The Boar's Head

Our church's Christmas program this year was a Madrigal. Elizabethan songs and fancy gowns and herald trumpets and such. We had a potluck afterwards, but it wasn't an Authentic Madrigal Dinner.
Two years ago, the choir director asked me to make a papier mache boar's head for her, for that year's show. She used pink Styrofoam to carve a form and asked me to papier mache it. The paper didn't adhere well and the whole project didn't work at all. This year, I was eager to redeem myself in my own eyes. She was really pleased when she saw it. :)

Curious readers can click on each image to see more detail.


The interior is made from plastic milk jugs, duct tape, and leftover paper scraps. The ears are cut from a milk jug bottom to get a natural curve.


The bottom teeth are pipe cleaners (oops, that's not proper nowadays. Chenille Stems), wrapped in paper. This allows me to tweak the bends in the teeth as the first layer dries.
The top teeth are cardboard.


Wrapped in paper, ready for the first layer of papier mache. This site helped me a lot in getting the right shapes. What did we do for research before Google Images?


Upside down and covered in printed newspaper. The fan on the left helps the form dry quicker.


A tennis ball can is holding the mouth open enough that I can put a real apple in there later.


Afterit is after the second coat, this time using unprinted newsprint. The brown blobs are there because I make the paste from a bag of whole wheat flour that passed its Used By date.

I found my recipe here when I needed to do papier mache with my Cub Scouts. As it turned out, after a few practice masks, I haven't done a project yet with the Cubs, but I made a cool Bionicle Matau (Toa of Air) mask for Gonzo.
The eye is made of glow-in-the-dark beads on wire.


Painting the first coat. I looked too light to me and to the director, but Ganoush preferred this color. I'm using tempera paints because that's what I had.


Dressed and ready for the show.

I've been tagged

La Maitresse tagged me to join in the latest book meme. This one seems simple - say 15 things about books. Here goes...

1. I like books. Lots of books.

2. I prefer non-fiction to fiction because there is so much stuff to learn about. But I liked the short stories in Good Housekeeping magazine.

3. My favorite book is The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. Raskin wrote cool books. My dad once overheard my sixth grade teacher speaking to another teacher about me. Teacher said, "I have two students reading Ellen Raskin books right now, but only Heidi is weird enough to appreciate it." She didn't know that the man standing there was my dad. We took pride in her comment.

4. My next favorite book is How to Become King by Jan Terlouw. It is a Dutch book, translated to English. It is out of print and used copies cost around $40. I see know it is similar to the labors of Hercules.

5. The first word I could read was FREE. It was on a sign we passed often while traveling through downtown. "FREE car wash with tank of gasoline." My dad said that if the only other word I learned to read was Restroom, then I would do okay.

6. In college, I took a photography class the same quarter that I took Intro to Children's Literature (Kiddie Lit). I also took Russian History and Differential Equations that term. I was able to combine Photography and Kiddie Lit by photographing how to bind a small book (Step-by-step assignment) and then gluing the photos into the blank book and writing the explanation (write a book assignment).

7. I also wrote one Russian class paper on American Kiddie Lit concerning Russia over the years, the idea being that how children perceived Russia/the USSR would be determined by what they read as much as what they heard from adults around them.

8. Pre-homework for the class was to read the huge, real (non-textbook) Nicholas and Alexandria by Robert K. Massie, which I read all during our college band bus tour to NYC.

9. I never read Goodnight Moon until I was a mom.

10. Since both of my kids now have a library card of their own, we can check out a total of 180 books combined at any one time. CHG's card is his own.

11. In second grade, if the teacher liked your story, she would have it typed onto sheets of onion paper and you were allowed to illustrate the pages and then she had a book made. Kids could have the book put into the school library. It was returned to me when I went up to seventh grade. A few kids other than me had also checked it out. It was called "My Trip to Marsasip." (MAR-suh-sip) It was going to be My Trip to Mars, then My Trip to the Sun, but I changed it. The planets surface kept changing colors. It was a feature, not a bug, so I didn't have to remember what to draw from page to page. (See photos below.)

12. My answer to many situations are to go read a book. Got engaged? Go to the library, get some books. Expecting a baby? Go to the library, read some books. All those research papers rubbed off on me. And juvenile non-fiction is the best. Lots of pictures, clear text, basic examples. If you want to know about the Civil War or Origami or John Muir, go to kid nonfiction.

13. My dad has nearly every National Geographic Magazine ever published, starting with his dad's collection. I don't know what we will do with it when he no longer needs it. I think all of it is now available on CD-ROM. But I had a great time writing about John Muir in sixth grade and have a cite in my bibliography from a 1888 magazine.

