Tutorial Corner: Halloween Hobgoblins and their habitat

So I’ve been sharing pictures on my Facebook via Instagram of the cute little Hobgoblins I’ve been making. I got the idea from a picture on Pinterest:

I was like hmmm… I could do those with no problem! So here’s how I did them!

You’ll need a habitat (if you want one, it’s optional! You can always hang them from the ceiling from fishing line, as it’s shown in the picture above. You’ll also need some feathers of your choice (Walmart, $2.97); Spanish Moss (Walmart, $3.49); miniature skeletons of your choice. I got mine at the Dollar Tree. They’re a part of a “Skeleton Garland” that I just cut apart from the string. You’ll also need a hot glue gun, glue sticks and scissors.

Step One: Remove your skeletons from the string (if applicable).

Step Two: If needed, shorten the legs. Just take a small bit of the lower leg out.

While you’re at it, take the femur from the knee joint with your scissors. It’s best to do both legs at the same time, just make sure you don’t get your sides confused.

With a small amount of hot glue, attach the lower leg back together.

Do the same with the thigh.

Then glue the leg all together. Give the knee a bit of a bend backwards to make it look like it’s floating.

Step Three: Cut the lower arm off at the elbow. Poor Skelley.

Step Four: Kind of bend your skeletons arm at the joint however you want it.

Step Five: Glue the arms to the elbows in a raised fashion so it looks like this:

Pose your dude like he’s drunk.

And him and his buddy will eventually look like they’re doing the Thriller.

Now comes the fun part….

Step Six: Taking your feathers, get your idea laid out on the table in front of you. Think about how they’ll look on the finished product, so make sure the curved feathers go in the right direction.

Step Seven: Using a pretty good size dollop of hot glue (be careful not to burn your fingers!) attach the wings to the back, right between the shoulder blades on the spine.

Finish both sides and then take a smaller feather to cover up the mess you made out of the spines of the feathers. Trust me, you’ll make a mess. I know I did.

Repeat the steps with your other, more bashful, Hobgoblin.

And make it look like it has an awesome little purple backpack.

Ehhhh this one doesn’t really care, as long as he’s part of the party.

Step Eight: With a small amount of hot glue, affix a bit of the fishing line to your hobgoblins back.

Step Nine: If you’re making a habitat, this is the time to figure out how you’re going to want to fix them in it. I was having issues trying to get them on the lid right, so I ended up using a small amount of glue on the rim of my glass canister and held the fishing line for a bit for the glue to firm.

Add some Spanish moss, some twigs and maybe some mini-tombstones if you have them and voila! You have a Hobgoblin Habitat. But! Please Note: If you plan on leaving these outside, please note that you’ll want to use high heat hot glue. If not, if they are in direct sunlight, the hot glue will weaken and your hobgoblins will fall apart. Plus, if they’re in a small container, like a jar, the glue heats up and causes condensation in the jar, so make sure to poke a few holes for heat to get out (oh and to let your Hobgoblin breathe!)

If you would like to see a tutorial on how to do the spider web lid to this canister, let me know and I’ll do one!

Awww look they’re dancing!

This is my first Hobgoblin, the one that started it all. Unfortunately, I had to do some emergency surgery to him and whilst putting him in his new habitat, I re-broke his arm. Poor guy!

A new week means new pictures

Ahhh my last full week of being 31 is down the drain on this gorgeous Sunday. I’m sitting out here on my front porch enjoying the wonderfully cool breeze that’s carrying intermittent smells of sulfur and gunpowder and sipping on my big glass of ice water, completely loving life and everything in it.

Next week, as time allows, I’ll be posting a review of Kawaii Lacquers Stars and Dots and a few other things that I’ve been working on. I just haven’t had the time as of late.

But for now, here’s some pretty eye candy to tide you over.

Last Sunday found myself, my hubs and Biscuit out in the middle of nowhere. With some sheeps. Yes, I know that isn’t the correct plural of sheep, but I like saying sheeps, or sheepus. These wooly creatures completely caught us by surprise, but pleasantly at that. And they didn’t smell like cows- which was a nice change.

The reason for being out in the middle of nowhere? The awesome Super Moon 2013, of course! I jump at any chance to take awesome pictures, and of course this was too good to pass up. Soooo pretty, and looked so huge rising.

*sings* It’s a marvelous night for a moon dance! I mean, LOVE how can you not love this?!

Another gratuitous moon shot.

Yet another….

And the last. If you’d like this as a timeline cover, let me know and I will send it to you

So the other morning before work I decided to get my camera out and get some pics of our gorgeous trumpet vine in our backyard. It smells from here to high heaven, but it’s so easy on the eyes….

