Unicorn Glitter Farts

 

I think it's common knowledge that unicorns poop rainbows and fart glitter.  But don't just take my word for it, it's all over the internet, which pretty much makes it scientific fact.  Also smelling unicorn farts will definitely cure cancer.*

 

*Don't actually sniff glitter.  I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure sniffing glitter can only end badly.   

  

I needed a dozen tiny bottles of unicorn farts, don't ask.  Do you know how hard it is to get unicorns to fart in those little bottles?  Anyway, have you ever had one of those days where you just can't find anything in the store that you need for a project?  That's exactly what didn't happen here.  I found these groovy bottles on sale, glitter on clearance and I was sporting a 20% off all purchases coupon. Sometimes the planets are just in the right alignment for frivolous nonsense.   

See how tiny they are?
See how giant the glue stick looks?

For my purposes I just needed the two smaller sizes.  I see they have another tiny vial pack that looks promising, but those weren't available at the store.  I picked up this glitter sample pack, even if it wasn't on clearance for $.99, it was a great assortment of rainbow of colors.

Putting glitter in a bottle doesn't really need a lot of explanation, but I'm not going to let that stop me.  If you're not interested in my ramblings you can grab the labels and skip the rest. 


This was my original design, but it didn't work well with the size I needed for the teeny bottles.  I used Glitter by Omega Font Labs for the word 'GLITTER' and ActionIs by Brain Eaters for the rest.  I used this picture to fill the text.  I love how together they have this Milky Way stardust thing going on, but sized down for the small bottles it just looked like my printer was running low on ink. 

 

 

So I made a couple simplified versions. In this case My Girl is Retro by KC Fonts was used for the word 'GLITTER'.

  

 

If you stuck around for my ramblings, here are a few things that I found useful for this project.  First I splurged and picked up a $.99 two pack of funnels, conveniently sold next to the glitter.  Both funnels have the same size nozzle which was a little disappointing.  They are nested together in the package so you can't tell just the top part is different.  They were the same exact size as the mouth of the long skinny bottles, so although I couldn't insert them into the bottle, a piece of tape kept them lined up together.  The funnels did fit the shorter bottles.

 

I also used this handy dandy Lego oar for scooping the glitter out of those tiny sample packs.  It was easier to control glitter amounts by the oar-full than to trust my pouring.  Lego also makes a nice shovel, but I preferred the oar. This was another glitter I got on clearance, two dollars worth of holographic joy, it's so sparkly.  It also comes with a secret hidden funnel, but it's just a smidge to big for the little jars. The chambers are deep with narrow openings, so I added the Lego light saber to extend the handle. I love Legos. 

Another high tech piece of equipment that was invaluable was a roll of athletic tape. It didn't have to be athletic tape, a short narrow dish would've worked.  I could have easily built something out of Legos.  I just needed something to set the jar in while filling so that if I bumped it, the whole thing wouldn't tip over. I found out the hard way that I'm not capable of knocking things over and that's a bad thing if you don't want the layers mixed. Tape wasn't my best idea, since any loose glitter stuck to the edges of the roll, so don't do that.

 

This could all be simplified by just putting any old glitter in a jar, but I wanted rainbow layers.  That means a color or two at time, gentle little tap to settle the glitter and move on to the next layers.  Fill the bottle almost all the way to the top, put the cork in and give it a few good taps. If the cork is in all the way and there is space add a bit more glitter. Keep tapping and adding until it's packed tight, this will keep the layers from shifting.  Remove the cork, add a little glue to bottom edge and re-cork.  Or don't and randomly share your glitter fart with the world.  Just remember glitter is considered craft herpes for a reason, so spread it with care.  

Unicorn Horn Charms

Up until unicorns invaded my life I was a polymer clay virgin. To quote Janet, "Now all I want know is how to go. I've tasted blood and I want more." I see this becoming addictive, the polymer clay, not the unicorns. Maybe the unicorns a little bit, they do fart glitter, and oh how I do love glitter.

As with every new journey I embark on, I gobbled up a lot of information before getting started.   One of the tastier bits was this brain tutorial from Sugar Charm Shop.  She's extremely talented, and has been kind enough to share her process for making all manner of things from cute to creepy.  She makes it look so deceptively easy, watching her work is every bit as entertaining as seeing the finished product. 

But enough about her, let us bask in the glory of two logs of clay I twisted together! Making unicorn horns out of polymer clay is not an original idea, but I thought I'd share what happens when you combine this video on marbling clay with this video on making unicorn horns.  I do the eye pin differently, that's my only real contribution here, but I've included some crappy step by step photos of my entire process for anyone that's interested.  They are crappy, trying to photograph white on white in poor lighting didn't work out so well. 

