First off, Happy Mother’s Day!
Okay, I just had to do this quick post. I was surfing over at the the TOMS shoes website web-site (remember the vegan wrap boots? and that when you buy a TOMS shoe they give one to a kid who needs shoes?), and they had this crazy special where the creator of TOMS shoes has his mom INDIVIDUALLY doodling over plain shoes for Mother’s Day (yes, at first I thought they were designed by children — but either way I think they’re awesome)! They were $68, and you couldn’t specify the design, but they are all SOLD OUT now (maybe she is tired of doodling!).
ANYWAYYYY, that got me inspired. All you need to do is get some White Canvas TOMS, and you can doodle-em yourself! DIY TOMS! It’s over $20 cheaper and you can coordinate them with your own style. Then when you are out-and-about you can be like, yeah, I designed these myself.
Yasmine just put up the newest issue of Parasol Magazine. I liked #1 but with #2… I am really in love. Honestly. THERE ARE CUPCAKES ON THE COVER (see picture below).
Consider this. It is 5:30 am and I am writing a post on this even though I have a combination of a headache & insomnia & the magazine was issued less than two hours ago.
It’s up in both an online Issuu version and a downloadable pdf. Download the pdf, yo. Above are some of the highlights, a little taster-sample so you will think, my god!!!!!!!, I need one of these myself! You WILL need one — it will inspire you to be creative, eat cupcakes, wear vintage jewelry, cute shoes, and paint pictures with rainbows. Bestest of all, it’s so ridiculously free there is no reason not to get it!
A while back, one of my fellow AIGA board members noticed my blog post on a tea towel I had just finished embroidering and quickly recommended this great new book that local KC publisher, Andrews McMeel, just released. So for the past month and a half, I have been leisurely enjoying The Kitchen Linens Book by EllynAnne Geisel.
Personally, I think I was born in the wrong decade. I absolutely LOVE vintage clothes, home décor, and especially vintage handicrafts. So I am of the opinion that this book was pretty much written just for me. For the novice vintage kitchen linens collector, this book should be your bible. Not only does Geisel give excellent suggestions on collecting and shopping for vintage tablecloths, tea towels and napkins, but she also gives you the history of their use. For those of us who missed out on home ec classes in high school, Geisel explains the difference between various fabric fibers and weaves, and embellishment techniques. Her how-to’s include a handful of fun recipes (I’m rather partial to the recipe for Quiche Lorraine), directions for using iron-on embroidery patterns (there’s one included in the back of the book), step-by-step instructions for making hot pads, and tips on keeping your vintage finds in tip top shape.
Geisel gives some tips on shopping for and re-purposing vintage linens, but here are a few of mine.
PS: the font in today’s college is Argent by my friend, Ryan Baker, if you were curious
(As you can see, I am playing with headings.) If you just happened on this page, my Unemployment Projects have only two requirements: they must take plenty of time and almost no money. This particular project involves those free tote bags that you probably have piled in your closet with pictures of baby kittens and bank logos. As you will see, this is a very, very loose DIY. Why? Because I recommend you work with whatever products you happen to have on hand!
My grandmother gave me my bag, which was a plastic tote with a big fuzzy blue sky that said something about saving something or other. She obviously got it from donating money to an organization. Since everyone gets totes for donating money, and most people can’t do with all of their totes, then you will find any thrift store (ie Salvation Army) will have piles of $1 bags such as this. I recommend a plastic tote bag, but I am sure if you are cool enough you can figure out how to paint a canvas one successfully.
I put a big piece of paper inside my bag just in case the paint would go through (it didn’t) and then I coated the front in white acrylic paint.
I used scrap paper to cut out different designs. I did these really simple explosions, and because I am COMPLETELY impatient, I didn’t spend too much time getting anything perfect. I also used a hair dryer in between colors so that I could do the next layer right away. If you are patient or have lots of time, let it air dry! And, you can make more exact templates out of heavy cardboard or thin black electrical tape might work.
I outlined my designs with black paint just so that you couldn’t see my messy edges. You could even use, again, black electrical tape if you want really straight outlines. But since this is an “unemployment project” I completely recommend you work with whatever products you already have!
(1) Get a free sample of a swatchbook (a paper sample book from a paper company). The crazier the swatchbook, the more creative you need to be with your photos. I got my swatchbook free from Mohawk papers (paper -> order samples).
(2) Order your pictures. I use winkflash. Pictures are only 12 cents a piece, and usually there is a coupon code on the front page for 6 cent photos. That’s a lot of photos!
