Faun Hooves

Honestly, this guy was my favorite character next to Edmund and Alsan. Mr. Tumnus was so kind towards Lucy after his *ahem* mistake. I mean, is that not the cutest pic!!
Anyway, I found the idea for faun hooves and thought, "Hey! That would be a really fun idea! I need a good project to work on." And then never started.
Well, I've sat on that project idea for 3 months now and have finally decided to do it! They went together easier than I ever thought they would so I decided to share and maybe you can make your own! I love projects that actually work don't you?
Step 1 The Things You Need.
The things I needed to buy where,

• a pair of high heels
• 3 pairs of trouser socks
• pool noodle
• Yarn

The rest was stuff I had like,

• Low temperature hot-glue gun.
• Jig-saw
• scrap wood
• power drill
• screws
• thick fabric
• a whole lot of improvising.

Now let's get started. The first thing is you need to analyze your high heels. Here are the ones I used.
 
 The must-have criteria on these things are the covered toe, ankle strap, and heel cover. Those are a must and you will see why later.

Step 2 Get rid of that heel
 The heel on these puppies need to go! So take that jig-saw and get going! Here's how much I hacked mine.


 Step 3 Padding
 You don't want that curve on the bottom of the shoe. So I cut some strips of fabric and padded it up. 
 You can see that the curve is gone. On to the next step!

Step 4 Give it a lift
As you can see, a faun's heel is much higher than any high heel will be. His heel is quiet up there. Now, that's CG but you can get pretty close by cutting out some wooden lifts.


 I traced the flat toe of the high heel on a plank of wood, then cut them out. They're pretty thick as you can see here.                                                               

 Step 5 Attachment
This step can be pretty hard. You have to drill through the shoe and into the wood below, making sure that they are lined up. In hindsight I would probably have cut away a bit of the top. As it is I shredded the screws, which ended up sticking into my feet. I padded those up later and am none the worse for it. But I want to save you the trouble of all that.














Step 6 First layer of trouser socks
I had the hardest time finding a pair of cheap trouser socks. Finally did at Target! YAY! But they came in three different colors. Nude, Brown and Black. Do Nude first. Make sure you cut the toe open so you can hot glue the sock in the slit where the shoe meets the wood.

(Trying to take a picture of my own leg. Not an easy task.)

Step 7 More padding!
You need to give your foot a fauny appearance. So get ride of that dainty toe with layers of more felt.

On this project you really need to feel out what works for you. But you should defidently pad the toe and ankles.
I also padded the heel to make it come to a sharper point. (You can't see it because I didn't figure it out till later and didn't bother taking another pic.)

Step 8 Getting messy with the pool noodle.
This part was a bit of a challenge and took a lot of patience. You need to cut and glue little bits of noodle to create the cloven faun hoof. You need to make it really smooth because it will stand out after the paint job.

The great thing about pool noodle is that it melts with the hot glue, fusing is together.

Step 9 More trouser socks
 Next layer is black. That way the last layer, brown, shows distinctly. Be generous with the hot glue. You don't want these socks detaching while you're wearing them.



Step 10   Painting and more!
Now comes the fun part! You take the hot glue gun and swipe it over the surface. This creates a rough surface and smalls grooves. I broke up the solid brown by adding a tanish color. Make sure you avoid those small silky threads that trail on the end. It looks odd if you have them. I also painted a little black on the inside of the clove to hide the place where the pool noodle meets the wooden block.

 Pointer!! If you are wanting to wear these outside you need to use waterproof paint. I did not and the paint began washing off when I wore them outside.

Step 11 Final sock layer and hair
Add the final layer of socks and glue on. Now comes another tedious part. You are going to add hair to the edge, where the sock meets the hoof. That will hide the seam.
I used this kind of yarn.                                             
You take the end and shred it with a brush.

 This part takes a long time because you don't want the entire hoof to be covered by hair, but you want it to cover some. So you are snipping little pieces and gluing them to the seam all around the hoof. I went longer in the back so it covered almost all of it.

Voila! You now have an amazing pair of faun hooves!


 I debated whether or not to glue hair up the bottom to the heel and up the back of the leg. I decided not too because I want to buy some furry fabric and make pants.

If you ever try this or have tried it please comment! I would love to hear how you did it or how it goes!!
 