14. I wanted to write that bio paper on Jacques Cousteau, but we couldn't find any books about him. In 1979? How weird was that? My teacher said that one article in TV Guide wasn't enough and I switched to John Muir.

15. I am currently reading The Decorated Journal by Gwen Diehr.

I'll tag Todd & Sage. I don't know if Sage does memes. I know she likes books.



Cover. A fabric from home that articulated the terrain of Marsasip.


My bedroom really did have 10" wide red/white/blue stripes on one wall.


Black oranges just sounded cool.


These were not all from just me and my brother.

Art Journal

Different ideas have swirled around me and I have been reading about art journals. One blogger led me to Danny Gregory. At the library I found Hannah Hinchman and others. I wrote more in my last journal so I could get to my new, unlined one. So today is picture day.

The cover of my journal. Made from gift wrap, a ribbon, a heart punched from a photo crop leftover, a page from a Mary Engelbreit day by day calendar, and a punched heart covered in glitter glue. I tried to just highlight the heart, but later the glue smeared, so I just filled the whole thing in.



CHG and I play with a local college band. One of the band alumna joined the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, a part of the US Army. A group of five (out of 70) came to town for a visit - demonstration - recruiting opportunity. While they played, I sketched three of the musicians. They wear colonial attire, as the group was commissioned by Gen. George Washington and they have been together ever since.

I had some free and quiet time when our kids have three friends over and all were watching Schoolhouse Rock (and not School of Rock, as one of them had hoped). I was able to prepare some pages and play around in my journal.

That quote from Ganoush that I mentioned earlier: One of the places that she was born. I'm not happy with the background. It got cluttered and I didn't have great vision before I started. Which usually is good. But not always.


This is a collage done with tissue papers painted by Eric Carle and published through a Klutz book( that I can't find a link for - prolly discontinued). I gently used blue BloPen on the page first. The mountain really popped when I added the scraps from the penguins back and tummy. The sky was torn to make the mountains.


I don't know what this will be when it grows up.


The collage I made from things on hand near my art desk.


In other art news, a local business offers bisqueware for patrons to buy and glaze on site. They fire the pieces and pick up is a week later. I went with the kids in August for a friend's birthday party. We went again in early November with a homeschool group. Gonzo grumbled about going until he got there, then wanted to stay longer. He painted a cat figurine to look like his stuffed green Ty Baby cat, Kitty. Ganoush painted a unicorn to match the one she made in August. I painted a plate for my mom. They didn't have any cow figurines, so I improvised. Mom is in a Red Hat group. Not the Linux kind. It's a sushi plate, but no one in my family eats sushi. (All the more for Sage, then.)



I couldn't wait until Christmas to give it to her, so waited until Tuesday. Fortuitous thing, too, for it led to our schedule changing a little so she could go with the Camp Wacky Homeschool to have another glazing session. Gonzo painted two smaller kittens, Ganoush painted a bowl with lid, shaped like a cat's face. I painted an outlet cover for my mom, who just watched and helped get more glaze. We'll pick up the works next week.

And for Thanksgiving, I leave you with this cartoon.

The Crow Head

I mentioned Mystery Science Theatre 3000 today, here on Sage's new pages.

Now that I have photo abilities, I can post shots of one of my coolest crafting events.

When Gonzo was 3, he wanted to be Crow T. Robot for Halloween. So, Crafty Mom that I am, I made one, out of black fun foam, brass fasteners (aka brads), staples, gold chenille stems (because no one cleans a pipe anymore) , rubber bands, and gold lame fabric I still had on hand from when I made golden goose eggs for a local Willy Wonka production.

We bought him a yellow sweatshirt (size 7, which he still wears). I attached the Crow head to a black winter hat, using an Acco 2-piece fastener through the hat and through a Solo brand dessert plate slipped inside the winter hat, to give balance and stability to the wearer. Duct tape covers the fastener ends to protect the wearer's hair and scalp.

The upper head kept lopping over, so either side has a small Styrofoam ball wrapped in black felt and hot-glued under the eye section and onto the hat.

Either people have no clue what it is, or they can tell exactly what it is and are impressed. (I still regret that I didn't notice that Crow's eyes are yellow, not white. CHG says to get over it.)

He was quite a sight during the preschool costume parade and again later while trick or treating around the neighborhood. Every time he was asked, "And... what are you?" he proudly answered, "I'm Crow T. Robot from Mystery Science Theatre Three Thousand and my mom made this costume."

What's not to love about that?