(4) Gather other supplies. Besides pictures you might want to use scraps like programs, tickets, labels of favorite foods, the weirdest thing you drew in Pictionary that night, etc. You’ll also want to see what scrap-ish supplies you have, ie: pens, markers, stickers, tape or glue (I do use scrapbooking glue), colored or printed paper, scissors, rulers, etc.
(3) GET CREATIVE!!! Since my sample book had tabs, I split my photos into piles that could work in each tab (so, some pre-planning is beneficial). Your final product will be a bit bulky & flimsy, but pretty much the coolest, cheapest scrapbook ever. I like the cascading pages the best (see a sample of my scrapbook below using my new favorite magazine-making source, Issuu).
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Okay, okay…this post has been coming for some time, but after getting the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living, I just couldn’t put it off any longer. Little known fact about Lorraine: I am currently obsessed with Martha Stewart. From her awesome packaging design (I would LOVE to work for them…are you listening Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia??) to her line of crafts, from her cute kitchen line at Macy’s to my recent discovery of her Martha Stewart Living magazine, I am in love. In love with the fresh colors, the helpful mom/grandma-like tips for ironing, and the easy decor ideas from her craft line. If I weren’t already a designer, I’d buy all of her wedding stationary at the first sign of an engagement ring. (It’s nowhere in site, but heck, I may just do that anyways for a party!)
So without further ado, Good Things I LOVE:
And as the finishing touch, Martha reported on her visit to Prague in the latest issue of Living. Seriously: big brownie points in my book for featuring the beautiful capital of the Czech Republic. (Now if only she would just invite my grandma on to the show to share how Grandma bakes authentic Czech pastries such as kolaches. Yum!)
I’m rather crafty, and I love feather headbands. I enjoy making my own because I like having control over the size and arrangement of the feathers. Also, I’m cheap and can’t rationalize spending on something I think I can make better. My last headband was a peacock headband, which although easy, took over twenty minutes. This weekend, I strayed from the usual art store and went to Michaels. To my surprise, Michaels sells pads of pheasant feathers! The feathers are already perfectly adhered to a canvas backing! Baller! I returned home with a couple of pads-o-pheasants, and dreamed up a silly challenge: I would pick a song in my iTunes, and try to finish a headband within the length of the song.
As a tribute to Ratatat, who I saw in Chicago last Monday, I chose “Seventeen Years” as my song challenge. Yes, the song is FOUR MINUTES AND TWENTY-SIX SECONDS long (the title makes sense now!). I made TWO headbands, to ensure that the process really came under 4:26. S&D quality control, my friends.
Supplies:
0:00-0:10 Put the headband on your head, and envision feathers in your hair. Make a mental note (or make tick marks with a pencil) to remember where you’d like the feathers on the band. Squirt glue on the band. By the time the Brooklyn rapper has finished his rap intro, you’ll be ready for the synthesizers (and to stick on the pad of feathers).
0:10-4:00 Place the pad of feathers on the glued-up headband, and press. Pinch your fingers really tightly-especially the base and the top of the pad. Well. Make sure the middle is adhered well too. “But Tricia! I am no octopus!” Well, child. That is why I have included two other pictures of alternate sticking actions. For example, you can use your belly to adhere the middle bit, WHILE pinching the sides. OR, you could use a clip at the bottom, and pinch the top. Hey, let the ideas flow. Whatever method of attack that you choose, make sure you can dance! It will make the process more entertaining- I promise.
4:00-4:26 Fin! Time to gleefully revel in your WIN. You are done.
When you are unemployed, or just trying to go green, it’s important to remember to the second of the 3 R’s: Reuse. In order to use up some scraps I had lying around my “studio,” I decided to make them into a sketchbook and thought I’d share with everyone how I did it.
Materials:
Step 1: Fold Your Paper
If using paper with printing/writing on one side like I did, fold it in half like a hamburger so that the clean side is to the outside. Stack all of your sheets together with the folded edges to the same side.
Step 2: Cut Your Covers
I used old matboard that I had lying around, but you could also use something flimsier. (If you go thicker, it will be too hard to bind…) Since my inside pages were 5.5 x 8.5″, I cut my covers to be 5.75 x 8.75″ to give 1/8″ border on the top/bottom edges when bound.
Step 3: Cover Your Cover
Laying your front cover down on your decorative paper (I used left-over Adhesive Wrapping Paper I had lying around from a press kit I developed for Hallmark), trace the cover of your book and leave about 1/4″ to wrap around the edges. Cut it out. Then, with your heavy cover centered on your decorative paper, cut a triangle off at each corner like so:
Spray adhesive to one side of your heavy cover and to the reverse side of your decorative paper. Center the two adhesive sides together and wrap the decorative paper’s edges around the cover as such:
Step 4: Cut Out and Adhere the Endpaper
Use your back cover to trace out an endpaper on the old file folder.
