 Welcome to my creative year for 2018. I am so glad you decided to join us. If you didn't decide to join us yet and you want to, the link for the Facebook group is in the description below, so check it out. We hope to see you there. That being said, the topic for this month of January is budget. Each week we will be having a different prompt for the week within the topic to share with you. This week our prompt is coming up next along with the how-to video of what I did. So I hope you enjoy the prompt, the topics, the process. If you have any questions, let me know. Leave a comment in here on YouTube or tag me over in a post on Facebook. That's it for right now. Let's get started. Hey guys, how are you today? So we're going to start off 2018 in my creative year with making studio mascots and it's just a little sort of a reminder while hanging charm friend, whatever you want to call it, something fun and whimsical to hang in your studio and to just encourage happy thoughts, happy moments, happy feelings, happy energy and that to remind you that it's your happy place. So I literally have this like bin of junk and salvage, everything from empty spools, containers from microwave food, big giant thing of clothes, there's all kinds of stuff in here. Old watercolor sets I got like on Etsy for a couple bucks. So I have all kinds of things in here and I actually, I went in here looking to grab something else and I, these things attracted me. I was thinking I was gonna maybe grab one of these. I may still, one of these doorknobs and actually I have a bunch of different doorknobs, some of which are from my house. We just got done remodeling. I'm filming this in November by the way of 2017 and a few months ago we were remodeling parts of our house, doing some DIY and we realized we had the old doorknobs from the houses still built, 1969, 1970, somewhere in there and we took them off. I like doorknobs, so you know it wasn't a stretch for me to take them off but what I'm also doing while I'm thinking about this mascot is thinking do I actually have any desktop or tabletop space to put a mascot in my office or would something that hangs on the wall be better? So that's kind of what I've been thinking and I'm kind of thinking something that hangs on the wall might be better. So then my next question to myself is what parts do I want to use? So I'm gonna try to figure all those things out and I'll be right back. Okay I decided to stick with my original thought of the doorknob. I have a little place I can stick it so I think I thought I would do that. Now this doorknob is you know from the late 60s early 70s it's not very heavy and for what I want to make with it it really the base of this is going to be the base and it needs to be heavy and weighted. So I also have these little muslin bags filled with BB shot. Now I used to use these for a lot of things including when I was still doing arts and craft shows which I don't do anymore. I used to use these to weight down the lighter items when I would be doing outdoor shows and it was windy and stormy to make sure things didn't blow away. And they're filled with copper BB shot. Can you see that? So I'm gonna I just cut this one open. So we're gonna try to get all the BBs into the doorknob. Hopefully. Yep and boy did that just weight that down. So that worked like a charm. Alright so now I need some wire. A few of these charms from my charm drawer. Okay so first thing we're gonna do is cut a couple pieces of this so we can get the wire off the table and out of our way. I'm not exactly sure how much I'm gonna need. I'm not measuring anything. I'm just whacking off a piece. I'm gonna grab my Aileen's tacky glue bottle and I'm going to take the shorter, I think the shorter piece let's see, no the longer piece and I'm going to wrap it around the bottle a couple of times sort of tightly and then I'm going to twist a few times and then we're gonna slide it off the bottle. I cut these so they're the same length preferably not too horribly long. Keeping your fingers there and your eyes averted so you don't poke yourself in the eye and that's going to sit in there and what that's going to do is that's going to be able to hold a tag that has my current positive affirmation quote on it. I'll be able to change them out periodically over the year. This one is going to be able to hold whatever else I stick in there. I want to put a fit. I want to give it a face and her a face. I do think it's going to be a her and I have some different faces here that I could use for my mascot. This is like a drawer of molded and I've had these this drawer of embellishments. Some of these I've had so long. It is about dang time we use them. I'm telling you we can set that aside. So the first thing we want to do is create something we can stick her to. I have a bunch of different things in this drawer that we could use. What is this? Blue chart gardens. I was thinking like we could use a flattened bottle cap. I used to make bottle cap jewelry and I thought that would be good for the back of her head and we could just so that you don't see this. I thought we could just cover it up. I could use one of these poker chips but I really kind of just like using the bottle cap idea. This one has a giant eyeball on the back so that's kind of funny. All right and I do have also some fibers. Actually I have this crocheted rose that I made. What would that look like with her face stuffed in there? Oh that's actually kind of cute. You know it's starting to remind me of Maradel Abrams studio mascot. I wonder if that makes it too big though. I kind of like it though. Mary I'm sorry if I'm stealing your mascot. It's not intentional. I was initially thinking we would grab some of this which I don't know. I kind of like that rose better. All right so if we stuck her in there. Now this polymer clay thing has holes in it but I bet you this wire is too thick for the holes. Yeah it is which is okay because if we do this I might not need that bottle cap. I'd run this back down cut the little crazy end off of these strings off. I could still put the eyeball in the back of her head like she can you know like when you tell your kids that you know mommy's got eyes in the back of her head. I actually kind of like that idea and then put her on this side. I actually kind of like that idea and these have positive affirmations sort of little symbols on them. One has an elephant, one has a tree of life, one has a feather. For me those are all positive things, positive symbols and I could just hang them off of her flower and I could collect more of them as the year goes by and hang them off. I kind of I like that idea. It didn't want to come off. This one is from Alaska from our trip to Alaska which I loved. That was so much fun. Yeah I would love to go back and then this one has the tree of life on it. I found these when I was cleaning up some stuff recently. Forgot I had them you know. So I like that and they would hang off of her. I really like that and then she would go in here. Yep so let's get this glued up. I'm going to use some E6000. Oops after I pop it open. I'm using E6000 because it's a good general purpose epoxy adhesive and it'll glue anything to anything and you've got a mixture of porous and non porous surfaces here so it's really good for that. I like the idea of