We have just finished our Crafty Challenge 4 and are ready for number 5! This one is all about the time of year. From around now until Christmas, the Crafty Sisters begin to get secretive. We tend to stop discussing our projects with each other and mutter a lot, or at least I mutter a lot.
For us, this is crunch time for Christmas gifts and we do make a lot of them. In this vein, Crafty Challenge 5 is all about Christmas Decorations. We did need to limit this somehow and due to the whole Christmas crunch time I mentioned, the best idea was an actual time limit. So, the challenge is to create a Christmas decoration in less than two hours. We even set a specific time. December 4th – 10am until 12pm is the making time and the unveiling will be at 12:30pm. We can think all we want and purchase the supplies in the meantime, we just cannot start making the decorations until 10am.
To get us in a holiday mood, I thought some examples of a few of our past Christmas decorations was in order. So, get your mind in gear and get thinking (but don’t get making yet!).
Chenille pipe cleaner door wreath made by Cheri.Garland by Kristin, Choir Bird and Winter A-Frame by Cheri.Choir bird made by Cheri.Miniature A-Frame winter scene made by Cheri.Snowman ornament made by Cheri.Ornament door wreath made by Kristin.Painted bird ornaments made by Cheri.Silver ornament and twig door decor made by Cheri.
If you have any questions about any of the above decorations or would like to know how they were made, ask us! You can email us in the Contact Us section of the blog.
These were all decorations I had in my Christmas storage and I realize that almost all of them were made by Cheri. You can definitely see who we will be comparing ourselves to. Wish us luck and you get crafting!
WooHoo! I actually managed to get this Crafty Challenge finished a little early. For me, that is monumental (at least compared to my past Crafty Challenges).
The challenge this time was to use the Coach Willis Handbag for inspiration and create something in that spirit. It could be any medium and any size. I tried several mediums, but seemed to have the best luck when I finally went to fabric. Then I had to decide what size I wanted, so I needed to find a purpose for my bag. I have a large laptop (it has a 17″ screen and the keyboard includes a separate number keypad) that I have never been able to find a bag that I liked and that would protect it, that I liked. So, with that in mind, I was going to make the Willis inspired laptop bag.
I had some really cute flannel kitties fabric and some matching pre-quilted red fabric that would be perfect for padding. After looking at my dogs, I realized that I would be better off if I put the flannel on the inside to help keep some of the hair on my new bag to a minimum. I did draw a sketch, but for the most part, I made it up on the fly. You should know though that I have seen many bags made by Loryn and Cheri, so I had some idea of how to go about this, I wasn’t completely in the dark.
I just love that hardware!
I made the handle first as I wanted to use Loryn’s quilting idea to help reinforce the handle. The body was next and man, do not use denim Singer needles on medium-weight fabric, no matter how many layers you are sewing through. I trashed three needles very quickly. Once I switched to heavy-duty, medium weight needles, I had no problems whatsoever.
I made all the parts of the bag like pillows (right sides together, sew the edges and pull right-side out) and was very good about ironing everything. I am always surprised by how much of a difference ironing makes. Suddenly your project goes to the next level of wow and looks clean and (mostly) well made. Please keep in mind I am not the best seamstress. I tend to keep to pillows and curtains which are really just squares and rectangles with no real finesse (or at least the way I make them).
I did manage to find some excellent hardware for my bag at Kleindorfers. This is the hardware store I spent so much time in for our second Crafty Challenge. It really helped that since that challenge, I really know their stock. They are so helpful and they don’t look at you funny when you giggle and cackle with glee when you find such a wonderful hardware selection, they laugh and see if there is anything else you need.
I also have to mention in here my gratefulness for cellphones, good cellphone plans and AT&T. I spent almost the entire day on the phone with Loryn yesterday. I looked it up on my phone and it came out to 6 hours and 44 minutes. It is so nice just to have someone to mutter to while working on a project. I also spent the morning cleaning and having someone to talk to while doing that always makes the job easier.
Back to the challenge, I then proceeded to put all the parts together and it went much better than expected. I added the hardware and giggled the whole while (Really, I did. Ask Loryn.) The one problem I had was with the dowel rod I had picked up for the top of the bag. It wouldn’t fit the hardware I had decided to use. When I bought the hardware, I bought more than I needed as I was not quite sure how or which pieces I would end up using for the bag. That meant another trip to Lowe’s this morning for the next size down in dowel rods. I cut it to size and painted it red to help it blend in to to the bag.I did that this morning and voila! my bag was finished. Hooray! The finished size is 22 1/2″ wide by 19″ tall. It came out a lot bigger than I intended, but I do like it. I may adjust the size eventually, but for now it is great just the way it is.
