those red chinese paper envelopes with kitschy designs.
Oh lovely! I adore both How long does it take from start to finish?
it depends. the first one took about 3-4 hours. but that's because i didn't use varnish. the second one took about 3 days cuz of the layers of varnish. i guess it would be good to start a couple of projects at a time so that you can work on each when one is drying.
here's another creation. (i had ample time to make them during the holidays ) I unimaginatively call this one glitter box. made a pattern from black card stock, painted it black and then varnished it. made a box with a hole in the lid, painted it black, and varnished it. then i cut out a rectangle roughly the same size as the cover, and then glued a fairly thick amount of glitters in it. i solved the problem of glitter fallout by thinly applying a coat of varnish over them*. then i glued the pattern onto the glitters, then glued this one from the inside of the box.
*i think this only works for silver glitters, though as when i tried it with gold glitters, it bleached the colour. alternatively, you can varnish it first with acrylic, then with plastic/oil varnishes.
this was meant to get that enamelware look of old metallurgical creations. anyway, i cut a design i made from card stock. painted it black and varnished it. (a little varnish trick i discovered: leave a can or just an amount of varnish out to try overnight, and it will be of a thicker texture. this gives that "glazed" look to anything you varnish). i cut out some coloured craft paper ang glued it underneath this pattern to form panels of colour. again, i applied a coat of varnish. then i dabbed some gold poster paint with my fingers and just made swirly executions on the surface, wiping out most of the gold, yet leaving some to fill in the crevices and nooks and crannies in the design. i then applied a coat of the thick varnish thing i mentioned. then i made a box from craft paper and illustration board. painted it black and varnished like crazy. then i glued the cutout design to the top of the box. and again varnished like crazy. here's a pic of the finished product:
by the way, both this box and the one above were meant to house a deck of tarot cards. i mentioned this so you can imagine their dimensions.
hope other people here are also interested in paper box making, so we can compaer and share ideas.
for some reason i've been recently bitten by the box-making bug. here's one of them. it's a "native box" made of brown craft paper, illustration board, and bamboo strips (here in the philippines, we call them sawali). i also discovered that it's fun to make your own beaded tassels. here i used a fairly big wooden bead, and just thread i rolled over and over in my hand til it was thick enough. i cut it at the base and inserted it into one end of the wooden bead. anyway, here's a pic of the final product:
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perhaps you can try that 
