Even more T-shirt stencils!

Fun Christmas gifts for the boys' friends for only $2! Gotta love the sales at Michael's.

For Silas next door:

For Silas' sister Bird:

For cousin Hadley (a real-life Texan cowboy, according to the boys)

Doll dress

My sister very compassionately suggested a $5 limit on gifts for nieces and nephews this Christmas. It's really hard to find something that doesn't suck for $5.

Aha! My niece is two, and she has a doll she loves! Sweeeet! This stashbuster cost me nothing.


I didn't have a pattern -- or the doll. (It's in New York and I'm in Minneapolis.) My mom in South Dakota, though, has the same kind of doll at her house, so she sent me the measurements and I made a cardboard dressform. I sent the dress down for my mom to try on her doll, and it fit! Now if only my nephews played with dolls ...

Ewok village

PVC pipe for tree trunks, Sculpey for the hut door frames, craft foam for leaves, a sheet of platic Corroplast for the platform, and lots and lots of primer and paint.


I got some hunter-y sweatshirt-type fabric to use as a mat to simulate a forest floor.

There's also an elevator, but it doesn't work very well yet.

Happy Halloween. So tasteless

I was invited to a party where I KNEW everyone would have an incredible costume. Boy howdy. One guy arrived as one of the Dick in a Box guys. Unbelievable. "Well, if you can't be incredible," I told myself, "just be mean."

I present Mount Lushmore.

Lindsay Lohan, (my son standing in for me), Gary Busey, and Amy Winehouse.

Bedroom rug

I made for my bedroom. Because I downsized from a queen bed to a double bed, there's a surprising amount of more floor space. Plus, I put my sewing machine in my bedroom, so I have a chair in there now, and I'd like it not to be on just bare wood. So I decided I finally should get a rug. I saw this in ReadyMade Magazine: They took a bunch of carpet samples and just duct-taped them together on the back. HA! I must have spent 20 minutes going through rug samples at Ax-Man (Best. Surplus. Store. Ever.) to try to find complimentary colors and patterns. Then I cut some of them diagonally so I would at least have some sort of pattern.

It's not the coolest thing, but it's not bad for 16 x $0.95. :-)

Shark teeth display

My awesome cousin Kate is a wildlife biologist for the state of Georgia. I asked her for some shark teeth, and a week later, a big bag of teeth (complete with handmade identification card) arrived. I got this display box 40% off at Michael's (is everything always 40% off at Michael's? I suppose it is if you have the coupon), combined some interesting Wikipedia facts with the information Kate also provided, and made this.

I still have not figured out how to adjust the manual exposure setting on my camera, so that's why there's the GIANT GLARE as BRIGHT AS THE SUN. Sheesh.

I hosted a baby shower for a dentist last weekend, which means I had 19 dental professionals in my house. The loved it!

X-wing fighter pilot shirt

It was a lot of fleece, some fabric paint, a black shoe string, and a couple feet of gray strap.

Bowling ball bag project

While looking at Wii games at Target the other day, I saw a Wii travel bag designed to look like a bowling ball bag. "Cool!" I thought, because I'll be taking the Wii to SD for Christmas with the family. But I ought not buy a $30 bag -- no matter how cool -- that I'm going to use maybe twice a year. I ought to wrap the whole thing in a towel and put it in a tote bag -- that's more my budget right now.

But it got me to thinking: Bowling ball bags are cool. So the next time I was at Savers to drop off a bag, I buzzed through the bag section. And there it was, for $4.99!



It still had the ball ring stand inside. The rest of the inside sort of sucked -- it was just the B side of the vinyl. (Ignore the newspaper -- that was for the pattern of what I'm getting to.) I washed the bag with hot, soapy water, then zipped up a bowl of vinegar in it overnight to get rid of the vaguely room-deodorizer-ish Savers smell. It worked really well.

Then I remembered this fabric called "Atomic Ale." I first got some of this a long time ago to make a wallet. When the bolt went on closeout, I had to buy another yard. No idea what I would do with it, but I knew something would present itself.

I wasn't sure I'd have the patience to sew the lining into the vinyl, so I made a pattern out of newspaper, then hemmed a piece of the fabric to fit each section. I adhered the fabric to the vinyl with adhesive craft spray. So far it's sticking really well!

A friend asked me, "What will you do with the bag?" I said, "What WON'T I do with it?" I think I will start by making pouches and sleeves out of Reflectix or bubblewrap for all the Wii components, and then covering the pouches and sleeves with the fabric I have remaining. I think it's going to be so awesome.