And now on to family and food. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
It must be said; better late than never. I am really (and I mean really) late getting my photos for this challenge posted. I have been really busy doing some painting (don’t worry, you’ll get to hear about and see it at a later date) and have just not had a whole lot of time to really do much else but sleep and work.
I had a hard time with this project for several reasons. First, I try to keep my hoarding down to a minimum and don’t have a whole lot of storage space right now, so my collection of incidentals was rather small. Second, for these challenges, I have been really trying to step out of my comfort zones craft wise and this has made for some uncertain outcomes. The project was to use the packaging or incidentals that come with a purchase. It must be the stuff that you would usually throw away or re-use for another packing job, not the purchase itself, in other words, free.
I love the slightly aged look the shellac gave the newspaper.
After all the plaster and paper-mache (or papier-mâché) work we did for our Halloween costumes, I thought this might be a good medium for this challenge. It wasn’t a bad idea, just an unknown path for me. I definitely learned a lot from this project.
I wanted to make a bowl for the little stuff that seems to get thrown on the counter. As it would be in the kitchen, I figured what better paper to use than the Kroger coupons I get every week (I do most of my grocery shopping there). This proved to be a good idea as the paper Kroger uses for its ads tears beautifully into strips. I then draped the paper-mache strips over some wooden bowls I had. I like their shape but not the material. I had covered the bowls with Vaseline to keep the strips from sticking to the bowls. Notice I am using the plural here for bowls. I managed to turn out one good bowl from the two starts. I then let this dry.
I intentionally made sure that one of Kroger's logos would be visible.
I am glad I used small bowls, as larger ones would not have worked at all. The Vaseline seemed to prevent the paper-mache from drying completely (this process works just fine with plaster, but not so much with paper-mache). I managed to pry the shapes off the wooden bowls, but pretty much destroyed one of the shapes in the process. I used some of the paper strips from the destroyed shape (which were not sticking together) to fix the salvageable one and this time I used some wood glue to keep the strips down. I let this dry overnight and started shellacking the bowl the next day. I did multiple coats all over the bowl. I really liked the effect of the shellac as it gave the newspaper a lovely aged look.
At this point, it was time to present our projects and mine was really not dry. I kept it on some wax paper to present to my Crafty Sisters and it worked out fairly well. It is now a week and a half later and I have just finished taking the photos you see here and the bowl is completely set and hard. It has turned out just like I wanted it to, I just needed to be a LOT more patient. I whined a lot about this project and I apologize profusely to my Crafty Sisters who had to listen to me. I am really happy with my final project although it took over a week to get there.
I did trim the top edge of the bowl with scissors to give it a clean edge.
Lessons learned: 1. be patient; 2. do not use Vaseline with paper-mache or at least put plaster on top of the Vaseline and then do the paper-mache; and 3. shellac takes a long time to dry.
Happy Halloween (again and again) to all our readers who celebrate this weekend (and Monday)!
This year as stated in my previous posts here and here we decided to be attendees to the Goblin Ball, from the movie Labyrinth and here is an excellent video of the ball scene (and yes, that is David Bowie as Jareth, the Goblin King).
I have talked all about the creation of our fun costumes, now for the unveiling.
Photo courtesy of my M-I-L.
We stopped at several friends houses and my M-I-L’s house before heading out on the town. My M-I-L took the above photo. There should have been some more photos by her, but my camera died just after she took one photo. So, we waited until after the night was over to take some more, and, as you can see, the costumes held up really well.
I love that drawstring purse. It worked great!
I do have to say that my feet really hurt in those shoes. I don’t wear pointy-toed shoes and my poor toes just did not like them, but it was endurable and they did look quite perfect with the dress. I had not planned to wear any jewelry, but that necklace just finished the outfit off perfectly. It is also courtesy of my M-I-L (she also supplied the shoe buckles).
Wish I had noticed that his socks needed to be pulled up.
My SO looked great. He had a lot of comments about his mask. Several people thought he was supposed to be a plague doctor (they wore these long filtered masks that were supposed to keep the germs out). He put two of my unused feather ornaments in the cuffs of his jacket and it was just the right touch. I made him a sash from the same velvet as my shawl and purse. We looked pretty good together.
