Wearable Washer

Well I decided to not just stop with a cliffhanger of the pendant drying, with my beloved audience sitting in hopeless limbo, wondering what became of that resin covered beauty! (I have been studious all day, excuse the melodrama).  Anyway, though you may not have been on the edge of your seat wondering what it would look like as a necklace...

I was.

Now, I usually use chain.  I love chain, I prefer it to beads, I almost never use beads.  Which is why I have a zillion of them.  Since I am on a kick currently of using what I have, I decided I would give beads a shot.  I used:

-Wire
-Beads
-Wildfire cord
-Necklace closure, I opted for a bronze toggle

To make a bail for this one, I made a loop behind it and then just wrapped the wire around the washer AND around the loop to close it in. Then I decided I didn't like how big it was so I folded it down, turned it, and wrapped more wire through and around it to get it to come out like this.

Wire is very friendly, I highly recommend it.

If you are going to alternate beads like so, I highly suggest laying them out first in the exact order you want so you can put them on the cord in that order.  It makes it much simpler than picking from piles.

I used translucent beads in brown, yellow, and tan, along with orange beads and small metallic gold beads.

I tied the wildfire to one side of the closure, added the beads, then tied off the other side.

I attached my necklace with a jump ring.

I have not yet, but here after while will be putting E6000 on the knots to double secure them.

I rarely do this, but I figured this might be an easier way to really see what the necklace came out like.

You are going to have to forgive my phone on this one, I was using the camera that faces you on the iphone and it picks up light weirdly I have noticed.  So I realize that you cannot really get the full effect of how awesome the pendant looks with all this.

I think it would be really fun to decoupage these large washers with magazine pages, especially from natgeo.  Those are by far my favorite magazines to use for stuff like that.

Again, I usually don't like beads.  But I actually think this works, probably because of the variation in the beads.  This could easily be upped into a statement necklace, or something incredibly interesting (but keep in mind heavy) by using the foil treatment on more smaller washers as well.  Although I happen to think the resin would drive you insane for those.

All this really reminds me is that if I am going to have stuff to sell at a festival coming up in October...I really need to start making some stuff....

Regardless,

Happy crafting! Pin It Now!

Metal Flake Washer Pendant

I decided to craft while I roast some yumminess in the oven.  Mainly because most of my crafting does not take as much uninterrupted attention like my google sketchup and GIS work does.  So far my fire alarm has not chosen to go off...so far.

Granted, that could be because I silenced it.  I currently have it suffocating in a hefty bag.  You're welcome, Hefty.  I just got you a knew marketing zone for your zippy bags.

Back to crafts.  Excuse my target bag, but this guy is what we are going today.  He is a large washer that I am turning into a metal flake pendant.  For all you steampunk lovers, he would be a BEAUTIFUL base on which to add cogs and studs and other bolts and things....

Snap, now I wish I had done that instead.

What you need:
-A large washer, 97 cents at Wal-Mart.  I completely understand if you don't want to go suffer through going to Wal-Mart, I am not sure how much they are elsewhere.
-Metal Flake/Gold Leaf, whatever you want to call it.  I got this mixed bag at Hobby Lobby last year and it has lasted me a good while. I am probably not even halfway through it yet.
-Mod Podge (as always)
-Perfectly Mixed Resin (or use more mod podge, I am a craft-snob and prefer the end look of resin)

First, note to self that a target bag is actually a really annoying background.  My apologies, and dually noted.

Anyway, slap a good coat of Mod Podge on your washer.  I am passed the point of even bothering to find brushes anymore if you want the truth. 

After you get the Mod Podge on, get the glue off your fingers before you go sticking them in your metal flake unless you just want to be annoyed.  Skip this step if you were not lazy and actually used a brush or sponge to put it on.

OH! That would be a great use for makeup sponges- Mod Podge Applicators...also noted.

Start putting your metal flake on, I usually get out a pinch, plop it on there, and spread it out afterward, tapping down the loose edges where I can.  The resin will be helpful on keeping them down as well.

After you get it how you want it (especially if you are mixing colors and mediums, etc) mix up your resin. Apply your resin with a brush or your preferred applicator, I used the fancy technology known only as...a plastic spoon.  It is what I mix my resin with so it just makes sense.

While you are doing this, or maybe before, you need to come up with a pedestal or something you can set your pendant on.  If you set it directly on the bag you better hope that NO resin leaks over the side or you are going to have it stuck on there.  You might be able to get it off, but it is really easier to just have something to set it on.  I used beer caps.  I have a lot that people have given me (they know I make jewelry and they actually go to all the work to save them, thanks friends!) so I put 2 cap towers in 3 places. 

