Conversations with a madwoman

For my birthday, torasin's mum volunteered use of a 4wd and ferrying to bunnings (And $100 spending money! :D) Trip is tomorrow, so doing up the shopping list ...and it ain't pretty. ~$600. *wince*

But, these are not all hallowed weenies! There's house stuffs to! Including a 3m ladder and a mitre saw *beams*

And with these supplies we can:

- Make a full-sized Weeping Angel (and an accompanying Reaper for a graveyard centrepiece, 'cos torasin had orgasms when he saw it)
- Fix the flywire on the bedroom door
- Fix the flywire on the front door
- Clean the gutters and repair the seams over the courtyard
- Make the coffin-shaped Beer Esky
- Make the charnel house walls (with 3d Skull Motif :D)
- Finish and waterproof the tombstones
- Make a shitload of skulls
- Fix the letterbox before it kills someone (because tbh, the landlord won't do anything until its killed four people and a poodle)
- Patch up some concrete on the driveway
- Finish the strip down the side of the garage
- Finish the garden outside my office
- Build a shelving unit for my office to store my toolbox/sewing stuffs and reclaim that poor pitiful stacked section of floor 'twixt my paper desk and workbench.


So not reallllllly complaining, especially since a lot of this stuff will find further uses down the road :D Next weekend looks like a busy 'un (if we can be arsed) but it will be well worth it :D :D Pics to come, I promise!

Haven't been getting much sleep. They're tearing down a house adjacent to our property (well, pretty much next to our bedroom window), so we get the roar, the crash, the fumes, the squeals and the bumcrack,. Lovely. Not only that, the fucking retaining bolts on the excavator are too small, so the fucking bucket claw shudders with a noise like a dying moose EVERY. DAMNED. TIME. THE FUCKING MACHINE MOVES.

They've been at it since Monday. Apparently it takes four 12 hour days and counting to tear down a house, 7am - 4/7pm. (Note: this house is already gutted, all they have to do is knock it down and clear the shit. that is all) My sleeping patterns, as once could expect, are completely fucked, and the rats are freaking in a combination of "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT NOISE" and screwed up routines. ("Why isn't mummy sleeping? What's wrong? ZOMG FREAK FREAK")

But yesterday was the cruellest of all.

I thought they'd finished yesterday. I really had. No noise. Trucks driving off. No big yellow beast on yon horizon. My heart quickened a beat. Could it be? Could it really be? It appeared to be so!

...and just in time for the council workers to start up fucking impact grinders on the footpath outside my house. -_-

Still. no matter, I thought, no matter. 'tis but a simple job, and it is out the front, where most of the house can block it, not the back, where our bedroom is, I can grab a shower with the rats, wash my hair and by the time I'm done they'd have moved down the street far enough to be less noisy.

So into the bathroom I paddle, four-footed maniacs in tow.

And lo, when I emerged, dripping haired and clean-ratted, they had moved down the street and blurred into an absent, easily ignored hum of background noise. I gave the rats their meds, snuggled them down with pasta screws to chew and slipped into bed with a sigh of relief.

JUST IN TIME FOR THE FARKING BULLDOZER TO START UP AGAIN

Since sleep's been off the agenda, I've been wandering about making other uses of daylight hours. Such as making fifteen fuckin' rat hammocks and foofterubes in varying colours for various rats and people (Now with action shot!), foiling the inside of the hanging braziers, cutting airholes in said braziers and....

...putting the dough casing on the tombstones. This is a mix of salt, flour and baking soda - so yeah, basically homemade cheap moulding clay slathered on over the papier-mache skeleton. Why did I bother mache'ing then? Well it gives it more stability in holding its shape, and also provides better surface for the dough to stick to. It also not only provides a visual and tactile stone effect on the tombstone, it also supplies a significant amount of weight and stability to the forms, as well as hiding flaws that papier mache faithfully duplicates.

