Crafting and Hobbies

[MightyOak]

Polymer clay can be weak at the joints. If you just mush an extra piece on it's a bit of a risk. Once baked, if it takes the slightest knock, it can break. This has happened to me when I've used a lot of different colours in a single piece. Where one colour meets the next is a weak point. However, if you work two different colours together to get a swirly effect, they blend into a good cohesive whole. One brand is just as good as an other, really. I've used super fancy FIMO and plain ol' Crayola. Perhaps the fancy stuff doesn't take as long to make it soft enough to work with, but you get a fraction of the amount. Most brands do make metallic colours and these are popular for making jewelry. I bet you could look on youtube for some 'how to's for working with polymer clay and get some really good tips and tricks for your project.

[Anira]

Thanks for the information. I can't do YouTube. Even when I have an internet signal, it's too weak to load videos. A lot of images take forever to load, especially GIFs.

Also, I thought about painting, but I'll be lucky if the figurines resemble anything more than a blob. I can't paint artistically to save my life.

As I said, no artistic skills whatsoever.

[MightyOak]

Anira, I found this website that might be helpful! http://sherylwestleigh.hubpages.com/hub ... culpting-2
I think it will give you a good starting point for research.

[Anira]

Thanks for the help, everyone. My mother is actually going out of town tomorrow, and where she's going has a Jo-Ann's and a Michael's. Going to give her a simple list of what I want to get started. Needs to be extremely simple, otherwise she'll mess it up, plus I only have $27 to start at the moment.

Perhaps not the very first thing I make, but one of the first things I want to do is a miniature Fitz for a friend. He's the rooster I will be giving to her, along with a few hens, once her and her husband get a coop and everything set up for them. I just need to decide on a body style...

Odds are I'll try to start out too intricate. But yeah...

Edit: This is Fitz, and the black girl to the right behind him is one of the five girls.

Spoiler

[Soleil]

I wish we had a cosplay group here! But this works because it's a hobby!

Alright, so for the convention in May our resident "Princess Batman" wants us to do this HUGE superhero/princess mashup cosplay group. I freaking pounced on the idea of Iron Princess (Iron Man) and then I found some amazing artwork online that is exactly what I am looking for. I'll alter it a bit here and there, but this is my new project. I'm going to rage quit and go insane, but it will be done.

Spoiler

[Anira]

@Sol: We're doing superhero/villains at work for Halloween (I'm not going as anyone, because none of the costumes they had online would fit/I wouldn't wear any because I'm not a skinny little -----). I would so wear something like that, though, if I had a corset to hide some of my stomach...

[Soleil]

Oh honey, you've seen me. I'm fat but I'm making it myself so I can tailor it to me. Plus corsets. woo

[MightyOak]

Getting a new hobby. I've decided to try making some of my own cosmetics. Lip Balm and Body Butter to start with. I'm on a medication that seriously restricts what kinds of things I can put on my skin and it makes finding products an absolute pain in the rear. To make matters worse, it tends to be very chemical mixes that I can use, not all natural things. I've been spending the past few weeks researching ingredients that should be used in these two items and what I can use as perfectly acceptable substitutes. I'm hoping to end up with all natural products that I can use without worry.

On top of that, I recently moved to Scotland for a man and he's close to his whole family. Apparently gifts are expected to be exchanged with all of them despite our tight finances. I'm planning on making gifts. All the nieces will get a pot or two of lip balm (hopefully with individualized pictures on them), all the nephews will get cookies, one couple will get candles (I'm planning to learn to make some all natural beeswax candles. Same issue with candles as I have with cosmetics. Too many things I'm not allowed to have and I'm tired of living without candles), and for an other couple I'm considering making them some all natural fire starters. I haven't decided what to do with his parents, yet. They've been so good to us and a few candles doesn't seem like quite enough.

I have some money coming in soon so I've added all of the ingredients I'll need to the amazon wish list. I'll be able to start soon. I'm rather looking forward to playing chemist in my kitchen! ...As long as it works out.

[GingerFang]

Hello! So let's see...one long-time hobby of mine is collecting snow-globes. I have around 20, and have been collecting them since I was very little. I would have more but as a little kid, there was a lot of accidental breaking. Lol, image a little 6-7 year old trying to move a really big heavy glass globe across a room. I also love to crochet, I'm pretty good at it, but defiantly not super advanced. Currently I am working on two projects:

1. A blanket for my little brother, made up of individual squares I plan to put together once I make them all. Been working on this slowly for about a year. Most of this is due to not having the yarn, my hooks disappearing on me, and in general Real Life getting in the way.

2. A toy stuffed rat for my sister's two cats. They loved this other small toys I made, but because of this they destroyed them quickly. So this time I'm making a large toy rat that I plan to stuff with stuffing and catnip. and hoping it holds up.

3-ish. So I would say this is a project, but technically it's my mother's project to make a blanket for my other brother that I kinda took over. She's making it with a big crochet hook that I've fallen in love with. It's so easy to use, it makes me wish the first blanket I'm working on I started with such a large hook. Anyway it's black and orange and one continuous piece made only with basic stitches.

I will say that's it for now, cause I can't think of anything else at the moment. I do have a hobby for sketching things, so maybe I will mention that. I love to sketch natural things, and can be pretty good at it, mostly when I am right in front of it (sitting in front of a flower, etc.). I also love to practice drawing my cat. She is a pretty good model for the most part, and when sleeping makes the most adorable face that I have yet to perfect. I personally like sketching with #2 pencil, but have found I love charcoal as well.

Now that's all of it. Thanks for reading!

[Sourikus]

The only crafting I do is in Minecraft *nervous laugh* but I do like drawing. Not painting, because I hate the washing up bit. Anyway I doodle with my trusty pencil collection (an army of 2B, 4B, 6B and mechanical pencil plus the good ol' eraser)