Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Cheery Projects for Dreary Days

Well, it's nearly the end of the 2nd month of the year, but I still have time to squeeze in another new project. (Shooting for one new item in the Firefly Cargo Bay per month of 2008 - so far so good)

I am cheerfully presenting the latest product available - the Kaylee-esque Parasol! These paper parasols are hand painted by me with as much love as Kaylee put into decorating her own (I'm sure).
The parasol covers a full 32" diameter and is painted in acrylic red yellow and green paint for bright color and durability. I'm offering them for $20.00 plus shipping. Email me for orders and questions about them; earthgirl@kos.net

The one pictured is my personal one for display at show booths and I'm absolutely thrilled with it. It was my first attempt at recreating an actual prop from the show. I've discovered that the spirals are not geometric nor mathematical in nature. My husband will attest to this as he tried several methods of getting me a spiral pattern off his computer. It took me several weeks to figure out how to get the spiral as close looking to the one Kaylee has in the show. You have to picture the final method that worked - me kneeling in front of the tv with a piece of paper stuck to the screen while the dvd player was on pause! Sometimes it's best to abandoned the high tech methods and go back to basics I suppose!

The next challenge was translating that flat drawing onto a slightly conical shape. The one pictured is not quite right, but was my first attempt not only at getting the spiral right, but actually painting a paper parasol. Now that I've gotten the hang of it all, the others will be faster to complete.

The entire time I was struggling with the challenges of doing this project I kept thinking that somewhere there's a costume/prop person who has no idea of the trials their one little prop has presented to those of us who have recreated it. It just struck me as the funny quirks of fandom.

ANYWAY! Until next time:
"Cap't, can you stop her from being cheerful, please."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's gorgeous, Karen. Nice work!

Ma Cobb said...

beautiful!

Stephanie said...

Are you still selling these?
Let me know? (krausemouse13@aol.com)