her having an eyeball in the back of her head. I have no plan for this. I'm totally winging it. When I turned on the camera I knew I had to make a mascot but that was all I knew. Didn't know for sure what I was going to do other than I knew I wanted to get one of these molded faces out of that drawer and use it. Pull the parts of the crocheted feather out around her face. Oh that is cute. She's going to be adorable when she's dry. Okay so while she's drying we're going to work on our doorknob and let's see what we can do with the actual doorknob. So the one thing I want is I still want this probably behind her head because I do still want the option of putting a tall tag in there or a bookmark or something where you can see a piece of paper where you'll be able to see a quote or positive affirmation word above her head and I'll show you guys what I mean when she's all done and put together. But we need to, we can't just have the doorknob look like that doesn't look nice. So we're going to decorate the doorknob. I've got options. I have this drawer of weird weirdness. Weird hardware, weird salvage. Some of them is sewing machine parts. Some of it is just random otherness. I don't know what this little brass thing is from but it's in this drawer. I just need to leave enough room to stick her head in. I need the pliers. I like that and we can stick some glue in there and really stick it on pretty well. It doesn't go all the way around though. So let's find something. We can stick in the front. I've got this drawer full of little metal. What are these? Wood things. I have this drawer of wood things. You know I was looking in another drawer and I found something right away. So this is a copper pipe fitting piece and I aged it and distressed it with some ammonia and vinegar and you know what? It fits right on there and the side stick out sort of like little arms. I love that. So let's get that on there. Again we are going to glue these on with E6000. I'm going to shove some in here between this brass piece and the doorknob and then just kind of wiggle this around and then we're going to take this other piece and I'm going to put some on the inside. And like with the flower around her head I could at some point over the year dangle more charms off of these little end pieces. I could even do it now so we're going to see what happens with that. I love that idea very much. How fun was that? A happy accident. Okay I have another drawer of course I do is what you're going to say of tassels and charms because you know of course I do. And yeah I think I want to hang a couple of these off of the side as little charms. Let's see. We have two of the same color maybe. We did two different colors. Would that look weird if she had different colored arms? You guys are going to answer me right? Color instead. I like that color. And got all this fun stuff in here. Oh here's a dream catcher so she can catch my dreams and hold them for me. I like the symbolism behind that. I love that a lot. Okay one of the things I do periodically when I'm out and about in shopping at the craft stores is I take a look at the clearance jewelry aisle and see what these kind of little things like this that they have. Just laying around on the clearance aisle that I can get pretty inexpensively and I pick them up there. That one already has a clip on it. I like the idea that that one already has a clip on it. That's something else but it's got a clip on it. I might have to steal those clips because I don't want to do any more digging. All right I kind of let's get those clips off there. I'm gonna steal these two clips. Fliers. Okay this is gonna be fun because I don't have my reading glasses on. Let's get these clips off and put this tassel in the drawer. I think I want to try. I'll see if this clip fits. I guess I should see if the clip fits before I put the tassel on it but that's too late. Yep yep it fits. That's cute. All right let's get the tassel off of this one. I mean the clip. So use what you have. You notice I am not buying anything. I had all this stuff. I've had it for a long time. I'm using what I have. I want you all to do the same. I want you to think of the things that you have in your stash that give you a good feeling. Don't think about it too much. I think I'm gonna just put it on here. Now as far as the head is concerned I want to kind of jammer in there and then we want to stick a bunch of glue in there. So we're gonna do that. I'm gonna put a bunch of glue on all of these wires and I know one of you is gonna ask why it probably why I have such little bottles of E6000 because while I do use it and I love the glue every time I buy a big giant tube I never use it all before the thing goes gets all dried out and hard to get out of the tube. So I find it's easier to just get the little tubes and more cost-effective. I found this piece of an old spoon that's been turned into a wall hook. We're not going to use it for that. It's just again it's just a random piece of hardware and it's perfect. I'm gonna shove it down in there and then we're gonna let all that glue dry and as soon as it's dry enough to tilt her. I'll show you guys what she looks like. She's super cute. I'll be right back. Alright guys this week's prompt was mascot and I really want to see what you guys can do with this. If you aren't wanting to make a mascot maybe you had a school mascot that you want to do in our journal page on. Maybe you have a mascot in life or a spirit animal you want to do your page on. Whatever it may be don't be afraid to take the prompts and think outside the box that we've taken it to and do your own thing. We are very excited to see what you come up with. Ann and Cindy will be creating their own unique mascots and I can't wait to see what they do. Although we have the same prompt and maybe sometimes the same ideas. Believe me we have three completely different kinds of style so you're gonna see three completely different kinds of things and occasionally our other teachers and helpers Lisa and Ian are going to be contributing too so I look forward as a year progresses to see what they come up with. So my studio mascot is done and I'm going to just zoom you in here a little bit. She's not dry yet. She's still drying. I moved her little charms around. I love that there's room all around her face to add more as the year goes on. She's got little tassels for arms. I did add a little cap here to the bottom of the doorknob to just hold her up straight and steady. She was a little bit wobbly without it and this is from my niece Megan and her wife's wedding Megan and Tiffany. So it has good mojo too and then of course I added a tag to start the year off Dreamer of Dreams. I love that. If you want any list of materials used, better pictures, anything like that you need to be part of the Facebook group My Creative Year. The link for that is in the video description here below and we hope you join us there. It's a lot of fun full of art ideas, inspiration, camaraderie, and more. So please check it out and above all else go out and have a great day. Don't forget to think about making your own studio mascot to start off the year and I hope that you all have a great one. Go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it like make a mascot and that's it. I will see you later. Bye guys.