Portals, Reflections, and Mirrors

I made some miniature books today. I was trying to finish a tack project, but it wasn't working. So miniature books happened instead.

Carl the Zombie made a cameo (I thought I'd lost Carl, but he was found).

A zombie reading a zombie book.

A friend gave me her view of  book categories that I thought was interesting. I can't remember it word for word, but the gist was that books are portals, reflections, or mirrors. Now, when I read a book I really don't think about categories. If it sounds good, I pick it up.
She said portals take you to other 'worlds'. They're an escape.

Left to Right: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Clockwork Princess, City of Bones, Girl Of Nightmares

Reflections make you sit back after you're done reading and think. They're gateways into lifestyles/classes you don't live in.

Left To Right: The Fault In Our Stars, The Outsiders, To Kill A Mockingbird

Mirrors are close to portals. You can escape into them, but there's something more to just escaping. There's a message inside. They reflect life, but not in an exact image.

Left to Right: Hunger Games, Catching Fire ,Mockingjay, Lord Of The Flies, Fahrenheit 451

Have you read any of these actual books? What did you think of them?

I made a specific board on Pinterest for miniature books, so if you like them, here's a board with covers so you can make your own! Link

Durable

Buckbeak the First was made out of paper mache. He actually is still around. 

(Mostly. Being a klutz I accidentally broke one of his wings.)

Buckbeak II was born a year or so after. The Buckbeak II had been made using crayola clay. I thought it was the best stuff ever. He won me a prize model at the Breyerfest Youth show.

And here is Buckbeak a couple of years later.Within this bag is Buckbeak II now rests. 

The clay has crumbled into an icky mess. Buckbeak II no longer looks regal but instead looks like a creature from a cheesy horror movie. 

"I eat yer soul, if I had a beak."

"I'd claw you if I had feet."

I think he looks like this creature from Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. 

On a side note, this movie is a thing and this is a movie I must find now and watch.

Source

As with any project, you live and learn. If I ever make another Hippogriff, I'll use something more durable so that the life span is longer. But staring at this creature is still kind of fun, right?

Organizing In Clearance

Organization is an art. I love to buy organizational things even though I so am not an organized person. But one goal I have been setting for myself is to slowly organize my show stuff. Small steps, nothing huge and drastic.
Today I went to Joann Fabrics to get wire, and found this in the clearance bin. So perfect.

For 10$ I thought why not? It could be used for something. 

The inside has jewelry storage compartments. Perfect. 

Since I made a tack box, I decided this would be storage for small performance things. 

I already had a filled one, but with five I could spread it out some. 

So I now have an empty-ish english one. 

And another with everything else. I mean, it is better than before....right?

I made a lot of meat for a zombie scene. I also think I will remake my bobbing apples prop.

Never overlook clearance bins. They hold gold sometimes.

Going Gold

Today I received my Gold Award for Girl Scouts.

It was held at a Sheraton Hotel. The local recipients had to make a display that talked about and explained her Gold Award. The Gold Award is the highest achievement within the Girl Scouts of the USA. I ran a Tween (middle aged) book club during the summer for my project. For each book we met two times a week, during the summer, before moving on to the next one. During each meeting we talked about the book and did a craft afterwards.

I got numerous things for it, starting with this special pin and mug.

I also got letters of recognition from numerous places, so here are a few.

A letter that was awesome to get came from DC.

I had alot of fun at the event, and enjoyed every moment of it.

The 2015 Gold Award Recipients 

(Madison of Gyrfalcon Studios and Erin of And Now, For Something Completely Different)

 There was a point when the Gold Award seemed unlikely. Losing troop members and a leader caused a scramble that my mom was able to fix with the help of the girl scout council. My troop was #873, and I'm the last member of it.

The group, the perfect mixture of family and friends, minus two. (My mom is on the far right)

 I'm happy I saw it through though.  I was a girl scout from age five until now. Fourteen years.
 There are adult memberships, but I have no idea what I will do about it. I'll figure that out later.

The Sister and me

Such projects and awards are never done solo. I wouldn't have ever been a girl scout, nor would have finished it out without my Mom. The project never would have been the success it was without my adviser, Michelle <3 .="">

Dolls Can Train Too

I saw Jurassic World as soon as it came out. I loved all of  it, especially the Dinosaurs. I totally would have gone to the petting zoo and ridden a triceratops.
But I loved the raptors more. Especially Raptor Squad.

Since the movie came out, Zoo keepers have recreated the picture above which depicted Chris Pratt's character training the raptors. The recreations are awesome. This is one of my favorites, but you can see more here.

Source

So today I had an idea. A model horse version. And these pictures happened. The models were easier to train than the dear doll. One gust of wind and she flopped.

"Stop with the attitude."

"Eyes on me."

This was a ton of fun to do!

Mini Books

Last night I started making miniature books. These are the ones I made.

From left to right: The Fault In Our Stars, Paper Towns, Black Beauty, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 
, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and ,Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

After finishing the saddle I wanted to do something fast. So miniature books happened. 

Over the past couple of months I've pinned various book jackets to my pinterest board called Miniature Projects. Some  books I found with a google image search. Here's the links to the ones on pinterest.

Black Beauty 

The one that got me really excited I found the other day. I decided to give it a try.

Harry Potter Covers 

I scaled the covers down to be 1:9 scale. Because the Harry Potter book covers were the hardback dust jackets instead of paperback, I decided to make them into miniature hardbacks. I used thin cardboard. 

After I cut the covers out, I glued small packets of white paper inside and modge podged the cover to seal it. Once set, I could open them up like real books, but the pages are blank. 

I really do like how they came out. The Harry Potter book covers were a little blurry, so I only made 3 of the 7 books. I have all of the *real sized* ones and have most in hardback, so I think I'll try scanning my copies and making new miniature ones. 

 Size comparison. 

Here are some of the miniature books with their larger versions!

These were fun to make, and I can't wait to make some more. :)