Eyemagination Part 1 - Zipper Eye

This Eyemagination project was meant to be a nod to one of Disney's delightfully different Imagineers, Rolly Crump.  Walt had a way, much like Tim Holtz does, of encouraging each of his artists/imagineers to pursue their own ideas and styles. Out of their individual creativities and ideas, some of Disneyland's most enduring attractions were born.
"What does that have to do with this weird eye project?" you may be asking. Well, it is a nod to one of Rolly Crump's ideas called the Museum of the Weird.  He had this idea for a walk through attraction with a ton of crazy weird things to look at.  It was the precursor to what later became the Haunted Mansion, an attraction Rolly worked on as well. The museum of the weird was never to come to fruition, but in this 50th year of the Haunted Mansion, I wanted to pay a little homage to its predecessor.
 Here is a short video for those interested in a little bit of Disney History.

In my mind this project represented the room that housed all the odd eye stuff, and I even added Rolly overseeing his Eyemagination room. (Even the name has a little Disney in it.)

I started by just going through all of my Halloween Ideaology and pulling everything that had eyes or was eye related. Then I started planning what to do with it all.

For this piece I used one of the small Baseboard Frames and popped it up over a piece of canvas, to make a shadow box that housed various sizes and colors of eyes. I added Hardware Heads around the frame, topped it with a pair of wings with an eye, and added some tiny labels from the snippets pack with number Remnant Rubs.

This eye and number are from the Remnant Rubs page. I adhered them to a piece of Distress Heavystock. Then I wiped some Distress Rock Candy Crackle Paint over the whole thing with my finger and let it dry and crackle. I rubbed some Walnut Stain Distress Crayon over it so that it really showed the crackles. Then I added the oval Deco Frame.

These eyes were from one of the moon images in the products. There are several sizes of the moon, so find them and then see which one fits in the long, rectangular Deco Frame. I adhered the frame over the eyes, then when it was dry I cut away the excess. I added some Glossy Accents over the eyes. They turned a strange brownish green which is fine. Once it was dry, I again applied a layer of Distress Rock Candy Paint and let it crackle. Then added some Walnut Stain Distress Crayon.

I added the ribbon in the corner of this piece which is one of the Ribbons and Bows Adornments, but I popped an iris out of one of the eyes and glued it in the center of the ribbon with Collage Medium before adhering it to the corner of the frame. It was kind of to mimic like a winning entry at an art fair.

Now for making the eye zipper. This will take a bit longer because there is some drying time involved so either start with this, set it aside to dry while you work on other parts and then come back to it, or leave it overnight.

I aged some pieces of zipper with Mushroom Alcohol Ink. You can see the slight difference on the top teeth.

 The I got a piece of heavy black cardstock and I added some hot glue on the back and glued it in place.

 Once it is in place then add some hot glue around the cardstock on one side of the eye and get a piece of the zipper trim ready.

 Place the zipper trim over the edge of the eye on the side with the hot glue, and then press the fabric part of the trim down into the glue. Press and hold while it cools.

 Do the same thing to the other side, but as you add the second piece take care to try and line up the teeth on the sides so that they lay flat. You don't want them to overlap.

 At this point I added some Glossy Accents from corner to corner and across the whole eyeball. Keep the Glossy Accents within the zipper borders.

 You can see here that it is covering the whole eye. This is where you stop for several hours or overnight. It needs to dry. No heat gun! Just let it dry. So set it aside somewhere that it won't be disturbed and it will be level.

 This pic has several things going on. First, you need to trim the zipper to fit withing the frame. So I started by laying the frame over the piece and seeing which teeth fit within the frame and then I carefully cut away the excess pieces.  Secondly, you will notice that as the Glossy Accents dries it shrinks. You may need to add a second or even third layer of Glossy Accents and both times it needs to be set aside to dry.

 Here you can see that I determined which parts of the trim needed to go and I cut them away.

 I then glued down the frame with Collage Medium and I added a second layer of Glossy accents to the eyeball. This must be set aside again to dry flat and undisturbed.

Once it is completely dry, you can cut away the excess cardstock. You can see that I added some of the zipper trim on the sides. This was because I wanted to be sure there weren't any little bald spots on the edges after I cut away the excess trim. You might also notice that there is a bubble in the Glossy Accents on this version of the zipper eye...I have learned to accept what Tim says about this..."Don't freak your freak!" LOL! Basically, just deal with it. It really isn't a big deal.

When it is all dried and ready, you can hang it on the wall of your Eyemagination Museum.

Thanks so much for hanging with me to the end! This was a long one.  The next post will discuss a couple of other parts of this piece, including the plant.
Tami

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