Warm Fuzzies

Happy Easter!

Just a quick little post today.  Earlier this morning, I happened upon these instructions for a cute little pompom bunny, so I naturally dropped what I was doing to gather supplies and make one of my own.  She was a quick little project, and I really enjoyed working on her.

I can't exactly put my finger on why my bunny's a little "special" looking, but it gives her character, right?  Right.  I improvised for the wooden base by using a lid that I had saved from a sports drink.  It worked beautifully.

My bunny ended up being around 5" tall.  She's now enjoying her new home in the kitchen, ready to go a-hunting for eggs in a moment's notice.  But the poor dear already has her hands full...

And what has Oscar been up to?  Well, he's been busy getting to know some new friends.  They're all a bit busy hiding eggs right now, but they'll be sure to come out and play another day.  Cheers!

Egg Carton and Magazine Flowers with Rolled Magazine Vase

The challenge for this month's Whip-lash is to "make something that utilizes pre-used/pre-loved/trash/junk/waste items".  I really wanted pick my brain and think of a creative use for some household waste items.  So, from a plastic egg carton, an unwanted magazine, two empty toilet paper rolls, whiteout, a bit of acetone (nail polish remover), a pencil, some rubber bands, a bit of wire and some glue, I give you my contribution to Whip-lash: a vase of flowers.

    

I initially wanted to write up a tutorial, but couldn't find the time to do that, so I'm just going to talk about the process in detail.  Each flower is cut out of an individual egg cup from a plastic egg carton; the first cuts that I made were to separate the cups.  The bottom of each egg cup usually has a little "hill" for the egg to rest on, so I just made six ot seven deep cuts from the top of the cup to the bottom of the "hill".  Then for each section, I cut out a petal shape freehand.  The flowers were already starting to look pretty cool...

But since it's a recycling project, I dug up something else I could recycle and use...a bottle of sticky/nearly dry whiteout correction fluid.  I thinned the whiteout with a bit of acetone, shook the bottle up for a good while, and the whiteout was ready to use (probably not for its intended purpose...it's a bit thin for that, but it suited my plans for it perfectly).  I used the whiteout brush to paint the flowers with the revitalized correction fluid.  I had just enough for one thin coat of whiteout on each flower. 

While waiting for the whiteout to dry, I started to work on making a vase to hold the flowers.  I leafed through a magazine that I rescued earlier this week from a woman who got off of the subway the same time I did; she was about to toss the magazine in the garbage when I intercepted (hehe) and asked if I could have it.  I tried to pick out dark-colored pages with no text.  Since I only had one magazine, I couldn't find enough pages that matched my criteria, so I basically just ripped out all full pages with only a limited amount of text.

 

I took a magazine page and put the side that I wanted to show down on the table.  I then smeared some glue all over the page, save the bottom two inches.  Then starting from the bottom of the page and using a round pencil as a guide, I rolled up the page (similar to how you would make paper beads).  I made several of these rolls, and arranged them in a line on a table in manner that I found pleasing.  I cut an empty toilet paper roll in half, then stacked it on top of another toilet paper roll.  The outside of of both rolls were covered with glue, and then I carefully positioned the magazine rolls along the outside of the toilet paper rolls.  I secured the top and bottom of the roll with a rubber band to help form a stronger bond.  I took the unused half of the toilet paper roll and cut it down the side so that it could lay flat.  From this "cardboard," I then cut out a circle with a diameter slightly larger than that of a toilet paper roll.  (You could trace an empty toilet paper roll, but since I didn't have one on hand, I just eyeballed it).  I scored the edges and folded them up so that I had several tabs.  I covered the tabs with glue, and pushed it into position as the "bottom" of the vase.

While waiting for the glue to dry, I went back to the flowers.  I had intended to use coathangers for the stems, but, hehe, I don't own wire cutters and was having a heck of a time trying to cut them with scissors.  So I used a thin wire that I found in the closet, and cut several foot-long pieces with my scissors (which, by the way, now have several new "teeth").  Using an X-acto knife, I poked a hole in the center of each flower, and threaded a wire through.  I bent the end of the wire in a circle and added some glue to secure the wire. 

