Blinky Snickertuft, House Brownie

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Brownie, House Brownie, Magical Creatures, Paper Mache', Spiderwick Chronicles

In English and Scottish folklore, a Brownie or Urisk is a small house spirit that helps with chores. The Brownie resembles the folklore Hobgoblin. The term “Hob” is used loosely to designate many benevolent household Faeries.

These kindly and dependable creatures (also called lobs, hobs or, if female, silkies) attach themselves to human households, where they help with chores and protect the well-being of people living on “their” land.

Fiercely loyal, brownies will defend a home and its surrounding estate from burglars and goblins. They live somewhere on the land they protect, perhaps in an abandoned barn, an unused closet, or within the walls.

 Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You

Hearts for Lily Dragon – WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

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donations, Giveaway, Hearts, Lily Wheelis

First, let me thank everyone who entered into this contest. We had 46 entries which translated into $460 for Lily’s medical needs. You guys ROCK!!!

Sunday, David Stipes and I made a trip to Lily’s house for me to meet her because we thought it would be appropriate for her to be the one to choose the winner of the dragon. Forty-six individual entries were placed in a bowl, stirred, mixed, and thoroughly shuffled (several times by Lily).

When Lily was ready, she chose one name and that is:

CHLOIE MILLINER

CONGRATULATIONS CHLOIE!!!!!!!

The dragon has already been delivered to Chloie’s grandmother who was generous enough to buy her three entries into this raffle. Chloie is nine years old and from what I have learned has powerful dragon energy!

Here are some photos of that day –

Meeting Lily for the first time! Contrary to how this child looks, she is actually very ill, but she has such a positive attitude!

Lily making sure the entries are completely mixed.

Pulling the winner!

I will post photos of the winner when they become available. Thanks everyone again!

Hearts for Lily Dragon Raffle Giveaway!!! – CLOSED

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David Stipes, Diane Cook, dragon, Giveaway, Hearts, Lily Wheelis, raffle

 

The Hearts for Lily Dragon Raffle is now over! Thank you so much to Rose Bean Schledwitz, JoAnne Kabat, Scott Baker, Stacy Smith, Patricia Druckman, Anne Nygaard, Margo Dolittle, Lynda Frenchette, Heidi Bender Milliner, Chloie Milliner, Daniel Jacob, Carol A. Kiefer, and Rebecca Davis for your donations to help this child in need! The winner of the Hearts for Lily Dragon will be chosen sometime within the next week and be notified by email. I will also post the winner here. Good luck to everyone and blessings to all who shared, donated, sent prayers or even positive thoughts for this endeavor. Love you all!

Diane Cook

Donations can still be made for Lily on her GoFundMe campaign.

Hearts for Lily Dragon – Part IV, Finishing the Dragon

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David Stipes, Diane Cook, donations, dragon, Hearts, Lily Wheelis, Paper Mache', raffle

I know most everyone thought this dragon was finished in the last blog post, but if you look at him closely, you can see he seems to be holding something.

While I was at Michael’s  a couple of years ago during Valentine’s day, I came across some heart picks that I thought I could someday use with a dragon. I bought one pick that had five hearts on it in two different sizes.

Hearts for Lily Dragon – Part III, Horns, Wings, and Back Scales

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David Stipes, Diane Cook, dragons, fabric, Lily Wheelis, painted, Paper Mache'

Horns and scales were next up on my agenda. You can use just about any clay that hardens for the horns, but I just happen to have three boxes of Super Sculpey I bought years ago for other projects I never did.  Super Sculpey will still break, but I like it because I can mold it to the paper mâché piece before I fire it and get a better fit when I am attaching the piece later. I have learned, though, that long skinny things like claws and horns might benefit from being reinforced with some wire inside.

Hearts for Lily Dragon – Part II, Head and Arms

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David Stipes, Diane Cook, dragons, fabric, Lily Wheelis, Paper Mache', white glue

Creating this dragon has become quite a challenge in major planning of what to do first. How far do I put the scales before the arms are attached? Do I need to paint the breast plates first and how much? Anyway, I decided that most of the body painting could be done before I added the arms, but to be honest, the whole thing just felt so back-ass-wards! I have always completed the fabric mâché part of the project first and then painted the whole thing after. The reason his tail was painted later was just so I had something to hang on to.

Hearts for Lily Dragon- Part I, Basic Construction

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David Stipes, Diane Cook, dragons, fabric, Lily Wheelis, painted, Paper Mache', white glue

October 2015 was my last post! Where have I been? Certainly not doing paper mâché! Well that dry spell is over. With all my other projects completed, I was able now in January 2017 to start a new paper mâché dragon. This one has a little more of a special meaning in making it, but before I tell you about that, let’s talk about how this dragon happened!

Miniature Replica Buckbeak from Harry Potter

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Buckbeak, Harry Potter, hippogriff, hippogryph, Miniature, Paper Mache', Replica

Feathers, feathers, and more feathers!!!! I have to admit that when I thought about doing a replica of Buckbeak from Harry Potter, there were two things I hadn’t considered. One was that I was going to be making something so small and the other was that I would spend five months making fabricated feathers. Sometimes you get yourself into something and there is no backing out. Of course, I could have dumped the project, but there was so much of it that I really liked by the time it came to the feathers, even I was intrigued by the prospect of finishing it.

Making bird feathers!

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Buckbeak, Cloth Mache', fabric, fabric feathers, Harry Potter, hippogriff, hippogryph, painted, white glue

Simulating bird feathers can be a daunting task. As I am working on my miniature of Harry Potter’s Buckbeak, I did not want to use real feathers. I have finished projects with real bird feathers before to only have them eaten away years later by weevils. Because of this, I wanted to see if I could come up with a method that would fit my project and still look somewhat authentic.

Leopard Dragon (Leo) – There Will be Blood, Part II

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Cloth Mache', Diane Cook, dragon video, dragons, Paper Mache'

Well I finally finished this dragon, except for making him a base. A lot of blood sweat, and tears went into this project (literally)! The next thing I needed to do was to give him some color so I painted all the lighter parts and added his horns. The horns were made with Super Sculpey clay and for most of everything I make with clay, it is supported underneath with wire (except for the claws which I came to regret several times while working on him).