OTB: Skull-y toilet!

Dear Shayne,

It's been a long while since we talked bathrooms. It looks like my last post about our skull/skeleton-themed bathroom was last April and I haven't done much since. I've done most of the things on the original Operation Transcraftinental Bathroom (OTB) list, but I'm still sorely lacking in the decor department -- hanging more stuff on the walls (besides the giant skeleton), making some curtains, etc. (I should probably make a new list.)

Want to see the latest exciting skull-y project in our bathroom? I knew you would!

I was inspired by the awesome vinyl toilet graphics sold by vital on Etsy (go check them out -- everyone needs vinyl toilet graphics and these guys have some terrific stuff). While their stuff is awesome, they did not have a skull. (Well, they probably do have skulls... otherwise, their heads would be kind of floppy. What I mean is, they did not have a skull vinyl graphic.)

So I searched Etsy for someone selling skull vinyl graphics and I found Nestlings. She doesn't seem to have the skull in stock right now, but she did then and she is SO nice and accommodating -- she'd probably sell you one if you want it. (Also, she has a lot of other cute things, so it's worth clicking on over to see that.) So I ordered a custom size from her to fit our toilet tank and voila:


The awesomest toilet in the world! Yeah!

love,
kelly

Heart garland: The anticlimactic reveal

Dear Shayne,

Well, the heart garland is done, but I'm not sure if this is the "Big Reveal" I was hoping for. First of all, I'm unsure about the ribbon I used to tie it all together. I have tried my best on recent projects to use stash materials only, but this ribbon... it's falling a little flat. With all of my precious, precious hearts it seems like I may have to bust out $3 and buy two yards of some nicer ribbon.

Also, this is kind of a crappy photo of it. It is really really hard for me to get photos of things that are extremely horizontal. If you click on through to Flickr in this photo, you can see a bigger picture. (Even that one is not so hot, though. I failed to fiddle with my camera settings correctly when I changed the lens... sigh. By the time I realized the error, it was dark. Boo, winter.)


Tiiiiny little hearts there, huh? Kind of anti-climatic, isn't it? Oh, well. It's great in person and I really, really love it. Yay!

Also, I did not show you a close up of heart #10. Are you ready to get sick in your trashcan? Cause it is super-duper shmoopy. I mean, really:


It's my initial and my valentine's, intertwined. Awwwww. Yeah. I'm gross. But I love that man o' mine. And it's a heart garland. So, um, there.

Meanwhile, I still think that some of the previous hearts could use more embellishment. I did go back and help out ol' Black Button (heart #3) by adding a couple more buttons:


I could see this being an ongoing project, where I re-visit and embellish hearts from time to time. But for now... well, for now it's finished and it's hanging above the mantle and I love it very hard. So whee!

love,
kelly

Wip: Heart garland. Not quite there yet.

Dear Shayne,

Are you getting tired of this project yet? Alas, tonight I only have another Work in Progress update to post.

The good news is that the garland is finished (yay!) The bad news is that the weather is horrible and I can’t get a decent picture of it. So here’s the cruddy picture I took of #9 yesterday (we’re going to call that blurry background “arty,” okay?)



I stumbled upon this great Loteria fabric buried deep in my stash and decided to make a little heart patch for this one. I tried to look up the meaning of the heart card just to make sure it didn't say, "Don't read our blog," but I didn't get too far.

I found this entry from the Wikipedia, but all of the associated riddles were in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish, so I used Babelfish to translate. I got this: "You do not surprise heart to me, that return in the truck." Hrm. Cryptic. I found this site that has English and Spanish versions of the riddles. They say: "Don't miss me, heart, because I will return in a truck."

I'm not sure about missing or surprising the heart, or its subsequent return in a truck, but at least I know it doesn't mean, "Don't read our blog," so I'm feeling all right about posting this photo.

The weather forcast looks decent here tomorrow, so keep your fingers crossed for the Big Reveal!

love,
kelly

Poopy

Dear Kelly,

Sam is always drawing very elaborate stick figure pictures and little comic books, so I signed him up for a cartooning class.