Now for the finishing touches.  I trimmed the ends of the magazine rolls so that they were even with the toilet paper rolls.  To complete the bouquet of flowers, I decided to make some leaves. I went back to the same, albeit thinner, magazine, and searched for any pages that had a green-colored area.  I cut out leaf shapes with approximately a 2 inch tail.  I folded the leaf parts in half to make veins, and applied glue to the tails of the paper leaves.  Then I wrapped the tail of each leaf around the wire stem of the flowers in random positions.  I brought the flowers together in a bunch, and tied them together with a rubber band.  I trimmed the wires one last time, and placed them in the magazine vase.  For extra embellishment, I decided to make a few longer, grassy leaves.  At this point, I just used whatever pages were left in the the magazine and cut out long, thin triangles.  I added a blade of "grass" to the flower arrangement here and there to finish the piece. 

Now I have a "new" vase of flowers to use for decoration in the apartment.

Skullie wrist warmer set

Heh, so it may be a week after Halloween, but I'm still in the spirit.  Or, at least, my wrist is.

This set of wrist warmers, one for Kyle, one for me, was made using a fun pattern written by Jennifer Tallapaneni called Zombies Need Not Apply, free online from MagKnits.  I made them for Halloween last week, but only I actually wore it on Halloween (with my earrings, of course).  I think Kyle is scared of his wrist warmer.  He's a chicken like that. 

The wrist warmers were my first experience with fair isle knitting...I think I'm hooked.  Color work always intimidated me, but it's just plain old stockinette stitch with a bit of yarn juggling.  A piece of cake, and so rewarding.  If you've noticed that the wrist warmers in my photos look a little wonky, you're right...it's because I didn't block them.  I know, I'm a bad, bad girl.  Hence the unfinished, homemade look.  Please excuse.  =p  There will be blockage this weekend.

The wrist warmer really does keep my wrist nice and toasty warm.  Kyle didn't want to go out of his way to let me photograph his arm (boooo! I so wanted a picture of us wearing our wrist warmers and holding hands, like at the bottom photo in the MagKnits pattern *pout*), so here's a picture of my wrist warmer, all by its lonesome.  I got a couple of strange looks from people when I was taking photographs of myself in the park, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do!

Crafty Goodness in the Mail Part 2: Things I've Sent

As promised, here's the little package that I sent to the wonderful Kari.

A little stripey sock dog, and apple cozy for Kari's mom (she has a "P" name and is just as awesome and crafty as her daughter).  I haven't really sent out many packages or letters through snail mail before, so I didn't have any nice stationary sets and cards on hand.  I know, bad, bad, Shirley.  So, I made do with what I had available, broke out my colored pencils, and drew a little card.  The dog's supposed to be a Shiba Inu, like Kari's dog Ginger, Crafty Ginger's little star.

    

Just as I was about to embroider eyes on the sock dog, I was struck with an idea...I could leave the dog unfinished, and leave Kari with the option of embroidering features of her choice.  And I'm so glad I didn't finish him; I would have chosen something boring...plain old black circles, most likely.  Kari's going to embroider sleepy eyes on him - I would have never thought of that, but it'd be *so* adorable.

And, hehe, I'm really ashamed to admit this, but the package that I sent to Kari wasn't put-together nicely like the one she sent me.  Everything I sent her was, get this, shoved into a plastic grocery bag, and stuffed into a Priority Mail envelope.  *cough*  Lucky for me, Kari's an angel and didn't scold me for it.  But I'm not always this awful at presentation, honest!  (Then again, there were all those years in college where my friends and I would put birthday gifts under a blanket, consider that "gift-wrapped", and let the poor recipient lift the blanket to "unwrap" her presents...)

 

This is the little something that I sent to Anna, along with some munchies, as a thank you for the quilted pencil case she had sent to me.  The two little birds are made with polymer clay, and are meant to be table-toppers.  And the card...well, Anna has two adorable birds in London, and a cat named Booty in the U.S.  I don't know how I got it in my head that they all lived together, but there you go.  Heh, I'm sure all her animals would get along if they every were in a room together, but it's fun to let your imagination run away at times, right?

I actually drew Kari's card and Anna's card on the same day.  The way I saw it in my head was that if you put the two cards side by side, they'd read as a single picture.

