Disney Cruise Line Fish Extender

This year, my wife and I are celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary and  by some  alignment of the stars, Disney Cruise Line decided to offer several cruises leaving from NYC this October, one of which just happens to coincide with our anniversary. We have been  wanting to take a Disney Cruise for quite a few years now and this seemed like the perfect opportunity since we wouldn't have to pay for air fare from Philadelphia to Orlando - the Port of Manhattan is just a short one hour and forty-minute drive from our house. And despite the fact that this is anniversary trip, we are taking both our daughters with us well ( if we didn't I don't think I'd ever be able to sleep with both eyes shut again.) Of course since it's a Disney cruise, the girls can go to the kids' clubs for age appropriate fun while we enjoy some adult time and then we can all still get together for meals, shows and ports. Yes, we get to go to Castaway Cay and, an even bigger selling point for us, we get a day excursion to Walt Disney World with Park Hopper tickets and three "Golden" FastPasses (usable on any ride any time!)

Now, Disney Cruises aren't like other cruises just like Disney fans (addicts?) aren't like other people. Everything on a Disney cruise is about the Disney magic and the passengers get into this as much as the cruise line castmembers. One of the most popular forms of pixie dust are called Fish Extenders - basically a small group of passengers (usually between about 10 and 20) who sign up to leave small gifts for each other during the cruise. Why a Fish Extender?

Think of the Fish Extender as sort of a Christmas Stocking that you hang on the  brass fish-shaped message hook outside your cabin door. The families in your group will leave their presents in the Fish Extender sometime during the trip.

 

Crazy Disney fans that we are, we  had to get in on this action - especially for the girls. They both LOVE to make crafts and the idea of getting that many surprises during the cruise was super appealing. My 12 year-old daughter decided to make Disney Character door magnets from Perler Beads while my 6 year-old daughter made each person a Tootsie-pop ghost.

Being a paper artist, I wanted to make every family their own piece of cut paper art, but making 15 of anything other something very small would be extremely time consuming. Luckily, right around the time we decided to join a Fish Extender group, I purchased a Silhouette Cameo 2 Cutting Machine so that I could do a better job cutting lettering for my projects and so I could start making some production level pieces - pieces I could offer at a lower price. Creating a custom gift for 15 other families seemed like the perfect time to learn how to use this new tool and to see what a production level project would entail.

Disney cruises leaving in October are themed "Halloween on the High Seas" which means the ships host special Halloween events and  are decked out in Halloween decor. 

I had several ideas of what to make, but eventually settled on a porthole door magnet that would be personalized with each family's name. Keeping with the Halloween theme, I decided to  make the main element a ghost ship version of The Magic (our ship)

 

I started with 10" wooden circles I found in in the paint-your-own section of AC Moore (you should be able to find these in most craft stores.) For most projects, I would have started with heavy acrylic board or even mat board, but I wanted something a bit sturdier but still light enough to hang with magnets.

Next, I used the Cameo to cut hexagons and circles from 140# watercolor paper. I glued the circles  on the hexagons to form the large bolts you often see on port holes.

I also used the cameo to cut the letters for the last names from blue paper and an offset piece (white paper) that I would use to attach the name to the porthole.

Here are the complete names, bolt-heads  and another element, a Witch Minnie Mouse flying her broom across the moon.

I spray painted the bolt-heads, wooden circles, and ring pieces for the front portion of the porthole with an antique bronze paint to give them the appropriate nautical look.

For the background inside the porthole, I wanted to have the night sky, some clouds and a night-time ocean to frame the ghost ship. I made these from four separate layers and cut "registration holes" on each layer so they would line up perfectly. Here is an exploded view of the main porthole layers (starting top left): the wooden circle/outer ring, the night sky layer, highlight cloud layer, shadow cloud layer, ocean layer, inner/front porthole ring, and the bolt-heads and clamps.

