Category Archives: Crafts

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December 12, 2011

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Crafts

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Making myself festive

This past weekend we had a holiday party to attend. Not just any holiday party, but an ugly Christmas sweater party. Unfortunately, I seemed to have purged my wardrobe of all ugly holiday sweaters many years back. On that same day, I just happened upon this blog post on Craft about how to make a festive headband. Since I have a ton of craft supplies, I had everything needed to make myself a silly holiday headband but the headband itself. A quick stop at Walgreens to pick up a headband (and a blinking Christmas pin as an accessory) and I was ready to do some last minute crafting!

I wrapped my headband first in some shimmery white ribbon, held in place by hot glue, and then added a red ribbon accent.

Finally, I used some red tulle to tie on a big bow. Just in time for the holiday party!

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December 1, 2011

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bottlecaps, Crafts, upcycle

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Beer cap ornaments

I have a HUGE collection of beer caps because not only do we drink a lot of beer in our house, our friends also save their caps and give them to me. Because we have a beer theme going on in our house, I got the idea to make Christmas ornaments with beer caps. Here’s how I did it – make some of your own!

Supplies:

  • Ornament hooks (I found some fancy ones at World Market last year)
  • Beer caps (preferably holiday themed or colored)
  • A drill
  • Some easy to bend wire
  • Scissors
  • Small pliers (I have some jewelry pliers)

Process:

First, I sorted my caps. I made each ornament from 3 matching caps. Here you can see my supplies:

Next, I drilled holes in the caps. For each set of three caps, I drilled two holes in two caps and one hole in the third cap. The third cap is the bottom cap so it only needs one hole.

Then I used the wire to attach the caps together. I just twisted the wire together on the back side of the caps and cut off any excess. I made sure to point the wire ends toward the cap so it wouldn’t scratch anyone. For the top cap, I used a longer piece of wire so that I could make a few twists before attaching the ornament hook. That way, the directions that the caps faced could also be adjusted relative to the hook direction.

The finished product!

 

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November 13, 2011

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Crafts, knitting

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I made an owl!

If you’ve followed me on tumblr, you know that 1. I have lots of friends having babies and 2. I started knitting an owl. Well guess what, he’s finished!  Well, at least owl number one is finished. I have two friends that only sort of know each other and they had their first round of children within a few months of one another and now it has also happened for child round number two.

Now that my rambling is complete, here are the details:

Pattern: Lucy’s Owl (Ravelry link)

Yarns used: A combination of Lion’s brand Wool-Ease and Vanna’s Choice

My completed owl (this one is for the baby boy):

A few things I learned while knitting this owl:

  1. The jogless stripes method doesn’t work that well for skinny little legs. It just makes the joints between colors constantly move. Next time I will just leave the color joints on the side of the leg so they aren’t so noticeable.  If you use this method on a hat with thicker stripes, it’s much better.
  2. I’m really bad at sewing eyes and wings on so that they are level with one another.
  3. Somehow the owl turned out way too big. In the pattern photos he’s way smaller. I’m subtracting rows from the body and legs of the second owl I’m working on.
  4. I learned and implemented intarsia knitting.
  5. How to do a picot crochet edge (for the wings) is a skill I now have.
  6. Even when they don’t quite turn out like you expect, owls are still super cute.
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August 14, 2011

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Crafts, crocheting, knitting, Pets

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Dear cats, stop stealing my coasters!

I have a set of coasters that are made of felted wool (knitted by me of course). They are very absorbent and make great coasters. They also attract cats like crazy. In the middle of the night, one of our cats steals the felted wool coasters and leaves them on the floor in the hallway.

Using a multi-colored wool yarn that had been given to me as a gift, I recently knitted up a rectangle and felted it.  Felting rarely turns out a perfect square, so I had to trim the edges to make a coaster.

I rolled up the extra felted material, added a bow and call my creation a cat toy. So, dear cats, stop stealing my coasters!

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August 2, 2011

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Crafts, sewing, upcycle

Recycling bike inner tubes into a phone case

Okay, so I only used a small part of a bicycle inner tube to make a phone case.

Next week I start training for a half marathon that takes place in November. I also decided to start using a fitness tracking application called Endomondo. To use Endomondo, I need to carry my phone with me on my runs which I’ve never done before because it’s big and I’ve not a found a good case for carrying it. At the Urban Assault Ride put on by New Belgium brewery, one of the schwag items we came home with was a little pouch made out of a bike inner tube which gave me this idea. The inner tube will help the phone stay dry while I sweat like crazy in the Texas heat.

This weekend I decided it was time to make the phone case with the start of training on the horizon.  I grabbed an old mountain bike inner tube and cut off a piece of it. After my first attempt at making the case ended up just a tad too small, I succeeded on the second try.

One of the trickiest parts of this case was the zipper. I had to deconstruct a zipper so that it would be on continuous piece by folding it in half and putting each end into the zipper pull. You’ll see what I mean in the pictures at the end.

First I cut the tube down the middle and washed it. Next, I sewed on the zipper to one side:

Next, I folded the zipper over and top-stitched it:

Then, I added the piece needed to put a strap through (normally I wear a dog leash around my waist, which is the best place to attach a phone).  Then, I folded it in half and sewed the bottom together.  I then had to turn it to the right side and try to attach the zipper pull, which turned out to be quite tricky the second time. After enlisting the help of pliers and my husband, I got the zipper pull attached and turned the case back inside out and sewed the smaller end together.

After that, I trimmed the edges near the seam and turned it right side out. Complete!

Some useful tips: rubber isn’t that hard to sew, but it’s tricky to get it to feed correctly through the sewing machine. I had to play with both thread tension and the foot tension to get it to work correctly.  Sewing through more than two layers  gets more difficult.

