Thursday, March 08, 2012

Day Seven: Bats in my Belfry

A couple of years ago, I saw this really neat specimen box on tatertots and jello {via One Pretty Thing}. It was a shadowbox with bats punched from Halloween scrapbooking paper.

(Maybe all those people who think I have so much patience because I cross-stitch are right. Here I am waiting two years for me to get myself together to make these cute projects. No instant gratification here!) 


First I punched and laid out my bats. I don't have a lot of Halloween paper, so I stuck with an orange, purple, and green color palette--the new official color palette of Halloween. (Orange and black is so 1972.) (I made some visual puns, like the tiger bat in the lower left and the tropical fruit bat in the upper left. Okay just two, what more do you need from me?)

The elusive tiger bat.
Then I pinned my specimens to the board. Then I went and checked the tutorial that Jen had put together. It turns out I was doing it all wrong. So I just kept doing what I was doing. Because I liked the idea of really being able to see the pins. And I hated the idea of using a grid to lay them out. I figure if they look pretty much gridded to me, they're going to look pretty much gridded to you too without all that geometry. (Also, she bought a regular frame and made it into a specimen box. I spent $10 on a shadowbox with a padded fabric background. She saved $6 but I saved my sanity.)

Don't mind the one that turned upside down.
Then I closed the frame and by some miracle of vacuum-age, a lot of the bats fell right to the bottom of the frame. So I revisited Jen's tutorial and saw that she used dimensional adhesive. So I got out some pop dots and stuck the bats to the pins.

I can't wait for Halloween! 

**But wait, there's more!** Our "Flat Granny" is ready to move on. If you're interested in a visit, check out Jo's blog.

***Also*** the article about library stitching has appeared! Clickez. I'd like to point out there are things I would never say. "She's xx years young." My grandmother is 90 years old. My niece is twelve years old. I am 45 years old. What I said was, "Here, I'm the young one. I'm 45 but you don't have to print that." I also did not say "substitute grandmoms." I don't have a grandmom. I have grandmothers who are called Mimi and Ma. I said "surrogate grandmothers." The rest is fine. But seriously someone tells you you don't have to print their age so that's what you open with? Gah.

10 comments:

Kristen said...

Squeeeeeeeee! Love the bats - LOVE THEM! I'm totally stealing this idea, your color palette included! The green looks fantastic! :D :D :D

I'm off to read the piece.

Rachel S-H said...

That is really cool! Love it! May I steal this from you?

Laura said...

I'm glad to hear Flat Granny is on the move again.

Unknown said...

*Love* the bat box.

The article's not bad. It could've been a lot worse. Why would should print your age????

Jo who can't think of a clever nickname said...

Love the article. It's so sweet that they let the work-experience kid write it.
That's the only reason I could think for the dreadful journalism!
I think the "45 years young here" was a blatent typo as it isn't a proper sentence.
At least they didn't refer to you by your hair colour, 45 year old brunette as if that's the most important info about you.

doris said...

The bats are too cool! Who comes up with this stuff?

The article was very positive, which is great. I was hoping for more pictures of the participants and their work.

barbara said...

I'm having a little chuckle that liberties were taken with your quotes. But at least you were safe in the picture! ;)

Chocolates4Breakfast (Terri Malinovich) said...

The bat project is awesome! Sweet article but the quote didn't sound like you at all. Funny, I thought quoting someone meant using their words. Guess I was mistaken. The ladies look like they were having fun.

Kate said...

The bat project looks amazing! And kind of Victorian too, with the pinned specimens. I'm in awe that you're keeping to this schedule.
And don't worry -- people who know you know that you would never says "forty-five years young" or "grandmoms." Geeesh.

Jennifer said...

I didn't think your quotes sounded like you either, but still a nice article.

The bats are very cool. I've tried to convince my friend to do a butterfly one for her daughter, and I want to do a shamrock one for myself.