You'll have to excuse me for the slightly bizarre Blog title this week, but I'm going to start by telling you a very boring and (thankfully) very short story. My childrens' school is having book week this week and Friday is dress-up-as-your-favourite-book-character day. My 9yo is going as Katniss Everdeen in her Mockingjay dress (this involved making a dress, then plucking seven reject feather boas and spending hours and hours and hours painstakingly sewing them onto the dress) and my 6yo is going as Gustavus the magical cat from the Rose series by Holly Webb. I believe I've already blogged the cat costume, might get the Katniss one up here one day but for now I'm focussing on me.
This year I'm also up at the school for the day so I needed a costume too. I do love a good villain, so after considering various alternatives (Malificent, The Queen of Hearts), I finally decided to go as Jadis - the White Witch from The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. I made myself a white dress and furry jacket but I wanted an icicle crown to go with them. This was where I ran into problems since I couldn't find how to make convincing icicles anywhere online. Then I struck upon an idea, so this is how to make an icicle crown:
First I did was to buy 30 of the cheapest ballpoint pens I could find. I could have gone cheaper but I would have had to have gone into town and for the sake of 80p I didn't want to brave the crowds.
Next thing to do was to take out a pen, remove the lid, end and ink. Cat hair covered trousers are optional.
Then I lit a candle. I did the first couple with a lighter but then decided that that was going to be totally inefficient. If you hold the pen case just above the flame until it starts to bend, you can then twist, push or pull the plastic gently and hold it in place for a couple of seconds until it sets again.
Once I had done this all the way along, the pen cases looked like this. Starting to look rather icicle-like, if I do say so myself!
Once I'd done a couple, I heated the plastic to make it soft and then pierced it in two places with some wire, threading each one on as it was done.
When I had done them all (or, more accurately, 28 of them since I had to save two for my children to have a go at melting at the weekend because they are odd like that), I linked the two ends of the wire together and twisted them.
A few hair grips later and one finished icicle crown. Now to start my devillish plans for an eternal winter. Mwahahahaha!!
This year I'm also up at the school for the day so I needed a costume too. I do love a good villain, so after considering various alternatives (Malificent, The Queen of Hearts), I finally decided to go as Jadis - the White Witch from The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. I made myself a white dress and furry jacket but I wanted an icicle crown to go with them. This was where I ran into problems since I couldn't find how to make convincing icicles anywhere online. Then I struck upon an idea, so this is how to make an icicle crown:
First I did was to buy 30 of the cheapest ballpoint pens I could find. I could have gone cheaper but I would have had to have gone into town and for the sake of 80p I didn't want to brave the crowds.
Next thing to do was to take out a pen, remove the lid, end and ink. Cat hair covered trousers are optional.
Then I lit a candle. I did the first couple with a lighter but then decided that that was going to be totally inefficient. If you hold the pen case just above the flame until it starts to bend, you can then twist, push or pull the plastic gently and hold it in place for a couple of seconds until it sets again.
Once I had done this all the way along, the pen cases looked like this. Starting to look rather icicle-like, if I do say so myself!
Once I'd done a couple, I heated the plastic to make it soft and then pierced it in two places with some wire, threading each one on as it was done.
When I had done them all (or, more accurately, 28 of them since I had to save two for my children to have a go at melting at the weekend because they are odd like that), I linked the two ends of the wire together and twisted them.
A few hair grips later and one finished icicle crown. Now to start my devillish plans for an eternal winter. Mwahahahaha!!
