fixing up the bone boi (anatomical skeleton reconstruction)

Oh boy, let's see if I remember how to do this!

With the world social distancing and all my market, roller derby, and travel plans cancelled, I've started slipping into old habits.  I do make things still, as, you know, my j.o.b.  

I guess.  

You can search  my artsy fartsy bizness name 'Pulp Anatomy' to see what I'm up to.  But without my ridiculously stuffed schedule of derby events between myself and the girl, who plays with a provincial travel team and on Team Canada (little heart baby makes good!), I haven't had an outlet for my general know-it-all-ness.

I remember blogs though.  Such a brilliant thing.  I do what I want and can turn off comments.  

Surprising, nothing has changed in formatting.  This feels very primitive.  Thank goodness because I am a matronly woman now and no longer have the ability to update my computer skills.

But I did need to update my skelly boi because he was looking a little worse for wear.  A whole lot of him just sort of fell off, Black Knight style.  Not very educational, unless he's demonstrating what happens to an extra for The Witcher.

I tried all sorts of adhesives but they couldn't take the weight of the plastics.  I've been keeping his fallen parts around in hopes I would one day find the time to put him back together.  Looks like, thanks to a pandemic, that day arrived!

What I used: wire (probably a 24 gauge, but tough), wire cut and bending tool, and what I call a hand drill, although I don't know what the people who know tools call it.

I use this little drill all the time for real animal skeleton reconstructions and with polymer clay sculpts to make the holes I need to put in supports.  For the skeleton articulations, I usually use a small brass rod instead of just wire, cut to a precise length and secured with adhesive.  It's nearly invisible and very strong when in place.  

Here is an example of an articulated rabbit skeleton I done did up last year.  Note the joints are secured with small brass rods and then a larger one for spine support in the middle.  The spine is threaded with a hard 12 gauge craft wire.

However, I needed some flex with this plastic anatomy model since it is molded plastic and I had to somehow maneuver through an already constructed rib cage.  I was also not concerned in anyway about roughly finished wire edges.  Obvious repairs add charm, right?  Like visible mending?

Off I go.  Without actually counting and accounting for all the parts.  (Foreshadowing?)

Using the hand drill (or whatever), I screw my way through the plastic (so much hard polymer, had to turn on The Witcher while drilling), and then threaded my bendy wire through the holes.  A simple operation except when Geralt was doing something violent or sexy, and then I had to stop and pay attention to the screen for a bit.

Twist ends to secure.

Here is the ribs.  One did not want to cooperate no matter how much I cursed at it.  I decided to leave it as a lesson to itself.  I could, however, later go in with an adhesive, maybe with a silicone, to force it into shape.  With the wire supports, it would probably hold up well.

For now, though, I've got my bone boi looking much more intact and conventionally educational.  And I got an entire Witcher episode inside me too, which is very satisfying.

But wait!  Half an arm missing?!

I know it's here... somewhere.  While I search, not very hard, I am contemplating making some sort of robotic substitute.  Or maybe a grass sword, a la Finn the Human style?

What do you think I should do with this opportunity?


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my domestic space: the scene of the crime

 

I was recently asked to contribute a photo to a project that focuses on domesticity in all of its weird and wonderful manifestations.  That got me thinking.  Which is why I have yet to actually make my contribution to this domestic documentation because I am basically paralyzed by trying to manifest a photo that tells of my relationship with the most messed up partner I've ever had: my home.

I can't tell if my domestic situation is fairly typical or way crazy different.  Talking about my home always makes me feel like I am being inadvertently weird and confessing something that will later make you judge me harshly.  I mean, I am obviously a unique special snowflake, just like everybody else, and I'm going to do 'home' in my own unique special snowflake way.  But does that mean that my home and family pretty much looks like everyone else's just maybe the cushions on the couch are a different colour and my soap smells like running water in Ireland and someone else's is rose blossoms?  Generally, we kind of all have the same stuff such as seating spaces and cats and organized chaos, and all that is completely normal.   Right?

Or, and this is what my paranoid shoulder angel whispers, maybe I've got the trappings of domesticity and if you were looking at my house from a blurred photo, it could be anybody's place, but if you paused to examine the details, maybe you might start to get that creeping sensation of jamais vu.  Like how the interesting print on the wall turns out to be a cover on an ironing board and there is a glue gun kept by the bedside, right beside a glass of water and a tin of nail clippings.  It's like domesticity pushed through the looking glass.

I feel like at some point, after finally making peace the fact that I am indeed a middle age home maker and a home schooler to boot (which is completely at odds with my self-image, which is embarrassingly juvenile and I'm choosing not to talk about it, but I will say that I still listen to angry punk music turned up loud every time I'm driving the childs around to their activities), I turned from cozying up my place with a couple of nice quilts and other soft furnishings and started thinking skulls and unexpected taxidermy was the ticket to domestic tranquility. 

