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Ever since I did some serious downsizing in the wake of my husband’s sudden walkout on me five years ago, I’ve been making do with limiting most of my Christmas decorations to a coffee table in my living room. I basically celebrate something I call a Tabletop Christmas. Here’s a picture of my setup that I took in 2012 but it’s still the same this year so I have no problem with reposting it.
I’ve written previous blog posts about some of my decorations that I’ve put up, which you can read about at these links below:
Ginger Cottages Incense Burner
A Small One-Piece Peruvian Nativity Set
A Small One-Piece Wooden Nativity Set
Two Hedgehog Ornaments That I Originally Purchased When I Owned Spike, My Late Pet Hedgehog
Befana the Witch Glass Ornament
Ornament Resembling a Stuffed Teddy Bear in a Traditional German Outfit
A Fused Glass Gingerbread Man That I Made in a Workshop
A Fused Glass Tree-Shaped Ornament That I Made in a Workshop
Animatronic Mickey’s Clock Shop
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Tangled Reindeer Which I Customized Myself
Steampunk Snowman Which I Customized Myself
Macy’s Christmas Ornament Featuring a Mickey Mouse Balloon and the World Trade Center
There’s only one other place where I also make a token observation to Christmas besides my living room coffee table. I have a wooden Santa Mickey Mouse puppet that hangs outside throughout the holiday season. That’s my only outdoor decoration I have and it’s one that I previously wrote about back in 2014.
And now, for the first time in this blog, here’s a selfie of me wearing a Santa Mickey hat and a red Christmas sweater posting next to my Santa Mickey puppet.
For added measure, here’s another selfie.
This morning I went to church (Christmas fell on a Sunday this year) then I went to a local Chinese restaurant where I ate lunch at its usual special-priced weekend buffet. Here is what I got in my fortune cookie: A message that said “You will pass a difficult test that will make you happier.”
Hmmmm. I’ll see about that. It would be cool if that fortune came true because I can use some happy times right about now.
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Today is not only Christmas but it’s also falls on a Throwback Thursday this year. I know I haven’t done a Throwback Thursday in a few weeks mainly because I was focused on selling things online and preparing for the holiday season in general. So, as a special treat, here is an entry focused on my own decorations that I previously highlighted in this blog.
Ever since my husband left me for that mentally ill friend of ours, I’ve done some massive downsizing of Christmas decorations. I gave away 3/4 of them to the American Rescue Workers. I even purchased a small tabletop artificial tree with lights already installed on them. I took this photo back in 2012 but this year’s setup is pretty similar.
Next up is this Hippie Merman ornament that I previously wrote about on December 21, 2010. I made a short video consisting mainly of slideshows with some music I composed by combining a bunch of loops together in GarageBand. I still have this ornament and he is currently gracing my small tabletop Christmas tree as of this writing.
Here’s a cottage-shaped decoration that also functions as an incense burner. It’s made in the U.S. by a company called Ginger Cottages.
I also currently have two very small nativity scenes underneath my small Christmas tree. One just features Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus.
The other was made in Peru and it features an entire nativity scene (featuring a sheep and llama) inside of a cow-shaped structure.
I previously wrote about all three on December 17, 2012.
I have two hedgehog ornaments that I originally purchased when I still owned Spike the Hedgehog and I wrote about them on December 13, 2012. Spike has been dead for over a year but I still have these two ornaments hanging in my tree.
Topping my Christmas tree is this doll-like angel that I originally wrote about on December 11, 2012.
I’ve owned this vintage elf long before The Elf on the Shelf became this huge marketing juggernaut. I wrote about this guy and his modern counterpart on December 29, 2013.
Here are a few more ornaments that I purchased last year and I wrote about on December 24, 2013.
Here is a robot nutcracker that I purchased last year because it looked unusual and funky. I wrote about this one on December 23, 2013.
Here’s a fused glass gingerbread man ornament that I created in a workshop that was given by a friend of mine last year. I wrote about this one on December 18, 2013 and he’s hanging in my Christmas tree this year.
I have my Mickey’s Clock Shop, which I purchased years ago. It was considered to be a state-of-the-art animatronic decoration at the time (although there have been more technologically advanced Christmas decorations released since then that makes this one seem quaint by comparison). I have it up this year and it still works. Here is a video I shot for a post that I wrote on January 6, 2014.