Star Wars pajamas

The boys are growing freakishly fast. Asher of course has Tom's hand-me-downs, but if I make Tom Star Wars pajamas, then Asher will want some, too. So here we go. I was having trouble with the sleeves (I'm 35! I should be able to manage a damn sleeve!). So I came up with this: Use a T-shirt, and just sew "extensions" at the seam. It worked so well, I can hardly believe it.

It looks kind of dorky with their names down the leg, but I have a hard time keeping their clothes straight, and I wasn't going to make a size tag to sew into the waistband. We had these iron-on letters left over from when my ex made a project. Ugly, yes, but already on-hand, and free! :-)

Here's Asher brushing his teeth. Well, shaking his toothbrush.

Prescription goggles for $2.99

I think I first saw this on Instructables.com. Totally inspired by my blindness in the water (and my inability to wear contacts anymore, thanks to these weird bumps on my left eye), I dug through the bathroom cabinet to find my old glasses.

I popped out the lenses. I bought goggles on clearance.


I Dremel'd the lenses so they'd fit better on the goggle lenses. I bought some epoxy (my very first epoxy project ever -- and I learned a lot, like "Epoxy seeps, which will frack everything up"). If I had it to do over again, I'd have resigned myself to going really slowly with the epoxy, even if it took a few days. The end result looks a little sloppy, but they actually work really well!

At least so far as I can tell on land. I doubt I'll get in a pool again before next summer.

Stenciling for babies ... sort of

I bought off the registry for a friend's baby shower, but then I wanted to get her something fun (and unique), too. I thought about doing a freezer paper stencil, but suddenly thought of all the leftover scrapbooking letter stickers that I have downstairs. I mean, you buy "stars and stripes" lettering for one particular page, and then what do you do with the rest? I know! You use it to create a negative-space stencil-type thing!

I found funny T-shirts to rip off online.

So: Step 1. Use stickers from your craft stash.

Step 2: Dab fabric paint on. This gives it a pretty funky, almost graffiti-esque look -- which is cool, but really I just needed to minimize seepage under the letters, because some of the lines in the letters were quite narrow.

Step 3: Allow it to dry. Remove the stickers (tweezers help). Iron to set the paint. Impress your friends.

Another cool thing would have been to use freezer paper to make the outline. A duck or something could be pretty cute.

Kitchen curtains

Simple, white, cheap: Everything I was looking for in a set of kitchen curtains. I bought several yards of this funny weave-y texture-y fabric on clearance for $1/yard. Oh, and it's probably best not to sew while you're drinking -- I totally messed up the hem on the right-side curtains and had to fix it once I sobered up.

Plain, plain white -- even with a texture -- was a bit blah. I had my fancy sewing machine do an embroidery stitch as a detail throughout, using blue thread that matched the cabinets.

They'll get a little less stiff as they hang there, I know -- but I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.

Coffee Cup Cozy

I made this for my organic chemistry professor. After I finished two semesters of o-chem, she met with me during the summer to help me prepare for the Dental Admissions Test. She refused any kind of payment, but I know she has a weakness for fancy schmancy coffee drinks, so I sent this to her.I made the buttons out of Sculpey (red for oxygen, blue for nitrogen, which is how most molecule model kits represent them). The professor knew the molecule immediately (it's caffeine!).

For the inside of the cozy, I crocheted a simple rectangle that would cover up (and protect) all the embroidery guts, and I sewed that inside. I hope that will make it last a long time.

Adama and Roslin

The Lords of Kobol dig crochet. So say we all.

This was a gift for my son's preschool teacher. She and I talk about the BSG episode every week when I drop the kids off, and all the other parents look at us and no doubt think, "You're chatting about a show about genocidal robots? At a preschool? Really?" The show is taking a break until January, so I made Teacher Ruth these dolls to get her through the withdrawal.I'm not crazy about how the Admiral's hair turned out (a little black helmet, for crying out loud), but I was pretty happy with the method I used for Laura Roslin's hair (a method I first encountered in "Creepy Cute Crochet"). I went sort of a minimalist route with details. I mean, Roslin wears a black mini and a jacket, and pumps -- no problem. But Adama's uniform? I could totally have gotten carried away with trim and the belt buckle and the boots ... but then I never would have finished!

Star Wars stenciling!

When we planned our trip to the Science Museum's Star Wars exhibit, the boys decided they needed new shirts for the occasion.

Tiny Jabba with special guests

Just another day at Jabba's palace:




Then Boushh the bounty hunter arrives.


But Jabba sees right through her little ruse!

I made this as a going-away gift for a friend of mine. I got a small metal box from a craft store, and I sewed in some magnets on the bottom side of Jabba. That way he won't roll off. Leia and Boushh each have a magnet on their base, too. I made the figures from Sculpey. I cut a few layers of this random foam I had to make the box lining so they wouldn't bang around in there.