(Unexpected taxidermy is when you go over to your friend's place and you find her mom fussing in the kitchen, not making muffins or doing dishes, but flaying a rodent and stuffing it's skin with foam and polymer clay.  Didn't see that coming, did you?  Well, maybe you did, but you have been warned.  And so has every child in our neighborhood.)

But it's not the creepy heads cuddled in by the pickled carrots or that fact that the soup pot may contain organ meat (we're big fan of beef tongue in soup too) or that the décor is reminiscent of natural history museum meets bookstore.  That is just aesthetics.  And nutrition.  Soup anyone?

It's more that my home isn't actually homey.  It's not really especially relaxing, domestic space.  There is no conversation enhancing furniture arrangements, the entrance is not inviting, the welcome mat does not exist (thought there is a mat specially reserved for the cats since they like to throw up on it.  Why do kitties vomit so much?)  There is no bathtub to soak in and if you want to sit at the table, I'll have to yank it out of the corner and unfold it because I've got a jersey knit all over the floor I'm trying to cut a sports top from.  I mean, it can be relaxing.  For me.  But maybe not for you, since I have a place that you can do a handstand if you want up against the wall and a dress form for spontaneous tailoring but not really a place to sit.  I also have coffee for you, but hold on because I've got to wash a cup (which is less china and more novelty overpriced mug from a Youtuber).  And while I do that, can you hold your finger on this horn I'm trying to glue here, it needs constant pressure until the glue dries.  Thanks.

Shouldn't such a place that I've basically invested most of my adult life into - including the creation and maintenance of this blog - and the center of my family's world be more... nice?  A little bit more thought out? Because it's more like a curio shop rolled over a hardware store and somebody covered the resulting debris with glue and glitter.  Then sprinkled the whole mess with books and bones.   

See, this house is a workshop that we happen to sleep and eat in. Or a classroom that has a shower and a slow cooker.  It's home because we keep our dirty dishes here and wash our laundry but it's also a huge storage locker for craft and art supplies, educational materials, and sports equipment.  It's six hundred and forty four square feet of locker. 

 

Nearly everything in here is seen as tools or resources for whatever it is that we are working on at the moment. Nothing is safe from craft here.  If I don't patch it and add text, the girl will cover it in washi tape and suspend it over the dining room table.  The walls are drawn on, scuffed up and patched with sewing supplies, books become furniture and the furniture gets embroidered with quotes from the musical Chicago and then sent out to the garage because there is not enough room for it while we turn out living room into a fort that never gets put away.  The chairs are end tables, the tables are book drift holders and not a single wall was built using a plumb line.  If you found a coffee table here, you'd actually at the neighbor's house. 



 

Which is fine!  Really. It suits us.  My children can hardly complain about the freedoms they experience at home.   But is it domestic?  You probably aren't judging me (mostly because you don't have to live here) but I am judging me.  I judge me especially when someone is dropping off a small child for me to look after for an evening or when the child's friends visit.  I mean, are you sure you want to leave a baby here?  We believe scissors are functional décor and the carpet is mostly made of stray straight pins.

 

(Just kidding!  Your baby is safe here!  Please let the baby visit!  I watch very carefully!  I can make a playpen of books and they'll be fine!)

 

I've always had this niggling little uneasiness about calling this place a 'home' and being asked to share my so-called domestic life has definitely brought up all this weird insecurity about not actually having a home-home but more of a workshop-home.  Or funhouse-home.  Most of the time it doesn't bother me (because I'm busy and have to deal with a bag of rabbit heads while getting us all off to roller derby practice) but sometimes when I look at Goodnight Moon or a vintage picture of a Victorian parlour séance or a box of Sleepy-time tea - all scenes of what I would think of as ideal domesticity - I think, I may be missing the mark here.

 

(By the way, this has nothing to do with Internet generated inadequacy.  Pinterest is nothing but an enabler to my weird house ideas (books in the fireplace!  Ladders as towel holders!  Stools used for everything but sitting!) and if I want to be inspired by something incredibly weird and dead, my Instagram feed is a great place to start.  No, this is about when I walk into the home of real people that I actually know in real person.  Friend and family who are also creative and do interesting things, but do not live in what seems to be a middle school science fair project gone wrong.  Did y'all take a course or something where you learned how to acquire a coffee table and use book shelves for holding books?  Because I must of been sick that day.)

dumpster chair stage one

A crack seat beauty of a chair was left out by a dumpster.

This Michael Miller fabric happened to be close at hand.

This is stage one of the upcycle. Gothic diy.

For stage two, I want to slipcover the back with a gravestone. Or a bit of fabric cleverly made to look like a gravestone, since it is quite gravestone-y shaped, don't you think?

I'm completely stalled out on what to have printed or painted upon it.  Something inspired by a classic horror writer?  A Mary Shelley or Bram Stoker quote?  Or borrow an epitaph from a historic headstone?

What do you think?

Handmade cushions for Ikea stepping stool

In my little kitchen, I've been making the poor childs sit on these terrible Ikea stools for years of meals.  In retaliation, the childs have done their best to dent, paint, stick and generally dirty up the stools to encourage me to get them something better.