As you can probably tell I am in serious love with Bokeh.

A shot through our trumpet vine/mullberry bush/unknown vine/cedar tree. I love how this one turned out and it looks like the leaves are tinged in silver.

Thankfully, white clover is pretty much the only weed that grows in our yard. Now that I’ve said this, we’ll get an abundance of dandelions and other nasty things.

My potato in a bucket doing wonderful things. Going to be covering it up with peat and hopefully getting some blooms on it soon (and potatoes after that!)

My little garden fairy bird feeder- one of the last yard ornaments that my PawPaw got me. I’ve held onto this one for years and you can tell- her paint is wearing off her “dress” and she looks a little bit worse for wear. But as always, she stands sentinel in my garden, watching over my flowers and all the other little fairies. Once I get my fairy garden together in the backyard, I’ll add her and her little friend below to watch over the peaceful goings on.

My little rain fairy with her bent wings. Another garden gift from my PawPaw. She has little “cups” that chime together like bells when filled with rainwater. Granted, they’ve never worked right, but they are are pretty and my garden just isn’t the same without them.

Some impromptu practice shots from my neighbors fireworks display the other night. I still need to research the correct settings I need to use and hopefully I will receive my remote shutter release by the 4th!

Another gratuitous fireworks shot

 

Something to get you 90’s kids’ memories jogged… “Butterflies in the sky, I can go twice as high. Take a look, it’s in a book….” it’s READING RAINBOW!!!! My mom got the idea to take pictures of Biscuit sitting on our disgraced front door rug and this is one of the shots I came up with. I kinda like how it turned out.

One last parting shot of Biscuit flying through the sky. Any ideas on captions??? I can’t come up with anything!

So that’s basically about it for this week. Tune in next Sunday, same Battime, same Batchannel for some more peeks into this photogs life.

A Week in the Life of a Photographer

You have to see the beauty in things to really appreciate life. I learned this very early on in life and I look for the beautiful in everything. Especially when my life is in turmoil and I’m really stressed out. This week I’ve had my camera with me a lot and I didn’t realize how much I missed that.

This actually might have been from two weeks ago. Or more. But I am just now getting around to putting it on here. Shame on me. I was really kinda bummed about moving to the country (you can read about this in a later post of mine) due to the fact that my lightning shots weren’t gonna be near as awesome as they were. Man was I wrong. This storm wasn’t even that powerful, so I can’t wait until I get a REALLY good one.

While shooting my vow renewal last weekend I was faced with a TON of gorgeous flowers. These cute little pansies just spoke to me. Makes me remember the pansies and voilas that were on Alice in Wonderland.

Not really for certain sure what these are, but I have been seeing them EVERYWHERE lately. Can’t say I’m bothered, as they are the perfect shade of lavender.

You can’t get much better than a well-made bouquet of roses and lilies. Especially Casablanca and Stargazer lilies.

More purple pretties. May need to get some prints made soon.

Look at the cute little bloom on my Fooled You Pepper!!!! Which, the next day, the rain promptly destroyed. But alas, there are two more blooms in its place now and there MIGHT be a new pepper forming!

The gorgeous John Mack-esque bridge east of Independence on the old highway. I’m going to shed some major tears when and if this architectural landmark ever gets condemned.

Entitled: No news is good news.

I went out Sunday evening to shoot some storm clouds. Instead I took about 100 frames of Queen Anne’s Lace. I looooooove Queen Anne’s Lace. I don’t care if some people consider it a weed. I seriously contemplated using it for my bridal bouquet when I got married 10 years ago!

Another. In this one you can see the little purple dot in the middle.

A shot of a pod opening. Looks great in color, but even more stunning in black and white.

Some bright little Shasta Daisies and QAL. I promise I think this should be the last one.

So instead I give you gratuitous beautiful butterfly pictures.

And another

Yet another!

Yup you guessed it!

For something a little different…. A gorgeous Kansas wheat field. One of our namesakes. I am pretty sure there is nothing like the sound a wheat field makes when the wind blows through it. It’s just…. Mesmerizing.

And tonight I took a bit of time out of my work to check out the Pre-Super Moon moon. I took I don’t know how many shots and only two pulled through. This was the best of the two and EHRMERGERD. Sooooo pretty.

I leave you tonight with a very special picture…. I didn’t see these wiley sprites until I looked through the pictures. There they were, playing around and making a nuisance. But you can’t fault a fairy. It’s in their nature to be mischievous