To facilitate putting together the background layers, I built myself a little jig. Then all I had to do was spray the back with acid-free adhesive and line up the holes with the pegs. This made the process move pretty quickly.

After I got the background pieces together, I glued them to the wooden circles, created a little cheat sheet to place/glue the clamps and bolt-heads and finally glued on the inner/front ring.

 

Here is a picture of elements starting to come together. You'll notice the sign at the bottom, I forgot to take pictures while making that and the actual ships (life got a bit crazy) The sign is made from two layers of paper with the lettering and skull added on top.

 

Here is the final product - the  Magic ghost ship is also made from four layers of paper

coming soon

Once they were all assembled, I painted two coats of satin acrylic varnish on the fronts for protection - these are meant to be hung on stateroom doors, after all - and glued sheet magnet to the backs before signing and numbering each one.

The final step was to place each porthole in a gallon freezer storage bag and attach a hang tag (also created on the Cameo). I added string so that I could hang gift directly on the Brass Fish if the  family's Fish Extender couldn't fit it. 

 

I learned a lot about how to use my Silhouette Cameo 2 during this entire process, how to use the software, what the machine does well and I can honestly say that I could not have done this project without this machine. I don't know how often I will make projects completely with the machine like this, I still love doing most of my work by hand, but it is a great tool to have in your arsenal.

That Perfect Girl is Gone

2014 was at our house, like many others, the year of Frozen. For my younger daughter, who was four at the time, it was all Elsa all day everyday. As a stay-at-home parent, you have two options in this situation: go absolutely, completely bonkers or just embrace it. I opted for the latter. Yes, I know the words to ALL the songs in Frozen, not just “Let It Go.” Yes, I have been seen at stoplights singing “Let It Go” at the top of my lungs with the windows open.

2014 was also the first time I decided to exhibited my work at an arts and crafts show. Nothing huge, just one one sponsored by our public library. When thinking about pieces I would make, I knew I had to make one based upon Elsa, especially after I found some great papers that would perfect for recreating her ice dress. The dress top is a blue vellum with glitter paper beading. The dress is made from a great shiny, not quite metallic paper with blue vellum snow flakes. For the detailing on the arms, I made stencils for the shapes, painted them with glue, and sprinkled them with glitter.

(Process pictures above)

A few days before the show, posted pictures to Facebook of what I would be selling – including my just completed “That Perfect girl is Gone.” The morning of the art show, my buddy Barry (The Grand DM) showed up with his family and immediately purchased Elsa. Apparently, he’d been looking through his feed and his two daughters fell in love with the picture immediately. Needless to say, I was flattered. Then, while his wife took the kids to look through some of the other booths, Barry asked me if I could make a matching Anna they could give the girls for Christmas. No way I could turn that down!

Anna was quite a bit of fun to make, especially since her costume is more intricate than Elsa’s. I used Prismacolor pencils to give the embroidery on her bodice a more realistic look as well as using them for her hair. Her face and hands are hand-painted watercolor paper since I have yet to find a mass produced craft paper that captures normal skin tones well – they are usually too yellow or brown.

The Phantom of the Opera

This recreation of the Playbill for the Broadway smash hit The Phantom of the Opera was commissioned as a Christmas present for theater lover. (My first commission for non friend or relative.)

While the design for this piece is deceptively simple, I actually had to develop several techniques to achieve the desired look: how to glue paper to glass and not have it fall right off as well how to score the heavy water color paper and bend it into shape. I had initially tried my normal layered paper techniques but the results were less than satisfactory so I had to learn to score, fold and bend for a more three-dimensional look. I also had to use a heavier paper so that it could be painted to give the porcelain appearance of the Phantom’s mask. All of the lettering is glued to a separate layer of glass so that it floats above the background.

Wild Ride

Still playing catch up…

Somewhere around two and half years ago, I received a Facebook message from my friend Jeff's wife Lisa. She’d seen pictures of my work and wondered if I could make a Disney-themed piece for Jeff’s birthday. A Disney themed piece for my first commission? Doesn’t get much better than that!