Here are the drawings he made in the first class:





































Love,
Shayne

Barely crafty

Dear Kelly,

Sam is going to be 8 (!!!!!!!!!) on February 16th. As you know, he's obsessed with monkeys, so I made him monkey invitations. Okay, so I used clip-art and it all took about ten minutes, but he's happy with them. He doesn't want me to seal the envelopes with monkey stickers because he says people would tear and throw away the monkeys. This from the boy who titled a drawing (see next post) "Die Dummy."

Love,
Shayne

WiP: Heart garland... almost... there!

Dear Shayne,

I've got two more hearts for the heart garland done. Almost there!

Here's heart #8:


This embroidery pattern is from a fresh n' funky embroidery pattern book called Doodle Stitching by Aimee Ray (wow, I wrote "fresh n' funky" before I read the subtitle of that book is "Fresh and Fun" -- these patterns really are fresh and fun/ky!)

Her pattern is actually more lovely than what I have done, because she uses a satin stitch to make the dots surrounding the flourishes and I used, erm, the Bedazzler. My satin stitch totally sucks, so I resorted to Bedazzling it. Sorry, Aimee. Your book is awesome, though.

Unfortunately, I could not get a photo of Heart #9 tonight before the big fiery ball in the sky disappeared. Tomorrow, though -- Heart 9 and... possibly 10! (So, erm, a finished garland, perhaps?)

love,
kelly

WiP: Heart #7 for the garland

Dear Shayne,

Had big plans to finish these hearts yesterday, but I hit a bit of a roadblock. Here's #7:


I need to just whip up the last 3 and tie them all together already, don't I?

love,
kelly

Sam's Race Car

Dear Kelly,

Sam's in the Cub Scouts. And every year, the Cub Scouts race cars they've built in the Pinewood Derby. This year, Sam's car is called "Monkey Bus." The roof is detachable and inside there is space for four Lego guys to ride along.

Sam won within his Den, but came in fourth within the whole Pack. A champion to me :)

Love,
Shayne

My .02: Another awesome Etsy find

Dear Shayne,

Check out these awesome earrings I bought this week... made from real pennies. Awesome!


I got these from Etsy seller Sudlow. I found her via The Storque (Etsy's news blog) -- they did an article on her as "One of Etsy's most hearted" members. I can see why -- she makes lovely, lovely things.

Here's the backside of my earrings:


It doesn't look like she currently has these particular earrings in stock, but she has many other beautiful items, including these amazing perched blue jay earrings (WOW) and also this pretty little ring... I typically love gigantic rings, but the detail on this one just blew me away.

All right... back to making hearts. It's Saturday and I want to finish 'em up. Can she do it, folks? We shall see!

love,
kelly

WiP: Sixth heart in the garland

Dear Shayne,

I am going to need to step up heart production if I plan to finish this garland by Valentine's Day. Meanwhile, here is the latest in the Heart Herd:


All of these buttons came from my awesome jar o' buttons. I used red DMC embroidery floss to attach them, which I think turned out great -- they don't need to be super-secure (since they're not actually holding anything closed), so one pass with a full strand of floss was all each one needed.

I love me some buttons!

love,
kelly

Object of Lust: Mini Pouch

Dear Kelly,

You know how I love birds. So I'm really loving this mini pouch made from Japanese fabric by Michy Moo:


I love the colors and I love the unusual vertical orientation of this pouch.

Love,
Shayne

PS - This photo was taken from Michy Moo's etsy shop, where you can find this lovely object of lust, as well as many others.

I like this tool: Carl ® 18" Heavy-Duty Rotary Paper Trimmer

Dear Kelly,

My absolute favorite, expensive-but-worth-it tool is my Carl ® 18" Heavy-Duty Rotary Paper Trimmer, $149.99 at Staples.

