Monday, November 1, 2010 at 7:00AM ...knitting for three hours and only having two inches of scarf to show for it.
I feel like I'm inside an icanhascheeseburger moment.
Crafts, Photography Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 7:00AM I love Anthropologie. In at least this area of my life, I am a lemming. I do NOT, however, love Anthropologie's prices, especially where jewelry is concerned.
Cases in point...
The Hanging Bellflower Necklace at $138...
The Silver Foxglove necklace for $128...
And a relative bargain... The Allamanda necklace for $42:
I decided to see if I could craft a fabric necklace of my very own, and see how affordably I could make it. I drove to Wal-mart, picked up some satin, tulle, and felt, along with coordinating buttons and glass beads, and I am happy to report that $13 and two hours later, I was left with this:
A close-up of the rosettes:
I was surprised that my craft project turned out so well! I really wasn't sure if the necklace would turn out great or a big, fat FAIL. I would post instructions, but... this project was totally easy peasy dumbo-proof. I just sewed fabric where it looked pretty. All you do is gather fabric and then sew a cute button in the center of each flower. I do recommend Googling how to seal satin, because that skill came in pretty handy.
Have you ever made your own jewelry? How'd it go?
Crafts Monday, December 14, 2009 at 7:00AM .... Really, baby makes four, as there is also an adorable family pup to take into account!
If you are like me, you love making invitations, cards, anything of the paper variety. Because our friends are planning a fun bebe shower for friends Wrigley-T and Senor Diamondback, that meant invitations - my favorite! SO, today I am sharing the invites I created in order to inspire those of you planning showers of your own.
First, the porn - addressed most appropriately to our buddy Dirrrty Nurse:
We are going with a chicken theme to the shower because... Wrigs and Diamondback like to call each other Turkey and Chicken - I know, total weirdos ;) - and they call bebe boy "Chicken, Jr." See???? Makes total sense now, doesn't it. :D
These invites were actually super easy to make. I just drew up and colored the main invite, then printed it out on a normal printer. Then I affixed mailing labels and envelopes liners and... voila! All set.
One note about envelope liners - two big moneysavers to know is that using gift wrap as a liner is usually a big costcutter AND there is no need to line the envelopes all the way to the bottom of the envelope. Really, you only need about 2" worth of liner to be effective. Nobody would ever know that you didn't line all the way to the bottom of the envelope unless they checked. Which would make them hilarious.
Also, I used the lauded Paper Source Envelope Template pack to measure out the width of my liners. Something obvious (but easy to miss in the heat of crafting!) is that for square flapped envelopes, there is no need to trip off the pointy tip, wasting paper... just turn that sucker around and use the squared off end of the template.
Happy crafting!
INGREDIENTS:
EASY PEASY!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 7:00AM I am a HUGE proponent of travel journals. I have been on a few significant trips in my life: Europe with my Dad and Tweets, Hawaii with an old boytoy, and most recently: my Sistamoon. On each, I kept a travel journal. At the end of every day, I took ten minutes to write down everything that happened that day. Vacations go by SO fast - it's easy to forget all of the details... I am so happy to have those travel journals to look back on remember all of the fun moments.
SO, of course this meant I had to prepare a travel journal for the Sistamoon. As you may remember from past blog posts, I referred to my fave craft book:
Trusty Esther had a travel journal tutorial... SCORE! Creating this journal was a lot of work, but I knew this was a special trip, so I wanted a special kind of journal - all the work was well worth it. Let's get started!
You'll need:
*I found all of my materials at Blick art stores.
Here is the finished product... This is an accordian bound book, which allows the user to stash all manner of paper ephemera/souvenirs from your trip! For me, I would be visiting eight different ports, so I wanted to create eight different sections to my journal. Each section featured a signature made out of drafting paper for writing, an envelope to hold my Metro tickets/paper remembrances, and a map of any given port. I created a map to glue onto the front cover, and elastic straps to hold the journal shut. This was my first homemade travel journal, so I learned many things I will do differently next time! See below for things YOU should do differently from me - learn from my mistakes, sister!
*Many apologies for the pictures - I had to use my flash because I had no natural light! No judging!
First, I created the paper part of the eight signatures I needed to create.
Then I took my envelopes and prepared them for binding into the signatures. I bought eight envelopes - one for each signature. I measured the envelopes before folding to figure out where I'd need to sew (so they didn't stick out too far.)
I gathered maps for each of our eight ports and prepped them for inclusion in the signatures. Again - measuring to make sure they didn't stick out further than the paper in my signatures. I just printed off most of my maps from the internet.
Next, I lined up my signatures and prepared to use my awl to punch holes for binding. I ordered my signatures like this: paper on the outermost layer, then the envelope, with the map on the innermost layer. I had eight signatures, so I had to repeat the awling process eight times. I measured for the three holes I needed to create: 1 hole in the middle, 1 a half inch from the top, and 1 hole a half inch from the bottom. Make sure you put something thick like a phone book under the signatures as you awl (!) That awl will cut you or ruin your countertop if you don'!!
After that, I prepped the binding cover. I selected a prettypants coverstock and folded the paper into 1" folds. I had eight signatures, so to include the covers, I needed ten "troughs." Again, use that bone folder!
Then I was ready to sew my signatures to the binding! I strung bookbinding thread onto my needle and essentially sewed a figure eight. After lining up the signature to the binding, The needle/thread runs from the signature into the binding in the middle hole first (leaving a tail), then back up through the topmost hole, back down the middle hole, up the bottom hole, then box knot to the tail you left from your first stitch. (Google box knot!) Repeat eight times! You may need a beer on hand for this part. I'm just sayin'.
This is what the binding looks like on the outside - perty, huh?
Now, on to the covers! The art store couldn't cut my chip board for me because it was too thick. He assured me I could successfully cut the board myself with an Exacto knife. Um yeah. I thought my homemade cutting looked jankity. If I had it to do over again, I'd cover the chipboard in pretty fabric or paper to cover the mistakes. They would have looked more finished that way. :/
I affixed my map I drew to the front cover and punched holes in the back to string the elastic through.
Voila! Have you ever made your own book? I'd love to see pictures! Please send them to penny@pantomimepapers.com and I'll post them if anybody has them. Book-making is a new skill I'm learning, so I'd love to see what other people have created!
Monday, June 22, 2009 at 7:00AM Sometimes you find things in the weirdest places. A few weeks ago, I was in Bed, Bath, and Beyond looking for a new comforter. Amongst the irons, hampers, and microplanes, I found a calendar made up of Barbie fashion sketches. I walked out of BBB without a comforter, but I DID snag that calendar. I just know there's an incredible crafty something to be made out of these sketches! What would you do with these prints? Hrm?
These drawings kind make me want to bust out a ball gown - they're so fabulous!