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.