From Staples:

Ideal for trimming items like photos, digital prints and sheets

• Cuts up to 30 sheets of 20-lb. paper
• Patented locking cutting rail and premium steel blades
• Paper length 18"
• Features preset measurements for common-sized items
• Mfr. limited lifetime warranty (excluding cutting blades and cutting mats)
• 3 1/2"H x 15 3/4"W x 26 3/4"D

Over here, we call it the Big Carl. I love Big Carl! He does everything he's supposed to do. There's even a cute little compartment to store spare blades and cutting mats.

If $149.99 seems like a lot, you can get Carl in a 12" or 15" size. Or if you really want to go crazy, you can get the 25" for $199.99!

I've had various rotary and guillotine style paper cutters in the past, and nothing compares to Big Carl.

Love,
Shayne

I like this tool: Pinpoint oiler

Dear Shayne,

I was flipping through the Keepsake Quilting catalog the other day and I found the Side Winder bobbin winder. At first I thought, "Wow! That would be great! I could re-fill a bobbin without unthreading the sewing machine!" And then I realized that I would have to unthread the sewing machine anyway because, of course, the thread I want to fill the bobbin with is the one on the machine already, right?

I guess the way that it benefits you is if you want to... thread bobbins for some other project while you're... in the middle of sewing on your current project? Huh. Yeah. I don't do that. I definitely wind the bobbin as I go (meaning: when it runs out of thread, just inches from the end of the seam I am working on).

Plus, the other thing I do when I wind the bobbin is oil my machine, so I have to take everything apart anyway. When I first learned to sew, I was taught this: if you've sewn long enough run out of bobbin thread, it's time to oil your machine. I know that a lot of rebel/renegade sewing folks (vs. "sewers," see?) don't oil their machines that often, but I've seen the long-term effects of non-oiling and let me tell you: oil that puppy.

When I've asked people why they don't oil their machine, they say that it's messy. A-ha! This is why I want to share this great tool with you: the Pinpoint Oiler.

This thing is great! It deposits the tiniest drop of oil off the end of the nozzle and not everywhere else in your sewing room! Also, it's got a little rubber cap on it, as well as a plastic cap. It's double-capped! You don't have to worry about oil getting out of this bad boy when you're not using it.

I took the photo above from Clotilde, which is where I got mine. I've never seen them sold in a store, so if you want one, you might have to order one from them when they're back in stock (they're backordered right now -- they must be good, right?) I personally have one with the 3 1/4 inch nozzle and that is what I'd recommend. Cause it's awesome. If you get one of these, you will want to oil your machine. That's how great it is. (They're not paying me to say this or anything... I just like the product.)

Tomorrow: more hearts! (As long as I can get a photo before it gets dark out. Winter stinks.)

love,
kelly

WiP: Heart #5

Dear Shayne,

By my calculations, I'll need 10 hearts for the garland. So with this one, I'm halfway done:


I feel like this one will probably need some extra embellishments, but I decided to wait until they're all done to see which ones need what.

I used Pearl Cotton #8 to embroider this one and I'm not sure it was the right thread to us. I used regular DMC floss on the last one and I think I probably should have used it again for this stitch. Oh, well. It's all about the experimentin' here at Chez Heart Garland.

love,
kelly

WiP: Another heart for the garland

Dear Shayne,

I slowed down a bit after the first three hearts in my garland (the tune "Three Coins in the Fountain" just went through my head.) (Ignore me.) But I made another heart yesterday night:


I like to embroider, but I don't do it very often. When I was working on this, Bill looked over at me, then did a double-take and said, "What are you doing? You don't do that!" I thought that was hilarious. I guess I need to do more embroidery... so it's something that I "do." (Also so that my stitches get more even and attractive...)

The fire is from Sublime Stitching (of course). It's in the Viva Las Vegas pattern.

Oh, and someone asked me what I'm using to make these -- it's just cotton with double-sided heavy-duty fusible interfacing in between the layers. Zig-zagged edges, random embellishments, and the amazing Crop-A-Dile to put in the grommets (love that thing!)