Ridge side down on bottom, ridge side up on top.  This way, the resin has less surface area that it can stick to when it dries. 

My plans for this washer are to wrap bronze wire around whatever I determine to be the top and turn it in to a pendant.  These are great to hang things in the middle as well, for example a smaller washer that maybe you did in another metal, eh? You can also put a second smaller washer on top, but keep in mind with anything you add that it will add weight.  This guy is not the lightest thing in the world as is.

So I am hoping to make him a bail with wire, and then to put him on a chunky bronze or mixed metal chain.  I love mixing metals and chain sizes, and I really think it adds a lot to the interest of a necklace.

Metal flake is great to have you can make some super simple pendants with it, just by using it with resin in plastic resin molds.  There are also plenty of products out there that allow you to make your own molds for resin, so I am just saying that the possibilities are extensive.

Conveniently, I had another picture of something I did last year.  This is resin in a triangular mold, wrapped with bronze wire, and on a brown ribbon chain. 



Happy crafting! Pin It Now!

Pesto Pasta Perfection

First off, I might as well go ahead and dedicate this entire post to my mom.  First of all, she let me use her wifi card at my apartment so that I can avoid the crappy internet issues when I need to.  Second, she gave me the best tip ever that I will pass along to you in the spirit of good will and good food.

As both are necessary components of LIFE.

Today, we are making a little dish I like to call "Pesto Pasta Perfection" as our craft.  I love food.  I spent my entire senior year of college watching the food network (I really did not have homework).  And I have attempted to try new things and new recipes while at college.  Pesto is something I have been in love with for quite some time, although I have not progressed into making my own yet.

But I have progressed into a multitude of recipes for it and great ways to stretch it further.

Without further ado...

Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup or so of pasta (basically however much you make for yourself, I do all my recipes in one person measurements, as I am one person).  My version of measuring pasta is a couple of handfuls really.  And like rice, I always make too much.
-3-5 mushrooms, I prefer bella, amount varies by size and how many you prefer, cut into slices or quarters (I like to do first one way and then the other)
-1/2 a vine tomato, cut into large cubes
-A handful of spinach leaves (I prefer baby spinach)
-About 1/4-1/3 c of pesto (I used a soup spoon scoop, you may tailor yours to your OCD and to your taste preferences)
-About 1/3 c of sour cream (again, I used a soup spoon scoop but had it more mounded than my pesto)  I would say 1/4 pesto and 1/3 sour cream is nearly spot on to what I did.
-Salt and Pepper to taste
-Olive Oil
-Mozzarella Cheese

Here is a little teaser of what we are shooting for.  Ignore my lack of fancy photography, I live and die by my iPhone camera.

Anyway, cook your pasta, as you can see here mine is tri color rotini, until it is as you like it. Some like it al dente, I prefer mine a little more cooked.  I don't time my pasta (go figure).  Pasta tends to get less translucent when it is nearing completion, so I check it every so often until then and when it looks right, I taste it.  Usually it needs another 2 minutes, sometimes not.
I am so sorry if anyone reading this is OCD.  I am just really not a precise person when it comes to cooking. 

While you are cooking this pasta, get a skillet heating with some EVOO and/or butter.  You just need enough to grease up the bottom a bit, I often end up using both, starting with EVOO and inevitably adding butter at the end.  I don't know why I do it, I just always have.

It is perfectly ok and possibly even a little helpful if the mushrooms are frozen.  At first I thought the water they release from freezing was going to mess things up, it does not.  You will want to add the mushrooms first, cook them a minute or two and flip them over, give them another minute or so, and throw in your tomatoes.  The spinach will just need a few minutes to cook down, so that can come in later toward the end.  I would say I probably cooked all of them in a skillet for maybe around 8-10 minutes, as I had the mushrooms started not too terribly long after my pasta.

After your pasta is done, drain it in to a collander or strainer of choice, I like to leave mine sitting for a second, and grab your mushroom mixture and drain it over the pasta.  This is why I said it is perfectly fine that the veggies juice up when cooking.

Tump everything back into the pot you cooked the pasta in, you can set it on your stove, counter, or back on your burner, whichever you choose, and add in the pesto and sour cream.

Give it all a good stir and watch it turn into a creamy yummy awesomeness.  All technical terms.  You can add in a handful or desired amount of mozzarella at this point, or add parmesan if you prefer.

Either mix it in while it is on your burner on a lower heat setting and let it heat up and melt, or do what I did, put it out into a bowl, add the cheese, and zap it for 30 seconds in the microwave.  The coolness of the sour cream and pesto cool down your dish a lot, so it likely won't melt the cheese as much as you might hope on its own.