My shawl that really did help keep me warm!Here you can see the feather ornaments in my hair.
I was really happy with how the costumes turned out and we had a great time last night. Bloomington is a great town to be in for Halloween. Now what are we going to be next year?
P.S. Massive kudos and thanks to Mom (Lynne) for her magic work on the photos. They look wonderful!
Happy Halloween (again) to all our readers who celebrate this weekend (and Monday)!
This year my SO and I decided to be attendees to the Goblin Ball, from the movie Labyrinth and here is an excellent video of the ball scene (and yes, that is David Bowie as Jareth, the Goblin King).
In my previous post I talked about and had pictures of our masks. This post is all about the rest of my costume. I will start from the top!
My hair is going to be huge. I have some blonde spray to put some streaks in it and made these wonderful feather clips to add volume, color and texture.
Feathers wrapped around clips.
They were pretty easy to make. I bought a bunch of alligator clips and wound the feathers on with thread.
My dress was a bit trickier. My SO and I wandered around a bit and finally landed in a costume shop. There wasn’t much on the shelves that wasn’t Leggy Lane (sexy whatever) and I was getting a little disappointed. Then, one of the ever so helpful salespeople told me that since they are planning on moving to another location next year, they are selling as much of their rental costumes as possible so they don’t have to move them. This sounded promising and there it was, the perfect ballgown type dress. And even better, it needed some work which meant I could negotiate a price.
After talking to the owner of the costume shop (and making sure he saw the tears and problems), I got the dress for $15. I didn’t have to put too much work into it, it needed cleaned pretty badly and a couple of seams had ripped. So, thankful for polyester, I threw the dress in the wash, stitched up the seams and ironed it and it looks pretty good.
As Halloween was going to be a cold night I knew that I would be grateful for a wrap of some sort to put over my shoulders. I decided to splurge a bit and made myself a shawl of velvet and brocade with some pretty lace that I could use for regular use if I was so inclined. It is made of maroon royal velvet and silver brocade and has lace edging and tassels at the end corners.
Under the dress was a little more interesting. I will state here that if I had any idea how hard tulle is to work with, I would have bought a crinoline (although I do like what I made much better than what I saw in the costume shop). For this, I looked at patterns before I made it. It came out pretty well, and I now have an off-white crinoline if anyone needs to borrow one.
It is so pale in color that it makes it a little hard to see here.
My only problem now was that the dress was really just a little too short for me and the crinoline really showed at the bottom. It wasn’t unattractive, just not what I had in mind. I thought, why not make any underskirt that would hide the crinoline and match the dress. I decided to make it out of some pretty green organza that has little sparklies all over it that I found at Joann’s (I have been to Joann’s practically every day for the past week).
Here you can see the sparklies in the organza.
This brings us down to my shoes. I wanted something that would have a Victorian era (not that our costumes are even remotely accurate to the era), but wouldn’t cost much. One more trip to Goodwill found me the perfect shoes, in bright blue. This wasn’t a deterrent for me at all, especially as these are the dye-able type of shoes. I bought some fabric paint and painted those suckers gold and voila! The perfect shoes.
Now to make them even better, my M-I-L had these gorgeous rhinestone shoe buckles that are absolutely perfect. I love my family!
You can still see a little of the bright blue color they were originally on the inside of the shoes.Aren
After all this, last night I was considering how on earth I was going to carry around any personal effects and decided to make up a quick drawstring purse to match.
Here you can see the gold eyelets.
I cut a round piece from the same velvet and brocade used to make the shawl, sewed them right sides together, turned it (like a pillow), stitched the edges flat, made a medallion of cardboard for the inside and outside covered with the same fabric to give it shape (which I then stitched together), used some gold eyelets for the drawstring, threaded with some black cord and voila again! A great little purse for my cards and chapstick (and some touch-up makeup).
I cannot wait for tonight! I will post pictures of both myself and my SO all done up. This is going to be so much fun!
Happy Halloween to all our readers who celebrate this weekend (and Monday)! My SO and I have a particular fondness for this particular holiday. Not for any specific reason other than we like to come up with good costumes. This year, after some serious debate and wishy-washiness, we decided to be attendees to the Goblin Ball. For those of you who are devout Brian Froud and Terry Jones fans and who love the movie Labyrinth, you should know what I am talking about. For those who don’t know what I am referring to (or who have forgotten, after all, the movie is getting a little old now), here is an excellent video of the ball scene from the movie (and yes, that is David Bowie as the Goblin King).