( Tombstones roasting by an open fiiii~iiire... )

This one I'm most decidedly pleased with. It will have an inset inscription when completed, and has a fuckin' cornices

( Fear my cornices, bitch! )

Still not sure if I'll do all the tombstones in this manner - it's a pain in the arse and takes ages to dry. Grr. May see if there's a cheap 'n nasty spray on equivalent next time I go to bunnings.....

( What the hell is that foil wrapped thing? )

The insanity continues in our place, with work, hallowe'en props and hammock sewing taking place all over the plce in my office - or as in the case of last night/today, all three at once.

Work ...let us not talk of work. Long story short, network infrastructure faults in the US midwest are not our fucking problem when OUR sites work fine but YOUR ISP does not connect via a dodgy router, no we will not give you a refund and the next person who complains will get a fucking fork in the face.

jagwire, I've just about got your pocket hammocks done - bonus extra colours :) Dark blue space theme with yellow piping, Purple-pink with big kiddie flowers and dark purple piping, aqua blue with pink piping (not as horrible as it sounds) and dear god how much fucking acid did I take colour explosion with black piping. Will take photos for you when I can be arsed :P There's big ones for the seraglio and a single-buck (two doe) sized one for the Dukedom of each pattern :) Will send off next week after I get your address, I need to pick up some piping to knock the last of them off and will be going near Lincraft on Friday.

moonmip, also made a pile in the same designs for Her Duskiness. Remind me to give them to you if you pop around next weekend

The braziers are looking pretty good - it took a while to get the fan working properly though. I'm using a single 120mm in a cheapshit hanging basket for two hanging ones, and the shape of the bowl necessitated a lot of fucking about to stop it forming an inverse vortex and eating the silk flames, as opposed to blowing them upwards. A bit of experimentation, a bit of dremel work, and the house smelled oddly of burned plastic but I had it nailed :D All I need to do now is paint the pots, put some foil in to concentrate the light levels and wire up the LEDS.

torasin was most impressed when I showed him the rough mockup version, and made a little moaning noise when I pondered the possibility of a UV model. Turns out that yes, you can get UV LEDs, I have a collection of them wending my way via Ebay and UV dye is cheap. Now all I need is a lamp stand...

Idiot savantry to the rescue once more!!

Couldn't sleep, so I ended up staring at a chip bowl.

Brain starts working

Bowl + mache = rather nice brazier form. But how to flame.....

Want moving flames. Wind and...silk. Silk is lightweight, easy to dye will move realistically in wind
Wind = PC fan
Power? Wire up to battery casing (I have a pile of them for various stuffs)
Light with with an ultrabright LED for night time
BINGO. Safe brazier! Oh yeah! I'm making two! One for either side of the gate across the driveway!

...and next thing poor torasin knows I'm slathering papier mache over chip bowls :D

Then I did some digging about and found an image which pretty much detailed exactly what my head came up with :D



No I have never done an electronics course.
No I have not studied art.
My brain just randomly does this shit without any real concious thought on my part o.o

....Hold me *scared*

PS: Anyone have a HUGE pic of the weeping angel? Preferably with head bowed/hands over face. I’m up to detailing the head now and want to make sure I get the hair spot on...

Went consumer whoring at the swapmeet with torasin like the fine paired of moneyed geeks that we were and picked up all sorts of great shit. Then hit the pawn shop, whereupon sir picked himself up a guitar tuner, and I scored A NEW NON-SHITTY CAMERA@!!

Commence with the picspam!

Anyway, as promised, the hallowed Weenies Proceed as Planned...

( Celtic Cross all Papier Mached )

( Frasier Crane Demands an Explanation for this Bullshit! )

( It's either a highly impractical ironing board or a giant tombstone.... )

( And Bonnie seems rather unimpressed )

Gravestone tilts are intentional, I'm going for the decrepit look :)

oops.

Got kinda bored last night at ~ 4am...found this and err. Yes.

( His Lordship woke up this morning to this )