Bowling for... buttons?

Dear Shayne,

We had "movie night" at my company tonight. It was drive-in style, as they showed the movie on the side of a building and we sat outside to watch it. It was fun! Of course, I can never resist a button-making opportunity so I made some to commemorate the event. Aren't all events made better with buttons?

The movie was The Big Lebowski, so someone suggested I make bowling ball buttons. Since bowling balls are round and buttons are round, I went with it. Yup, that's right -- I'm Kelly the Lazy Button Maker. You betcha!

I have a hard time taking good photos of buttons, especially when it's dark out. Too much glare/reflection. Oh well. You get the general idea. In the end, I think the "bowling balls" also looked like little surprised faces with their mouths in the shape of an O. This ended up making me laugh just a little too hard.

Tomorrow... I actually begin work on OTB by starting with... [insert dramatic music here]... the dreaded caulk.

Or else I sit on my butt with a pint of Ben and Jerry's and a stack of chick flicks. We. Shall. See.

love,
kelly

Big Dessert

Dear Kelly,

Last weekend, Randy and I spent the night in DC at a fancy pants boutique hotel. We ate dinner at the Beacon Bar & Grill. I learned about that whole spinach/e Choli business when I tried to order artichoke and spinach dip. Telling us about that seemed to really fluster our waitress, because after that we got crap service. Randy got a ribeye that he said was just 'okay.' I got the Steak Frites in a bourbon reduction sauce, which was one of the best things I've ever eaten. My mouth is watering, just typing about it. I ordered a Frozen Chocolate Mousse with Whipped Peanut Butter Bombe for dessert. I asked for it 'to go' since we'd already been waiting around years for this awful waitress. We got back to the hotel and I opened up the dessert to find the bombe, which was amazingly good and they even included ice cream in a little cup so it was still a la mode. By 'little cup', I mean a plastic ketchup cup.

Love,
Shayne

Eye Candy

Dear Shayne,

Here's another ATC I made for that swap I'm in. Just thought I'd share it as it's about the only crafty thing I've been doing lately. And not very much of it... 2 down and 7 to go. Eep.

At any rate, her theme was "Our Feathered Friends." Thinking back, I hope she meant birds... and not Vegas showgirls. Hmm. Very different card that would have been.

Bathroom? What bathroom? Oh... that bathroom. Yeah. I think this weekend is... caulking. Heh heh. I said, "caulk." Heh heh.

love,
kelly

OTB: Shayne's Powder Room

Dear Kelly,

This is the ugly towel ring that is on the door. Say goodbye to the ugly towel ring.


Celadon green walls, trim, and door. Trim and door must be painted white. Walls will be fuschia!


Ugly light fixture is being replaced.


Stupid towel bar across from toilet. That's going. Will hang some art there. Replace dirty dish towel with nice hand towels in towel ring to be installed next to sink


More of the green door and trim. Why didn't they leave it white??


Boring old mirror that's getting replaced with something much more fun.


Ugly switchplate and outlet covers that need replacing. New plates are the only things I still need.


Love,
Shayne

I feel stupid... oh so stupid...

Dear Shayne,

This post title should be sung to the tune of "I Feel Pretty." I don't feel pretty right now, though. I feel stupid.

Of course, what's more stupid: doing something stupid or writing about it publicly once you've done it? >sigh<

You're just dyin' to hear what it is now, aren't you? All right. Here goes...

As I've mentioned before, I am in this swap on craftster. You know, where I make things for strangers and send them off and in turn, strangers make and send things to me... right. Swapping. Weird, but true.

Anywho... I am supposed to make ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) for the other people in this swap, based on their themes. One theme is "Seven Deadly Sins and/or Seven Virtues." Another member of this swap asked what they (the sins and virtues) were, so someone else posted this link.

Sooo... I see the chart with the list of vices and then there's the column next to it with "Virtue against which it sins." I guess I assumed that second column was the 7 Virtues (based on that heading) (Okay. It's not that crazy of a leap, is it?)

One of the items listed in that column was "Love," and I've got some heart-y type crafty stuff, so I picked it. Last night, I made the card. This morning, I sent it off. Yay!

But wait. Hold the yay.

I don't know why I didn't look into it further at the time, but I didn't. And I don't know why I just thought to look into it now (after the card has been sent), but... I did.

The 7 Virtues are actually (apparently):
faith, hope, charity, fortitude, justice, temperance, prudence

Not "love." Whee. So... I've now made something totally random and sent it straight off. Whoopie. I offered to make another card if she wanted and she was very sweet and said I don't have to, but it will be embarrassing when she posts my card and, um... well, "Love" is not one of the 7 Virtues! Great.

Is it time yet to go back to bed? Sheesh.

love (not one of the 7 Virtues, btw),
kelly

PS -- After even further research (Where was all this damned "research" when I made the stupid card?), I found the following comment on the wikipedia entry for Seven Virtues:

Another list of the Seven Virtues consists of a combination of the four Cardinal Virtues and the three Theological Virtues:
* Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude
* Faith, Hope, and Love (charity)

Even though this is a non-traditional list of the virtues and wikipedia should be taken with a grain of salt, I am goin' with it! Yeah! These are my virtues, bay-bee.

A bad day for crafting

Dear Kelly,

After my two glue incidents, I did manage to glitter the rest of the acorns. I think I'm making them into magnets.

