December

So far as of today I have made (this month):

13 little kid story books with 3 different stories
16 KindNotes jars with 30 different pearls of wisdom (ok they all lean toward the obnoxious side...)
5 tshirts with Phineas, Ferb, Candace and Perry painted on them
a super awesome starwars quilt,
10 onesies with geeky stuff painted on them
2 Mostly Mean Fairies books

And I submitted my application to present at the educational technology conference in March and danced at the all-IT work christmas party talent show, in between an acoustic guitar player and a yodeler and got A's this semester whilst sweating my projects and proposals.



The talent show, I did not barf or fear pee even though the VP for IT and his 5 next in line minions where at a table right at the front next to the stage.

The story I am too chicken to use.

Untitled for now, I asked coworkers to come up with the smutty phrases we've been seeing and hearing around the interwebs. I can't bring myself to use this one so I'll be changing the ending.


Silent but deadly,
I snuck out of your room,

And rode my bike to your garden,
To see the flowers bloom.

But down by the roses,
Past a big yellow cat,

I found a big brown box,
Next to our welcome mat.

I cut a hole in the box,
And found lots of things,

Balls and shirts and underwear,
And toys and books and rings.

I pulled out two birds, one cup
And a rocking horse I named “Mom”

So every day
When I go outside to play,
My other ride is your Mom, okay?

I could have been a Children's Writer

I am finished for the semester and am working on some homemade books for the nieces and nephews. The ones I made last time were pretty simple so in this version, 2.0, I have to make them more weird. I've found that when trying to rhyme words you can come up with a lot of possibilities. So I write out all of the letters of the alphabet and based the morphology of our words I can go through the letters and see what makes a word. If I pick the filthy option, the sad little kids will never read the book so I have to find something that is innocent and fits the story. After I give them all out I will post some pictures but from 1.0 here's what they were.

Title: What is a ______(kid's name)
 (assuming it's a girl)
Is she a bird?
Is she a bee?
Is she a dog?
Is she a tree?
Is she a flower?
Is she a mouse?
Is she an alligator?
Is she a house?
Is she a ladybug?
Is she a boat?
Is she a doll?
Is she a goat?
I know! ______ is a little girl!
 
And then a picture of the kid.
 
 
Also,  version 1.1 (for Cian's 3rd birthday)
 
Spiderman
 
He likes to climb walls,
And swing across buildings,
And then come eat dinner when his mom calls.
He likes to jump very high,
And run very quick,
Then hurry and take a bath,
So he doesn’t get sick.
And then he goes to his bed,
And his mommy turns out the light
And he dreams about climbing walls,
And mommy kisses him goodnight.
 
This time around I'm doing three versions for three different age levels. So now I have to come up with rhymes that are made of very short words. I have two all finished and need one more.

Books About You

I just got back from a Fall Break vacation and have some time to catch this blog up. Seriously, grad school is sucking my soul away.

I have a few young nieces, nephews and shorties belonging to friends all having birthdays recently. I wrote out some short rhyming stories (not an actual narrative) on cardstock and then colored pictures with crayons.

Cian really likes Spiderman so I made him something different:

Not the whole books but the kids liked them. Cian wanted Spiderman read to him 5 or 6 times in a row when he opened it.

What is it With Zombies These Days?

I saw some of these boxes around crafty sites and though they were awesome. My friend Louis kept talking about seeing Resident Evil 3D so I figured he needed one. This is sort of small but plexiglass is expensive. I used a nerf gun I spray painted black and made a stencil out of cardstock and contact paper. I've made 3 of these boxes so far and my woodworking has been improving over the course of them.

I did open it up and tuck the pamphlet back behind the gun and the white words needed to be scrubbed with steel wool and water to clean up a bit but over all I liked the project.

Warning Pamphlet

Hobbes

I've been seeing a lot of attempts at Hobbes on http://www.craftster.org/ and thought this would be a good time to try it myself. I couldn't find a pattern so I printed out a picture of one of the newer crocheted attempts and just kinda tried to match it. This is attempt #5 or #6 I can't remember. The last one I absolutely hated and gave to some kids that liked it and I saw it again recently and it's really not all that bad. This one I left with my cute niece and nephew in Houston so I'll need to make one more for myself and at least one more for them so they don't kill each other over it.

Painting a Shirt

I sent some onsies to my brother and sister in law and posted an instructable on how to draw on them with permanent marker. Someone commented on it with images painted on and then posted one on that so I had to try it. I've drawn on shirts before, usually a cathedral with a fine tip sharpie but this was different.

My Instructable: How to Decorate a Onsie wWith a Permanent Marker

And my shirt painting:

Shirt Painting Instructable

I lied.

I do have some time and it helps with stress but anyway... I signed up for a swap on www.instructables.com and have been working on this book for the past week. It's due by the end of the month and after agreeing to do this I didn't realize how much time it would take. 

The binding is Ethiopian double needle coptic stitch and scrap leather for the covers. The book block is made from old computer punch cards I got from the work Christmas party last December. I cut the back pieces out of different leather and the watch parts are from my stash.

I am really stressed about my swap partner liking this. He said no pink but he wanted pretty much anything. I brought it to work for opinions and a coworker offered to buy it from me so I guess it'll be ok.

Homework

I really don't have a lot of time these days. I can do birthday gifts mostly and then the rest is all homework. So here's my homework for Ed Psych 6447, Intro to Web Based Tools and Applications. I did the layout in Fireworks and then setup the site in Dreamweaver. Project One sucks compared to this one so we'll just skip it.

