We’ve had a lot of changes lately.  New in-office job, new move, new house.  Sometimes when crafty time is put to the test, it seems the urge to create actually kicks into overdrive.

While shopping for house necessities in our new place while my family was closing up shop in our old house, I came across this little fake succulent dome display for $8, and it spoke to me.  “HEEEYYYYYY,” it said in a loud whisper.  “I bet you could TOOOOTTALLY make something out of this.” 

Those are the types of voices you don’t ignore (especially since it wasn’t telling me evil things).  So it went in my cart and came straight home with me.

Thankfully, most of my craft things had been unpacked, so I grabbed my box o’ Sculpey  and got to work.

I wanted its body to wrap around that succulent scenery, so I gave it an internal structure of aluminum foil so I could bend it and try out a few poses.  I pictured some sort of floaty thing, maybe the way they display underwater creatures at natural science museums.  I wanted it to be sort of puppy-cute (I have a thing for the squoosh-faces), and have a leafy-seahorse vibe.

Once I had it where I wanted it, I preheated my oven to 250, put it on a baking sheet (with an aluminum foil “pillow” to hold him in position), popped it in, and turned off the heat.  Then I left it in there for a few hours, til the oven had cooled.

After I painted it in acrylics, I used E6000 glue, and dabbed some on its cheek, its fin, and its tail, using sewing pins on its tail to keep it in place until it dried

When I posted it, someone said it looked like a mix between an axlotl and the Lorax and they dubbed it a “Loraxlotl,” which made me laugh.

So there it is!  It may become decoration for my new office, it may be for our house, but it’s one of those things that just needed to BE.  And you have to listen to those things, because that’s where the fun stuff is.