The making of a custom my little pony

I was a little perplexed for a minute until I rememered Medusa my little pony! A fair amount of clay and paint later and here we have her!

Medusa Custom my little pony $55

Clan of the cave bear, The hulk, weird eyes, Tank Girl

I have some orangey hair coming soon and then I’m starting on bat girl, one of the few super-girls who wasn’t completely annoying.  How come the baddies were always so much cooler?

Bat girl

What you will need:

• scissors
• needle nose pliers
• acetone (not always needed)
• doll hair!
• doll needle / embroidery needle
• time & patience

The first thing you need to do is get rid of the original hair. Cut it down as close as possible and use needle nose pliers to pull the hair out from the inside. Sometimes the glue is a little thick – acetone works well to shift it or you can soak it in hot water if you want something a little less harsh. When using acetone please please please remember to use gloves – 100% acetone can cause liver damage when absorbed through the skin (in large quantities but better safe than sick).

For information on the best way to remove a ponys head check out my previous tutorial here.

First take a strand of the doll hair and make a knot in the middle. It shouldn’t be too wide or too narrow – trial and error is the way to go on this one until you figure out how you like it best. The strand will be doubled over so make sure it’s not too small length wise either. You can always trim it but you can’t add to it once it’s on!

Lonely little hair strand

Next simply double it over to thread onto the needle. Pinch it tightly to thread on – you want to thread all the strands through the eye.

Must let fingernails grow...

Once it’s threaded onto the needle pull the knot away from the needle eye – this will make it easier to pull out once it’s in place on the pony’s head.

I can thread a needle me

Once you’ve got the needle a little way in use a steady base like a desk or a hardback book. Push down on the end of the needle – trust me it’s much much easier this way!

Save your fingers, use a desk

Push down as far as you can and then pull out from the other side. Don’t be too enthusiastic with the pulling – you want to keep the knot on the inside. Sometimes you may have to use pliers to get the needle out but it tends to just slide out most of the time.

Don't use a needle that's too large or you'll rip the holes

Yay! One strand in, about a hundred or so to go! Work your way from the front of the head down the neck. It’s also easier to see where the needle should go if you have a lamp in front of you.

If you're adding clay to the head re-root after it's baked/dry.

First things first – give it a little twist. You can be pretty brutal with ponies – they’re very hardy   It shouldn’t budge but you never know, could always get lucky.

Next give it a good soaking in hot water – you can leave it as long as you like but I normally just run it under for as long as I can stand.

Next is the fun part! Get your crafting blade. It has to be very sharp and you really want a good quality blade – I use x-acto and swear by them but I’ve still managed to snap the odd blade. It doesn’t really need to be said when handling a knife but be careful! Always cut away from yourself and cut slowly – if it slips you have more chance of keeping control of it that way.

Always follow the original neck line of your pony. It makes it easier to reattach and will look much better than just slicing through.

And there you go – a cute but headless pony ready for a re-root.

Here's one I made earlier

Zombie treasury - mmmmmm braaaiiinnnss

From top the bottom here’s the links for all the zombie sellers on etsy!

Zombie pinup pony: Fugsly

zombie brains bowl: foldedpigs

zombie cushion: cipolla

zombie sock monster: underroos

valentine zombie t-shirt: pinuppixie

top model zombie doll: mrsevils

Danger zombies sign: YeeHaw

Printable zombie goods: prettyfnmess

zombie bear: DeliciousHobo

zombie girl ID tin: sweetheartsinner

zombie in a jar: LittleAtoms

zombie bart munny: gammaraybots

In case you haven’t heard of it yet Etsyhacks is an absolutely brilliant website that lets you install scripts to make your etsy life just that little bit easier. In their words:

Etsy’s development team are working hard to bring out new features for the site, but there’s only so much they can do. They’re going to focus on features that bring the most benefit to the most users. These scripts are provided as examples of things that can be done without needing Etsy to change anything, but which (hopefully) make the user experience better and more efficient. Less time spent administering your Etsy business, more time spent making things.

I love how kind they are to Etsy here, I remember thinking when I first heard of Etsyhacks that it was a shame there was a need for 3rd party, unpaid programmers to bring us the little changes that we keep on asking for. Anyway – back to shouting the praises of Etsyhacks!

It currently works in Firefox although there are plans to make them available for other browsers. Here’s a sample of some of the delights Etsyhacks can bring you:

fast tagger

Add all your listing’s tags at once.

bulk image uploader

Upload up to five images at once when editing a listing.

copy listing

Quickly create a new listing based on an existing one.

printable receipt enhancer

Apply IDs and class names to elements on the printable receipt page, so that you can use stylesheets to change the appearance of the page. Change the font size, hide sections, change colours, add a logo

For the full list click here.  They run this for free but I’m sure any donations would be most appreciated.

boba fett custom my little pony

I had a custom request about a week ago on etsy for a Boba Fett pony for a husband’s birthday. Here’s what I came up with! I’m a huge star wars fan so this was really fun for me. I tried to keep him authentic whilst still being a pony version. I really enjoyed doing the custom request so here’s hoping I get more.

It has, however, moved all my custom star wars pony wants up the list so be on the look out for a chewbacca and darth vader soon!* A stormtrooper will be along even quicker as he’s almost done, just have to finish off the last of the painting.

* erm by ‘soon’ i probably mean a month or two, lol.

Plants Vs Zombies Popcap Game

Help! Zombies have invaded!

And don’t look now, but they’re coming for you next!

You’ll need to think fast and plant faster to fend off this mob of helmet-clad, pole-vaulting zombies. So grab your gardening gloves, because you’re in for a riotous fight with the fun-dead!

PopCap’s newest game, Plants vs. Zombies, is coming on May 5th… so check back soon!

Every so often PopCap turn out a game that is ridiculously fun and addictive. Silly little flash games for the most part but fun none the less, a bit of light relief. I can’t promise that this one will play well but just look at the art! So cute – you know, in a zombie flesh eating kind of way…   It looks like you have to pay for this one but just wait for a little while and they’ll be a free version somewhere or other