Turn A Broken Doll Into A Classical Bust Statue

You will need:

Toy doll - I used a broken Barbie
Air Dry Clay
Decorators Caulk
Brushes
White Acrylic Paint
Rolling Pin (I use the inner tube of a roll of foil)
Hot glue or tape

Remove arms - I used some pliers

Put hair up in a bun - I also wrapped the plaits around the forehead

Secure them with some tiny elastic bands but you could use glue

Find something to use for the plinth - this used to hold a candle

I wrapped a cork in foil to fill the space at the bottom

Cut a hole in the top and stuff the doll through it

Secure with tape or hot glue

Roll out some air dry clay

Fold it over a bit to emulate pleats

Wrap it around the doll and squish until it stays in place

Wet your finger with water and smoosh any broken bits back together

I cut out a few decorative leaves from the clay

Add the decoration to front and back

Wrap the base in some clay and use a wet finger to smooth it out

Roll some clay into a sausage and wrap around the bottom

Smoosh it until it's all joined together

Cut out a piece of clay to cover the top of the plinth

Smoosh into place

Keep rubbing and smoothing until it looks better

Use a toothpick to draw lines in the plinth

Add another sausage to the top. Smoosh.

Add a little sausage to join the doll to the plinth

Smoosh

Paint the doll with caulk. Use fingers or a small brush

Use a wet brush to smooth. Wait till it drys then add another layer

And another layer

And another

Leave to dry overnight then paint with white acrylic

Admire your fancy statue!

Driftwood Santa

I've seen lots of driftwood Santas on Pinterest lately so I thought I'd have a go at half-arsing my own.

You will need:

Driftwood (I get mine on Ebay)
Acrylic paint
Paintbrushes

Get some driftwood. Mine was about 8cm long

Paint a skin coloured oval shape on it

Add a white beard, hair and sideburns

Paint the top bit red for his hat and add a fat moustache

Give him pink circle cheek, a mouth and some bushy eyebrows

I drew the small details on with a brown fineliner pen because I'm rubbish at painting

He looks like he's seen something horrific. Poor pyschologically damaged Santa.

Add another layer of white to soften the pen details, colour in his eyes and you're done! You could drill a hole  in his hat and hang him up, if you can be bothered.
I cannot.

Tiny driftwood weaving

I haven't been weaving very long but it's quite addictive. There are tons of good tutorials on the internet but I particularly like Weave With Pat and The Weaving Loom for their easy to follow guides and examples of the different techniques. 

I fell in love with The Weaving Loom's stick weaving tutorial and decided to give it a go. Visit her tutorial here for a much better example of how to do this, or read on for the half-arsed version. 

You will need:
A Y shaped stick (I used some driftwood). Make sure it's strong enough to withstand some tension.
Embroidery threads, wool, roving and whatever else you feel like weaving with.
A darning needle (the blunt with a big hole kind of needle).

Get yourself a good stick. This is not a good stick. It's very small and fiddly.

Tie some thread to the stick. This will be your warp (the vertical threads)

Wrap the thread around the upper stick (where you knotted it) and then bring it over the lower stick and wrap once.

The thread will cross in the middle. Repeat till you run out of stick.

Tie off the end. You want it to be tight but not super tight. Bouncy but not loose.

Thread a needle with contrasting embroidery floss. This will be your weft.

Bring the floss over the first warp and under the second.

Repeat until you reach the end.

Bring the thread around the last warp and repeat in the other direction.

This line of weft should be opposite to the one above (so under then over)

Use the needle to push the woven threads together. Add another line or two of weft.

Cut the thread leaving a tail a few inches long (You can weave it in later).

The picture isn't upside down. I started weaving upside down. It happens. Add a new line of warp. See here to learn how to do this stitch (it's called Soumak)

Push your lines of weft together and admire it at a jaunty angle.

Repeat the Soumak steps in the opposite direction. It looks like teeny arrows. :-D

Add some more rows of regular stitches. Like the first step. They probably have a name.

Add some wool roving. Regret this bitterly because it's too bloody fiddly in miniature.

Fill the rest of space with fat stitches because you've tired of the tiny weaving experiment.

Use the needle to weave the ends in to the back of the weaving. Do a better job than this hot mess.

Ta Da. Behold your tiny messy woven stick thing.