The first hurdle was determining which character from the vast Disney lineup would be right for the project. Jeff had made numerous references to Mr. Smee from Peter Pan in his Facebook posts, so that was my first pitch. Then in the course of conversation with Lisa, he mentioned that his favorite character was Donald Duck. While searching out some Donald Duck reference images, I came across the cartoon short Bee at the Beach (1950) and thought it would be a perfect fit - Jeff and Lisa are big beach people, proponents of the beach life attitude and year-round residents of Oak Island, NC. While I was working on some early ideas, Lisa continued brainstorming and came to the conclusion that maybe something based around one of Jeff’s favorite attractions from Walt Disney World (WDW) would be better, something along the lines of The Hatbox Ghost piece I had made for myself. Maybe something from Pirates of the Caribbean or better yet, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride:

“Jeff loved that ride. His parents took us for a week after we graduated college. They hung out with his sister and left us to ourselves. We had an amazing time one particular day, and it ended with us getting the Mr. Toad car on our last ride as the park was closing. Made Jeff's day. The teenager running the ride thought his excitement was a little weird, but he had fun.”

That was it, we had to do Mr. Toad. Of course, there was a problem -

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride closed on September 7, 1998, and was subsequently replaced with The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. (Wikipedia)

I had to recreate something that hadn’t existed for about 15 years. While the attraction still exists at Disneyland, the exterior looks much different from the defunct WDW incarnation. 1998 was still squarely in the pre-digital age and as such, I had to rely on people’s scans of  their “old” photos they had posted to the Web. Luckily, I was able to find enough old photos (and even a 3D VR Rendering) of the entire ride to make a reasonable attempt at recreation:

  

(Some of my reference pictures)

After looking through all the photos I could find, I decided that the best way to capture both the essence of the ride and Jeff’s attachment to it was to make the outer mat layer represent the attraction’s entrance pillars (complete with Medieval Faire canopy) and have the main center layer show the Toad Hall Exterior queue area. Finally, I would have silhouettes of Jeff and Lisa sitting in one of the ride vehicles heading into the first room which would make up the back layer. Here is the sketch I put together sketch for Lisa:

As you can see, the sketch is remarkably close to the final product, except that we eventually changed the tag line to “The Wild Ride Goes On”  and changed the silhouettes from Early 90’s Jeff and Lisa to 2013 Jeff and Lisa (which really only entailed giving Jeff a bit less hair .)

 

Process Pictures

The picture with Mr. Mole gives you a scale idea of the detail I used.

Detail Pictures

Unfortunately, what you can’t see is that the fireplace is fully realized and there are miniature, hand drawn versions of the “Modern Art” painting of Mr. Toad hidden by the car and figures. I didn’t get a chance to photograph them before I had to put it together.

Each and every stone is hand drawn and hand cut, as are the wooden roof shingles

 

This was a really fun project made all the better because it was for friends - there is just something about knowing your art is hanging in a friend’s house.

Leaves, Leaves and Some More Leaves

 

A little more than a year ago, my mom was invited to the wedding of our family friends’ daughter (they were all actually long time neighbors from house where I grew up.) My mom has always been one for special gifts, something out of the ordinary and memorable (often loud and obnoxious.) The couple had  chosen a unique wedding invitation (right) and she thought that a custom cut paper mat for their wedding photo based on the invitation design would be just the one-of-a-kind gift she was looking for.

 

 

Here (left) is the final product: the mat is 13”x19” with a double-matted section for an 8”x10” photograph. In order to accurately replicate the leaves in the original design, I used both light and dark orange craft papers. For each color, I created a small, medium and large leaf shape and then made right-curving and left-curving versions of each size. That’s twelve distinct leaves. I hand cut all the leaves, about 200 in all (enough for some extras) and then added veins with a marker to each and every one. I think I went a bit cross-eyed by the end, but the result was worth it.