Coming soon... more hearts!

love,
kelly

Pretty little wall hanger

Dear Shayne,

Our house is old. We've got plaster walls. I didn't really understand what that meant to me until I decided to hang some stuff up. Then I found out you can't just use nails. You either have to use screws or a funky little wall-hanging device. They're made by a company called OOK (although there are others, but I don't think they're as good) and they look like this:
They work great, but they're not very attractive. Behind a picture, they're fine. Cause, you know, you can't see 'em. But if you want to hang a calendar or something where you would normally see the nail? Not so good.

I bought a calendar to hang in our Paris-themed bathroom (France, not Hilton) and I didn't really want that OOK hanger showing. So I came up with the idea of making it a little prettier. First, I put a ribbon between the nail and the hanger:
Then I tied that ribbon into a bow:


Here's a shot of the whole thing:


This might not work with every decor... in fact, it's almost a little too girly for me, really... but with the Paris-themed bathroom, I feel like a little bit more girly-ness is okay. I think it works.

love,
kelly

Bags from the past

Dear Shayne,

Posting Rachael's bag this week made me think of other knitting bags I have made and, more specifically... the Great Closure Debate.

This bag style was inspired by a bag I got in a swap on Craftster. That bag didn't have a closure and I really liked how well it worked for carrying knitting. So when I started making this bag, it did not have a closure. The first one was even reversible!

Here's a photo of the inside of that first one, showing the lack of closure (I used the same fabric for Rachael's bag on the interior of this one):


And just because I'm proud of it (I had to hand-sew the final seam... I hate hand-sewing, so I'm a show off about it) here it is, inside out:


Because it was reversible, even when I did entertain the notion of a closure, my head exploded. Looking back, I could have done the same loop-and-button move I did this week, only with a button inside and out, but... since my head had already exploded, this didn't occur to me.

I made a couple of others with no closure, including this one for Jan:


The Sacramento Monarchs are a WNBA team. Jan's a big fan, so I made this iron-on transfer for her bag. That was kind of an adventure on its own... I couldn't find a hi-res version of the logo, so I ended up fiddling quite a bit with it in Photoshop. It ended up kind of soft looking, but I like the effect (this is a crappy, blurry photo of it. It's much more crisp in real life.)

After getting some reports that a closure might be nice, I tried one. Here's a shot of the inside of the next bag, showing the snap I tried:


Here's an exterior shot, cause the bag is so damned cute:


I don't think that was the right closure for this bag, though. These bags don't have a lot of structure -- just two layers of cotton -- and this is one of those industrial strength magnet-style closures. Sometimes I worry I'm going to tear the bag in half when I try to pry it open! So I'm curious to see how well the hook-and-button closure works on Rachael's bag.

In fact, I may just have to make one for myself so I can test it out first-hand. Hee hee. You know, for the sake of research.

love,
kelly

WiP: Heart garland

Dear Shayne,

With Valentine's Day coming up (and Christmas decorations coming down, making the place look a little bare), my mind has turned to heart-y decorations. I was really inspired when I saw this garland, posted by original_youth on Flickr. So I started a garland of my own tonight. Here are the first three hearts:


There's a downloadable template, but I didn't use it. Mine are a little different from the inspiration -- hers are paper and mine are fabric. Now that I think about it, paper probably would have been easier, but I enjoy using fabrics from the stash and I've had a good time with these embellishments. (That button is from the Big Jar o' Buttons!)

They're about 4.5 inches wide at their widest. I plan to put the finished garland over the mantle. Hrrmm... I should measure tomorrow to see how many I'll need. For now, three hearts down, X to go!

love,
kelly

Y A Y

Dear Shayne,

I've been prolific with the posting through the month of January because I've been riding the wave of December Awesomeness. That will be coming to an end shortly, but for now, I've got another awesome birthday gift to share. This one is from my friend Micki.


Not sure if you can tell from that photo, but the word "YAY" is spelled out with photos of objects. In this instance, the first Y is an architectural detail, the A looks like it's painted on a road, and the second Y is a tree.

When I opened this gift, I said, "Huh. I guess I do say 'Yay' a lot." Micki kind of laughed, so yeah... I do. Yay!

