Category Archives: News

Mar3

Apparently I lied

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Yeah, remember when I said I’d be posting again soon? Two months ago? Um.

I also may have said I was high class, but that was just a lie.

I’ve been in a bit of a funk that I keep thinking is going to waft away like the smell when you drive past the water treatment plant, and it hasn’t quite gone away. Maybe I need to be detailed.

I’m especially disgusted with myself this weekend, since I really need to get started on an art project that has an actual deadline. I got juried into the Habitat for Humanity ReStore art show, and I’m planning to work on a piece that I’ve had in my head for at least a year. (Oh by the way, this blog marked its 1-year anniversary last month. Apparently without me.) Some procrastination was actually helpful, as I’d been about to start with the basic piece my collage/assemblage will be made from, and thought I was going to have to use a plan B piece. But a friend turned up with what I wanted all along, which is a window of the size that falls within the guidelines of the show. So yay. But it’s way past time I got started, and there will be some weekends I can’t work on it, so I’ve just painted myself into a corner where I’ll have to be working on it before and/or after work.

And dammit, I don’t know where my box of ephemera has gotten to. How very ephemeral.

And as a side effect of getting Plan A materials, I thought of something really cool to do with the plan B piece, a pallet.

So that’s where I am at the moment. I will keep track of the progress of this piece and eventually show it here. I’ve got a month, so it won’t be terribly long.

Oh! Yeah! I got into the show using photos I snagged from this very blog. Wooooo!

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Oct10

Hitting the fan

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Believe it or not, I am not projectless, just fairly wordless. Spent one weekend away, then every night and half of last weekend madly writing a story that turned out to be an epic. I opened windows several times to post, then just stared at blank screen.

The weekend away was at a gathering of fans in a nearby city. If you think ComicCon or DragonCon, you are WAY off-base. There were fewer than 20 of us, but we had a fantastic time. And luckily one of the activities was the making of a bracelet themed around the CW show “Supernatural.” Profound exhaustion precludes me from getting off my ass to photograph the bracelet, but I’ll do so within the next couple of days.

At any rate, this weekend I encountered a cool multi-fandom craft challenge to make something related to the object of one’s fannish obsession. Anyone reading this who wishes to check it out (either to sign up or to bookmark to check out the resulting crafts) can go here: http://imadeathing.dreamwidth.org/332.html
There are prompts you can choose, but it’s pretty loosey-goosey and you can just use it as general inspiration with a deadline if that’s what it takes to get you moving.

And speaking of fandom and craftiness, GISHWHES is returning this year to haunt us again. Actor Misha Collins and cronies create a list of bizarre things to make, do, document, and send his fans forth to accomplish them. I suspect my craft rate will go way up, but I probably won’t be able to show off what I’ve done until the competition is over.

Jun30

And this:

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You may note if you scroll down that I projected I’d be rolling the Random Craft Tutorial generator dice this week (or in four hours, according to the countdown app below). But I am having family in town for the next week, and won’t really be able to do a major craft so far as I know. What I think I’ll do is click the generator now and settle what my craft will be, then schedule a time for it.

And I’m going to make a rule for this one, too. If the craft that comes up requires major equipment I don’t have or materials that would cost over $20, I’m going to try again and keep going until I hit a suitable project.

In fact, I’m going to roll the dice right now.

May28

The Week in Dangerous Crafts

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The Week in Dangerous Crafts

So I’m back from Wiscon, the feminist SF convention that takes place in Madison every year. It’s my mini-vacation; after the first year of commuting an hour each way, I started staying at the con hotel, which means I can manage later nights and/or earlier mornings. The last few years I’ve been putting stuff in the art show, some for sale, some not, but just to show off. Mostly scarves — first the very subtly colored silks I made with plants for dye. This year I’ve found ways to get much brighter colors, so I put in mostly those newer scarves, plus some framed collages and some of the galaxy tees and deconstructed tee shirts I made the last couple of weeks. It was a lot — 48 pieces, which required marking them all down on the control sheet, then making bid sheets for each one, which I usually do over lunch with my friend Gwynne, who comes to the con from LA.

