A couple of months ago I found this awesome humpback whale crochet pattern on Etsy, from seller edafedd.  I fell in love instantly!  He’s so unique!  I’m sure there are lots of crochet dolphins out there, maybe even some orca, but who can say they have a humpback whale?  I completed him quickly, and now he lives on the  back of my couch.

Rob loves granny things.  Doilies, old British tv shows, and hot water bottles.  I, on the other hand, am pretty prejudiced against hot water bottles.  I hate the smell of the rubber.  Yick!  So when, much to my dismay, Rob recently bought a hot water bottle to bring to bed to make his bum knee feel better, I was less than thrilled.  So, the solution: I made him a snuggly hot water bottle cover, from a felted upcycled wool sweater, and I added a handmade felt Superman patch, so it’s stylin’ too.    It was nice to sit down and really use my serger. I haven’t used it much, and the last time i used it it all jammed up.  But this time I threaded it pretty fast, and it worked like a charm.  I also got to play with the differential feed too, so that was neat.  The water bottle cover came out perfect!  Yay!

So I found an excellent tutorial over at Neauveau Fiber Arts on how to use food dyes, such as Wilton cake decorating dyes, and kool-aid to dye wool.  Now, I’m a creative person, but there’s also a very science geek part of me.  I was very intrigued with the fact that in this tut, you add the dyes to water, so the water becomes colored…..THEN, when you boil it enough, with vinegar, the fabric completely absorbs the dye.  So the water ends up clear.  So fascinating!  I’m working on a couple of rug hooking projects at the moment, and  I wanted to overdye some turquoise wool I had with a deeper turquoise to give it some depth, and I also needed some orange too.  I got out my dyepot, and my Wilton colors.  I like also liked this method because it’s just food coloring, so it’s safe.  No chemicals mussing up my kitchen.  I even used a wooden spoon, and don’t have to worry about using again it for food.  Below, the results!  In both pictures, the “before” fabrics are on the left, “after” on the right.  I am pleased with how bright and vibrant they are!  I’m not sure on how colorfast they are, but only time will tell for that. This technique is good for any animal fibers apparently, so wool (I used wool fabric, but can’t wait to try roving too!), alpaca, etc.

I’m glad that I didn’t have anywhere to go today, and that Rob booked today off work a few days ago.  It’s nice not having to go out in this blizzard.  It’s crazy out there!  So, I’m going to stay all snuggly inside, working on photos (WAY behind on my flickr uploads), and Etsy, and maybe do a little art journaling.  I’m sure WOW will work it’s way in there somewhere too.  Yes, I am addicted.  And I am kicking some serious ass.  Level 77 Night Elf Hunter baybee.  Much to Roxanne’s dismay.  She hates being known as “the girl who hangs out with the girl who plays WOW.”  hahaha  I don’t even have to make supper tonight, since I have porkchop and baked potato leftovers.  Yum!

I’m just realizing now that I haven’t posted since before Christmas.  I got through Christmas.  I was glad when it was done and over with.  I only did one Christmas craft.  I hadn’t planned on doing any, but then I saw a post on a blog (which I can’t seem to find now, oh well) of a kitschy little craft from a vintage magazine.   They used vintage Christmas balls, and glued them to real ice cream cones to make little ice creams to hang on your tree.  I got excited about it, because I had some little plastic ice cream cones I had bought forever ago, that i had tucked away, knowing I’d do something with them someday.  I also have quite a few vintage Christmas balls.  I LOVE them!   So, I gathered all that together, along with some dimensional paint to use as “syrup” and glitter, beads, and microbeads to use as “sprinkles”.  And Voila!

I made myself a button bouquet long ago, knowing it’s quirkiness would go great in my craft room.  My friends, they all laughed.  Not with me, at me. HAHA.  It’s not like I came up with the idea of button bouquets; people sell them on Etsy even.  I know they’re silly, but they really do fit in in my craft room!  hehe

Roxanne had a great idea for her art journal.  She took a whole bunch of page theme ideas, put them on slips of paper, put them into a container, and when she needs inspiration, she pulls one out and goes with it.  I just had to steal this idea!  I found a bunch of theme ideas on the internet, and threw in some of my own as well.  I chose my first one last night, and it was “My first memory”.  Excellent!   I grabbed the scrapbook my mom made me of my childhood, and scanned in the pic I wanted.  You can see it below, with a TTV (thru the viewfinder) effect added.  I was 21 months old, and I remember this moment.     I’m all set to print that out, along with some buttercup graphics, and journal up a storm.  I have yet to post pics of my art journal, but I will get to it eventually, especially when I finish this page.

I made this carousel horse while I worked at Lewiscraft.  It was a lot easier than it looked.  I started with a papier mache form, which I base coated in the corresponding colors I was going to be using for the beads – white for the body, peach for the hair, etc.  That way the space between the beads is a lot less noticeable.  Then, I grabbed my glue gun, and those strings of beads you buy by the meter, and just started wrapping, gluing as I went along.  I think it turned ou really neat, and the manager loved it so much she put it on display in the store.  I stopped working there a few years before Lewiscraft shut down, soI have no idea whatever happened to it.  Hopefully it found a good home with a little girl!

My bedroom is chocolate brown and turquoise, and I needed a little something to hang on the walls, so I found these 2 oval wooden frames at a thrift store.  They were already painted white, which was what I wanted, so bonus.  I painted the inside trim chocolate.  I printed out a couple of pictures of birds, then traced their silhouettes on brown paper.  Once cut out, I clued them to some fantastic Martha Stewart scrapbooking paper, cut to the size of the frame, and voila!  Fast, lovely art!

I found this cool little travel ashtray at a thrift shop, and knew I had to do something with it!  I loved the bright red!  I’m a Bettie Page fan, so I stuck a pic of her on there, and snazzed it up with rhinestones.  I made this forever ago, and it’s long since sold on Etsy, but I had to share it.  It was too cool!

I recently did a little tea dying.  It’s super easy, cheap (just the price of a couple of tea bags!), and a lot cleaner than working with chemical dyes.  It gives a great aged look to fabrics, laces, ribbons, even paper.

All I did was boil a cup and a half of water, throw in a tea bag – in this case orange pekoe (different teas yield different colors and intensities – experiment!) let the tea steep for a few mins, then toss in the item I wanted to dye.  I just let them soak for a few mins, until the desired darkeness was achieved.  Keep in mind the item will appear darker when wet than it will actually be when dry.  I laid them out to dry, and voila!

Below, you can see I dyed lace, velvet ribbon (it aged the pink and green very well), as well as a few plain index cards I crumpled up.