The most time consuming part of this was trying to decide how we would go about creating our costumes and how much of an homage we wanted to pay to the creators. We ended up doing our own versions of two guests at the ball with a little more color added as we were no longer just background scenery for Sarah and Jareth.
The masks were the first things we started discussing and working out designs. My SO based his on a raven king plastic mask found at the costume shop while mine is based on a paper-mache (papier-mâché) domino mask found at the same costume shop. Then we added lots more paper-mache and plaster to complete our goblin masks.
My goblin mask before painting.My goblin mask after painting.
At this point (for my mask much more so than his) there was quite a bit of carving to do to get a sinister, craggy face. With a dremel tool and some clay carving tools I had left over from an old art class, we proceeded to make an absolute mess on our kitchen table and floor. After some agony and repairs done by my SO to my mask, we both finally had something that we really liked. My SO painted his with a tea stain and mine he painted green, then overlaid that with a darker pearlescent green. Overall, my SO finished his mask in about a day and a half, and we worked on mine for about the same amount of time in total.
If you haven’t figured our between the lines, the masks were mostly done by my SO. He is an excellent artist and crafts-person when it comes to plaster and painting. He used to make the scenery and set pieces for the table-top role-playing games he played.
His goblin mask.
Our costumes were a bit more difficult to come up with and I will dedicate a whole other post to those tomorrow. We are definitely going to have some fun tomorrow night! I will certainly post some pictures of us in our completed costumes.
-Lynne: Our hardware challenge sounded straight forward when we first proposed it. The idea of being turned loose in a hardware store seemed more like a dream than a challenge and the $5.00 limit on materials cost did not daunt me at all. We are “make-do” sisters.
Earlier this spring, I found the book “Simply Sublime Bags” by Judi Kahn. In it she shows how to make “no sew” purses using fabric and duct tape. I was so taken by the idea that I made myself a keyhole clutch from a feedsack with matching duct tape. The pattern can be found here online, but the book is well worth getting for all the wonderful ideas.
Beyond being extremely cute and novel, my clutch has been surprisingly durable. I have been wanting a slightly larger purse and this challenge seemed like the perfect time to make another one. After all, duct tape is to a hardware store like water is to a duck. Besides with a project like this, all I would need was the fabric and something to hold the fabric together in its purse shape.
I’m afraid that I became rather testy when I realized that glue, thread, staples, paint, ink and tape would count towards the $5.00 total. I can tell you right now that no hardware store can sell you 50 cents worth of glue. We had to buy what materials we needed in the quantities available and we could not buy a quantity and divide the price by the number we used. I only wanted 4 yards of fishing line, but I would have had to buy 700 yards for $2.99. That was more than half my budget. I needed to rethink how to “sew” the purse together.
I wandered the aisles of all the hardware stores in town. I had knowledgeable, helpful men following me trying to help me find the “right part.” They would always take a step backwards when I told them that not only did I not know the part I needed, I did not know what the part would be for. Hardware by its very nature is made to be used in the manner it was made. Wood screws are for wood and metal screws are for metal and never the twain shall meet. People who work at hardware stores are bewildered and confused by browsers.
When I saw the fiberglass window screen, I knew I wanted to use it as the fabric for my purse. I could buy one foot of the 36″ wide screen and stay well within my budget. I noticed a roll of clear plastic vinyl next to the screen and remembered that plastic can be fused into a fabric by heating it with an iron. Heat unlike glue and staples would not cost me anything. I could sandwich the screen in between two pieces of the plastic and have both my fabric and my “glue.” I added some electrician’s tape which is cheap because it doesn’t stick to anything, a carriage bolt, a foot of copper wire and a brass hex nut to my list and I was 14 cents under my $5.00 limit.
I found that fusing the “fabric” could be tricky. You have to keep in mind what will melt fastest and that plastic can shrink in odd ways and iron accordingly. The holes in the fiberglass screen allowed the plastic to adhere to itself, but I found that where I needed a strong bond I had to use just the clear plastic. By cutting the screen smaller than the plastic, the seams were only plastic and strong enough to hold all the stuff I put in a purse.
I desperately needed some decoration for my purse and I only had 14 cents left in my budget, but I had become a crafty challenge participant. I gathered up the paper bag I had used for the free popcorn, the plastic bag for my purchases and the free telephone directory at the end of the counter and felt crafty as well as rich in materials.
