« August 2004 | Main | October 2004 »
September 27, 2004
kitty collar
We've been letting my big cat outside occasionally so the kitten doesn't drive him totally insane. I made him a collar out of a strap culled from Mark's broken bike helmet. The buckle is already molded to fit around his neck. All I had to do was cut it to length, singe the end, and sew it down. I left the other end of the buckle adjustable in case I need to use it for the kitten or Beckett gets fatter (which he will if he keeps eating all the kitten's food). I'd originally embroidered his name on it, but it looked like a 4 year old had done it, so I ripped it out and just put in some stars. The charm is made of sharpie-and-shrinky-dink and looks pretty sad at the moment. I may redo it once I find a printer that can print onto shrinky dink. I also have a bell to stick on it on the off chance that Beckett is still fast enough to catch birds, but one or the other of the kitties has managed to hide it from me.
Posted under Toys (cat and kid) at 12:11 AM | Comments (2)
September 22, 2004
tiny book
I made this little book with an assortment of papers I have around (various graph papers, lab book papers, sticker sheets, drawing paper, tracing paper, etc.). It's got 5 signatures that I sewed on my machine. The signatures are glued together (convenient since the sticker paper is only good on one side, and that's what I used for the outside pages of each signature). Binder clips were really useful for helping the glue dry really solidly. The cover is cardboard from a tissue box with some tape for decoration. It's also glued on. The whole thing got pressed under a big book overnight to dry. I used a little too much glue, so some of the pages are stuck together. I made it to carry around as a memo/idea book.
I'm mad that I lost the link to the inspiration for this project. It was a bigger, hardbound book, but with all sorts of neat papers for the pages. She even had a gallery page of all the random papers she'd collected. [Edit: Found it!]
Posted under Paper Crafts at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2004
Pixel Pages
I'm always on the lookout for great pixel art for cross stitching. There are a bunch of examples of patchwork or cross stitch or knitted Nintendo/C64 art on Craftster and Craftgrrl.
I started a George Michael (circa Faith) cross stitch from the Flip Flop Flyin minipops. There are so many minipops that I had a really hard time choosing. Today I found some little sushi icons from Little Drawings. I gotta think up something to use them for. Then of course, there are the Meomi characters for when I need to stitch something cute. Background designs for websites and such would also make neat patterns. Squidfingers and Kaliber10000 are two of my favorites.
Posted under Crafty Links at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2004
Box Purse
I made this purse out of a disk-storage box. Since I never use disks anymore, it seemed like the most useful life for it. It's just the right size for my wallet and some other little things. All you do is find a piece of string/cord/ribbon long enough for a strap and decide where it should attach to the box. Use a big needle to poke a hole in each side of the box. Thread the strap through and tie big knots so it holds. This particular box came with the elastic strap to fasten the flap, but you could certainly add that (or a piece of velcro or something) if you need to. I always get comments when I use it.
Posted under Fun with Lab Supplies at 02:37 PM | Comments (1)
September 14, 2004
No more comments
Not that anyone but my sister will notice, but I got rid of the comments. If you would like to comment, email me. I like email better anyway. After I (finally) got indexed by Google, the spam just got out of control.Posted under Random at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2004
Ideas Para Tu Hogar
Found a neat magazine that my library subscribes to: Ideas Para Tu Hogar. Unfortunately, there's not an awful lot on their website. It's kind of a Spanish-language Martha Stewart. Lots of pictures and craft projects. I plan on browsing more of their backissues the next time I'm at the library.Posted under Crafty Book/TV Review at 08:33 PM | Comments (2)
September 12, 2004
Bike Seat Cover
My new bike has kind of a hard seat, so I made this cover for it instead of buying one of those expensive ones. I have some extra neoprene from a laptop case I made a while back (which I haven't posted, incidentally). Drape a piece of the neoprene over the seat that's big enough to completely cover it with a bit of a lip. Pinch the 3 corners in and pin to fit snuggly. Cut off the excess, using the seat as the guide to make it about the right shape. It should stretch somewhat so it fits tightly, so instead of sewing right where the pins are, sew about a quarter inch inside the pins. The seams should all curve a bit so they'll hug the sloped top, bow out to accommodate the seat proper, then curve back in to secure the cover on the seat. Flip the seat right side out and see how it fits. Adjust and trim as necessary. I added another 2 layers of neoprene right on the top of the seat. I haven't tried it out yet to see if it'll shift around while I'm riding. I might end up securing the extra layers with a few stitches.
Posted under Sewing/Fabric Crafts at 03:25 PM | Comments (0)
September 11, 2004
Colophon
I've been fiddling with the site. CSS is a pain. The style sheet is a mod of "Typepad Thin" from Movable Style. Learning Movable Type is a helpful site. I suppose my next venture into MTness should be to design a banner like all the cool kids have.Posted under Random at 11:47 PM
Felt bag
I have a little friend who's turning 4 in about a month. She likes to bring a coterie of dolls and objects everywhere she goes, so I made her this little bag to carry them in. It's based on the Martha Felt Easter Bag. Instead of making the bottom 1 inch from the fold, I made it 1.5 inches for a shallower and less narrow bag. I also added a pocket, on which I embroidered her initial. Since I've still got a few weeks before her birthday, I think I'm going to make something to go in the pocket. Not sure what yet, though.
Posted under Sewing/Fabric Crafts at 12:25 PM | Comments (0)
September 06, 2004
Kitty's Oriental Craft Shop
Loobylu posted a while back about Kitty's Oriental Craft Shop on eBay. Oh I like them so much. I'm told there's a Japanese department store in New York called Kinokuniya (10 W 49th st), so I think I'll try that out before spending outragous sums on eBay. The best thing about the listings is that she has scans of lots of pages from the books. Ideas galore!
Posted under Wants at 12:57 AM | Comments (0)
September 05, 2004
Debbie Lucas felt
Debbie Lucas has some really neat felt landscapes, among other subjects. I've been scouting for ideas for some kind of large-scale picture to make. Cross stitch takes too long. Maybe this is it. It's impressionistic enough that I could probably screw up the felting pretty bad and it would still look vaguely landscapey. Link via Art for Housewives
Posted under Inspiration at 11:48 PM | Comments (1)
Embroider a Garden
I remembered more books from the California library that I've been wanting to find again: Diana Lampe's Embroider a Garden and Embroidered Garden Flowers. They're kind of old school flower embroidery, bullion stitches and stuff like that, but she really composes some beautiful pictures. I tried a few of the flowers, just doodling, and they were much easier than they looked. They're, of course, out of print. Maybe I can get them through interlibrary loan or something.Posted under Crafty Book/TV Review at 06:47 PM | Comments (0)