Sunday, December 13, 2020

Cephalopod Ornaments

On the last day of Creepmas I give you tentacles and a craft.  And a little science, because I was curious if  those appendages were truly tentacles.  It turns out that those are indeed tentacles because they only have suction cups on the ends.  When suction cups run the entire length, then it is called an arm.  So I've been using the word tentacles incorrectly pretty much my whole life.  This is a nice little run down on cephalopods from the Birch Aquarium. 

Flickr is a gold mine of  creepy illustrations.  There are a number of institutions that have made images that have no known copyright restrictions available on flickr.  Of those listed so far I have only explored The British Library  

For this project I used images from the Biodiversity Heritage Library  They are not one of the previous mentioned institutions, but most of their images are public domain.  It's just good practice to check copyrights on any image you want to use.  They have so many wonderful images of creepy crawlies, skeletons and tentacled things from the deep.  All the images I used here are available in this album.  For the backside I used the same image, altering the color to match the front image.  I believe the back image is the mouth of a squid, not belonging to any of the critters on the front.  I just like that it looks like an angry eye.  













I only have a tiny Creepmas tree so I made small ornaments using 2.5 inch cardboard rounds similar to these.  I snagged a bunch of these in various sizes from my husband when he decided to let his license expire and give up making his own fireworks.  They are really nice and sturdy, but I certainly wouldn't buy any for this if I didn't already have them.  My big thing for a while now has been to use what I already have.  Jar lids would work great for this too. 

First the images were mod podged onto the disks.  Then I added a ribbon loop for hanging.  I made a small loop, because I intend on hanging it on a small hook because my tree is small.  I used a pin to hold the ribbon since I could stick it right into the cardboard. 


I cut a length of bead trim long enough to wrap around the disk.  A zipper or ball chain would work too.  

I applied a layer of texture paste around the edge.  I have done oodles of stuff using texture paste.  There are all sorts of formulas for making texture paste, they generally include paint, glue, a thickener and/or some type of texture. I just toss in whatever I have on hand, last Creepmas I even used black pepper. 

This particular mixture was joint compound (for drywall repair), black paint, glue and dried tea from used tea bags.  For this it needs to be thick enough to trowel on without spreading, but wet enough to stick.  I have a cheap set of plastic paint knives, they're pretty flimsy but they work.  Craft sticks would work too, though I'd probably use a toothpick to do any minor adjustments.  

A layer was applied around the edge, set on parchment paper and then the bead trim was wrapped around.


After that dried I added more texture paste on the top edge of one side.  I also filled in any gaps around the side rubbing away any that I might have gotten on the top of the bead trim, so the beads weren't completely covered.  

After that dried I added texture paste along the top edge of the other side.  If you use jar lids you could really have fun adding things to the inside lip.  Tiny shells, pearl beads and sand, would play into an ocean theme.

I wanted the border a bit thicker, a bit wider and a bit more textured.  I added some more dry tea and added another layer to each side.  

I highlighted it with DecoArt metallic paints.  I start with a layer of Renaissance Brown Glaze and then added just a touch of Champane Gold.  I love working with these colors and it really makes the texture pop.  


This is my high tech method of painting.  I squeeze out a few drops of paint into the palm of the hand holding the ornament and use the index finger of my other hand to spread it into a thin layer and then lightly rub it onto the textured areas to highlight.  


This is how the edges look after highlighting.


I also made little hooks using copper wire (maybe 16 gauge) scraps from a quarantine induced electrical home improvement project.  The only tools required were a wire cutters and round nose pliers.  Each wire started out 4cm and after curling the ends the hooks are 2cm in height.


And then I realized all the ornaments would hang sideways and twisted one end to fix that.  


The only thing left was to hang it on my goofy little Creepmas tree.  


Merry Creepmas everyone!

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