3. Coraline

*Copy*: This week we've been copying Coraline. Lovely, animated, miniature, feisty Coraline.

To say that this incredible stop-motion animated film is jam packed to its tiny rafters with inspiration would be something of an understatement. Every inch of it contains something fascinating. I had the pleasure of seeing it in 3D and was utterly amazed and delighted by it.

If you've seen it too.... what did you think of it? Did you love her tiny gloves? How much did you wish she could fall asleep and wake up back in her real bed? Did you stay until the very, very end where there was a strange 3D mouse mobile type thing? Do you find yourself wondering if blue hair would suit your complexion too?

If you haven't seen it yet, you really should try to - you'll be ever so glad you did ...I swear, but in the meantime here's the trailer for your perusal:

Good no? There's also an official Coraline website which is just brimming with hidden wonders that, to do them all justice you should grab yourself a beverage of your choice and spend a good while mooching around Coraline's world. You can stroll into 'The Other Mother's Workshop' where you can give yourself button eyes, you can have your tea leaves read and you can [and must] watch some of the incredible 'behind the scenes' extras.

You can also see some of these extras via this YouTube page and if you watch nothing else - take 2:05 minutes out of your life to ponder the intracacies of knitting a jumper for a 22cm tall model!! It's all quite mind blowing.

*Paste*: Julie's project =
I loved the colours used in the film, particularly the clash of the yellow of her coat and the blue of her hair. I was also drawn to the garden her 'Other Father' creates for her ..... so, for my project, I took the colours and the flowers as my starting point to create these:

I already had the yellow coat and now I'm just one Google search for 'blue wigs' away from the full look!

The brooches are a mixture of fabric off-cuts, tulle, ribbon, trimmings and .... buttons... of course!

Although none of the aforementioned buttons ended up being sewn into my eyes [the threat Coraline is trying to escape in the movie] ... I did come close to having them permanently attached to my ears.

I'd removed the posts from a pair of old [cheap] earrings, used a hobby drill to make a tiny hole in the backs of two black buttons, then used a strong two-part glue to fix the posts in place to create these:

Well, when I say I did all that, what I meant to say was I gave my other half instructions to do all of that ....then waited for the glue to dry. After several hours I asumed they must be ready - and tried them in my ears. He looked up at me in surprise as I admired them in the mirror and asked "Are those dry already?". They weren't.

Luckily, although my lobes were a bit sticky I could still remove the button earrings. It could've been so much worse!

*Paste*: Kirsty's project =

Like Julie, I was utterly smitten with Coraline's world. I'd been impatiently waiting to see the film ever since spotting some of the fifty boxes sent out to various bloggers by the film's press office (you can find links to most of them here). As someone who's been on the receiving end of more PR packages than you can shake a trashy plastic stick at, these were head, shoulders and, in one case, miniature hands above the average swag. The very notion of individual, handcrafted boxes, filled with strange and wonderful pieces from the film had me completely charmed, and - let's be honest here - just a tiny bit envious. Inspired by the boxes and, in turn, reminded of Joseph Cornell's assemblage boxes (well worth Googling him if you've never seen them), I set out to create something which also had the film's strapline at its heart: "you are about to enter a world where everything you'll see has been created by hand".
My starting point was a vintage printer's wooden type tray picked up on eBay. After copious coats of white paint, the individual segments were all ready to be filled with items made either partly or wholly by hand - some by me and some by other people (the set of little badges, for instance, are from Emily Martin's ever-lovely Etsy store).
In case you think I'm suffering from some form of selective poor sight, I should probably point out that it's a work in progress, and one I'm quite happy not to have finished yet. The remainder of the tiny handmade pieces are things I'm looking forward to creating and collecting over the next few months, and to sharing here along the way.

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Guest Copy + Paster = Sian Fair likes: travelling hopefully; IKEA and rereading "Confederacy Of Dunces". Sian doesn't like: queue jumpers; hot milk and days when the post van doesn't arrive.

Sian has contributed some amazing work to the Copy + Paste Project Flickr group so we're delighted that she accepted our offer to create something Coraline-esque.

*Paste*: Sian's project =

Sian is in the middle of a doll dress-making rennaisance, taking up the craft again after whiling away many hours creating couture for her Sindy dolls when she was younger. Her miniature dress-making skills can also be seen on this 'Alice' themed scrapbook page she created in response to our previous challenge.

Sian says: "I started off with the idea of the black buttons and decided to do a button bouquet to which I added a few little black dogs and a couple of windmills. The Coraline rag doll took on a life of her own; she looks spookier than I first intended! She's made from a pair of old ballet tights."

We're also happy to have given Sian a good reason to go haberdashery shopping aftershe used up all her black buttons!

I'm not sure I'll ever be able to look at black buttons again without thinking of Coraline and the 'Other Mother' .... isn't it interesting how things can so quickly become iconic?

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*Paste*: your projects ..... we've made jewellery and dolls, started miniature collections and generally put buttons to many and varied uses. We've been thrilled that, over in our Flickr group [and on the grapvine], fellow Copy + Pasters are responding to our challenges in various creative mediums eg: photography, needlecrafts, papercrafts etc. So, what'd'ya fancy doing this time that's inspired by Coraline? Perhaps you could:

• take inspiration from the colour scheme / the cinematography / the costumes
• make something / anything in miniature
• animate something [including yourself!!]
• draw / paint characters from the film or create your own
• photograph something tiny
• dress like Coraline [guess who'll be trying that one .... it's a shame that I haven't a costume party imminent ... not that that's really going to stop me!]
• use and abuse buttons
• train a troupe of circus mice ...... whatever you feel like doing is more than OK with us!

As always, you can post links to anything you create in the comments below and / or drop them in our Flickr group and if you do nothing else .... go and see tiny Coraline on the big screen.

Julie :)