I promised myself that for the sake of my kids, this year I would NOT forget to water my plants. In fact, I have ordered my Non-GMO organic seeds, to start growing some things, if anything for the sake of my daughter-in the name of teaching her a bit about science.
These are seed starters! Cool, right? Thanks to the blog, 365 of DIY, you can make your own seed starters using paper pulp! So start saving all your junk mail.
Pinterest has done it again. Maybe I should make this a weekly thing, eh? The pinterest thing?
Anyway, I saw this tute on Pinterest, and I am so sorry. I left it open to pin it and BAM. My husband Xed out of my windows and it is lost forever. You know, I have a bad habit of leaving pages open on my google chrome, to remind me to do things. What? Oh yeah, I have a planner. And a calender. Yeah. But still. Leaving the page open is much better.
ANYWHO….
I made these. They are easy peasy.
All it is, is sanded down shrink plastic, that is drawn on with a fine tip permanent marker, and then painted with acrylic paint. Shrink it up with your heat gun, and then go over the painted side with Mod Podge. That’s important, so that the paint doesn’t chip. I used Plaid’s folk art paint and that worked nicely on this project.
And that’s it! I have a necklace that I am making to match it, but eh. When you have two kids, things become….a little…bit….slower. You know?
So right.
Do you like it?
Thank goodness that I have a newborn, because I cannot wait to find inventive ways to recycle my baby food jars (though I do not think I will have too many of them, since I plan on making a lot of my own baby food).
Anyway, I LOVE this. Do you know what it is? It’s a baby food spice rack, ON THE REFRIGERATOR! I love it. Thanks to Lauren, at DAV.I.SON for the very cool tute! To read her tutorial, go HERE.
If there’s one thing about me, it’s that I am a sucker for a good journal. I really am. I love literary journals (where I write my thoughts and poems) and art journals, where I can sketch and draw and such.
Since I just had the baby, and it’s been quite frigid lately, it has left me home, with no way to get to the art supply store, to buy a new moleskin notebook. And I like to start the new year with a new journal. It’s just a thing about me, I guess.
Anyhow, while browsing Pinterest, I found a very cool art journal that a woman made from grocery paper bags. Now, the problem I encountered is that my supermarket does not give out paper bags, and I usually bring my own bags (or I take the plastic ones, because I recycle them for other things).
So in my DIRE need for a new journal, I decided to make one. Here’s what I came up with, since I don’t have blank paper to bind it with.
Inside, the pages are from a vintage children’s music book. It’s an educational book that was used in schools and such. I figured, I can just gesso the pages (or rather, use the poor man’s gesso, which is just white paint. Or, if you’re REALLY broke, use that left over white house paint).
The over has a little collage of magazine clippings, which my daughter made me. I love it so much, I put it on the cover! Oh, and for the cover, I used a Ritz Cracker box in place of chipboard, which I cannot find. I could in theory, since I do know where it is, but eh. With two children, I do not feel like spending the little time that they nap, on locating my chipboard. So I recycled, instead.
Then, I used some pretty paper by Crate Paper, and tissue tape by Tim Holtz.
What do you think, you like it? You can totally make this. It’s EASY! Just learn to do a good and simple book binding. You can learn on Booklyn’s website. Then, save your cereal box, or cracker box, or any sort of packaging that is made of chipboard.
It’s easy! Find some cool paper to bind. Maybe some newspaper? Or maybe you’re lucky enough to have paper grocery bags? Whatever, man. Bind it with whatever.
So being pregnant, while wonderfully fabulous, does do a number on your body. With my daughter Dakota, I had HORRIBLE acne.
This time, I have no acne issues. What I do get, is a bit of flakiness on my face. It’s really annoying. So I made a scrub, to exfoliate, and get the blood flowing, and such.
Granted, it doesn’t look that appetizing. But it works, I tell you.
For this, I just mixed a bit of used coffee grinds, with some sugar & oatmeal, and that was that. If you want to, you can add a bit of witch hazel. But I just added a drop or two of coffee. I like to recycle, so I used a recycled jar to put my grinds in.
How much, you ask?
