Crafty Update

There have been so many crafts in the last few weeks I'm going to have to split them all into a few posts. I've got a new deadline of December 9th for half of my Christmas presents, so that makes certain things move over to the ASAP list. There's nothing worse than rushing handmade gifts.

I was asked to make a hat for a young girl, who is apparently obsessed with the Steelers. I don't really have an opinion one way or another on professional football, but the Steeler's gold is a bit hard to come by in yarn. So I've substituted, and hopefully she'll be happy with the choice. The only picture I have right now is of a few hats to get an idea what the gift giver wanted.



I hope to add a blue, yellow, and red sequin to the brim of the hat in the formation, but I don't have anything for the word "Steelers" in the logo.

The pattern I used for all three hats (two pictured, along with a WIP) is the Divine Hat found at Rheatheylia.com. It it the easiest bang for your buck (time?) I have come across, and these three hats make numbers 5, 6, and 7 of that pattern I have completed.

I was playing with alternating color for the Steeler's hat when I came across a hat where the spirals are one color and the filler of the hat is another. Needless to say, I had to try it. That's the teal and blue small circle shown in the picture.

Emphasis on the small part.

Like three year old small.

Apparently I'm puling too tightly when I switch the yarn colors. So I'm making a hat for a three year old. It's a good learning experience at least, but as it's not coming out fantastically, it's burrowing to the bottom of the to do pile.

I did manage to make a completed Divine hat in a yarn I wasn't too crazy about, but now that it's finished I don't dislike as much.



I have enough yarn to (hopefully) make some mittens to go with it, because I've never made mittens, and why not? It's not like they need to be incredibly practical for the one time a year I'm in cold weather.

And finally, a picture of my wreath brightening up my front door. It looks so cheerful there against the dreary house paint!

Official Wreath Final

So I decided to nix the patterned flowers and go with the original idea I am blatantly ripping off (http://pinterest.com/pin/223913412692907039/) right down to the color palette. But hey, if it works, it works. And I think it looks so much more elegant than the crazy patterns all over the place with sticks. The patterned flowers are still in wreath form, courtesy of hot glue, so we'll see where they end up.

Oh Weekend, what have you done?

The weather is turning wonderful here, a nice low 70 in the daytime and high 50's at night. So no AC and open windows make being at home comfortable. Add to that an empty house and a crafting itch, things are coming along wonderfully for the Christmas decorations.

I found a few wreaths I liked with fabric flowers, and decided the fabric scraps sitting in my cloth bin were good victims, and some were even in the right color palette! I also stopped by the craft store clearance section and grabbed three new patterns that haven't really been used yet. We'll see where they lead me.

So here's the stick wreath I made last week with the cloth flowers on it. I still haven't decided if I'm in love with it, as it is SUPER country/farmhouse looking. But I'm thinking there's no point fighting it anymore, it's just going to happen anyways. I can always change things up next year. I also have realized if I don't get a Christmas tree I'll have to get a lot of garland or pine...extras...to add the green needed to make all these harvest colors translate.

Photo dump!







And there's still Sunday!

Ornament Update

I've begun the madness that is ornamenting. Here's a few I've finished.





They're borderline too crafty for me, but I'm sticking with it to see how it all ends.

Holiday Crafting

So now that Halloween is over (le sigh) it is time to begin the frenzy that is holiday decorating and present making. Literally as children were ringing my doorbell wanting candy I was planning out the reds and greens. Or as is the case this year, reds, oranges, yellows, and browns.

I have a small bird problem (and green apples, but that's a summertime thing). I have eleven wood, metal, and porcelain bird figurines scattered around the house. I adore them, and apparently it's genetic because my grandmother loves bird statues as well. Because of this admiration, I decided I want to incorporate birds and a woodland idea into my first Christmas in my own house. It's still up for debate on whether I'm getting a tree or not, but I have contingency plans in place.

I want to do a woodland/aviary theme without it getting too country, and that's where my problem arises. I spent far too long online finding a few anatomical illustrations of birds (think Audubon, not veins and muscles) and have fallen in love with the idea of using those drawings (which are now Creative Commons because of age, so cool!) as portraits of the birds, and creating a framed look for a few ornaments. I have a plethora of yarn in various fall colors, I purchased a roll of burlap ribbon, and my yard is covered in sticks and pinecones. Let the crafting begin.

Here's my color palatte/materials.



I've begun using Pinterest based on my sister's recommendation, and I must say I am intrigued, if annoyed at not completely understanding how to get rid of people I didn't sign up to follow. But I did glean this beauty from http://thepaintedhive.blogspot.com/2010/08/starburst-twig-wreath.html.



I will unashamedly admit to drooling for a bit about how PERFECT it would be because 1) it looks fantastic and 2) it's free! So after a day of planning and a night of crafting (and a brutal blister from a hot glue gun)...



It's not the end of it yet, I haven't quite decided if I want to

or

to it. The book pages would also be conducive to three other crafts, but the cloth flowers could be SO COLORFUL!

