Thing-a-day.com

So I just finished grad school in the fall, and I’m trying to “transition” to my post-school work life. One of the big projects I am trying to undertake as an adult is a Proper Grown-Up Bed, instead of the 20-year-old mattresses inherited from my parents, set up on the floor. This is a tiny step in the right direction, as I research the best platform bed frame… To keep me motivated.

It looks uneven, which is weird because I measured! And hammered my finger! Actually, now that I think about it, maybe (a) my whole bedroom is crooked or (b) I, myself, am crooked and am therefore not holding the camera straight.

The second, weirdly focused picture shows closer-up. I strung up some recycled industrial felt hearts from fine etsy merchant etcetera media (BUY HANDMADE!) on a piece of thread strung between two nails. This was a quick and dirty project, I’m happy with how it looks, and if I get tired of it I can so easily take it down. The only thing I’m sad about is that I didn’t order more of the hearts, because I can think of about 50 more things I would like to do with them…

Today I needle-felted some more felt pieces and yarn to the front of the felted sweater piece from yesterday. Then I hand-sewed the shoulders to the back sweater piece, and sewed up the sides by machine. The plan was to reconstruct this into a jumper dress for my daughter (a toddler), but I wasn’t really happy with the shape. The shoulders needed to be cut down and reshaped to fit her. I wasn’t sure that I could do this neatly, so I decided instead to sew the sweater back together with the original arms. I would have liked to substitute other more interesting felted arm pieces, but I only have a small stash of felted sweaters and none of them looked right. Basically I just reconstructed the sweater in a smaller size. Hopefully it will fit her next winter.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Today I made this postcard using recycled material - foil, ribbon, packaging plastic. After weaving the ribbon together, I stitched it onto a piece of packaging plastic. The packaging material is 1/4 inch thick, with lots of trapped air bubbles… worked great for giving the heart a quilted look. I wrapped the foil onto a scrap of poster board and stitched around the edges.

‘Nuff said.

i took a picture of some glass hearts in honor of valentine’s day:

and i finally finished my jarful of olives!

for more pictures of hearts and olives (including one of the olives actually in a jar) please see my flickr page.

These socks were a gift from my sister. Inspired by this post by dyslexia, I decided to use the cute valentines socks my sister gave me as arm warmers as well. I like them better as cuffs. I simply cut and hemmed the end.

This probably shouldn’t even actually count, as simple as they were to make. I made three tiny little valentines for co-workers. They are about 2 inches wide and so cute. It’s just a heart printed on card stock with colored paper glued inside (one is lavender, one pink, the other coral). I wrote a little note in each. Since I am always the first in the office, tomorrow I will leave them on their desks with a Hershey’s Kiss.

The second card is for a dear friend. Same idea as the mini hearts, but this is a multi-floral design with the Kaba in the center. I got the design off a friend’s website, printed it on card stock and glued coral paper inside.

I also worked a bit on the box from yesterday which I am completely redoing, but haven’t finished it yet.

But FIRST I had to finish my thing LOL. I was able to put the rest of the valentines together and now they are in the beeeyoootiful envelopes, addressed, stamped and waiting on me to carry them to the mailbox. The cards look much more cool IRL, the photos just don’t show the layering very well. C’est la vie. But I got to use up a lot of scraps that I just couldn’t bear to throw away b/c they were so big. Yay!

Feb. 9 - a map of our weekend

Feb. 10 - the last heart.
The last heart was done with screenprinting ink and fabric spray paint on fabric. I’m less than thrilled with how it turned out. I haven’t decided whether to frame these or not. And tonight’s Thing didn’t get made. I did swim 40 lengths of my pool, though, and I made some pasta with zucchini. And I think I’m going to the craft store tomorrow, so there can be more craft in my future. I need some googley eyes. Oooh, and resin…

Actually, I guess you could count this:

It’s me as a weird hybrid zoo animal. You can make your own here: build your wild self. Cop-out, you say? Pshaw! I also made a very nice spreadsheet in Excel at work! Together, those should add up to one Real Thing.

My school’s choir does “Singing Valentines” every year - students buy grams for their valentines or just their friends and write their class schedule on the card. The choir splits into 2 groups of girls and 2 groups of guys, and we find them in their classes and shower them with obnoxious affection in the form of song and dance while wearing ridiculously pink outfits. Oh, high school.

My group of 8 girls’ outfits consist of pink and red plaid pajama bottoms and white wifebeaters with candy hearts with different phrases (QT 3.14 might be the most creative, ever) ironed onto the front. The back has the name of the singer and the year. I ribbon-ed the shirt/pants up and made tags with washing instructions. (I should probably be doing my homework, haha).

My friend just enrolled her son in one of those really earnest preschools where they’ve got very strong views on childrearing (i.e. no television til age 7). At the school they don’t write or label their names on anything. They use symbols to identify their belongings and their work. My friend’s son is Mushroom. So for Valentine’s day I designed these heart-bedecked mushroom cards for him to give out.

I ended up liking them so much I might make some to give out myself I think they’d look great placed in a tray of grass.

a lot of these are inside jokes with my bf but i thought that they might be slightly entertaining to others. i cheated and used a tube of premade cookie dough because it’s been a really busy weekend.

After seeing these hand stitched hearts on ljcfyi, I decided to make my own. I made three hearts so far. If I get around to it, I’ll make a few more. I stitched the smaller heart on the bigger heart with embroidery thread. Easy and cute!

Last night my best friend told me a wonderful story about her 6-year-old daughter. I don’t really like kids, except my own and this one little girl. The story was funny, and amazing all at the same time, and we are very proud of this special little girl.

So for my Day 9 Thing-A-Day I decided to make something for her. This is what I did.

Photo

And filled it with dark chocolate Hershey’s Kisses.

tried again at the neopastels.. still not sure we have a future together.

With Valentine’s Day coming up I was looking for an alternative to buying a card and found these origami hearts. I made two!

I’ve also been making good progress on my sock knitting using my new made stitch markers.

…so I found some more hearts - bigger ones this time and made some pendants.

There is a mix of genuine Venetian glass, Chinese millefiori glass, handmade glass, rose quartz, green aventurine, and rubyite.

I must admit I cheated and used some ready made ribbon necklaces to hang them, but I think they are pretty.

I took the fabric I stamped yesterday and created a small twelve inch square quilt.