I don't know who the artist is that photographed these letters, but you can do something similar with photos found on Flickr. While there are different ways to do it, here's a simple tool that works pretty nicely. It even lets you replace individual letters if you don't like them.

love,

Knitting bag

Dear Shayne,

I made this knitting bag last week for my friend Rachael. It's a very basic bag, but I love this fabric so much that I will really miss it when it's all gone.


I usually just leave knitting bags wide open, but I felt like trying out a closure on this one and I'm pleased with how it came out... especially because I've never done a button closure before and I didn't decide to do it until the very last minute.


One button seemed a little boring, so I stacked two on top of each other. Yay!

There are also some pockets inside the bag, but it was just too dang dark to get a photo in there. So you'll just have to use your imagination on that bit.

love,
kelly

Craft I totally need to make next year

Dear Shayne,

I totally need to make this awesome Christmas ornament next year. It's hilarious!


Hee hee! I found the tutorial for this at elsie marley, which is a sweet little craft blog with lots of sewing projects -- you should check it out!

love,
kelly

PS - Image taken from elsie marley.

The Bend and Snap scarf

Dear Shayne,

Have you ever seen the movie Legally Blonde? If you have, you are familiar with the phrase "Bend and Snap." If you have not... you need to right now. Cause it's super fun. (Especially the "Bend and Snap" scene!)

This scarf was made for me by my friend Jan (Hi, Jan!), who was working on a knitting technique called "wrap and turn." Every time she said "wrap and turn," it reminded me of "Bend and Snap" and that is how this scarf got its name.


This scarf is actually called "Ruffles" and it's from the book Scarf Style by Pam Allen. Jan was working on socks and she said she could never remember how to do the wrap and turn correctly. So I said, "Hey, I've got this book that has a scarf that is nothing but wrap and turns. You could make that!"

Meanwhile, Jan does not wear scarves. So she made it for me. I feel somewhat selfish about it, except that Jan did master the wrap and turn while working on it, so you know... she got something out of it. But I think I got the better end of the deal, really. Cause this scarf is so totally awesome. (But don't tell Jan that.) Oops... hi, Jan! Ahem.

love,
kelly

Bedazzler!

Dear Shayne,

We have a "White Elephant" gift exchange in my department every year right before Christmas. Usually, people get stuck with items like ugly photo frames and weird potpourri. This year, to my excitement, this showed up:
Yeah! Bedazzler! Plus, I was the second person to "steal" it, so I locked it in as mine, mine, all mine! (Everyone else was so jealous. I just know it.)

I realize that the projects pictured on the outside of this box are super cheesy, but I think I can make the Bedazzler work for me. My goal: Sparkly, not trashy. I'm thinking that the #1 rule is: Don't use the Bedazzler on clothing. I'll let you know how it goes!

love,
kelly

A lovely little book

Dear Shayne,

Remember when I posted that lovely little pincushion my friend Jocelyn made me for my birthday? (You know: Pinny, the Craft Room Mascot?) She did it again for Christmas. This time, she made the loveliest little book:


Doesn't look that small, does it? Well, here it is, next to a US quarter:


Um, wow.

Meanwhile, I can't do this little book justice, because if you hold it in two hands and bed it cover-to-cover, it makes a little star. Unfortunately, I didn't have a model to do the work, so I just unfurled it for us to admire Jocelyn's mad skillz at tiny, tiny paper cutting, folding, and gluing.


(Click on it to go to Flickr and see it larger -- it's worth it!)

Another fantastic little project by Jocelyn, whose patience I greatly admire.

love,
kelly

Another pair of Scrabble earrings

Dear Shayne,

As you may recall, I made a pair of Scrabble tile earrings for Jenny for her birthday. She had a friend who liked them so well that she requested a pair to give as a gift. Here they are:


For the first pair, I did a Naughty Thing and simply screwed the eye hook directly into the tile without drilling a pilot hole first. It worked so well that time that I got over-confident and tried again with these. No good. I cracked two tiles (K's at that! Precious, precious K's!) before going to get the drill with a tiny, tiny bit.

