Sootsprite Toms ft. Totoro

I'm not much of a shopper for a girl. I pretty much wear the same shoes till they die. So when my sister told me about a Tom's Warehouse shoe sale that she attended in Houston I quickly took to Facebook to see if there was a similar one in Dallas. Lo and behold there was!

If you have never heard of Tom's shoes, I'm not sure where you have been living. I had one pair about 5 years ago, but as I tend to dislike closed shoes, I never replaced it when it wore out. However, on the last day of the Warehouse sale, which was held in Fair Park, in Dallas, all shoes go down to the low low price of $10 a pair. So of course I went and picked up four pairs.

I got a black sparkly pair for work, a blue jean colored one with white flowers for casual settings, a teal mosaic looking pair that goes with my extensive teal wardrobe, and a plain gray canvas pair.

That last gray pair I had plans for... totoro related plans. I have seen a lot of cute hand painted shoes lately and figured it would be no big deal to add a little decoration to them with a black marker. I stuffed the toes with paper towels and got out a Prismacolor fine/broad tipped black marker and just sort of free handed a bunch of soot sprites all over.

I did debate doing only soot sprites but I couldn't help adding a whole mess of them to one and then balancing that out on the other with a few totoros.

For $10, custom shoes are a lot of fun and I could totally see going and getting a ton of cheap pairs for a kid (or kid at heart's) birthday party or activity.

In any case, this was a lot of fun and an easy way to spend a few hours. For sure would love to do something more intricate and colorful next time, perhaps on a pair of white shoes.

Difficulty: Easy
Time to Complete: 4 hours

Hand Painted Mugs

Since we had plenty of porcelain paint markers that I did not use for the Blueberry tea set, I picked up a four more white mugs while out at Ikea recently. They have a nice smooth surface and are a great size for drinks. Being cheap doesn't hurt either.

the markers we have, this is two sets.

I decided to make two for myself. Greedy, I know, but I was having too much fun.

The first is a totoro and soot sprite design. I used the Totoro gingko leaf design that I've wanted to get a tattoo of, but probably never will. I modified it a bit to fit in a wider direction and gave him a little chibi totoro friend with a leaf. On the opposite side I added a few soot sprites to balance out the mug. I really like how simple and clean this design is. It is not cluttered and has a lot of breathing room with so few designs and the single black outlines.

The second I got a bit more ambitious. I knew I wanted a mug with Lion on it from Steven Universe. Luckily the two sets of markers we got had two different pinks! I thought about doing just his face really big, but after looking through the Crewniverse tumblr, I decided to make him sleeping on the side. They put up a few rough images as placeholders to let us know what's going on or as alternate title cards and I love the way they look, especially the school themed ones... In particular I liked this one for Lion 3, which was a particularly emotional episode.

I tried to recreate that sleeping lion on the side and made sure to give myself plenty of room for him to fit. Started with the outlines, then added the color in. He's a little darker pink than I would like, but they are the ones I had and he is still recognizable. Once he was on the cup, he looked lonely and there was a ton of white space. I thought about adding Steven or a gem, but I had none of the colors I would need for anyone else. So instead I added Rose Quartz' flag insignia on the opposite side and had it spiral out and behind Lion, terminating in a rose. Click here to see a short video since it's hard to show the whole thing in pictures.

I also made one for my mom-in-law for her birthday. She had a little trouble deciding what she wanted, but we settled on a bunch of Studio Ghibli stuff with lots of colors since her office is pretty dull. Can you name them all?

Finally, I used the fourth one I got to make a birthday present for a good friend from high school and college. This one I covered all over with small images and logos from a lot of things he likes, as well as a small sentiment that we both share.

These were just too darn fun to do. I can see myself making a lot of them. I know I have to pick up a few more since my hubby wants one too. I this is like what I always wanted those paint pottery places to be when I was a kid, but better. Now if only they had more colors to choose from. Heh, maybe I'll have a paint your own mug birthday party next year. Yeah, I'm an adult!

Difficulty: Easy
Time to complete: Each cup took anywhere from 30 min to 2 hours to draw on. You let them dry for around 4 hours and then bake at 320 for 30 min, for these markers anyway...

Blueberry Tea Set

The birthday girl asked me if I would be willing and able to make her a birthday present.

She had her eye on a teapot set that was a special run, however it being very cost prohibitive to afford, we set about making something instead. She bought an Arzberg Teapot and two cup and saucer sets from Crate & Barrel along with some food safe porcelain paint markers and I set to work.

The design on the one she liked, as you can see, has faded out watercolor dots of colors, ranging from dark blue to a pale blue with a few hints of yellow and purple. The markers she was able to get did not really have these exact colors, so we took our inspiration from it and did our best.

I started with the cups to see how it might look since they would be easier to replace, should we not like how it turned out. Once the cups were done, I did the tea pot and lid. I call these the blueberry tea set since when they just had the blue dots, it kind of looked like blueberries to me. We used four colors: a dark blue, a dark purple, green, and yellow.