   

Heh, it kind of works, right?  =)

Crafty Goodness in the Mail Part 1: Packages I've Received

I woke up this morning to a most lovely surprise.  Kari, the superstar over at Crafty Ginger, gave me the heads up last night that a package she had sent out should be arriving any day now.  After a whole night of anticipation, I jumped out of bed this morning - disheveled, unshowered, but oh-so-excited - and rushed to the lobby floor to greet "the mail guy" in my PJ's.  My heart skipped a beat when I saw that a package was waiting for me in the mailroom.  I quickly signed my name, grabbed my package, raced back up to my apartment, and attacked the box with some scissors.

I greedily emptied the box of all its contents.  Just look at all these lovelies!  There's a gorgeous pair of hand-made earrings (made by Kari and her mom), a Crafty Ginger tsumami kanzashi wristlet, yummy ribbons for my stash, and a hand-made card (from a Craftster swap).  Kari also thoughtfully included two giant bags of Flamin' Hot Cheetos (my secret vice...I literally drooled when I saw them...isn't that awful?).

Here's a close-up of the earrings, and the note that accompanied them.  I LOVE these earrings!  They're so me, it's scary.  The iridescence of the pearly beads, the extra hint of purple from the smaller bead, and the skill with which they were crafted fascinates me.  I put them on immediately, and they instantly added class to my pajamas.

    

Here's the piece d'ressistance: The tsumami kanzashi flower wristlet that Kari will eventually sell in her etsy shop.  Look, it's made (with care, hehe) just for me!  Woot!  Her packaging's simply marvelous, and I love the color scheme.  One of my *favorite* color combinations is lavender and green.  Kari, how did you know?

   

I love everything about this wristlet - the ribbon band, the buttons, the carefully-made flowers.  As you can see in the picture, each kanzashi flower has a button at it's base, so you can change them to suit your mood.  Nifty, huh?  And there's more!  Kari also included a pincushion with a button on its back, so I can just pop that on and sew my heart away at my fancy.  (What a great idea, might I add).

That's my right wrist making it's modeling debut.  Isn't the wristlet lovely?  Bwahahah, and it's mine, all mine!  *cackle*  Kari, I am so sure these will sell like hotcakes when you do get around to listing them in your shop.  Thank you so much!!  I'm still not over how wonderful I felt opening your package.  Everything inside is so special.  You are awesome.

While I'm on the subject of crafts and mail, Anna sent me a lovely little package a little ways back.  It came with the cutest mailing label, ever!  It's a beagle from her Some Dogs (c) illustration.  I was a little peeved that the people in the mail room heartlessly wrote my apartment number over the label, ruining it's perfection.  *sigh*  I suppose I'm over that now...well, as over it as I'm ever going to be, at any rate.

   

And here are the goodies inside:  A wonderful pink patchwork pencil case, two gel pens, and some fruity gummy candy.

I've been using the case to store my crochet hooks; it's the perfect size for them.  Haha, not at all uncharacteristic of me, I immediately ate the candy...so delicious!  Thanks a bunch, Anna! 

Stay tuned tomorrow for "Crafty Goodness in the Mail Part 2: Things I've Sent."

Hershey Bar Bookmark

I was dying to make one of these ever since I saw it.  What a clever idea!  I'm not a fan of chocolate (I know, I'm some kind of freak), but I wanted to make a chocolate bookmark so badly that I *gasp* went out and purchased a Hershey bar.  I let Kyle do the hard part (eating all that chocolate). ..and then he immediately threw the wrapper away, even though I specifically told him to save it.  I mean, I spent a good 5 minutes carefully cutting the back of the wrapper with an X-acto knife.  What freak takes that much care in opening a candy wrapper if she didn't have bigger, better, plans for it?!?  He said it was a reflex.  Suuuuuure.

At any rate, my wrapper was retrieved, albeit a little crumbled and ripped in more places than I would have liked.  The tutorial is really great in explaining the process, and I followed it very closely.  The only thing that I did differently was use an X-acto knife instead of the tip of a mechanical pencil to score the foam; I think this substitution makes it easier to make clean lines.

I like how the brown foam gives the chocolate bar some depth.  After cutting out the bite mark, the bookmark turns into a pretty convincing Hershey bar.

Before I left for work in the morning, I left the completed chocolate bookmark on top of a book that Kyle had been reading.  He said that he thought it was a real candy bar when he first saw it.  But his dreams of eating a candy bar for breakfast were shot when he saw the post-it note that I left him.