I thought it would be difficult to drill into the tiles, but it turned out to be pretty easy. Once I had drilled the holes, the eye hooks screwed in with no problem. Yay for power tools!

Meanwhile, I also made myself a pair when I made these. Since this pair is my initials, reversed, I figured it was the universe's way of saying, "Make some for yourself!" So I did. I get compliments all the time on them. I love 'em!

love,
kelly

Object of Lust: Tote bag

Dear Shayne,

Check out this awesome craftiness: old sails made into awesome stuff like wallets and tote bags! That's what the super-clever reiter8 is doing. I got one of her wallets in the Brooklyn City Sampler, so I went sniffing around her site for more info.

And that is where I found this lovely object:

Oh, be still my heart. 8 is my lucky number and I'm a big fan of the color green. I also love tote bags. Plus, this is '08! A perfect year for such a bag!

Part of me says, "Do you really need another tote bag, Kelly?" And the other part says: "Yes! Yes! Must. Have. Awesome. Tote."

Which side will win? Stay tuned to find out!

love,
kelly

PS - Image from the reiter8 website, where you can find many awesome items made from recycled sails. I am also quite smitten with the star totebag.

Iron woman

Dear Shayne,

It is probably lame to be so excited about this, but I got a NEW IRON this week! Yay! As a fellow seamstress (I wrote "sewer" there and that just doesn't look right -- we need a new non-gender-specific written word for "someone who sews"), I think you can appreciate this:


Oooh... Rowenta! It's heavy duty, makes tons of lovely steam (when you want it to, when you don't, it's drip proof! Yeah!) and the best part of all? It does not shut off on its own.

This is an increasingly difficult feature to find, but if you've ever sat down to sew for a few hours and keep having to wait for the flipping iron to heat back up when you need it, you'll understand the beauty. Obviously the Rowenta people know their audience, because this model is a labeled a "sewing and crafting iron." Yay for constant heat!

love,
kelly

PS - Image taken from the Rowenta website, where you can go and lust over some very nice irons yourself, as I did for many years before I dropped my old iron a few weeks ago and broke it, causing me to say, "Hey! I need a new iron!"

Little yellow hat + glass head

Dear Shayne,

This is a little yellow hat I made for a favorite little boy I know who stole the hats I made for his mom for her birthday. So I asked what color hat he wanted and he said yellow. Here it is:


Frankly, this photo is not the best -- the hat is not super-puffy in real life -- and I wouldn't have even posted it except... what's that you see? Why, it's a glass head! Yay!

Yup, I got me a glass head last month at the Alameda Antiques Faire and I am just thrilled with it. You'll certainly see more of that glass head o' mine as the blog posts roll on.

love,
kelly

Christmas goodies from Bill

Dear Shayne,

As you know, Bill is a craft-enabling superhero. This year, I sent him a link to PurlSoho's Gift Ideas for Fabric Lovers and told him I would love something from that list. He came through... and how!

First up, the list suggested a half yard of each fabric in this line. And that's what I got! Here's are photos of mine -- if you want more details, click on that link.

Here's the stack:


And here's a photo where you can see a bit more detail.


Wow, eh? That's a lot of fabric, right? But, wait! There's more! Also in the gift guide was "3 Assorted Yards of Echino Fabric by Kokka." And I got some o' that, too! Again, click that link for more details (although I'll warn you -- you might also be sorely tempted to buy something for yourself!) because my photo does not do these lovely fabrics justice:


Squee! I want to sew right now! Sew! Sew!

But first, I have to show you the other thing I got for Christmas (I know! Hard to believe there's more!) I asked for this and I am super-duper excited about it: A bottle cutter!


Spoiler alert: Everyone on my list is totally getting votive candle holders for Christmas next year. How fun! Whee! I've been collecting bottles for the past couple of weeks for my first attempt at this -- I'll be sure to let you know how it goes!

Oh, yeah! I didn't take a photo of it, but I also got an awesome silk project bag from Purl. They are great for small knitting or embroidery projects. I almost forgot to include it because I'm already using it. Yeah!

Now! Off to sew!

love,
kelly