I made a page of a few things that I found especially helpful in getting started with polymer clay, if you are a newbie like me, it might be worth a gander. 

I decided to make "realistic" unicorn horns.  Yep I just decided that this is what unicorn horns really look like in the wild. Unicorns in your dimension may vary, so please adjust your colors accordingly.  I used Premo Sculpey; equal amounts of Accents Translucent and Accents Frost White Glitter and two teeny tiny slivers of Accents Silver. The white and translucent are about 1/8 inch slices off the block.  For the record, the end product was a lot less glittery than I thought it would be.  I'd still use the glitter clay again, but just a plain white would work as well. 

 

I stacked the clay: white, silver over to the left, translucent, white, silver to the right, translucent. Then roll the stack flat.

Roll it into a log.
 

 

Then start the marbling process.  One thing I did different than the video is I brought the ends together in the center and then twisted. Roll it back out and repeat the process a couple more times. 

Roll it back out into a log and cut it in half.  Set the one aside for now and fold, twist and roll the other one.

Cut it in half and roll both halves, tapering the ends.  Then loosely twist them together and get the eye pin ready.

This where I differ from the video.  Gently untwist the horn about halfway down, place the 'eye' of the eye pin in the center and re-twist the horn around it.  The reason for this is the 'eye' is a lot wider than the width of the wire.  Once it's baked this bad boy isn't coming out.

Trim the end flat with a sharp blade. I don't have any clay tools yet so I used the round end of this Lego piece to softly pressed in the center of the end and smooth it flat. It helps to hold the horn as gently as possibly so you don't misshapen it. 

Then I rolled just the edge of the cut end a bit and then rolled the entire horn just a touch.  Really just the teeny tiniest bit, it's so easy to roll out all those wonderful twists you just put in.  If that happens, just cut the horn in half lengthwise, roll into two tapered logs and try again. Repeat with the other log to make a second horn. 

To bake, I used the set up described at The Blue Bottle Tree, with the tile and aluminum pans clipped together.  The horns were placed in the folds of an accordion folded piece of paper so they wouldn't flatten out on the bottom   I baked them at 275 for 1.5 hours. The horns are about 1/2 inch at the widest point.  The Sculpey instructions say a half hour for every 1/4 inch, but I decided to go with the school of thought to bake a little longer just to be on the safe side. 

After they cool, wire wrap the end.  If you are unfamiliar with wire wrapping this is a nice illustration or if you like more detail here's a comprehensive video.  We decorated them with 3mm rhinestones and/or glitter glue. With kids I use Aleene's Fast Grab Tacky glue, upside is it's not toxic, downside is it's not waterproof.  So far E6000 is the only thing I've used that is waterproof, but that stuff is pretty nasty. For both it helps to apply the glue with a toothpick when using those tiny rhinestones.  The glitter glue also wont stay on forever, but its fun while it lasts. 

Unicorn Poop Lip Gloss

This has been a busy year with sadly very little time for creepy crafts. The crafting I have done has not been my usual fare, but I guess it's good to step out of my comfort zone once in a while. For what it's worth I'll share what I've learned in the land of unicorns and rainbows.

There are commercially available unicorn poop lip products, but I couldn't find any that contained rainbows. Everyone knows unicorns poop rainbows and fart glitter. If your lip gloss is monotone, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but that is not real unicorn poop. 

I read through a lot of lip gloss recipes. I also read a lot of comments about Kool-Aid not dissolving and being bitter and honey separating, but I didn't come across any recipes that used Kool-Aid with honey. Here I've combined the two, and together they seem to play nice. Now I haven't fixed global warming, cured cancer or solved world hunger, but if you follow the steps in my Poop Gloss recipe, your Kool-Aid will dissolve, your honey won't separate and your poop won't taste bitter.

I left purple out of the rainbow on purpose, it seemed more trouble than it’s worth. It didn’t sound like plain grape or even Purplesaurus Rex would yield a very satisfying purple and although there are some pretty impressive Kool-Aid color charts out there for dyeing everything from yarn to hair, I didn’t feel like mixing packets for the tiny amount I would need. I went with Strawberry (red), Orange (orange), Lemon (yellow), Lemon-Lime (green) and Berry Blue (blue). Despite Kool-Aids propensity for dyeing, once it's incorporated into the lip gloss it won't stain your skin, the gloss goes on clear. 

The containers I used are sold for bead storage. The same containers I use for all my beads and absolutely love them, so it felt a bit sacrilegious to use them for lip gloss, but I got over it. A set of 24, with a craft store coupon ended up being way cheaper than actual lip gloss containers online. Also I already knew from experience that I was getting nice sturdy containers with reliable screw on lids, which leads to my next point.