The drawing's supposed to be me with cat ears.  Yeah, don't ask, I did it in 10 seconds.  Kyle says it's "Evil Shirley."  I don't think she looks evil!  Anyway, back to the bookmark: here's a shot of it in action.  (The picture's a little dark; I took it when I got home at night, so the lighting wasn't too great).

Making these would be the perfect excuse to go out and buy a case of chocolate bars (heh, if chocolate's your thing).  I know I'm tempted to make a couple more...after all, you can never have enough chocolate bookmarks.

Cork Stamp Portraits

   

While there's really nothing novel about using wine corks to make stamps, I thought I'd take the time to write a tutorial so that I can share insight from my experience in making these stamps.  Carving portraits can be a little...fiddly.

So, these are the supplies that you need:

• A clean, dry wine cork
• Scrap paper
• Pencil
• Pen
• X-acto knife
• Ink pad (for stamping)
• Adhesive backed paper for labels (optional)

So after you've gathered the supplies, it might be helpful to first make some preliminary sketches like I did in the picture.  Try not to make the sketches too detailed, since the surface is pretty tiny, and you're going to have to hand carve the cork.

TIP:  Remember that when you actually use the stamp, a mirror image of what you carve will appear.  Very important when you want to incorporate letters, etc.

The next step is to use an ink pen to draw your sketch on the cork.  Like so:

TIP: Try to pick smooth wine corks, like the one on the right, for the best results.  Well, unless you like having pock marks all over your face (or want to create that impression), then by all means, pick a cork like the one on the left.  You'll see that I used a "bumpy" cork for my own portrait...I look like I have a goatee in the final product because of the holes in the cork, hehe.  A worthwhile sacrifice for the sake of comparison to illustrate the point.

Okay, so now that we have an outline on the cork, it is time to carve away the outside.  Make sure you insert the knife straight (ie perpendicular) to the cork's surface.  Use the X-acto knife to trace an outline along the outside of the drawing. 

TIP: Make sure the blade is sharp!  Dull knives are far more dangerous than sharp knives.  Plus, sharp knives cut cleaner, and your life will basically be easier when you carve the cork.

Turn the cork on its side, and make a light cut around the cork, about 1-2 mm from the side with the drawing.  I found it easier to divide the top of the cork into four sections, and work at cutting away one section at a time.  So when the area outside of the drawing is hollowed out, your cork should look like this:

   

Notice the depth of the cut (look at the cork on the right, turned on its side).  Okay, now we're ready to get at the details of the drawing.  First use the knife to trace an outline along the inside of the face and ears.  Next, outline the facial details.  Just remember to go from the outside in.  After you have traced the outline for your entire drawing (the presence of the cork provides stability for your knife to create clean edges), then you may proceed to slowly pick at the cork to create a raised image.  Use the very tip of the knife to pick away tiny pieces of cork.  I'd start with the areas where there are thin ink lines, like the eyebrows and the edge of the face. 

It's better to chip away small pieces than to risk taking off an eyeball or a piece of ear like I did.  Slow and steady wins the race, so in this case, if you have the patience to carve the cork at turtle speed, more power to ya.

         

Yay, so now we're all finished with the carving part.  Your stamps are ready to be used.  You can stop here if you want, but for the sake of completeness, I made a label for the top of the stamp.  Basically, take your stamp and stamp it on some adhesive backed paper.  If you're feeling fancy, you can use embossing powder to emboss the image.  Now, remove the adhesive backing.  Position the stamped image near the top of the cork, making sure the image is as closely aligned to the actual stamp carving (on the bottom) as you can get it.  Stick the stamped image to the cork.  Turn the stamp around, and push the top into a table a couple times to apply pressure and create a solid bond.  Now, it's time to cut out extra paper around the edges.  I used small sewing scissors for a more precise cut.  (Alternately, you can use the top of the cork as a stencil and cut out the circle before stamping the image/placing the stamped image on the cork.)

(In case you're wondering, I had to use my right hand to hold the camera, hence why the scissors are suspended in thin air.)  Your stamp is now finished and ready for display.  Enjoy!

   

Here are my new stamps, proudly displayed at the corner of my craft station.  I hope this was helpful.