I missed a lot of the opening stuff while I put up all my pieces (with help from a wonderful volunteer), and then was so tired I crawled up to my room without going to the opening ceremonies or parties.

I checked in once or twice a day to see how things were going, but for most of the weekend, it didn’t seem like much was moving at all. But by the time I took down my 3 panels, I realized some had gone. Once we checked the bid sheets against the control sheet, I realized it was even more than I thought. I haven’t added it all up yet (the art show folks double and triple check that stuff, then send a check), but I think it’s going to prove to be worth the work. Not THAT much work, though. Maybe I’ll take it back down to two panels next year, and mostly keep it to scarves.

When I get over Wiscon exhaustion I’d like to put some up on Etsy, and maybe try a few scarves in my flea market booth. Otherwise, they will just be hanging around the house for another year, bogarting the TV remote and drinking beer.

Anyhow, here’s my booth:

Panels 1 & 2

…and the other side:

Next year, I hope to pare down my selection and my work, and maybe put some of the energy into making a kickass outfit for the big party night on Sunday. Everyone looked so inspirational and fabulous for the dance party!

Mar18

“MY GOD, IT’S FULL OF STARS”

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“MY GOD, IT’S FULL OF STARS”

By the time this year is more than halfway through, I suspect the most-used tag will be Fixes for t-shirts I wrecked by dropping food on my rack.

This is the first. Though it was originally kinda ruined when I got bleach spots on the hip. How that occurred I can’t even tell you, since I don’t use bleach in my laundry. It’s a mystery. I was wearing it anyway under a cardigan, but then I dropped something on my rack (it’s always salad dressing or something that won’t quietly disappear in the wash — someone needs to write a scientific paper on the attraction of oily foods to the sizable rack).

So I found a tutorial through Pinterest where that begins with you spritzing bleach all over a black cotton tee, so it seemed like a natural. Plus, it looks really amazing.

You can find the tutorial here:

http://treasuresandtravels.squarespace.com/blog/2012/2/21/diy-galaxy-tee.html

So here’s the shirt I started out with — a nice basic tee that I wasn’t nearly ready to part with yet. Except — crap! Grease stain!

Out, damned spot!

I sprayed the shirt with bleach, and then promptly tossed it in the washer. But here it is, post-spritz.

I love the fine spray of reddish color here.

I dotted around several colors: smudges of matte gray and some iridescent blue and red, using my Shiva oil paint sticks.

Point down, and a little twist of the wrist

Then I smeared around some white glitter paint throughout. The original tutorial used white paint and glitter separately, but I went with what I could find at the megalomart on the way home from work, which has a good fabric section and a crappier crafts section. I wore this once, then decided it needed more glitter. Though I wore it again, I suspect I’ll add some spots of paint by thumb-flicking paint-loaded bristles, rather than flicking the whole brush a la Pollock.

But here is its current form:

Pretty slick, huh?

Though I’m very nervous about it, I’m wanting to try this on a canvas tote, with some handwritten text in a resist medium before I bleach. I think it would make a very cool item for the Wiscon art show — which, HEY, I GOT ACCEPTED!!!

Mar10

So that happened…

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So that happened…

Zombie cake is not relevant to this post, but it was made by me.

I seem to have rented a booth at a permanent flea market.

Well, it’s a local store in the midst of changing from dollar store-type merch to indoor flea market, and I’ve put my app in for a small booth when they’ve finally cleared the space for the second room. It might be something I’d move crafts into eventually but for now I’d love to get rid of some of the furniture that’s jamming my garage. I’ve got kitchen gadgets I bought in a fit of ambition that I’ve never or rarely used, too.

Reasonable rent, no yearly contract, no requirement to sit and hang over my stuff at all, and the advertising’s all taken care of.

Woo hoo!