Spray with spray adhesive and mount on inside of front cover. This should ensure your decorative paper doesn’t come unattached.
Step 5: Bind Your Notebook/Sketchbook
Stack your book pieces together in this order: back cover, folded paper, front cover. The open ends of the folded paper should all line up on the edge that is spiral bound. Either take to Kinko’s or bind by hand: I prefer a wire coil as such:
Step 5: Use Your Book
Not sure what to do with it? Might I suggest referring to UE Project 1 and 3 (Make a Portrait of a Portrait and Make a Portrait of Your Bookshelf) for starting points?
Last week I began my “Unemployment Project of the Week” post series with a showcase of my great ability to make portraits of portraits. And, though no one emailed me their beautiful renditions of, say, Shakespeare (since we now have a real portrait of him, by the way), I am sure you all got right down to the “job” (let’s call it a “job” to make ourselves feel better) and are ready for a new challenge.
So, next up: Make Something Useful and Fashionable from Scraps (if it wasn’t clear, scraps = whatever you don’t need and will never use). This will force you to use your: (1) creative facilities, (2) time, (3) shit lying around. Perfect.
The sub-title to this project could be: Make a Dashing Loop Necklace from Old T-shirts. But if you don’t have old T-shirts lying around, don’t go out and buy them! Invent your own project! This is essential. We’re saving money here. We’re unemployed.
The most exciting part of my example is that despite my non-access to a sewing machine (and my limited patience) I was able to convert a size medium white Hanes men’s undershirt into a headband, necklace, and scarf (not all at once, though, you have to choose one at a time). Lucky for me, I also had some boxes of dye lying around, so I made my white into a nice brilliant yellow and navy, but you probably have some colorful thirft store shirts you can cut up, if you so choose.
What I did, was cut the shirt into “strips” (which are actually loops) by just snipping from one side of the T-shirt to the other until I got to the armpits themselves. Each one was about two inches thick and rather jagged and imperfect. I died half the loops blue and half yellow, because that’s the colors I had lying around. After they were sort-of dried (as I said, impatient), I played with the loops, until I found some fashionable looks, such as:
Headbands:
But that seemed too boring, despite all the various ways I could combine my loops. So, I tried simple necklaces:
Unarguably handsome, for a crappy white T-shirt, but I knew they could be more. I finally landed on double-looping my scraps together in chain to create a scarf or a very high-fashion necklace (we all know high-fashion is actually glamorized low-fashion, everything starts on the streetz, as they say):
Finally, I apologize that I’ve forced you to see my face and my silly PJs and my messy room and everything else that comes with crappy photos from the little lens in your mac notebook. Nonetheless, I think you have the idea and cheapness is part of the charm of Unemployment Project of the Week, isn’t it?
If you really can’t think of anything to do with the useless things you have lying around, try Craftster.org. You are bound to find something to do over there. And, if you are employed, check out these spring fashions that you can actually purchase in a real store.
I know several of my readers (and writers. and self.) are unemployed, and have wondered what to do with their new found time (besides, of course, looking for nonexist jobs, completely changing their future plans, and/or questioning the meaning of life). Well, how is this for a new column: Unemployment Project of the Week.
This week’s project: make a portrait of a portrait. This especially good for those of you, like myself, who have limited artistic ability. A portrait is hard, but if a portrait has already been made, an artist has already showed you the portrait-sitter’s most prominent and important features.
I am no artistic genius, but you can see I had fun with the above Frida paintings, took artistic liberties, and still managed to get something that is identifiable as the artist herself. To make these, I looked at a portrait of Frida Kahlo (far left, by Frida herself) and made two very different versions, the one in the middle is about 8×10 and in acrylic, and the one on the right is a little moleskin notebook sketch with watercolor.
You also don’t have to make a painting of a painting, you can make a painting of a photo, or any-which-way you choose. As you can see, I ruined this little cartoonish-painting (I suppose I could try and fix that left side of his face) I did on a business card-sized artist trading card. Nonetheless, you can tell who it is because it’s a famous portrait, so I was still pretty satisfied (expectations are low for the unemployed, alas).
And, finally, one of the most fun ways to re-create a black and white portrait is by making a linoleum print (pictured here hanging on my bulletin board with a nice little sharpie covering it). I think these are very eye-catching. Check out my sort-of old, but-still-completely-relevant linoleum print tutorial here.
Have fun with your portraits!