No such luck for them.  Our spot for our dining table remains tiny and the chairs remain functional, despite their efforts.

But, in an act of mercy, last weekend I made them a couple of cushions to tie onto their stools.

They are made with a lightweight denim and some scraps for the patchwork.  It's just a basic foam cushion inside that I cut from a larger piece I've had among my sewing supplies forever.  The bottom has a couple of ties to secure it to the chair (can't give the childs anymore reasons to suddenly fall off their chairs during dinner) and the bottom has an overlapping flap that allows the cushion to be replaced or removed for washing.

Square corners used the flummox me when I first started sewing.  It's gratifying to have them come together well now.  Everything is double seamed for strength.

Below is girl child, enjoying her enhanced seat (and also in her very first literary tee).

Hope you enjoyed my little project.  Comments and questions welcome :)

lamp of epic

It's not always easy to engage boy child in a craft. But, I've discovered, toys + hot glue + spray paint is an irresistible combination.

We always have a few toys from the thrift store laying about.

The lamp was also purchased at the thrift store for a few dollars.

Below is boy child's pondering face.  Each toy was placed carefully with great thought put into balance and overall aesthetics. 

Spray paint found on sale at the hardware last week.

And together they make boy child's lamp of epic-ness. 

where glue and spice collide

I think that a person's kitchen, as it appears and functions on a daily basis, will tell you almost anything you need to know about that person.  I live in my kitchen.   Despite not actually having a table in it, we still manage to do crafts there, read books and even have picnics.  It's the sunniest spot in the house, the location of all the sugar, and the place to go for solitude.  I've found that if I stand at the counter the kids leave me alone, assuming that I busy with meal prep or clean up.   If I look like I might ask some one to take out the garbage it is practically guaranteed that no one will walk into the room.  Which means I can stand there and read a book in peace as long as I do not sit down.  Sitting down destroys the magic.

More than any other room, I wish for my kitchen to be pleasing visually.  Living in various furnished rental cottages as I have for over a year now, I don't have much choice about the appliances, cupboards, and furnishings.  Heck, most of the dishes do not belong to me.  But the reused containers, former jam and pickle jars pressed in service holding bulk bought foods and crafty odds and ends, are definitely me. 

I do my best to make my motley crew of containers colourful and happy.  Some decorative bits, a few whimsical fillings, an attempt at visual irony to tickle my own sense of humour.  I'm glad that I am the type of person to miss the forest for the trees - it means that I can walk into my kitchen, completely ignore the stack of dirty dishes but still see the few items that make me smile.  Hear hear for tunnel vision - it's a gift.

This powerful urge to decorate containers mixed with the standing-at-the-cupboard-and-no-one-bothers-me phenomena has emulsified into a peculiar love for a specific pot of glue.  When things get tough around the house, maybe a cranky kid or a daunting mess, I find myself irresistibly pulled into the kitchen with a bag of fabric scraps and my bottle of Mod Podge.   Brandishing a paint brush, I find myself something, anything, to cover and seal. 

I know that I am not the first woman to go through a Mod Podge fixation and I know I won't be the last.  In the homes of my friends I find large jars serving as bookends covered in pinking sheared cottons.  Or the clothes pegs are in a beheaded laundry soap bottle, cutely covered with printed paper cutouts.  I suspect I am not the only one to find relaxing brushing on the sticky white stuff.    

This past week was a bit emotionally tumultuous.  I have several newly coated and sealed containers to show for it. 

This former cocoa container has held my chai tea spices for over a year now.  The children helped me decorate it.  Since they've moved on to actually helping me make the chai, I figured I was no longer obligated to hold sentimental feelings about it and it was fair game for redecoration.

I'm not sure if the result has much to do with chai, but I do love these fabrics and they remind me of the dresses for Smootch I have made with them.

Plus, I think they also nicely complement the sequin/glitter/stand/eyeball collage from the fast food drinking cup the children made.  I keep change in the cup.  Who says you can't live with children's art?



Another little project was inspired by the chai spices and the time of year.  You can hardly go anywhere without being nasally assaulted by chemical laden bags of potpourri.  I can't stand the fakey coloured tree bark and dried flower stuff sprayed with a synthetic cinnamon scent they sell at the store.  But I do love the way my tea smells. 

Speaking of synthetic scents, the container is from a powder based odor absorber I bought to try to combat the aroma of victory coming from my derby skate bag.  It didn't work very well, but I couldn't throw out the plastic container it came in.  Not this lady with this container fixation.



With Birdie's help, using a punch scavenged from a mega craft stores' bin and some unsolicited mail, decorative elements were acquired.



After some meditative standing at the cupboard time, I filled the cup with cinnamon, cardamon, cloves, and peppercorns.



With the lid on to keep the kitties out, it makes a rather nice scented thingamabob.



Sitting on the shelf in the kitchen, it smells divine, even when I am not making cookies. 



Anyone else got a Mod Podge fixation to confess?