Project Two

Tiny Bard

I was at the local city library saturday and they had a table set up with really old books. I was in heaven. There was a small collection of shakespeare, the complete works, each in its own volume and about the size of an index card. I got to hold and look at some of them. Unbelievably cool.

I had some suede and an old book of his plays and wanted to make teeny book charms, each 1" x ~.75"

Zombie Books

I got Pride and Prejudice and Zombies postcards from Amazon a month or two ago and knew they needed to be book covers.

The last 3 were coptic stitch which turns out to be less work than with a spine but the variation is nice. They are all covered with scrapbook paper, then my super-awesome tea dyed fabric. The postcards are trimmed, glued and braded.

The pages were insane but worth it. I used copy paper. Then with acrylic paint and a spray bottle I hit one sheet with water, then wiped with watery paint (venetian red, some green, blue, etc with metallics) and sprayed again. I stacked the wet sides onto a dry sheet and only had to paint the one side. Then I let them dry outside or in if raining. When they were dry I stacked as much as I could under something big and flat. I ironed each sheet on a towel and stacked into piles of 20 then folded in half with a bone folder and each stack was put in a book press for at least 6 hours. Then I cut to size. There are a few sheets of scrapbook paper per signature too.

After everything was bound and dried I mixed some venetian red, alazrian crimson, cad red and a teeny bit of pthalo blue. It took a while mixing to find a good blood color that was more red than brown. I wiped my paint hands on each of the books and let them dry. After I signed and numbered all of them. I have more postcards so I'll definitely be doing more.

Fame (sorta)

After posting Kai's pirate gift to craftster.org it made featured projects. I feel famous.

Craftster Home Page

That's my pirate picture!! Wow. I got texted this by a coworker on the way to work today. I was in such a good mood the whole way I didn't even stress about traffic.

The bestest part of the whole project was Kai telling me my gift was his favorite. It melts the heart.

Kai's Birthday

I started with a paper mache book box and painted it to look like a book. I added a keyhole after. I also used a fan watercolor brush with a teeny bit of metallic gold at a time to create the pages look.


Inside I put put some handmade and some store bought goodies:

I bought this tin online and painted it, then decoupaged the image on top. After it dried I wiped some paint on it and then wiped off the excess (very watery venetian red acrylic).

I put a chain onto the key, it seemed to need it. I got the gold and the eyepatch at a party supply store.



This is an accordion book I made for him. Cardboard was covered in tea-dyed fabric. Then I added the story and pictures:





The map book - I painted a pirate map onto suede. Then I sewed on a backing, the tea fabric, and the labels. Because of the paint I had to fold it in half and clip it overnight so it would stay bent like a book. The ribbon ties perfectly and a button to cover the threadlines over it all.


Also, if you don't know how to make your own fabric printer paper it's pretty easy. Iron your fabric onto parchment paper and cut it to 8 1/2 x 11 inches. I printed off the labels and the compass on my dyed fabric and it came out perfectly.

The pages were also dyed with tea:



This kid is so stinkin' cute!

Rebooking

I bought this book at B&N on clearance for a couple bucks. I replaced the book block with my own, there are about 10 signatures, the first and last pages are scrapbook paper oh so artfully ripped. I've seen some awesome handmade books done in a similar way. I like it. The end.

Pictorial Webster's

Pictorial Webster's: Inspiration to Completion from John Carrera on Vimeo.

Videos like this make me only want to be a bookmaker.

Mostly Mean Fairies

I had a birthday coming up and wanted to make something cute for the kid. She likes fairies and stuff like that so I bought a craft box and filled it up with stuff for her.

The box: painted and decoupaged, I glued rhinestones with resin and added feet made from polymer clay. I painted the toenails with nail polish.

The bottles contain: starlight (green glitter), Words (page of text shrunk down), flower pollen (yellow beads), Robin Eggs (paper clay eggs painted blue), Earth (dirt), Pocket watch (teeny watch parts), Buttons (paper clay painted purple), Teeth (more paper clay), Yellow Petals (cut up silk flower), Blue Petals (same as yellow), Fairy Dust (white glitter), Gold and Silver (gold and silver painted teeny piece of a paper towel).

All the cord stoppers are superglued in and all bottles are glued to the inside of the box. I don't want her choking on anything just yet. When one of the stoppers kinda broke off at the glue part I cut the rest off the same so they match and it will be even harder for her to get into the bottles.

The book: Mostly Mean Fairies - I started writing cutesy stuff at first but got bored and it's basically a list of douchebag stuff that people do. I posted to complete list on twitter so friends could give me suggestions but no one did. I'm going to make more so if anyone has suggestions: http://twitter.com/mostlymean

There's a lot of pictures so I put them together in Photostory:

I made the book and since I was making one, why not make 3 more, all the same. I gave two to coworkers with kids and am keeping the last one. I'll probably give it away eventually. The pages are made with scrapbook paper and regular paper. I added vintage pictures and more ephemera. Some pages and the cover were rubbed with a couple of ink pads for age and color.

I kept the books with me for about 3 weeks writing in stuff, adding pictures, words and other stuff. I found the silly names by doing a google search for 'silly names' and found actual names that worked http://web.archive.org/web/20070203122818/http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=13791

The Last of the Puzzle Pieces

There might not be exactly 99 total, I'm sure I've dropped a few. These ones had too much text for a picture so I doodled on them.

99 puzzle pieces

I ordered a photo puzzle from snapfish and it was missing 1 piece. They sent me a new one and I though I'd do something cute with the unused 99 pieces. These are some of my favorites with a closeup.