Two More Ties

My first try at a Sailor Jerry Girl/Bottle o' Booze























And aptly entitled tie: Nature is Emo.





















It's a bit blurry and dark, but hopefully you get the gist.

AND
I got a bento box about a week ago as a X-Mas gift.
I've really really been wanting one.
I'm way excited.
This is why:
www.bentocorner.com
www.cookingcute.com

AND
I tailored a skirt down this weekend. Triangle-skirt that was too long to be flattering as is, chopped and mended and trimmed down to a pencil skirt. Since all good pencil skirts need a slit to...y'know...facilitate walking, nearly the whole back has a adjustable slit with hook and eye closures to accomodate for walking, running...other things that skirts go up for...
Hopefully there will be a picture coming.

AND
I'm still trying to think up a good banner.
I can't come up with even an idea.
I don't really want to repeat the background image, but I've drawn a lot of things similar. Then again, I might want something completely different up there. Dunno. I can tweak colors on anything to match the rest of 'em. I just don't know. Blah.
I'll probably go with another vintage-tattoo-look thing, since I like that so much.
Maybe the birds with banners of some sort.
Probably that.
See now, writing things out really does clear up the thinking process. That took all of 30 seconds and I got a good idea.

New Year

So, a part of this season is examining the past year and making goals for the coming year.

My past year, I got quite into crafting. I've rekindled my relationship with my sewing machine. I tried new things and I'm getting better at everything solely by doing.

In my next year, I have a few crafting resolutions...

1: Be a dedicated journaler:

I've already started this one. I bought a journal just before X-Mas. I couldn't wait, even though I got a beautiful one as a gift. I have a tendency to pick things up, cut things out, and generally save things that are somehow inspiring to me. I file them into a folder marked "inspirations". Well, that hasn't really worked out. I have these bits and peices of paper and junk. But for a lot of them I have no idea what was inspiring in the first place. In my journal, double stick tape is key. I'll stick my cached bit down and then write why I like it, why I picked it out of the trash can or up from the ground, why it is there. Plus all that personal stuff inbetween. There is a tendency for my thinking process to clear up when I write things down. Get it out. This is applicable across the board.

2: Quit with the wishy-washy:

This is a big one. And it is going to be applied to personal life as well. I need to make up my mind and make others make up theirs. I often start projects I don't finish. If it takes more than two hours, I'll set it aside for that "rainy day" that comes, but rarely.

3: Build a Silk Screen:

Oh My. I want to do this soo bad. It's all about time and money really. I've got the time, but I haven't got the money. It's not that expensive, but, hey, I'm a poor college student. I really hope to get to the hardware store in the coming week, but I've been saying that for over a month.

4: Shoe Paint:

This shit is harder to find than you think. It's paint that's made specifically for painting shoes. It's flexible, pretty durable, and covers well. I'd like to paint shoes with it, of course, but then there's also the many many other things it would be just fabulous for.

5: Go to California/Oregon:

Just because.

Ties and Hair Doodads.

So, I painted a lovely pepper mill to be a X-Mas present for my stepmum, but I forgot to take pictures of the final product. Ooops. It had a retro-hipster-tree forest in blue. I think I'm going to make orange marmelade.

So I made these a few weeks ago.
Materials: Ribbon, glue, molded resin+paint, bobby pins.





For the flower, I started with cutting petals out of 1 inch ribbon. I like using ribbon because it gives me a good width to start from. I use the full width as the largest petal and cut down from there. I cut the petals out by size, 5-8 of each, then put clear nail polish around the edge on the back side to keep it from fraying. Then I glue 'em all together with hot glue, starting with the center first. If I'm just going for a flower, I wrap a few around each other for the center, but in this case, I kept the middle open, not very clustered. At the end I glued the little skull in the middle.

The bow was super easy. I made a loop, creased it a bit in the middle, wrapped a peice of ribbon around it. The tails are just slant-cut ribbon glued to the back. The bone, again, is a painted peice of molded resin. I glued it down, wrapped a thin ribbon around that.

Resin is fun stuff. It comes in this metal bottle like paint thinner comes in. It hardens once the catalyst is added. It stinks like hell until it's completely dry. Oh. And it can probably kill you. You can pour it into any type of mold. Once it hardens, it can be sanded and shaped, which I've done to get nice round edges, which can be hard to make when carving molds. I've been carving them until I can get my hands on some nice mold-clay. It's a type of clay that, after hardening, is still flexible without cracking.

Also. I LOVE THESE!
I got a nice set of paint for X-Mas, something which I've been needing badly. So, of course, I had to use it immediately. I've been collecting old, ugly ties. I've had this idea for a while, but never actually...done it.

Materials: Ties + Paint. Posted in the order they were made.













Also, I've been asking all my friends to send me a list of their five or so favorite things. It's a nice source of ideas. That's where the space and cigarette painted ties came from. So please, send me your damn list people.

P.S. I need a better banner image for this thing. Any ideas?

Edit: By the way, the second one down is a peacock. Not a trippy eye thing. Wierdo.