This recipe is almost two thirds coconut oil. Coconut oil melts at 76 degrees. I would say it starts to get mushy around 60 degrees. If it's cooler than that this lip gloss will look more like a lip balm, but don't let that fool you. On the heat of your skin its definitely acts like a gloss. I have not had any leakage problems with these containers in warm weather. I'm sure other containers work as well, but these I can personally vouch for.

I list using a double boiler, which I don't have, but all the recipes I found said to use one. I guess everyone else in the world but me has a double boiler? I get annoyed with infrequently used kitchen stuff. Not that my kitchen is completely free of such things. They're there, insidiously lurking in cabinets, just taking up space. It's just that a double boiler is not one of them. I used a glass Pyrex bowl set on a pan of boiling water. I also had a towel next to it to dry condensation from the bottom of the bowl.


Unicorn Rainbow Poop Lip Gloss

1/4 cup grated beeswax*, slightly packed
1/2  cup coconut oil
8 vitamin E 200 I.U. capsules (optional)
1/4 tsp edible pearl dust (optional)

2 1/2 tsp honey, divided (1/2 tsp for each of the five colors of Kool-Aid)
1/16 tsp** each of strawberry, orange, lemon, lemon-lime and berry blue Kool-Aid

12 small containers (able to hold 1 tablespoon or 0.5 fl oz)

*I got my beeswax, and honey from a local farmers market
**That's just an educated guess, the smallest measure I have is 1/8 tsp and I used about half that.


You will need five small dishes. I don't know if it matters but I used glass. Place a ½ tsp of honey in each dish. Add approximately 1/16 tsp of Kool-Aid powder, one color per dish. Stir each one with a separate toothpick so you don't mix colors. Stir just enough so that the powder is completely coated. Don’t expect a lot of color yet, just let it stand, the magic will happen all on its own.

While that’s doing its thing place the beeswax and coconut oil in a double boiler.

After the wax and oil have completely melted together remove from the heat and add the vitamin E oil. I poked them with a large clean hat pin and squeezed the oil out.

Then stir in the pearl dust for a little shimmer. You could stop right here and just have a nice shimmery unsweetened lip gloss.

By now the Kool-Aid colors should have bloomed nicely. Give them each another good stir so the honey is completely infused with color. One dish at a time, add one teaspoon of the beeswax mixture to the honey and stir until completely combined. Do this for each color. Use a rubber spatula to really get the honey and Kool-Aid from the bottom and make sure everything is well mixed.

Repeat, but this time you can add a tablespoon of the beeswax mixture. Repeat once last time, evenly dividing the remaining beeswax mixture, approximately two more teaspoons.

Anytime the beeswax mixture starts to harden just set it over the hot water for a few moments, scrape down the sides and utensils and stir until melted again. Remember to set the bowl on a towel to remove any water or condensation.

To the fill the containers I used a small thin blade paring knife. Scoop a small amount of lip gloss onto the tip. Then push it down against the side of the container scraping the blade against the top edge to get it off. Do this for each color, in all 12 containers. Don't worry about filling the containers, or getting into every nook and cranny. Just try to get the colors fairly evenly space.

 

 

 

 

After all the colors have been placed, make another pass scooping on a little more of each color.  Keep going until all the lip gloss is in the containers. 

Depending on the room temperature, if the lip gloss is still fairly soft you can just gently tap the bottom of the container on the counter to level the gloss and fill in any spaces.  If it's cooler and the gloss is too firm to do that, place a piece of plastic wrap over the top and gently press down to level.    

  

And this is what they look like from the bottom, after cooling in the fridge.

  

If you want fancy poop you can swirl a toothpick around while it's still soft. 

 

I sprayed the labels with an acrylic clear coat to set the colors because I have an inkjet printer. I used matte Modge Podge to adhere the labels and then coated them with glitter Modge Podge.  Here you can see the difference the top coat makes.  

 

Here are the labels I created.  They should be 1 1/4 inch in diameter for the containers I used. A paper punch that size makes life really easy. Font used is ActionIs by Brain Eaters.

Morian Cave Troll Brain

This particular troll brain, courtesy of Harrie Skarie, is from the rare species of Morian Cave Troll. Even though the Morian caves are geographically situated only two parallel dimensions away from the Mines of Moria it's considered a much nicer neighborhood owing to the fact that the Morian Cave Council has staunchly refused to allow Starbucks to set up commerce, and they don't have any of those nasty Orcs.

The majority of my troll knowledge comes from Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Being made of stone one could also assume they'd have rock brains, and since they aren't known for their vast intellect, except for under extremely frigid conditions, one might also assume that they have teeny tiny brains.
The rock pictured is only an 1.5 long, but one could claim it came from a cranium the size of a compact electric car. 