Then it will come out looking like this.  YUMMY!  The sour cream is great because pesto tends to have a really strong flavor that can be a bit of a turnoff to some people.  I can easily eat straight pesto but I only use very small scoops at a time (this dish was a slight bit larger of a scoop than usual, but I also have leftovers).  Sour cream tends to be less expensive than most pesto, unless you find it on manager's special at Kroger and such, which I occasionally do. It is a great way to stretch the pesto while still having an incredibly flavorful sauce.

You can also add flavor by adding herbs to your veggies when you cook them.  I only put salt and pepper on mine, and I love how it all turned out.

If that happens, stock up and freeze it is my opinion.  It unthaws well.  Maybe even freeze in smaller containers if you are savvy like that!

I tend to be a lazy bum on garlic bread and usually don't bother turning on my oven for it, and cannot justify to myself the calorie counts on those frozen texas toast ones, so I put some wheat bread in the toaster, buttered it immediately on pop up, and sprinkled some garlic on it.  Simple, satisfying, quick, all words that I like.

This is a super simple dish to make and one that can easily be upscaled to your household needs.  It is something that I think a wide range of people would like the taste of, much more so than only using pesto in it.  For variations, do this with ravioli, tortellini, different pastas, and additions like chicken seasoned with rosemary and basil (another personal favorite of mine). 

College never tasted so good.
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Penguin Ornament

Anyone who knows me knows I love penguins.  They are super cute the way they waddle all around and whatnot.

Anyone who knows me knows I don't like boys who look like penguins.  True story, one time I could not keep flirting with a guy because his face reminded me so much of a penguin it tripped me out.  Penguin penguins = good, human penguins= bad.

Naturally as I am creating ornaments for my future tree, penguins had to be on there.  And what looks exactly like a penguin? An upside down lightbulb! You have probably seen this done a few times, and here is my take on it.

Materials:
-White and black puffy paint, or white puffy and black glass leading (which is what I used)
-A bead or scrap of paper
-Ribbon or other color of puffy paint for a scarf (optional)

I started out this project by using the glass leading and basically dividing my bulb into four vertical quadrants for my hot air balloon.

Wait, you say, this is about penguins!

Yes, that is true, but it started being about hot air balloons.  Rule #1, always have a backup plan.

I did not create a hanger out of wire first and let me tell you right now that was a huge mistake.  Luckily I was still able to wrap wire around the metal part later and create a hanger but do us both a favor and start with this.

I was doing some squiggles on my hot air balloon when I decided they were ugly and I was over it.  So I used my finger and smeared the 3 quadrants I had squiggled into a solid black but textured mass.

I then added the white puffy paint in the remaining quarter.  I decided it needed a little more flair in the white so I went over some of the black areas as well.  Then I decided he needed some flippers so I put those in over the white. 

That is why this 3D paint is better than just regular ole paint, because he comes out with some texture.

I used an orange bead I had for the nose and gave him some happy eyes, which I may end up changing later but I think I like.

After the paint dries (because I currently cannot touch it) I am going to add him in a ribbon scarf (red).

I think this would be uber cute to put feet on, even if they were painted up the bottom front of him with orange or yellow puffy paint.  I just didnt have such fancy things.
Also, consider using something like FlowerSoft or glitter on the white part (but if you decide to do that then do the white first so you don't get it all over the black) to give him a little added character or to make him look more snowy.

Excellent use of a burned out lightbulb, in my opinion.

Oh, and if you are wondering, I have him drying by clipping him on to the bottom shelf of my hanging closet organizer, dangling over a tub lid in case he falls so he won't ruin my carpet.

Oh the shenanigans.

Now, off to bed, I have a 7:30AM Departmental Breakfast Date.  I do love me some breakfast. Pin It Now!

Why didn't they think of that?

Alright this is going to be short and sweet and doesn't involve pictures because it is so self explanatory.  To preface how this came about, Ball State gave the urban and regional planning masters each a studio space, complete with a desk and file cabinets. This prompted me to determine ways to organize the large cabinets and spaces more effectively. They are all metal, which got me to thinking about magnets.

And then led to my best idea yet- magnetic command hooks. Originally I was going to attach business card magnet backs to the hooks because they are very strong and secure. However, since I was not able to locate my pack of them, I opted to use the roll of magnetic backing I found

It's really as simple as that. They become completely handy in an office setting, great for my studio space, and interesting idea for potential home use (tool belt hanging on a hook by a big metal toolbox anyone?) (gun accessories hung in a gun cabinet?) and are durable as long as you use a good magnetic backing which is simple to find.

I often make photo magnets and tile magnets with the business card backs, so they were my first choice.

Also with the magnet idea came attaching magnets to the undersides of my pencil holders and desk drawer organizers to keep them in place when I yank open the drawer.