Here’s a reindeer that I customized from a Rose Art Color Blank by doing mainly Zentagles that I first wrote about on December 14, 2011.
Here’s a steampunk snowman that I customized from a Rose Art Color Blank and I first wrote about on December 22, 2012.
Here’s a lace moose ornament that I purchased earlier this month and wrote about on December 19, 2014.
Here’s an owl ornament that’s made from a tiny gourd that I also purchased earlier this month. I wrote about this one on December 10, 2014.
Well, anyway, that’s pretty much it for past photos and videos of my Christmas decorations. The one big advantage with downsizing is that all of my Christmas decorations fit neatly into one box. There are separate boxes for the Christmas tree and Mickey’s Clock Shop but that’s no big deal compared to the old days when I used to have three boxes filled with just Christmas ornaments along with two smaller boxes for Christmas plushes and Beanie Babies. I’ve gotten rid of all of the Christmas plushes/Beanie Babies and two of the Christmas ornament boxes after my husband left. Thanks to my downsizing, I can have everything up and decorated in two or three hours and I can take them down really fast in about an hour or so. I’m really happy about that. I have people in my local area who really go overboard with the Christmas decorating (especially on their front property) so if I really want to see a lot of Christmas glitz, all I have to do is get in my car and make a few short trips.
Know someone who’s a toy car enthusiast? I have a set of four small wood cars that I customized myself currently on sale in my Etsy shop for the low price of $10. Here is what cars you get in this set.
White Glitter Car
For details about this car, see my July 3, 2013 post.
Red Glitter Car
For details about this car, see my July 8, 2013 post.
Green Glitter Car
For details about this car, see my July 9, 2013 post.
Blue Glitter Car
For details about this car, see my July 10, 2013 post.
These cars are roughly the same size as Matchbox Cars and you’ll get all four of them for only $10 for the entire set. They make great stocking stuffers for car lovers of all ages. Get this set now right here.
Know someone who’s a toy car enthusiast? I have a set of four small wood cars that I customized myself currently on sale in my Etsy shop for the low price of $10. Here is what cars you get in this set.
Yellow Glitter Car
For details about this car, see my June 26, 2013 post.
Gold Glitter Car
For details about this car, see my June 27, 2013 post.
Orange Glitter Car
For details about this car, see my July 1, 2013 post.
Purple Glitter Car
For details about this car, see my July 2, 2013 post.
These cars are roughly the same size as Matchbox Cars and you’ll get all four of them for only $10 for the entire set. They make great stocking stuffers for car lovers of all ages. Get this set now right here.
Know someone who’s a toy car enthusiast? I have a set of four small wood cars that I customized myself currently on sale in my Etsy shop for the low price of $10. Here is what cars you get in this set.
Brown Decoupaged Car
 For details about this car, see my June 19, 2013 post.
Green Decoupaged Car
For details about this car, see my June 20, 2013 post.
Blue Decoupaged Car
For details about this car, see my June 24, 2013 post.
Black Glitter Car
For details about this car, see my June 25, 2013 post.
These cars are roughly the same size as Matchbox Cars and you’ll get all four of them for only $10 for the entire set. They make great stocking stuffers for car lovers of all ages. Get this set now right here.
Last weekend I entered two handcrafted items into the Art Show at Otakon. I had the option of either setting a "Buy It Now" price or set a minimum bid and let visitors bid on it like a silent auction. I made a minimum bid of $25 on both items in the hopes that a bidding war would break out and I would make a nice tidy profit for my hard work. For the handpainted Souseiseki and Suiseiseki bag, I didn’t get a single bid and I had to take it back on Sunday (which was Otakon’s last day). But the other item I created, I did get a buyer who submitted the winning bid of $35. Yeah, I know it doesn’t seem like a lot of money considering the amount of work I put into it but at least I made enough money to make back what I spent on the supplies plus a little bit of extra cash (most of which I’ll put towards paying off my credit card bill). Here are some photos and details about the item in question.