A little Spanish moss, a small rock, a jar and you've got yourself a nice little specimen. 

Skull A Day Vitamins

I finally got around to photographing a few potion bottles.  First up is the long overdue Skull A Day vitamins which I did ages ago.  It's a parody of Bayer's One A Day Women's multivitamins. The "vitamins" are air-dry clay, which is naturally a nice skull color, but then I decided to do some orange ones so I added food coloring to the clay.  The logo in the lower left hand corner is for Phantom Pharmaceuticals, I hope we'll see more products from them in the future. The cool skull "A" is from the Skullphabet courtesy of SkullADay.com.

 

Funny fact or testament to my cranial density: I found the Skullphabet on fontspace.com and even though SkullADay is clearly listed as the creator, I totally didn't pay attention.  It was over a year later while taking my multivitamin that the light bulb went off and I created this label.  Afterwards I figured Skull A Day was too perfect for me to possibly be the first person to come up with it, so I did a search to see what else was out there.  That's when I finally found SkullADay.com, which of course was love at first sight.  So many beautiful skulls, from the original first year to all the skulls that followed, skulls as far as the eye could see in every shape, shade and medium.  They were even kind enough to post my skull submissions. 

 

And here's the label if you have a hankering to make your own vitamins:

 

 

 

   

Creepmas Cookies

I was inspired by Lady M to make my own Creepmas cookies yesterday on the last day of Creepmas.  Decorating is not my forte, but as long as no one is keeping score, I'll just have fun with it.

I used the Sugar Cookie recipe from JoyOfBaking.com and a buttercream recipe from I don't know where. 

Buttercream Recipe

3 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons milk

Cream butter and add vanilla. Beat sugar in gradually at low speed.  Add milk and beat on high speed for 3-4 minutes.



I made white bats to pay my respects to all the bats that have and will perish from White Nose Syndrome (WNS).  It's killed millions of bats in the US and Canada and is spreading like crazy. As of the 2013-14 hibernating season it's been confirmed in 25 states and 5 Canadian provinces.

It's caused by a fungus native to European caves and doesn't affect European bat species, but has had a devastating effect here in North America.  Mortality rates for bat colonies in an infected cave can reach 100 percent. 

I know not everyone loves bats, but they are the major predator of nighttime insects which translates to less pesticide use.  They also help the environment by pollinating and dispersing seeds.  So whether you like them or not, they have a big impact and are worth fighting to save. 

This is a really well written article that I recommend reading.

There are many online resources, but here are a couple to get you started if you want to learn more:

WhiteNoseSyndrome.org
BatConservation.org

That's probably the scariest thing I've posted about this Creepmas season.  On a lighter note, here's some more cookies. While making salt dough ornaments I discovered you can make Pac Man ghosts out of tulips last Easter and skulls out of snowman butts last Creepmas.  Good news, it works with sugar dough too!

Merry Creepmas everyone! It's been a lot of fun spreading Creepmas fear, I mean cheer!

Creepmas Art

Long before Creepmas was a thing, my kids were unintentionally making Creepmas art.

 My son made the origami box for me and then his little sister got a hold of it and decided it needed a few embellishments. I think it would make a great gift box for a special little Creepmas present.

Here's a video if you want to learn how to make your own origami box. After that it's just paper teeth, googly eyes and of course a big bow on top.

I know as a mom I should look at the angel my daughter made in preschool with her own little hands and be all, "Aw, isn't that adorable." But look at those eyes, that angel aint right in the head.  Alright creepy or not, I have kept it all these years because, "Aw, those were her little hands."











My kids know I have a soft spot for creepy crawlies and these last two pictures were made just for me.  If you look closely this tree is festively decorated with caterpillars. Last is the Singing Santa Snake, say that three times fast.

 




I'm sure there are proud parents behind these Creepy Christmas artists too:

Ashley Amos

Christina Dee

Lizzy Love

Creepmas Shrinky Dinks

Earlier this year I played with shrinky dinks and here they are again in Creepmas form.  Since that time I've taken to wearing latex gloves while handling them so I don't have to worry about fingerprints. 

I love using Crayola glitter markers to accent things, but it smears easily after the shrinky dinks come out of the oven.  Make sure to let it dry completely, before touching. I recommend spraying with at least two coats of an acrylic clear coat. I like to use a spray first to set and then brush on a clear coat for a glossier finish.  I rushed the last batch and only did one coat and then when I applied a liquid coat with a brush, the glitter smeared all over. 

For the Santa skull beard and hat trim I used a white paint pen.  I wasn't sure if it would crack from baking, but it worked fine.  I found the Santa at EnjoyColoring.

Here are my painters tape skulls adapted for Creepmas.  Remember they shrink down to about a third of the original size.