Hopefully I will have a few less disappointing ornaments for a post later this weekend. And if I'm lucky, a finished wreath!

Leatherwork

In non-Halloween related crafting news, I finally finished a leather cuff that isn't a magic braid! (A magic braid is where the leather bracelet is braided even though it is all one intact piece.)

I started a few months back gathering the leather scrap bags from Joann's and Michael's and working a bit with the pieces available from them. I made about ten magic braid bracelets and then kind of lost interest.



I picked the idea up again when I was bored on the weekend and trying not to spend money (grad student, remember?) and dug in to the grocery bag of leather and suede remnants. Most of the remnants are from the furniture industry, so you never really know what you'll get from a grab bag. One bag has some very nice thin navy leather and some thicker black suede that I fell in love with, and another bag has some grey-ish deerskin leather in various thicknesses.

I decided first to get out the cookie cutters and cut out some leaf shapes (in three different sizes) and see what I could use them for. I ended with two pair of earrings. (Sorry for the crazy-busy counter top, I'll work on that next time.)



and



Then I went digging through the jewelry box to see what else I could scrape up in between BSG episodes. I found a chromium chain I bought years ago for a costume, and found in my "make jewelry box" a cute little heart lock.

I measured the length of black suede I needed to wrap around my wrist like a cuff and cut out a rectangle (I used another cuff as a template for the width, I didn't want it impractically bulky) and cut small strips from the scrap suede. Then I got my handy dandy leather hole punch (it's awesome!) and set holes at the top and bottom of the cuff every few inches, and made the same holes in the strips. Then I set rivets into the suede cuff and strips(way more fun than it should be) and ran the shiny chain through the loops. Add the heart lock, and sit back to admire!



I think I may change the lock to a regular clasp at some point, because it makes the shiny cuff look a bit too gothy for me, but it's going to be a challenge to find a lobster clasp large enough to handle the chain. Overall, I'm pretty impressed with the riveting, even though most are horribly crooked. For my first time with an anvil, anvil cap, hammer, and small bits of leather I deem it a success.

I began working on another cuff the same night, and it's a good first draft idea but most certainly scrap. It's a navy leather cuff with brass rivets attaching a magic braid accent piece. My aforementioned beginner's luck with the riveting had well worn off at this point.



I like working with leather, and I hope to get some more jewelry ideas to keep it going. I don't see myself doing the leather etching, mainly because I can't draw at all, but I like the simple cutting and riveting aspect of leather. Plus it makes my house smell WONDERFUL! New car kitchen? Yes please!

Fish Tank (haa!)

So as evidenced by the last post, I'm a little (lot) Halloween crazy. And as the BIG DAY approaches, I realized I've got to finish my costume!

When I was trying to visualize the costume, I searched the magical internets for other people's costumes (which was mildly terrifying when I realized why these 50 year old men had fuzzy full-body cat costumes) and gathered ideas. I also decided to play around with an avatar creator, which I think was the most helpful thing I could have found.

I'm sure you've seen obnoxious flash ads for Zwinky and the like, but I decided to give one a try after I saw an avatar created with cat ears. So after a search or two to find a completely free avatar site, I found a whole bunch of distractions, and finally . Add a few more distractions, and tada!


That's a cute little version of what I wanted my costume to be. And I totally ripped the avatar off for my shirt. I was debating a few options, but knew I wanted black and white (I'm going to be a calico, and I'm already red). It's rather hard to see because of the small size, but the black tank on the avatar has a school of skeleton fish on the bottom side. Or possibly octopi.

So off to Walmart for me to try and budget up this shirt.

I found a simple ribbed black tank that fit surprisingly well and hid the bra straps (a must!), some puffy paint in white, stencil sponge brushes, and a plastic school folder. Most places with a craft department do sell stenciling sheets, which are flexible clear or white plastic sheets that come in an 8x10 sheet for about $1.50. While those work wonders if you're not into budget-crafting, the plastic double pocket school folders (about $0.80) offer about three times the surface area and are just as workable. I got mine in hot pink, because, well, why not? Be sure to get a color that will mark easily when you're tracing.

So back to the Bat Cave (cat cave for this? no, we'll stick to bats) and I found a stencil for a fish which is apparently part of the flying spaghetti monster religion. Regardless, it's a skeleton fish with the added bonus of pirate-y eye patch! How much more Halloween can a stencil get?

After painstakingly (not!) cutting out the paper stencil, tracing, and then cutting out the plastic stencil, I ended with two sizes of my pirate fish skeleton.



Add painter's tape, cardboard under the shirt, and puffy paint, and my fish tank is complete!



As you can see, I haven't stenciled in a few years, so it's not the crispest fish shirt ever. And the white puffy paint didn't really want to be friends with the black tank. But hey, they look ghostly. I didn't check the placement of the fish before I stenciled, which may come back to bite me, but I'm fairly certain I avoided the fishy boob conundrum. We shall see!