The electrician’s tape strengthened the open handles and made a nice decorative statement around the top of the purse. I fused the logo from the plastic bag to the front of the purse to add the graphic text and some much-needed color. Once you start fusing it is hard to stop. I fashioned the copper wire into my initial and fused it in a sandwich of clear plastic, fiberglass screen, the label from the paper bag and another layer of plastic for a hang tag.
– Paper flower and hang tag initial.
Hardware is hard and I wanted to soften it with a flower decoration. I had just noticed these paper flowers on craftgawker and I had that free telephone directory. I used a paper punch to put a hole in the edge of the purse and threaded the carriage bolt through it and the center of the folded flower. The hex nut secured the flower to the purse and made a “cuter than a button” flower center.
I may fuse some more plastic around the handles now that the challenge is over and I don’t have to worry about a budget. But I am very happy with the results. I love the idea of making your own fabric and fusing is forgiving. If you make a mistake, keep ironing things on till you like it. That is the way to Do it Best.
We have reached the deadline of our second crafty challenge and for those who did see the post or who have forgotten here are our rules. This one was a lot more difficult than I expected it to be and I didn’t think that it would be easy to begin with.
$5 really does not go far in any store. I was a little lucky in that I have a wonderful hometown hardware store called Kleindorfer’s Hardware and Variety Store. Kleindorfer’s has been here for a long time and I don’t know that they update their prices often. All that said, they have the best customer service of any store in the Bloomington area. They are polite, know their stock and how to help even the most confused customer.
My search for a project consisted of me wandering in the store for anything under $2. I wrote in a notebook anything that might be interesting, trying to come up with an idea of what to create. After some trial and error I realized that the hardest part would be how to connect my project together (do you have any idea what glue costs?). Mine is actually held together with friction. and pressure, fancy words for “I stuffed it in there.”
My Christmas tree!
I managed to keep my total purchase to $4.87. I found a small brass tube at the hardware store, held it in a vise and drilled numerous small holes to fit the Scotch Brite branches. The first holes I drilled were way too small, so I went back through and drilled them much bigger which sped up the process incredibly.
A plastic star for securing paneling to a wall made a perfect tree-topper.A small cork is the tree stand.Matte silver ball-chain made an excellent garland and red and white wire made cute ornaments.
I am happy with how the tree turned out. It is amazing how you can come to depend on those regular crafting staples of wire and glue. Having to step away from these made this a very entertaining and imaginative Crafty Challenge.
I love dark blue jeans. However, they can be hard to find and most often are not in my size or in a style that I prefer. And when you do find some that fit, am I supposed to buy two or three pairs of the same exact jeans?
Also, with the cost of jeans now, I have not been buying any lately. So, Mom and Cheri’s garage saleing to the rescue! Mom picked up 4 pairs of jeans for me on one of their rounds and I ended up taking 3 of them home. The only problem is that they are all in the standard denim blue color. This is not to say that I won’t wear them, just probably not to work.
The other night I was dyeing some pants of my husbands black (he had a bleach accident) and I decided on a whim to throw a pair of the new-to-me jeans in the dye bath too. When they came out, they were the most wonderful shade of dark blue! I am so happy! Now I just have to buy some more black dye and I will have several pairs of wear-to-work jeans.
Wow! A sunny day at last!
WooHoo! I never would have figured that black dye would do this to jeans. The other great thing that came out of this dye job is that my jeans don’t have any of the “fashionable” pre-worn spots. Those really irritate me when done on the darker blue jeans. I think they stand out too much, so this takes care of that little peeve of mine.
With our first official Crafty Challenge completed (incredibly successfully too!), our eyes – and itchy crafting fingers – are looking forward to our second challenge. This one is a bit more focused in an odd sort of way. Instead of a specific material to work with, our limits are money and where that money can be spent.
The rules:
There is a $5 limit.
The money must be spent in a hardware store (a home improvement store counts).
You can only use materials that you purchased with the $5 from the hardware store.
Projects must be presented on October 23rd.
All of the Crafty sisters are hardware/home improvement store junkies. In fact, Loryn and I can spend hours just wandering around Home Depot, not really spend any money, completely solving a specific repair, craft or decor difficulty and both feel that we had a great and productive day. We are all also incredibly thrifty and bargain savvy (I think I have unofficially declared Cheri Queen of the Bargain), hence all the garage saleing, so this particular challenge is right up our alley.
So, wish us luck and tune in on Sunday, October 23rd when we will post our projects. I can’t wait to get started! I promise I won’t procrastinate this time.
the crafty sisters 