Ah, another use for magnetic hooks might be hanging your downy ball on the side of your washer when not in use.

I mean I understand that as far as crafts go this may not be life altering, but I sure did find it to be a darn good idea.

Until next time! Pin It Now!

Super Simple DIY Bag

So you have to cut me some slack here, I could have done this infinitely better.  But consider this a rough sketch.  Don't you just have a day sometime where you don't want to find the darn scissors and glue?

That's me today, and I had a scrap of wallpaper I needed to use.

Tired of hearing about that same wallpaper?

Too bad.

Materials:
-Rectangular scrap of paper, doesn't matter the size
-Glue (I cheated, I used glue dots)
-Hole punch
-String, ribbon, something
-Scissors if you need to trim the paper or need to cut it

To start out, I folded it roughly in to not quite thirds.  That is technical terminology and you need to remember that.

Again, you would likely want to have it all nice and trimmed and stuff, but it was just going to be a nuisance for me.

From this you can fold up the sides to see how big you want the bottom to be and then crease it accordingly.

See what I am talking about? So you fold this guy up to decide where you want to fold. 

After you fold and put a hard crease in it, tear (ok fine cut it if you insist) the little part that will make up the side of the bottom flap.

You want to be able to fold the sides in toward each other and then fold that inner part up on them as well.

It will make more sense in the next picture.  It is a little hard to explain in words I suppose.

So here is where you are going with this.  You don't really have to put the sides completely over each other, you could attach them in the middle and then fold and connect the bottom flap accordingly, but this is just super simple this way.

Yours will look better than mine becasue you will glue it down like a nice crafter that you are.

And yours won't look mangled, because you are such a nice crafter.

Me, I am a hurricane and my stuff just looks like this all the time.

Again, rough sketch.

Continue to fold away, and fold the little top parts down if you like, or put another paper over them, as I would have liked to have done with gold paper with this particular wallpaper.

Then, punch holes in each side to thread something through, I would really suggest some cute ribbon.  But part of my challenge was to use things I had already.

When you use glue instead of mounting dots, your sides won't look all mangley like this poor little bag.  If you needed something sturdier than just the paper itself you would obviously want to use something like cardboard in the bottom of it, maybe from the pack of a scrappack or something.

The point is, follow these relative guidelines and make a bag any size, any time, using scraps of whatever you have!
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Hey, Hey Good Lookin': Menu Board Day 24

Well, I wanted it to say that.  But it ended up being way better than what I imagined.  I love planning my meals by the week.  It seriously makes it go so much easier during the week and it helps me utilize leftovers, like rice.  Can anyone actually make just the right amount of rice? Because I most certainly canNOT. 

So, let's make a menu board!

Materials:
-Frame and glass, I used an 18x24 poster style (but higher quality) frame that we found in the house
-Scrapbook paper in colors and patterns of choice, I used damask, black, and green
-Glue or adhesive, I used mounting dots because I did not feel like messing with glue
-Wire or attachment mechanism if your frame does not have one
-Stamps, ink, or letters

Pardon this for being upside down.  I was too lazy to switch it.  Stand on your head if need be.

Anyway, the first step is clearly to get the hideous artwork out of the frame.  Turn the artwork into OUTWORK. 

I had to break this because it was a picture mounted on dense foam, so I ended up making a backing out of wallpaper that I could put my scrapbook paper on, and later on I put the broken pieces back in behind it to keep it sturdy.

Start layering in your papers.  I used two different 12x12 damask pages, and put a black strip between them to disguise the fact that I could not splice them perfectly without causing myself a headache. 

You know how it goes, hide your errors and fake it 'til you make it.

I used 2 12x12 sheets of green paper and ended up cutting down the pieces to about 2x4 or so by the time I was done with it.  Maybe 3x4.  I had to just keep cutting it.  You could do something fancy like measure and figure out the perfect size.

I added in the sticker letters for "the menu" and stamped the days of the week onto the green blocks.  I almost used R for Thursday because I am so used to college schedules.

If you are wondering about the two random flowers, I had to put them in to cover up an error.  I really don't think that anyone would have noticed it but I likely would have stared at it. And stared.  And stared.

So, you can write on these with dry erase right onto the glass, if it does not come up you can use something like a magic eraser or hand sanitizer and it should come right off for you. 

I always lose the little pieces of paper that I write my week down on, so I am incredibly excited to have this.  And the best part is, it will look perfect with my bright green Rachel Ray cookware...

That I got at Burlington Coat factory for $100.  SCORED!

I also think that one of this size could be done for a bigger calendar or organizing idea if need be, I just wanted a really cool piece of art for my kitchen.  You also have plenty of room to add something for a grocery list if you like.

Happy cooking! Pin It Now!