Nuka Cola Cap Collector Box

I got this at my work Christmas Party. I gave it to my husband, because I thought it would be funny. He looked at it awkwardly and told me that I should put some Nuka Cola caps in it. I had thought about it before giving him the box but felt a little reluctant because the last time I made Nuka Cola caps it was for my brother-in-law's funeral.




Anyway, in the end I decided that I would go ahead and redo the entire box and give it to my husband as a Christmas gift. I planned on doing up the bottle caps with far more detail that the funeral caps had, and in a variety of types. Make real life Nuka Cola caps have something positive  associated with it rather than just that horrible memory.

I wanted to do it up with a Fallout theme, but in a way that also made some kind of sense. I mean, why would anyone have a box for collecting bottle caps? Thus the Bottle Cap Lottery and the Cap Collection Crate was born.

The front of the box. I think I should have put Cap Collector's Crate on it instead, but it was too late by then. I had thought about Cola Cap Crate, but for some reason the closeness of the 'c', 'p' and 'r' letters made me think of 'crap'.




The back of the box with the contest rules. Hope it's readable. Husband said that he reckons that the time limit for turning in the box of caps should be about two weeks. I wonder if you'd turn into a ghoul if you tried to drink 500 Nuka Colas in two weeks? And mmm, food paste.




Here are the caps. I know there's a Sunset Sarsparilla one in there. Me head canon is that whoever had it las just chucked one in there thinking that no one would notice. But those cap counter people at Nuka Cola are very thorough. They will find out. Also couldn't resist a Nuka Cola Yellow. There is no Nuka Cola Yellow. Just some dude who 'makes water'.

2015 Sylvanian Baby Ornament Swap 2

Received my package from CastorFiber. She's amazing. The ornament she made is simply gorgeous, and the little cat face is adorable. Plus she put in all these extras too, including little crafty things and accessories as well as an SF telephone set! And so many yummy chocolates and sweets! This makes me embarrassed about what I put into my Sock Swap package. It's no where near as elaborate as this... :x

2015 Baby Sylvanian Swap

Joined the Sylvanian baby ornament swap. Now that my partner has received it, I can post about it. :D I'm really glad she likes it because many times I looked at what I was doing with that gingerbread house and my eyes felt like they were going to fall out from sheer exasperation. It didn't turn out the way I had intended (I had envisioned something a little more simple and clean looking). I still need to practise my piping, it's rather messy looking. At least I discovered a better way of cleaning my piping nozzle. Wet wipes FTW. Don't know why I never considered something so simple. I never liked using that piping nozzle because of the clean up, but now it's much simpler and I can read manga in front of my computer while I'm doing it.

I've been finding it harder and harder to want to do anything crafty lately. I just feel so blah about everything in general.

I've been practising sewing on a Baby Bratz doll. My sewing is still shocking, but at least I can say I made some clothing with *gasp* the help of a needle. I didn't sew anything for the baby swap. The Sylvanian bear's clothes are held together using my best friend, craft glue. I really should do more sewing. It's probably easier and less messy to stitch something together than to glue down every seam (the dreaded glue strings, ugh). I learned a few new things about bashing cloth together to form clothing together after doing the Bratz dress and the SF dress. I just have to apply that knowledge to actual sewing, hah...

The original ornament was something I got from Kmart. It was a snowy scene with a white house and two pine trees.

Hopefully I'll feel more alive once the holidays kick in mid next week.

I bought my first few Amiibos. Animal Crossing ones. I can't resist Animal Crossing. Nintendo's got my wallet in a death grip. Send help.

Newsagent

New repainting project! Been busy with work and stuff and haven't updated or done much in the way of crafts lately. This is my last 'cottage shop' style building. I'm turning it into a newsagent's.



Also scored these shelves off of eBay a couple of years ago. They're from the rare SF bookshop set, but didn't have any of the accessories. I'm thinking about repainting them (cue cringing from several SF fans). Depends on how the building comes out--I want them fit the general style of the building.



I sprayed the black on yesterday, and I'll try to fix up the little mistakes tomorrow.

