Cow Eyelashes,
How-to Make Your Own
Cows have eyes, and cow eyes have cow eyelashes.
Your cow shaped step-stool can have realistic looking eyelashes
that you can touch and feel. To make your own, just follow our instructions.
You'll need: 2 crystal eyes just under 1" (24mm), a 2" bristle brush,(in the picture we use an off-cut from an industrial brush) ; a pair of sharp scissors; a pair of tweezers; some transparent sticky tape; some PVA glue: a 1" (25mm) spade drill bit and a suitable drill.
Cut a strip of sticky tape 1 1/2" (32mm)long,
brush the bristles nice and straight and
tape over the bristles as in the picture below.
Press the tape firmly onto the bristles and gently
lift the tape with the bristles attached; cut the lifted bristles
at the base of the brush with your scissors.
If the strip of bristles looks good and reasonably uniform,
cut it in half so you have 2 cows-eyelashes, one for each eye.
Mark the position of the eye on one side of the cow's head.
Drill a small 1/8" pilot hole from one side to the other side of the head.
Now drill the two 1" (25mm)eye recess holes, 1/8" or 3mm deep
then enlarge the center hole to suit the eye-stud.
Now lightly sand the eye socket edge smooth.
At this stage it is best if you paint your cow shaped step-stool
and let it dry overnight. Do not apply paint to the eye socket
as glue will adhere best to bare wood. Use just enough paint to
cover the eye socket's edges.
With the cow paint job finished and dry, rest your cow on one
side, preferably on a soft cloth to avoid scratching the new
paint job. Apply some PVA glue to cover the eye socket,
spreading a bit more into the top edge of the socket.
Using the tweezers, insert one strip of bristles still held
together by the sticky tape, loose bristles first,
into the top edge of the eye socket,
tape towards the top of the head.
Now insert the eye and press gently into the recess without
displacing the eyelash. After 10 minutes gently turn your cow to the
other side and do the same for the second eye.
Let your cow rest for 10 minutes. Now turn the cow up-side-down and
gently adjust the cow eyelashes to equal slope. Let your cow set overnight.
You can remove excessive glue with a match before it sets.
Once the glue has set overnight, using your tweezers, gently peel-off
the sticky tape, starting from one corner. Please note peel-off in bold,
because if you just pull, the eyelashes might come off.
Now you can trim and groom the cow eyelashes with a make-up kit.
See below how the finished cows-eyelashes will look like.
Feel free to experiment with different angles of eyelashes
to mimic a particular cow breed or cow expression.
Down sloping cow eyelashes make a serious cow, up sloping
eyelashes make a happy cow.
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