Then I decided to gocco some cards. The screen flashed okay. The prints came out fine. Then I decided to do something I'd never done before...clean the screen so I could use it again. Now for those of you across the continent who haven't used Print Gocco, supposedly you can clean the screens and re-use them. Or you can wrap them up good in Saran(TM) wrap and put them in the fridge or freezer and thaw them out to use later. I've got several (3-7) in my freezer awaiting the day I'm brave enough to try reusing them. But last weekend I bought special Print Gocco cleaner and I figured I'd give that a try. The cleaner didn't work and tip for everyone out there...don't touch Print Gocco ink with your bare hands. Definitely don't smear it around. My hands were black. Sorry I didn't take a picture of that.

Love,
Shayne

Operation Transcraftinental Bathroom: Part I

Dear Shayne,

So sorry to hear about your glue incident. Why, oh why, was your mouth open? Too bad you didn't capture the "money shot" on film -- you might be able to make some decent cabbage selling footage like that on the internet!

Meanwhile, here is my first installment of our agreed-upon craft-along, cleverly titled "Operation Transcraftinental Bathroom" (or: OTB). We have agreed to goad each other on to complete the decor in each of our bathrooms via our joint blog, so I'm going to go first.

The object of my overhaul is our full bathroom, also known as the Skull/Skeleton Bathroom (also known as the Bathroom That Scares Grandma -- she doesn't get the skull fascination. She sticks to the Paris-themed bathroom). We're in pretty good shape, but there are some things that have gone undone in the 18 months since we've moved in, and now is the time to finish!

Fortunately, the paint is already done in here (thanks, Bill!) and so are the light fixtures (thanks, Bill!) and towel racks (thanks, Bill!) (Oh, I helped with that... I'm not a total slacker.) (Just mostly.) So what else is there? Without further ado, let's go on a little tour of the bathroom...

Here is a shot of the sink (from the toilet). Mainly, what this area needs is some art next to that mirror. I'm thinking a anatomy-style skeleton poster I have. Plus, maybe a decorative shelf for skull-y stuff. Of course... I also waffle that maybe this needs a little cabinet. Sigh. Indecisiveness=undone bathroom.


Here's a better full-on shot of the sink. What we need here is a better container to hold our AWESOME skull soaps... something with a lid, because they get dusty. Oh, yes. And a new liquid soap dispenser. We had one that I got in a swap on craftster, but the paint ended up peeling off. I also think that some skull knobs on the under-sink cabinet might be fun, but perhaps not by the completion of this Operation:


Moving on, we have... the windows. This starts to get to the actual work needed in the bathroom, as the molding has recently been installed in here and the nail holes need patching and the trim needs painting. Fortunately, we painted most of it before installation, but... it's still going to need some work. Oh, yeah... I also need to scrape paint off of the window panes (actually, all of the windows in the house need that... but let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?)


Aaaand... here's a long shot of those same windows... mostly for perspective (to see where the sink and toilet are) but also to show the big space of wall between and above the windows. We have an awesome giant skeleton to go there. That will be my reward for painting the damned window trim.


The toilet area is pretty much done, but I would like to make a box to go on top of the toilet to contain "unsightlies" (read:tampons) and I would also like to do something more exciting with our boring-ass black trashcan.


[See our cool black and white tiled shower? It's totally awesome! And a big pain in the butt. For anyone out there reading this -- don't get black tiles in showers for the same reason you don't buy black cars -- it shows everything. It's a nightmare to keep clean. /public service announcement]

Moving on... we have... The Door.


This is going to be a major hassle because the trim around this door needs painting. (To be perfectly honest, the trim could really use replacing, but that activity goes way beyond the scope of this little project, so I'm just slapping some paint over it.) The trick to this (for me) is painting the trim without getting paint all over the walls. Ha. Ha. I don't have the steadiest of hands, sooo... we'll see.

Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention the worst part of the door trim. This is the part that keeps me up at nights. I need to [somehow] fill/spackle/caulk this ugly part of the molding where it meets the wall. This will get nasty, as I am not the handiest of spacklers. Whee!


Hmm. Now that I've got photos of the work to be done, I guess I need a Plan. Or... to go lie down and pretend this isn't happening... oh, wait. That's not an option. (Is it?)

Sooo... step 1 should be... I guess... (I'm loathe to even say it)... the spackle/fill/caulk/whatever of the nail holes and door trim. But first... there will be lying down. Tomorrow is another day, right?

Hey! Now it's your turn: I showed you my photos, you show me yours!

love,
kelly

Glue 'incident'

Dear Kelly,

Yesterday, I turned out some quite adorable glittered wooden acorns (like wooden from the craft store, not wooden being from a tree). I ran out to get more and had some painted and waiting for me to add the glitter this morning.

I opened the glue to squirt some on a plate and it went EVERYWHERE. I was wiping glue off of the acorns, jars of glitter, everything. Then I figured it just wasn't a good time to glitter acorns.

Fast forward to about 15 minutes ago. I set everything up, open the glue, very specifically point the bottle in a different direction so as not to squirt it everywhere. I got what I believe they call in the porn industry the "money shot." Glue on my clothes, my hair, in my mouth (why was my mouth open), on my glasses...I was the naughty crafting librarian.

This time I think I'll just take the lid off and pour some glue out.

Love,
Shayne