Do Something

I wasn't exactly the normal girl growing up. Wait, take that back. I'm still not a normal girl and I'm a teen now. There are the girls that bought Barbies, baby dolls, play make up and that stuff. I can be summed up pretty good by the picture above. I was usually off doing something odd. It could be anything from making a centuar body out of cardboard boxes to sitting on a pile of dirt and seeing just how dirty I could get!
Now, I'm not doing that kind of stuff now. I've changed it to different things. Like river swimming and bow hunting. But I notice that I was having a big problem. I was getting sucked into the "teen" category. That may sound really weird, but it has a big meaning behind it.
What do you think of when you think of a Teen. (If you're a teen I'm still asking you to be honest) Maybe things such as,

• Parties
• Video Games and computers
• High School.
• Hanging out with friend 
• And then there are the bad things that teens do. (I needs to list those)

Do any of those apply to you? I didn't want to be one of those. Honestly, a teen is usually associated with...well...nothing. (And by nothing I mean nothing truly useful.) The teen years are meant to be a time of fun right? Not work or chores. Now, what if I told you that, right now - this very instant, you are an adult? Would that change the way you acted and the decisions you made? Why is that? Why is there such a huge difference between an adult and a teen? Maybe things such as,

• Work
• Responsibility
• Bills
• Lack of spare time
• And the millions of other things adults do.

Just take a moment and compare those two lists. Which one looks better? Duh, the teen one. Ah, but which one accomplishes more? Erg, the adult one.
A lot of this has to do with the laws. A teen can't really get a full time job at 13. At least, not by the world's standard.(More on that another time) So what does that leave teens with? A whole lot of extra time to goof off and do...well...nothing. Teens have hours and hours when they don't have anything to do.
Stay with me now and picture this. Stop squirming because it's only going to get more uncomfortable. What if every teen took that extra time to do something? They took the extra, say, 4-5 hours to develop a skill instead of playing a video game or watching TV. What would happen? You would get a lot of teens that have great skills and know how to use their time effectively. Then once they get to college, they know what they want to do with their life.
At our house there are two words you don't EVER say. "I'm bored." As soon as those words are out of your mouth a mom or dad will pop out of nowhere and begin dishing out jobs. After that you will be doing something for the rest of the day. When I was younger I just hated that. I didn't want to work! I wanted to do something fun! But it's helped change me. Now that I'm a teen when I'm bored, I look for a job to do. 1: Because I know it helps the family. 2: What else am I going to do? At least I'm doing something. I'm living by Chokmah because I'm not just wasting the time God's given me. (See http://chokmahkishron.blogspot.com/2016/01/having-successful-life.html)
Now does it have to always be work? Not always. I said I didn't want to get sucked into the "teen" category. So I had to run and get out of it. That doesn't come naturally. You have to focus and work on it. I started learning Spanish. (Don't ask me to try and speak yet though) I'm using the extra time I have to learn and grow. I take more time to study the bible and learn about our amazing God. I started by really working hard to be good in school. Not being satisfied with "good enough"
I started teaching myself guitar a year ago. No particular reason for that one. I love music but I couldn't bring myself to play piano. I took lessons for a year and decided the piano just wasn't something I enjoyed. My mom has always had her guitar in the corner and nobody knew how to play. So I picked it up and started hammering Google. At first I was satisfied with "good enough" playing - like I was with school. But I realized it wasn't helping me. Sure I could play a good celtic jig, but I would hit a few stale notes and I didn't mind doing that. At first
I started to push myself and actually Work (Yes work) on being really good. Amazing guitar players don't get good by just diddlying around on the strings. I played a song over and over until the notes were clear. I worked my hands to be stronger. I had to push myself to go beyond what was comfortable. You'll never learn new things if you don't move from the subjects you know. I'll never grow stronger if you don't push your body to do more. Now I can play a really good celtic jig, faster, better and it's more fun. I finish playing with a feeling of accomplishment - knowing that I've done something.
Don't stay in the teenager mindset. You can always do something!

What are you doing now? Are you pursuing college? Great! Now focus on what you hope to accomplish! Don't do it just because. Are you applying for jobs? Cool! Now focus on what skills you hope to gain by that. Skills that will affect you down the road. Still in High School? Two positive thumbs up! You have SO much time on your hands to develop skills that God has given you!   
1 Corinthians 12: 7-11 says. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. ⁸ To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, ¹⁰ to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues,^[a] and to still another the interpretation of tongues.^{[b] 11} All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.


The most important thing though, is to stay tuned with God. He has a plan for you and wants to help you. God holds that stars in place and sets the galaxies spinning. He knew who you were before you were born. He can see things down the road that you can't. Trust Him. He's the guide with the lantern and you need to hold his hand or you will fall in the dark.
Jeremiah 29:11
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future."

P.S If you have never read the book Do Hard Things - by Alex and Bret Harris. I highly suggest you give it a try.