Pocket Jabba

I made this for my friend Karen, and then forgot to take any photos. Fortunately, she posted it on her own blog (adventuresofcancergirl.blogspot.com).

Twisted
friends

WCK and I hosted our playgroup last week, and everyone once again got a
good laugh at our Mr. Potato Head in the Darth Vader costume. (His official name
is Darth Tater, by the way). I explained that this was a gift from my sister
before WCK was born, and somebody pointed out that I must have some really
twisted friends and family: Every time the playgroup comes over, they find
something bizarre around here that was a gift from someone else.

This is true. I do have twisted friends. Today I opened the mailbox to find
that my friend DeAnna in Minneapolis had hand-crocheted me a little tiny Jabba
the Hutt. I must add that this was a gift for ME, not for WCK. I'm not a Star
Wars fanatic the way Jay is, but I do enjoy Jabba. I wish I could spend my life
lying around, laughing at people, and eating frogs. You don't find a tiny Jabba
in your mailbox every day, so it was a very special afternoon. DeAnna's note
pointed out that his nostrils somewhat resemble Clark Gable's moustache. You'll
have to judge for yourself:

He's so tiny that it was hard to get a decent photo of him, so I posed him
in a variety of locales. Here he is shopping for groceries:

Lounging at the Emerald City:

Hangin' with his good friend Thomas:

"Aloha," says Jabba. "I'm off to Hawaii!"

Finally, attacked by a T-Rex. Fight back, Jabba! Fight back!




You know how I'm always complaining that I never have the time to, say, clean out
our closets or read as many books as I want to, or prepare a fancy meal, or
write the Great American Novel? This is why.

Jabba the Hutt

This took a while to finish! But not because it's all that big -- I just couldn't settle on how to make it. First I thought the way to go was with two strands of yarn and a larger hook, but all that did was consume vast quantities of yarn. Then I started over using a G and Sugar 'n Cream sage worsted weight. Then I tried to make him as all one continuous piece, starting at the end of the tail, so that I didn't have seams, but his head area never looked right. So then finally I realized a seam wouldn't look bad if I sort of hid it under his lumpy torso. (Heck, that's why you can't see seams on MY body, either. They are hidden under my girth.) It ended up looking a little "gathered" as I stitched it all together, but I can live with that.The other end -- the end opposite his tail -- wouldn't snug up very well, so sometimes there's that bump. Argh. Makes it look like Jabba has contracted some sort of abdominal goiter.

For scale:

Nativity Set

Preparing for finals took over my life after Thanksgiving, so no fun projects for me. Immediately after my last final, the boys and I went to SD for a family wedding, then back to MN for Christmas. Most of my project time then was spent with the boys, which was great fun. Lots of painting and lots of Play-Doh, let me tell you.

In December, my son's daycare director saw a little Santa doll I made for my 2 year old. "That's so cute!" she said. "It almost looks like someone made it for you!" Karyn said, "DeAnna made it." She asked Karyn, "Do you think she'd make us a nativity set for the kids to play with?" "Oh, sure!" Karyn said, "DeAnna just knocks these things out left and right!"

(Did you all just cringe with me? Thank you.) But I was actually quite happy to do it, and so of course this turned into a project that has taken over my life over the past four weeks. I have probably spent 60 hours on this -- a couple hours here and there in the evenings and MANY hours each weekend. I got a terrible bout of 24-hour flu (or food poisoning), and all I could think was, "If I can just get upright, I could finish the shepherds."

I'm delighted with how the project turned out, but not as happy with the photos. I think a project to tackle soon is making a light box to do it right.

So here is the story:

As shepherds

were watching their sheep (I may make a few more so they have a respectable flock)

an angel appeared before them

and said, "Go see the baby. And his mom and dad."

"You will know them by their very tired donkey."

"You will find the baby lying in a manger lined with Fun Fur."

Three kings arrived.

(When I told my four year old Tom that I was making three kings, he said, "One is going to have red hair, right?" He and his best friend Charlie (with hair as red as red can be) were two of the preschool's Christmas program this year, so of COURSE one has to have red hair! Tom didn't mention his own hair at all, which was interesting.)

I guess they could all three kings could fit on one camel.

They brought gifts. (I made a box of gold (Glitterspun yarn), a silver bucket-y type thing, and a red sack tied with a silver cord. I finished them the night before I gave it to the daycare center and didn't take pictures, so just picture something cool. What I made isn't as cool as what you're thinking of.)

And then a giant attacked!

I've never done a big project like this before. The daycare staff was really happy with how it turned out. Me too. I can't imagine making another one for our house, though!