Making Pikmin 3 Figures

Well, my son is now well into the long-awaited Pikmin 3 game and has thoroughly researched the toys and figures from all 3 games online (thank you Google images)! He's always made little paper or cardboard drawn figures but is determined they need to be plastic and, as you'll know if you've looked they are a) virtually impossible to get and b) very expensive so we have turned to Shrink Plastic as a replacement. Have you ever tried it?

It's generally called Shrinkles these days and comes in a variety of colours and sizes. You can get blank and printed versions but unfortunately not a Pikmin version. I drew those. If you don't feel confident drawing, you could find someone who does and ask them.
I drew them in pencil EXACTLY as he wanted them (if you know Autism, you'll know how exact that can be) and had to have very clean hands as all dirt gets darker and smudgier when heated.

He coloured and I cut. We put them on a foil lined baking sheet and into the oven for about 3-5 minutes on Gas mark 3 or 130 degrees if your oven is electric. They curl like an animal and shrink 7 times smaller and the colours get 7 times more dense.

You can see how much smaller they get by comparing the first baking sheet pic with the third.
The finished articles are small, thick, rigid and duarable and the colours are fixed.

So he now has a little set comprising: Brittany, Preston (the Mayor), Charlie, Alph. Olimar's son, Louie, Olimar, Olimar's wife and his daughter. More to come...

Like Pikmin stuff? Checkout these other related blog pages:
http://socklet-world.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/let-them-eat-pikmin-cake.html
and http://socklet-world.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/pikmin-art-crowd-in-cardboard.html
or http://socklet-world.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/pikmin-in-needlefelt-and-sculpey.html
and  http://socklet-world.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/complete-set-of-pikmin-figures.html

            

SWEETS!

I found this little shop in Ventnor, which had sweets in jars all down one side and locally made crafts down the other (some of which were made by the woman running the shop).

 The place was small but pristine white and beautifully laid out. There was even a glass bowl with sweet samples and a note encouraging customers to help themselves. Most members of the family tried the weird combination of sour turquoise blue on the outside and traditional toffee bon-bon in the centre (see above, right).

On the craft side, there were things made by crafty people (ie unusual but makeable and not out of the price range of an ordinary mortal). I rather liked the bunting made from recycled maps and my daughter bought a hairslide with a very oriental looking flower with 6 petals, all sewn from fabric. She both wears it and hopes to figure out how it was made to make some more for herself. It's good to see what's out there.

Blackberry and Apple Crumble!

We LOVE blackberry and Apple crumble in our family, and the blackberries are ready at last!

These are a special crop we grow at the end of the garden (meaning I didn't chop them back when they started invading, and by the time I got round to it they had begun flowering, then I can't chop them cos I know they'll have fruit).

I had bought the cooking apples already to make an apple pie.

I love that colour when the two cook together and stain the wooden spoon.

The wonderfully sweet crumble mix (this time both dairy and gluten free as I am now both, but no one in the family minded or seemed to taste the difference).

And the finished article after baking. There was a moment of horror when I discovered I had no dairy-free custard, but luckily there was some fake ice-cream in the freezer so the day was saved!

Happy season of mellow fruitfulness!

A Few Sunsets

I won't bore you with endless holiday pictures, but as we were staying in the sunset area of the island it's only fair to the Isle of Wight that I let you see a few.

Pretty darn lovely and a little wild. It looks so still when you look out to sea, but standing at the water's edge with the tide fully in, the power of the waves breaking against the sea wall was massive and rather scary.

Driftwood Boats

That is what I made out of the bits and pieces I showed you yesterday....boats and ships of different shapes and sizes.

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 You can see the scale of the boats by the size of my fingers holding tight to them while the early morning sea breeze tries to blow them away.

 I would put them on the breakwater at Colwell Bay and just as I focussed the camera to get the shot, the wind would whip them off into the wet sand below and I'd start all over again. In the end I gave up and held the ones that wouldn't stay.

 

The sails on this larger ship were found on a beach at Bembridge near the lifeboat station. When I looked up beaches on the internet before going away, it said that was a good place for beachcombing, and so it was. I washed the fabric and dried it, then tore it in half to use.

 The ones with the old leathery sails are definitely my favourites and I brought back a big bag of driftwood to carry on making at home.

What did I make on Holiday????

Well I made 6 things but I'm not going to show you what they are today...just a teaser first.

These are the things I took with me:

 Fabric and tattered leather pieces,

 

A scalpel, glue, a small hand-drill, wire, beads, a little hacksaw and a cutting mat so I didn't damage the table of the bungalow we stayed in.

And this is what I collected from the beach...

Lots of driftwood in a variety of shapes and sizes so, what did I make?
Tune in tomorrow to find out!

Fun With Matchboxes

I'm back from a week on holiday and raring to go!!

So let's start with another matchbox craft idea.

If you get 4 matchboxes and glue them together an end to a side all the way round in a square, you get this shape

Cover the ends of the matchbox trays with paper (I chose fake wood), cover the outside of the cube shape that you have made with paper and then put a strip of paper over the empty square shape left in the middle to make it look solid.

 I put jewelled split pins as the handle on each drawer, and the finished article looks like this...

It looks surprisingly solid and like a real wooden cube.