One month til Christmas...which is why I'm posting Halloween stuff

Reeeeally late with this one, but I have an excuse! I was sick!
And I am forgetful.
Anyway, have my Halloween post!

So, last post, I told you about the Witch Doctor I was making (the one with the Tiki mask), and here's how he looks as a whole:

 

After making the mask, I started by plopping some chicken bones into a cup full of hydrogen peroxide. I left them there for about a day, not longer, because I didn't want them to get too white.

(I was too lazy to make bones. Plus, these look nicer)

 Then I sculpted a skull out of air drying clay and put it into my mini oven so it would dry quicker. Because if you leave everything to the last minute, like I always do, you can't wait for everything to dry naturally.

 And here are some pictures of the Witch Doctor in the making.

 

 The base is made from wood, wood glue, and some screws here and there.

 Then I added some news paper and lots of tape~

 After that, I added some of my fail paper mache clay (which is my enemy. If you are better at making paper mache clay than I am, you can use it for the whole thing), to form that nice little belly. Then some tissue to get an even coloured, wrinkly skin, and voila, you have a naked dancing chicken.

 Some paint and a hula skirt (which was super simple to make and took way less material than I thought it would) and the body is finished! I then glued on the mask, made another skirt, but didn't tie it together, and pinned it to the back of the mask.

 

 Here we have my mum, sneaking to our neighbour's window to scare her 8D

 And this is me. I already have a pumpkin kind of shape, so going as a pumpkin person was ideal~ Clothes and mask (and witch doctor) were, like always, made last minute, but still I like how everything looks. (although I had wanted to have orange arms and legs as well, but sadly no time for that)

And that's it! 

We had friends and their little ones over, and because they were dressed up as the Weasleys (Arthur, Molly, Ron and Ginny) my sister had a little event for them, where they had to practise spells.

It was cute :3

And that's what happened on Halloween~

Yes, Halloween in Vienna is boring (we had one group of Trick or Treaters...ONE!), but it was nice anyway.

Still I hope that next year, we'll be at Disneyland again 8D

Until the next post!

IKEA update

And first place goes tooooo *drumroll*
.
.
.
not me.

BUT

The second place goes tooooo *drumroll*
ME!!! :D

Both my whale lamp and Timelord placed second, which means I am now 1000€ (1375$) richer!
Definitely happy with that.

I'll be making a Halloween post soon (probably after Halloween, because there's still so much to do!) and show off my Witch Doctor and hopefully my costume...maybe...

It's Halloween-lo-ween, everybody!

Well...not quite yet.
But I'm currently working on our Halloween props!

My sister wants to be a vampire on the beach for this year's Halloween (I will hopefully be a pumpkin person in a vintage bathing suit), so we decided to adapt our props to a beach theme.
I'm working on a witch doctor, who will be dancing on a sand grave, and thought I'd show you how I made the Tiki mask.
Hopefully someone will find this little tutorial useful and make lots and lots of masks 8D

You will need:
a (thin) insulation foam sheet
a Stanley knife (or any other knife that will cut through foam)
a pencil
(wood/white) glue
acrylic paints
a brush

Start by cutting out the shape you want the mask to have. It doesn't need to be perfect, since you will be cutting into the edges anyway.
Take your pencil, and draw 3, or more, straight lines. This will make the mask look like it's made of boards of wood instead of one whole piece. Remember to press down with your pencil, so it will leave an impression. Make these lines especially thick.
Now draw lines and squiggles all over the mask, but remember to always stop at the straight lines, since that's where the 'board' would end.
Decide where you want the eyes to be, and cut them out. Then cut out eyebrows, a nose, lips and teeth, if you want.
Distress your 'wood' a bit, by cutting into the edges, especially where your 'boards' meet. You can also take any object (I used the blunt side of a knife) and hit your foam with it. Yes, you will be a foam abuser, but it will be worth it.
Before you glue the features on, try the glue on a piece of scrap foam, to see if the glue melts the foam. I used wood glue, which takes ages to dry, but keeps the foam intact.

After the glue has dried, take your acrylic paint and give your mask a base coat. It doesn't matter if the surface doesn't look perfect, just try to get the paint into all those grooves.

 After the paint has dried, take a light brown acrylic, and paint the mask. Try painting big spaces with only a little colour, and try not to get all the paint into the lines. Also, when you paint, use long brush strokes, starting from the top, going down (or vice versa).

You can stop at the previous step, or you can add some colour, like I did. Just do it like you did with the brown paint, a tiny bit of colour for a big space.

And that would be my first tutorial! Yay!
Hoped it helped!

My teeny tiny fall harvest

We had 4°C (39°F) this morning, so I decided to pick all my remaining vegetables before it drops below freezing.
Nothing very special about this post, but here, have some pictures.