I had an idea of creating a unique one-of-a-kind piece that would tap into the Brony phenomenon after I read an article in The Washington Post last year because I am a capitalist at heart. (LOL!) I’ve long heard about My Little Pony ever since my college days when I used to see the toys on the local store shelves (yes, I’m talking about the previous MLP generations prior to the currently popular fourth generation). I had an opportunity to turn my idea into a reality when I saw the latest line of toys on the shelves at Target called Design-A-Pony. As the name implies, the idea is to take a mostly blank vinyl pony and, using the included markers and stickers, design your very own special pony.
Once I removed the pony from the box, I examined it all around. I found that it’s a very good quality toy that is easy to customize. (One example: the hair is made from solid vinyl rather than the Barbie doll-type hair I’ve seen on other pony toys.)
The biggest challenge was to adapt the toy to my own idea. Here’s some background. I’ve long had a fascination for Pegasus as well as unicorns. When the My Little Pony toys first came out, I briefly thought about buying one or two but then decided against it because they were marketed as children’s toys and I was in college and I thought I was too old for them. (Yeah, I know it sounds stupid but there was a time when it was frowned upon for adults to actually collect toys.) I also ignored the years when newer generations of My Little Pony were released. But, with the rise of the Bronies, I knew that I could no longer ignore My Little Pony.
Meanwhile, I had become so addicted to a series of games called Robot Unicorn Attack that I have the original game and the Christmas version downloaded on both my iPod Touch and my iPad. When I read the reviews and saw the screenshots for the latest version of the game, Robot Unicorn Attack 2, I downloaded that as well and I became as hooked on that one as the previous games.
So I had the idea of tapping into both the Brony fandom and video gaming enthusiasts by doing a mash-up of both My Little Pony and Robot Unicorn Attack using the Hasbro My Little Pony Design-A-Pony kit. However when I went to Target, I found that the only Design-A-Pony kits that were available were the ones for Fluttershy and Princess Luna. Fluttershy is strictly a pegasus with no horn so I couldn’t use her. Princess Luna is an alicorn, which means she has the unicorn horn but she also has the pegasus wings. That kind of worried me because the Robot Unicorn Attack games features strictly a unicorn with no wings.
I purchased Princess Luna anyway with the idea of potentially cutting her wings off. But I was reluctant to do so because her wings looked very lovely. When I got home from the store I decided to clear my head playing Robot Unicorn Attack 2 when I made this discovery. Unlike the earlier games, Robot Unicorn Attack 2 has a feature where you can customize your robot unicorn with the credits you earn while playing the game. Among the custom parts that one can add to the robot unicorn is a set of wings, just like in the screenshot below.
I was very happy to discover that I had the option of still doing the My Little Pony/Robot Unicorn Attack mash-up without having to cut off Princess Luna’s wings.
So I immediately got to work on creating my piece. Here’s a photo of the piece after I painted the pony’s mane and tail plus I painted a solid border throughout the pony’s body to simulate the division of the robot unicorn’s body parts. I attempted to simulate the wires and tubes that one could also see on some of the robot unicorn’s joints. I also used silver leaf paint on the unicorn horn, ears, wings, and hoofs.
The next photo shows the completed piece, which I titled My Little Robot Unicorn Pony Attack. I further worked on the vinyl figure by using acrylic molded paste on the pony’s body to further simulate the idea of robot parts. Once the paste dried, I painted the body using silver leaf paint. I also added a layer of Modge Podge Dimensional over the eyes in an attempt to simulate the robot unicorn’s glass eye look. (I know that the robot unicorn’s eye is originally a silver color that matched the rest of its body but I thought that Princess Luna’s purple eyes were so pretty that I really couldn’t bear to paint them over.)
I designed the cutie mark on the pony’s flank that’s based on the robot dolphins that swim in the air past the robot unicorn whenever one gets around 5,000 points while playing the game. To save time and frustration on designing my own robot dolphin, I found a graphic on the Internet, downloaded it, imported it into Photoshop, shrunk it down to the proper size, coated both the front and back of the printout using Modge Podge (the regular version—not the Dimensional version), cut it out using scissors, and glued it to the pony’s flank using acrylic gel.
As for the base, I found these wood blocks in various sizes on sale in an art supply store. They are originally meant for people to create paintings or mixed-media projects with them. I found that when I laid one flat painted it, and add some graphics and type that I downloaded off the Internet (the process I used is identical to how I made the robot dolphin cutie mark), it made the perfect base for my pony to stand on.