The markers were a little tricky to handle and of course the only blue marker we had had a leaky nib. I would draw down the dots of paint and then used a damp q-tip to blot the center and pull the paint back up while it was still wet. That helped get the faded center, dark outline look. I put down mostly blue dots and tried to pull up more paint from some dots than others to try to make it look like we had more than one blue color going on.

the blueberry stage. 

After that I laid the purple, then green and finally yellow. Each dot would be blotted to get the same sort of overlapped watercolor look. The green was a bit distracting and not at all the dark leafy sort of green we had hoped for. After it dried I went back over each green dot adding a layer of the blue paint over the top and blotting it to see if it could change the green into a color we liked better. It worked and actually gave us a lovely sort of teal color, which we liked a lot better.

The paint actually dried to the touch pretty quickly, but was able to be scraped off still in this state, so I was able to remove some dots and smudges that I did not like.

Finished painting!

Some of the markers simply said to air dry, while the other set we bought said to bake in the oven to set the colors. So after letting it air dry for about 4 hours, I set them on a cookie sheet and put them in the cold oven, setting it to 320 degrees Farenheit and putting the timer on for 30 minutes. It could then slowly warm them and set the paint. After that I carefully took them out and let them cool off.

finished and dried, before baking

Not sure the effect is quite the same as the one she had her eye on, but I really like how these came out. Now that she has all these paint markers, I kind of want to go out and get a bunch of blank cups to draw on. I have to think that others would love one of a kind cups for presents!

after baking. think the colors lightened a little. or maybe its the light... still cool.

Difficulty: Intemediate
Time to Complete: 5 hours of painting, 4 hours of drying, 30 min baking

Totoro Bird House

Just a quick project this week.

I was given an old wooden birdhouse... you know the like I'm sure. Painted flowers all over with a few gardening phrases in some fancy script for good measure. A few butterflies. Standard clearance craft store stuff. I was given it specifically since they knew I could have some fun repainting it.

My home's color accent outside is a lovely Teal color. I did all the shutters in it, as well as the window box. I've got pottery to match.

My outdoor office also is accented in teal around the windows and doors. With plenty of paint left over from the house I've used it for this great piece of molding that came off an old armoire. I installed it over one of the windows.

So, I got out the big can of Teal, a white spray paint primer, a hammered bronze finish spray paint, and a few cheap pots of "oops" color samples I got from Lowe's while looking for the perfect color.

After an initial spray painting session outside, I got the white base covering it up nicely and then did the roof in the hammered bronze. Only when it was painted this way could I really see the nice shape of the birdhouse. Who knew it was really cute?

After letting it dry all day, I brought it inside to work on the details. I wanted to keep it simple. I added a few windows to the sides. Some shutters around the entry. Molding under the eaves. Decorative flourishes and acorn motifs. And of course, a pair of totoro's on the front.

Not to mention a big sleeping one around the side.

I sealed the entire thing with several clear coats of enamel spray paint.

For now I've simply set it on one of the cute shelves on my front porch, but perhaps I will hang it from the tree in the front yard sometime.

Although it does look pretty cute in the window box as well... heh... I could turn the whole box into a fairy garden with this as the house!

Now maybe when you see some super cheap birdhouses, you can think about how fun it might be to make them into something new.

Difficulty: Easy
Time to complete: About 3 hours

The Ponyo Dress

And now for something a little different.

I keep seeing more people online turning costumes into fashion, by making the recognizable features of pop culture on dresses: The Totoro dress. The Dalek dress. The Nightvale dress. The Marauders Map Dress.

I had the idea for a Ponyo dress. Not her exact outfit, which is easy enough to make (and would make a perfect future kid/mom cosplay set), but the art of Ponyo, or more specifically, the opening credits.
Warning: Long Post Ahead

I could just see the colors and shapes in my mind, flowing around a white A-line skirt. It would be insanely cool to do this kind of thing as a quilt or embroidery, but I do not have those skills.

I bought myself a set of 20 fabric markers from Walmart. I then had to find a reasonably priced white dress. This turned out to be much harder than anticipated. With it being fall when I decided to start looking, white sun dresses were pretty scarce. I had this idea in September 2014 and didn't find a dress until April 2015. I went with an Old Navy eyelet sundress because it was both relatively cheap and lined! I wasn't too thrilled with the eyelet design on the bodice and around the hem, but there was a large smooth area to work on the skirt. Turns out that the edging limited the area I would have to paint and contained my design nicely, so it ended up to be a big benefit.

Putting these scenes all together was a bit tough, so I first sketched out how I wanted it to go on the dress in pencil. I tried to have some large element to focus on, on each side of the dress.

Kind of an idea. Didn't stick to it too close.

After that I slipped a large plastic lap desk between the outer layer and the lining. This way I could stretch the fabric and draw on it with pencil and keep the lining from getting anything on it.

Kind of hard to see the pencil drawing.

After I penciled out the design, I went back over with the black fabric marker. I did it in four sections leaving each area to dry over night before rotating the dress to the next area to outline.