Hmmmm. I normally eye-ball it, since that’s also how I cook. I’d say equal parts of all three, until you get the consistency you like. Sugar softens skin, oatmeal helps clarify, and coffee takes out the toxins. So that’s how I came up with this mixture. You can add a scent if you like. I didn’t tho.
There are a LOT of things you can do with things you have at home, to make scrubs and such things.
For example if you’ve got some acne, and don’t want to buy expensive acne medicine, just dab some honey on the problem area. Toothpaste doesn’t work. It never did for me, anyway. A few days of honey will dry up that acne nicely tho.
Another good thing is avocado & olive oil for the hair. That works nicely. Just blend some avocado with a bit of olive oil, and apply to the hair. Put on a shower cap, and take a nice hot shower, then rinse it out of your hair with cooler water.
Another natural exfoliant is Pineapple. It’s so delicious, but it’s also a good exfoliant. Honestly, just slice off a small piece, and scrub it on your skin when taking a shower or whatever.
My experience with holistic skin care is garbage in, garbage out. So eat healthy, stay away from too much sugar, and drink lots of water, and you’ve got no worries. Your skin will look better. So also, try to adapt a healthier lifestyle. This of course, may be difficult for you, but at least try to keep the sweets to a minimum.
That’s my opinion, anyway.
I just finished making this set of two handbound recycled journals.
Inside the book, I alternated blank recycled paper, and pages from a vintage french dictionary.
I used my bind it all machine to make holes, and then used a japanese stab binding, with that fancy twine, that’s used in bakeries and such.
You like it? It’s a fun Halloween theme, don’t you think? I mean, the skulls and all that. Oh, and I used a cereal box for the front and back covers. Cool, eh?
So….not much to say today. It’s monday. Gimme time to think of something first.
So, I’m in a swap. This one should be fun. It’s an art journal swap. I love art journaling. I took a plain sketchbook, and altered the cover. Here’s what I came up with:
You like it?
Here’s a close up.
Anyway, the fiber there is of course, by Art Institute Glitter.
The images are by Alpha stamps. I went on a rampage a while back and ordered a whole bunch, these are the last few.
What else?
I don’t celebrate Columbus day, in case you wanted to know.
I’m going to buy yarn this week, oh joy I am so excited. Smiley’s is having a HUGE sale, and their sales are usually AMAzing. $10 a bag, usually!
I don’t have too much to say today, except that I started my new job, as a teaching artist for an afterschool program (for middle school and high school students). I really like it a lot.
It’s so different working with teenagers, than working with adults. For one thing, children are so much less grumpy! The other thing is…I dunno, I guess I really enjoy working with teens. It’s fun. Admittedly, we both are shy, but art and creativity has a way of opening people up, from across cultures.
I love it. It’s so much fun, coming up with projects every week, and thinking of new fun things to teach these kids.
So recently I made a fun little item. I had ordered some amber beads on ebay (to make a teething necklace), and decided to turn the box it came in, into a pretty jewelry box, for someone to receive this christmas (along with jewelry inside, duh).
Sorry for the crud picture. Wow, crud. I haven’t used that word since I was in high school. How about that. Maybe I’m getting old, eh?
Cute, eh? I made this using some acrylic paint, and a typewriter font rubber stamp.
After that, I used some wondrous Fantasy Fiber by Art Institute Glitter. What I did, was spread out some fantasy fiber sandwiched between two layers of parchment paper, and just ironed it.
Then, I just glued it on, with Art institute glue, and stamped it again with the typewriter font rubber stamp and some black ink. Then, I found this lovely keyhole trinket (by Tim Holtz) that I also glued on with Art institute glitter.
What else?
I just want to say that I do not like UPS. I do not at all. One of the things I love about being a crafty lady is getting fun artsty things in the mail. And just the day I was supposed to get a fun crafty package, I end up getting a notice on my door instead, because Mr. Driver decided he didn’t want to ring my doorbell, although I was indeed at home. So I called. And complained. And got no where. I can’t stand that crap! Secretaries lose their jobs at the drop of a hat, meanwhile postal workers and package delivery men do a crappy job, and can keep it! I can’t stand that!
So I shall have to go send my darling husband to go pick up my package for me tomorrow.