 I'm not a fan of eggplants (actually, I don't like most of the things I plant, I'm weird like that), but isn't it gorgeous?

 Not quite ready tomatoes.

 

I am so proud of this butternut! /motherly tears of joy

This is the first time one of my pumpkins actually survived! I had planned to make at least five pumpkin cookies out of it, but now I don't want to eat it >-<

UPDATE for the previous post:

This is what the Timelord looks like with bow tie and hearts.

EDIT: and I just realized that in the picture, it looks like I drew nipples on the door...I give up.

How anyone could be that unorganised

No, I'm not talking about me in that title, but about IKEA.
Remember about that contest, and how I already said that they didn't think everything through? Well, I asked them in an email where I should bring my finished furniture, and got the reply that sorry, but they're no longer allowed to display the entries.
Insert eyebrow raise.
At least I'm supposed to send them pictures, so I'm still taking part in the contest.
It's actually a small blessing in disguise, because I'm not really happy with how everything turned out, so now I won't have the judges taking closer looks.

And...I just realised that I forgot to put on his bow tie (the only thing I actually liked about the whole thing). Oh well. When I'm bored and have money to spare, I'll add a few more layers of paint (you can see the streaks on the door, and the back of the arms aren't actually painted).
EDIT: And my sister just told me that I also forgot the hearts! Of course I did! Looks like I not only have a fail!whale, but also a fail!clock/shelf.

 I wanted a smooth finish, which sadly didn't work out, because that whale hates me. But he doesn't look as bad as I thought he would.

 Still thinking about making a new whale though. Don't take it personally, FrankenFailWhale.
EDIT #2: My sister also just told me that my whale looks like he has dreadlocks. Seriously, FrankenFailWhale, could you be any more of a fail?

Pimp your IKEA

So, I entered an IKEA competition 'Pimp your IKEA item' or something like that.
You send in a sketch of a customised IKEA item, and if the jury likes it, you get the item to transform.
Then your item will be put on display at IKEA, and once the competition is over, the entry the jury likes best gets 2000€ (~2700$)

So wish me luck, because two of my entries were chosen! :D
The great thing is that, even if I shouldn't get first or second place, I still get to keep both my items, which together cost 220€ (~300$). So yeah, won already!

I'm still working on everything, but here, have my sketches:

Both my Timelord and Whale lamp were chosen!
I'm making the whale out of cooked paper mache, which should get pretty sturdy, so let's hope it won't fall apart while it's on display.

I made a few changes to my Timelord, the biggest one being that I'm painting everything blue. We (my dad, my sister and I) came to that decision after lots of arguing, because my dad said it would be too much work to sand everything first. I really wanted it in brown, with the wood pattern still shining through, but oh well...

So, I have a week for everything (because the IKEA staff clearly didn't think this competition through, and most of the time have no idea what's going on themselves. I mean, I still don't even know where to bring my finished things!), which isn't that much time, really, but hopefully I'll finish everything on time.

I guess I lied again

I keep on saying that I will post regularly, but what do I do? Not post anything for months...
I'll try, I swear I'll try!
So here's another recipe post, and I'll write about my IKEA adventures tomorrow/later today.

Sometimes I find recipes, which sound good, but change them a bit, to be even better.
Sometimes I find recipes, which would sound good with other ingredients, so I change a lot.
Sometimes I cook or bake up something amazing.
Sometimes I fail completely and hate myself for wasting food.

Well, here's a recipe where I changed a lot, and loved it!
(Even my non-soup eating dad liked it! Although, with lots of white bread in it, so I guess there wasn't much soup left)

BeanBeanBean-and-other-stuff-soup

Of course I forgot to take pictures while there was still enough soup left...so here's the best I have.

These are more guidelines than an actual recipe, just throw together what you like!

1 big can white beans

1 small can kidney beans

1 small can Käferbohnen (I googled, but still don't know what they're called in English...just take any beans you like)

2 medium potatoes

2 medium onions

2 large carrots

4 garlic cloves

3 vegetable stock cubes

1 1/2 L water

1 tbsp ketchup

bacon
rosemary


Cut your bacon into small pieces, add to a large pot and cook until brown and crispy. Spoon out the bacon, leaving the grease.

Cut the potatoes, onions, carrots and garlic into small pieces and cook in the bacon grease until soft-ish.

Add the white beans (without the fluid they come in), stock cubes, ketchup, rosemary and water.
Put on a lid, and let simmer for 30 minutes.

Take your immersion blender (or pour everything into a blender) and pulse until you no longer have big chunks of vegetables floating around.

Add the other beans (also without fluid) and bacon, and let simmer for another 10 minutes.

Enjoy!
Guten Appetit!