This last photo is meant to demonstrate the fact that the pony isn’t permamently glued to the base so it can be easily removable anytime.
I’m participating in two simultaneous art shows in Baltimore. This weekend I’m displaying two of my pieces in the Art Show at the annual Otakon anime convention, which is currently held in the Baltimore Convention Center. One is a canvas bag that I originally painted for Katsucon earlier this year but it failed to sell, even though I thought I had put up a decent minimum bid. This time the bag will be available for the minimum bid of $25. The bag is based on two characters from the Rozen Maiden anime and manga series known as Suiseiseki and Souseiseki.
The other piece is one that I have been working off and on for the past month or so. I took a My Little Pony Design-A-Pony Princess Luna vinyl figure that I found on sale in Target and did a total mash-up that’s a cross between My Little Pony and the video game Robot Unicorn Attack. The resulting figure: My Little Robot Unicorn Pony Attack.
It even comes with its own robot dolphin cutie mark.
I’ll write more about how I created this piece in detail at a later date.
Both pieces will be available for auction until 12 p.m. Sunday. The Art Show is sharing Hall E with the Artists Alley, located on the bottom level of the convention center. Click here for more information about the Art Show.
The other Baltimore art show I’m participating in will run through the end of August. It’s called the Station North Salon Show and this show is being held in eight different venues. Three of my pieces are currently on display at Joe Squared pizza parlor.
The Scream of Nadya "Octomom" Suleman
Desire
Stop and Smell the Roses
The last one is on display at the Chicken Box and it’s definitely NSFW. (It’s my lampoon of the recent Anthony Weiner texting scandal.)
All of my pieces are available for sale. For more details about the show, check the official website.
A few weeks before the Greenbelt Green Man Festival I found these wood cars that one can customize for sale in this copy of the Oriental Trading Company catalogue that I got in the mail. The photos that were printed in the catalogue gave me the impression that they were about six inches or so and they were priced much cheaper than those Pinebox Derby cars that I’ve seen on sale at most of the big box arts and crafts stores. So I ordered them with the intention of customizing them for sale in an effort to appeal to boys. (At past craft shows I would encounter boys who would visit my booth but weren’t interested in my Barbie fairy dolls or in the handcrafted jewelry for sale. I thought the cars would appeal to them.) My mind turned to the art cars I’ve seen at last year’s Artscape in Baltimore and at the Greenbelt Green Man Festival a few years earlier and I started to think about customizing them as tiny toy art cars with some extra beads and other tiny art supplies I happened to have lying around.
Imagine my surprise when they came in the mail and I found that they were way smaller than the close-up photos made them out to be. In fact they were 2.5 inches long. Yes, they were very tiny. They were so tiny that I had to abandon my idea of creating art cars because I would’ve really needed micro-tiny beads/art supplies and I didn’t have anything that small.
So I had to quickly come up alternative design ideas for these cars. I initially decided to try decoupage with Modge Podge and scapbook paper. The first few cars I painted the wheels and the heads using acrylic paint then did some decoupaging. While the results were interesting, unfortunately it was a very time-consuming process because I had to cut very tiny pieces of paper and made sure they fit on the tiny sides before I applied the Modge Podge. I finished it by adding two tiny stickers to the front to simulate headlights and I sealed the car using varnish.
The results looked pretty cool but the only problem is that this method was very time-consuming. After customizing the third car (out of a set of 12 unpainted cars), I realized that I would’ve had a very hard time finishing them in time for selling them at the Green Man Festival. (The cars arrived a week before the show.) So for the rest of the cars I opted to paint the body of the cars in acrylic paint, then paint a second coat using acrylic glitter paint. Finally I sealed the paint job using varnish. I was able to finish the cars much faster with this method.
The cars were well received at the Greenbelt Green Man Festival but I failed to sell any of them. So that’s why this car is currently listed in my Etsy shop.
Order Blue Glitter Wood Car right here.