Summer Swap 2015 Custom

Now that bloem has received my swap goodies I can post the custom baby carry case I sent her. XD



Clothes glued together, as I still can't sew and believe me, I tried. I tried to make a simple skirt and failed, ugh, so I just glued a bit of lace together. I made the bucket made of paper and wire (used some of Rainy Blues' paper cup templates, cut down to size) , shovel made of paper and a cocktail toothpick end, and sand made of polymer clay.

Sylvanian Summer Swap

I signed up for a summer swap (it's winter here down under, lol) on the Sylvanian Forums. The packages have started coming in and I received mine from the lovely Kyraja in Germany. I absolutely love the dress and the DIY bed kit! Especially the cute owl fabric. I'll take pics once I've put it together.

 Items from Kyraja:
 


I love that she got me the little Emily Trunk. The standing baby elephants have been been discontinued so I don't see them in the shops anymore. The sandwich set has interesting play features--you can actually stuff salad into the gaps in the bread, and the bread holds it in quite firmly too. A simple and effective play design. I never noticed before. I thought you had to hold all the separate sandwich bits together using your fingers.


 Here's Emily nicking a sandwich from the counter as mum orders a bagel.
 

Monster High Custom

I have a few Monster High dolls. I love how much thought and detail goes into these dolls, and their unusual choices for creatures to turn into dolls. I really like the more outlandish ones. A six armed spider doll? An actual skeleton doll? An articulated centaur? A golden dragon? Not to mention lovely intricate designs on some of the doll torsos? Sold! Ah, where were you when I was a child? Not that I would have bought them as a kid anyway, I was very much a pink and girly toys girl. I still am to some extent--I love cute things, but I've since learned that I have an extremely morbid side. I love ghoulish and outlandish things, and I have a rather inappropriate sense of humour.

 Anyway, back to the dolls. I like them but I've never been a fan of their face ups. I like a more subtle looking face on my dolls in general. I've been accumulating several of these dolls with the intent of repainting them and finally (after about two years, haaaa...) broke down and bought a can of MSC (so expensive here...) Best dolly decision I ever made.

 Here's my first MH custom. This is the fourth doll I've ever customised and my first MH one. The other dolls have been Bratz. I used a Vampire Create-A-Monster doll head as the base because it's the mold I liked the least. I used a mix of coloured pencils, pastels and paint for this custom. I did all my previous customisations using acrylics and pastels, so coloured pencils is another first.



 I made a brushed yarn wig for her because all the Liv wigs I have makes her look like a strung out druggie or something. Don't even get me started on the default CAM wigs. Yuk. The tutorial I'm using is this one:

It took a long, long time. @_@ I don't have a flat iron so I used a clothes iron to smooth out the wefts.

I'm not really happy with the wig. It's too poofy, and I gave it a bad haircut to boot. I have no idea how to cut hair. The spiky anime hair is my attempt to disguise the bad haircut, haha.


I also stole some wings of a McD's Flora to use in the custom. I had to break her to get the wings. Those toys are glued down tight!

I finally made something new.

I finally made something new. And took some pictures. I've been feeling very flat and unmotivated for the past few months.

I found a wonderful tutorial by ToniEllison for milk and cereal. It was fun if very time consuming to make. I need to do something about my bowls, they're not very good. And next time I think I'll make a little 'splash' to put at the base of the poured milk.

I think they look funny baking in the oven. I got a new toaster oven from the OP shop, but I didn't notice that it doesn't actually have a temperature control dial. Only options for heating from the top, bottom or both at once. Welp, at least it's smaller than my previous hulking beast at least?



I made three of them, with the red skim milk in the plain bowl being my favourite. It's also the one I made last so it has the least mistakes. I made an extra bowl of cereal with a spoon because I had so many left over cereal flakes.



I made the milk stream too high for Sylvanians. Mama Neptune had to stand on a chair to pour this. The stream works well with 1/6 dolls, though.


Shelly: Mama, where does milk come from?
Narrisa: Ducks, dear. Mr Waddlington delivers the milk.
Shelly: No, I mean WHERE does it come from? The carton has a picture of a cow on it, does this mean that Mrs Buttercup makes it herself--
Narrisa: Never you mind. Eat your cereal.

Yeah, where does Sylvanian milk come from anyway?