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July 25, 2011

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Crafts, sewing

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Making buttons (out of shrinky dink)

So it turns out that you can make buttons out of shrinky-dink plastic! You know, that plastic from your childhood that you could draw on and then put into the oven to make useless shapes out of?

This tutorial from Scissors.Paper.Wok inspired me to give this a shot because I  need buttons for two knitted baby bibs currently in the works. One is for a boy and the other a girl and from previous button shopping I remember not being terribly excited about options to match my knitted bibs.

Because I didn’t have a large round paper punch as used in the tutorial, I started with 2 inch squares and then used a corner round punch to remove the sharp edges.  I used a paper pattern to get the holes in the right spots and punched them with a normal paper punch.

I drew designs on the four buttons, some inspired from the button tutorial and other from icons I pulled up on Google.

Before shrinking:

After baking between parchment paper on 300 degrees for a few minutes:

I must say that they turned out better than I could have hoped. Now the hard part is choosing which button goes one which bib! I think the girl should get the rocket ship of course.

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May 30, 2011

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Crafts, Cycling, printmaking

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Bicycle print

The finished print

Drawing, carved block, and print

This is my second print since receiving the linoleum print tools as a gift earlier this year. My inspiration for it is obviously the lyrics to Queen’s “Bicycle Race” and the fact that I’ve been riding many miles training for the Escape to the Lake Bike MS Event which happens in two weeks.

You can see the finished product but also the different steps of the process in the pictures. In one picture you can see my original drawing (I used a compass for the wheels) that I then transferred to the carving block. I carved it using special carving tools.  I mixed paint to create a dark green color, rolled it on the carved block and transferred that to the paper.

I’m offering one of these prints to anyone who donates to my fundraising page for the Escape to the Lake. I can make them in light or dark shades of black, red, blue, green, or yellow.  If I don’t know you personally, please contact me before donating so I can confirm that I will be able to create a print for you.

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April 25, 2011

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Crafts, Pets

Making dog toys

Have you ever seen those fleece rope dog toys at the pet stores? Well, my dog loves them. In addition, they aren’t as messy as a typical knotted or hemp type rope where little strings can be left behind. I realized right away that I could make fleece ropes with all the left over fleece from other projects (the trendy term for this is upcycle). I’ve now made more ropes than I can count for my dog and all of her friends.

I just completed two new rope gifts for some doggies I’ll be visiting soon.

Instructions: cut 3 strips of fleece. The thicker the strip, the thicker the today. Knot at one end. Braid. Knot at the other end. Play tug with a happy dog!

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April 20, 2011

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Crafts, Cycling, knitting

Making a bike trip to see the knitted trees!

It is 5 pm on a Friday. I grab my bike leaning against my cubicle wall, strap my purse to the rack, throw on my helmet and roll up my pants. I am ready to ride.

Down one flight of stairs and out the front door. Through the parking lot and gate, under Mopac and into the Domain. I watch the shoppers cross the street with their packages as I ride by. South on Kramer, I see a few folks waiting for the MetroRail to head downtown using the special weekend extended service.

Metric, Parkfield, and across 183. The weather is gorgeous and the drivers friendly. I follow the confusing bike route that gets me across Anderson Lane without getting lost this time. On to Woodrow, a wonderful route to ride. Woodrow is an eclectic mix of Austin, all on one wide road with a nice bike lane. Small old houses meticulously cared for. Larger houses that aren’t. Big, modern houses with every environmental friendly upgrade imaginable belonging to Austin’s rich nestled between. Lovely xeriscaped yards, my favorite. The house with the chicken coop that we visited last year during the  Funky Chicken Coop Tour (Try it sometime!). Riding Woodrow has almost too much to gawk at and I find myself not watching the road as closely as I should.

I turn left on North Loop and ride past the vintage stores. Some random little band plays out in front of the shopping plaza. It is SXSW after all.

The turn on to Duval always surprises me. The trees cover the bike route and street sign but I remember this obstacle and find the turn. Duval has a nice smooth bike lane, old houses, and large trees that make for a peaceful ride. I make the turn by Posse East and smell the French fries.

On to San Jacinto and its smooth thoroughfare. It’s spring break so only a few students are on campus. A lonely maintenance worker drives a golf cart.

On to MLK and the Blanton Museum of Art. I am attracted there by the “Knitted Wonderland” exhibit where the trees have knitted cozies on their trunks. Being a knitter myself, I’m awed by the encompassing exhibit and the sheer number of tree trunks covered.  I get in the way of a group of skateboarders in the plaza while looking for my husband. They’re polite though and I don’t realize I’m in their way until I leave. We wander around in the trees snapping photographs and then head further south for some SXSW action.

Riding into central Austin during the spring just can’t be beat.

Author’s note: this was also posted to Austin on Two Wheels.

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April 6, 2011

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sewing

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Making my jeans fit

The average height of women in the US is 5’ 4”. I wish jeans makers would read that wikipedia article.

Anyhow, when I go jeans shopping, I get to look for the length “short” or shop in the petite section despite being fairly close to average height. On my last jeans shopping trip even the “short” jeans were way too long. They fit so perfectly every where else that I brought them home with me and decided just to wear them with heels. Unfortunately only my tallest heels could be worn which wasn’t very practical.

The solution? The internet. It taught me how to hem my own jeans. I found a number of sets of instructions but ended up following the instructions on the Cardigan Empire.  Luckily, despite my only mediocre sewing skills, I have a super fancy sewing machine given to me by my mom who used to work at a sewing machine company.

Pinning the jeans to the right length:

The sewing machine all set up with a zipper foot, the needle size for jeans, and some dark gray thread:

The finished product after ironing! I think they’ll do.