A few weeks before the Greenbelt Green Man Festival I found these wood cars that one can customize for sale in this copy of the Oriental Trading Company catalogue that I got in the mail. The photos that were printed in the catalogue gave me the impression that they were about six inches or so and they were priced much cheaper than those Pinebox Derby cars that I’ve seen on sale at most of the big box arts and crafts stores. So I ordered them with the intention of customizing them for sale in an effort to appeal to boys. (At past craft shows I would encounter boys who would visit my booth but weren’t interested in my Barbie fairy dolls or in the handcrafted jewelry for sale. I thought the cars would appeal to them.) My mind turned to the art cars I’ve seen at last year’s Artscape in Baltimore and at the Greenbelt Green Man Festival a few years earlier and I started to think about customizing them as tiny toy art cars with some extra beads and other tiny art supplies I happened to have lying around.
Imagine my surprise when they came in the mail and I found that they were way smaller than the close-up photos made them out to be. In fact they were 2.5 inches long. Yes, they were very tiny. They were so tiny that I had to abandon my idea of creating art cars because I would’ve really needed micro-tiny beads/art supplies and I didn’t have anything that small.
So I had to quickly come up alternative design ideas for these cars. I initially decided to try decoupage with Modge Podge and scapbook paper. The first few cars I painted the wheels and the heads using acrylic paint then did some decoupaging. While the results were interesting, unfortunately it was a very time-consuming process because I had to cut very tiny pieces of paper and made sure they fit on the tiny sides before I applied the Modge Podge. I finished it by adding two tiny stickers to the front to simulate headlights and I sealed the car using varnish.
The results looked pretty cool but the only problem is that this method was very time-consuming. After customizing the third car (out of a set of 12 unpainted cars), I realized that I would’ve had a very hard time finishing them in time for selling them at the Green Man Festival. (The cars arrived a week before the show.) So for the rest of the cars I opted to paint the body of the cars in acrylic paint, then paint a second coat using acrylic glitter paint. Finally I sealed the paint job using varnish. I was able to finish the cars much faster with this method.
The cars were well received at the Greenbelt Green Man Festival but I failed to sell any of them. So that’s why this car is currently listed in my Etsy shop.
Order Green Glitter Wood Car right here.
A few weeks before the Greenbelt Green Man Festival I found these wood cars that one can customize for sale in this copy of the Oriental Trading Company catalogue that I got in the mail. The photos that were printed in the catalogue gave me the impression that they were about six inches or so and they were priced much cheaper than those Pinebox Derby cars that I’ve seen on sale at most of the big box arts and crafts stores. So I ordered them with the intention of customizing them for sale in an effort to appeal to boys. (At past craft shows I would encounter boys who would visit my booth but weren’t interested in my Barbie fairy dolls or in the handcrafted jewelry for sale. I thought the cars would appeal to them.) My mind turned to the art cars I’ve seen at last year’s Artscape in Baltimore and at the Greenbelt Green Man Festival a few years earlier and I started to think about customizing them as tiny toy art cars with some extra beads and other tiny art supplies I happened to have lying around.
Imagine my surprise when they came in the mail and I found that they were way smaller than the close-up photos made them out to be. In fact they were 2.5 inches long. Yes, they were very tiny. They were so tiny that I had to abandon my idea of creating art cars because I would’ve really needed micro-tiny beads/art supplies and I didn’t have anything that small.
So I had to quickly come up alternative design ideas for these cars. I initially decided to try decoupage with Modge Podge and scapbook paper. The first few cars I painted the wheels and the heads using acrylic paint then did some decoupaging. While the results were interesting, unfortunately it was a very time-consuming process because I had to cut very tiny pieces of paper and made sure they fit on the tiny sides before I applied the Modge Podge. I finished it by adding two tiny stickers to the front to simulate headlights and I sealed the car using varnish.
The results looked pretty cool but the only problem is that this method was very time-consuming. After customizing the third car (out of a set of 12 unpainted cars), I realized that I would’ve had a very hard time finishing them in time for selling them at the Green Man Festival. (The cars arrived a week before the show.) So for the rest of the cars I opted to paint the body of the cars in acrylic paint, then paint a second coat using acrylic glitter paint. Finally I sealed the paint job using varnish. I was able to finish the cars much faster with this method.
The cars were well received at the Greenbelt Green Man Festival but I failed to sell any of them. So that’s why this car is currently listed in my Etsy shop.
Order Red Glitter Wood Car right here.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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