I can’t think of anything else but to complain about how damned moody I’ve been through this pregnancy. Now, I am not all that emotional. I do best in writing. You know? But then, now all of the sudden, I am a moody, emotional mess. At least it’s an excuse to eat chocolate, which I L O V E. Speaking of which, is it me, or do mozzerella sticks and chocolate taste better when you’re pregnant?
Food tastes better and worst when you’re pregnant. You’re favorite stuff tastes better, and the bad stuff tastes even worst. But then, I am a foodie. I really am. There’s nothing better than staying home on a cool autumn night, with your family, while you cook and make a nice meal together. It’s so gratifying to know that I make better chocolate cake than most coffee shops in New York City. This of course, makes me wonder who the heck they have working back there. I went to a “cupcake” cafe near my most favoritest pizza places in manhattan, and ordered a red velvet cupcake, which of course, tasted dry, nasty and nothing like a real red velvet cupcake. Sad. So that weekend, I went and made one myself.
Anyway, that’s all for now, I suppose. Keep on crafting! And I do reccomend that Fantasy fiber, that stuff is so darned cool. You can iron it, stamp it, use your heat gun on it….so cool!
Later, crafty peeps.
So this past weekend, I did a couple things: I taught a soap making class, and I hosted a clothing swap, at Spacecraft. I LOVE clothing swaps. The soapmaking event was fun, but the pics were not all that great. So I thought I’d post a few pics of our clothing swap in action.
We always categorize our clothing.
Cristine from Spacecraft, did a T-shirt halter top demo.
That’s what it looks like. Cool, right?
Anyway, swaps are a lot of fun, and so worth hosting. Have enough of them and you may find that you will not need to buy clothing!
What are the benefits of swapping?
Well, for one thing, swapping clothing is Eco-friendly. You’re not throwing clothing away, you’re swapping it.
You’re not buying clothing made in in-humane sweat shops in foreign countries.
You’re not spending a DIME on your clothing.
You’re having fun, with friends and people you know
You can even make it a crafting event, by doing some lino blocks, and block printing your clothing! Or, find ways to re-fashion your clothing, and whip out those scissors and sewing machine!
What to do with the leftover clothing? Donate it to a shelter, PLEASE! This way, the clothing keeps revolving, instead of sitting in a landfill.
AND, it doesn’t have to be JUST clothing. You can do book swaps! Or art supply swaps! Baby Clothes swaps! Toy swaps! Anything swaps!
Find out if your child’s school is willing to donate space for your swap, or even your local library.
If you want to find out how to truly host a swap, go to the Starving Student for more info.
Swapping is fun, and addictive. Once you just how many people are into this idea, you’ll find that you can host a swap a month, and never have the need to purchase clothing. This of course, leaves plenty of money left over for say….art supplies! Yippee, right?
Today, I made this pretty set of tags. I meant for them to be as bookmarks. I use bookmarks a lot, especially in craft books and poetry books, as I like to keep my place in lots of different places.
So, I needed bookmarks. I have some of my supplies and such, separated in bins, on my small desk. One bin has my pastels and markers, another has my ink pads, and so on. I found all these cut outs in my embellishment bin, which is where I store all my little papers and embellishments and things.
I wanted to use them, but I wanted the tags to end up flat, since I am going to use them in a book, as a book mark. So I figured, the only thing I could do, to further embellish these, is doodle. So that is what I did.
I don’t call it zentangle, because I’ve been doing this a lot longer than the patent that is on this particular form of art. I started this form of doodling in high school. I’m not knocking zentangle AT ALL. I’m just saying.
So that’s it, I suppose. I hope you like them. They are ALL MINE.
Today, my husband is playing a show (translation: he’s a musician, and going to play live). I’m excited! I’m actually going! It’s hard to get out, since we don’t always have a babysitter. AND….tomorow, we find out if we are having a boy or girl. Either way, I hope my husband and I can agree on a name, since we have very opposite views on names, and he doesn’t like the names I’ve picked, in case it’s a boy. For a girl, we’ve got the name picked out already.
Oh well. We shall find out tomorrow, right?
Oh, and yesterday I posted about how I’m having a little comment thingie going on here! I know you all are reading….so COMMENT ALREADY! If you do, I’ll send you a coupon code to use in my etsy shop, for 10% off. Sound good? So COMMENT ALREADY!