Initial outlining. Can see a little of the pencil up top there.

More of the design outlined.

Once the main outlines for the details were done I had to go back over and add the current lines that flow in all the water areas. In each stage of this I kept getting nervous. I was nervous to mark up a dress in such a permanent way. Then once the pencil was on I was scared to put the ink down. Then once the ink outlines were down and I had gotten used to seeing the design and liking it, I was terrified that adding the current lines would ruin it. I had to add them though, if I was going to be true to the movie.

The back, with current lines.

Now that the dress was fully outlined, it was time to figure out how to color it. The movie has kind of a watercolor look to it, but I had these fine tipped markers. My options were:
a) color in the whole dress like you would normally
b) try to open the markers, get the ink out and paint it on
c) go buy fabric dye and try to paint with that (unfeasible since I wanted to many colors)
d) find some other option for water color painting fabric that is permanent.
e) none of the above

I tried out the normal coloring idea on a scrap piece of white fabric from one of my husbands old cotton dress shirts. Luckily my dress is also cotton. I found that if you draw a line or shape then add a little water to the center and brush it around you can get a pretty passable watercolor look. The trouble is that the colors tended to bleed a lot.

just coloring bled out a lot

Coloring lightly then using a damp brush in the center and letting it bleed to the middle.

When starting on my dress I tried to use as little water as possible since I was worried the black lines would smudge, but since they had plenty of time to dry before I started coloring it in, their bleeding was minimal. Unfortunately controlling how much water went on was tough. I colored shapes that would not touch even if they bled so that they could dry and I could go back over and color new shapes with little fear of the first colors bleeding away or messing up the new colors I was adding on.

no touching for first round of colors

This meant that I could color a few elements, then would have to wait overnight for the areas to dry so I could color more the next day. This made it really slow going, which made me impatient, which made me use to much water.

this will take forever.

starting to come together

Luckily, even though nearly every element bled out a bit, once I started working on the solid background water colors, I was able to make it look a little cleaner around the edges. The watercolor effect started looking really cool once I got larger areas colored too.

getting so close to done

just a little more to go.

I tried to go back into each little element as well to give it a little depth and detail. The islands have a few colors and there are little dots for sand in places. I tried to darken the outlines around each item. Added shadows and shading. Added a sun on the horizon of the water too.

Once that was all done, I went back to the area along the top of the water and added a little blue outline that I blurred into the sky. It helped to transition the dress from the designs and colored areas back into the white of the bust. It was a mess in some places but looked ok I think.

Finished front. 

Finished back.

If you are going to attempt anything like this I recommend starting on the back and working to the front and not the other way around like I did. This means that when I got the hang of coloring on the back towards the end of this project that the back is now nicer than the front in my opinion.

Hanging in front of the window. The light coming through makes it look cool!

The markers are permanent and intended for how I used them, so the colors should stay. This dress should also be washable in color safe soap, but might fade a little. I really don't want to have to wash it more than necessary. So, after letting the finished dress hang and fully dry for several days, I put a few coats of Scotchgard Fabric Protector over the top. That way if I ever sit on anything or drop something on it, I won't have ruined all this work.

This is certainly now one of the longest projects I have worked on and is truly a one-of-a-kind dress. I plan to wear it out to conventions, I think, or Ghibli movies (should there be any more).

Difficulty: Advanced
Time to complete: Concept: September 2014
    Work started May 23, 2015 - finished June 20, 2015, about 65 hours

Vintage Animal Crossing

So, you might have noticed I have been playing a lot of Animal Crossing. Well I guess it is at least good for inspiration. Still working on my Blather's crochet, but it coming along slowly since I keep ripping it apart and starting over trying to get the body shape right.

I have created characters for my husband and me (see the last post): Cerulean and Grump. Well I for some reason wanted to draw them together in a formal portrait... Not sure where that urge came from, but like a family thing. So then I started thinking about poses... Both standing? One sitting? So then I thought about famous art... naturally... and thought about the painting American Gothic. I might have to revisit that idea and do another painting, seems fitting for Animal Crossing. Anyway I then thought about old daguerreotypes, because my dad used to collect them. So I found this one in particular which I liked so I based the pose off it.

Decided to watercolor it since I could use the black and white to get the grays and it might be a challenge to work in black and white. It was. Started off with a light gray wash to get the camera lighting kind of idea then started with the blackest parts. Mistake there. It was ok for Cerulean's feather markings, but not for Grump's jacket since then I immediately lost the ability to put in any details since I could not go any darker. I tried to pull some of the black back up with a wet brush and it helped a little. Then I could put down white for the buttons on top and it looked ok. But I lost the pocket so I cheated at the end an used a bit of black ink to crisp up some of the details that I could not paint in.

Overall it took me about an hour to do this. I can't help but think there is a fun idea here. Animal Crossing takes place in real time, so their world could have existed in different time periods... I mean imagine Animal Crossing in the Renaissance! Anyway, it could be fun to do more portraits.