I love receiving REAL mail, and this Valentine’s Day, I wanted to send my snail mail friend something exceptionally neat. Admittedly, mailing a surprise-filled tiny box isn’t an original idea. Two Valentine’s Days ago, my sister (who is very crafty) sent me monkey heart socks in a jewelery box. I thought I’d spread the tiny box valentine cheer. To any males who found this/us in pursuit of girlfriend gift inspiration: YOU’RE WELCOME.
SUPPLIES:
Tiny box. You can easily get a 3 x 3 box at craft stores.
A charm + chain for charm + jump ring (if the charm hole won’t fit on the chain). I featured the above carousel in the last pocket-sized treasure post, and it is available at TheseNThose’s Etsy shop.
Card-friendly paper to make a tiny card for the inside of the box lid.
Kraft paper.
Tissue paper.
Three stamps. This is the lazy-Tricia route. I hate lining up at the post office to mail a package, so I’d rather send something by stamps whenever possible. Three stamps is probably excessive, however, I also HATE getting returned mail. I have successfully mailed the same sized box with three stamps, so that’s enough of a guarantee for me. If you have a heavy necklace, you might need more postage (and HAVE to visit the post office, because the box cover can only fit three stamps).
STEPS:
1. Assemble necklace. The carousel horses have manes!
2. Trace the box (length times two!) to make a card for the inside of the box lid.
4. Adhere your card to the inside of the box lid.
5. Tape the necklace to a side of the box so that the charm hangs.
6. Fold over the tissues paper, put lid on box.
7. Wrap box in kraft paper. Make sure you use packing tape, because the post office will reject your box if you use normal tape.
8. Mail!
I could have spent my New Year’s Eve mauled by vexing teenagers at Crystal Castles, or at one of the other debauchery-filed Chicago orgies. But…I mean…I already did that last year, and I think any future New Year’s Eve show experience will be peas to seeing Justice. (Plus, I feel old and listless with my 9-5 job, and escaping youth.) As a result, I stayed at home to shrink plastic and play my ukulele.
Last week, my coworker caught me looking at embossing heat tools online. This led to my spirited declaration that I had decided to embark on a new adventure in life: shrinky dink. Having never played with it as a child, I have always been curious about shrinking plastic. It is ubiquitous on etsy (1,287 results!), and I like the idea of things shrinking before my eyes (NOTE: I hated “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” REFLECTION: I must not enjoy all shrinking objects). So, for the past week I have been gathering supplies for my adventure.
Supplies:
1. PolyShrink. Thinking that I would not be able to find Shrinky Dink plastic in any store, I found PolyShrink on eBay. Today I discovered, however, that MICHAELS SELLS SHRINKY DINK PLASTIC. Harrumph.
2. Stamps. These are from Paper Source. This sad dinosaur was on clearance, so the purchase was partly fueled by pity (but the stamp is really rad). He just wants to party!!!
3. Hand Punch. I have always been meaning to buy a 1/8″ circle punch. Craft-wise, it is the most useful circle size. Until this purchase, I MAY (circle) or may not had been improvising my own 1/8″…by stabbing paper with a compass spear.
4. Embossing Heat Tool. Another life desire that I made happen this week. When I turn it on, I like to pretend that it is a large blow torch or a bazooka. To shrink plastic, you can also use ovens. I wanted to use an embossing tool instead because I think an oven would waste a lot more energy shrinking a small piece of plastic.
I had all the supplies to make plastic pendants and rings, WITH THE EXCEPTION of a permanent black ink pad. I am not sure why I forgot this crucial ingredient in the mix, but I became overcome with excitement when I saw EVERYTHING ELSE lumped together, so I forged ahead anyways. On my side was a permanent marker, and the patience to trace things.
Using this tutorial as a guide, I first made a ring. IMPORTANT THING TO NOTE ABOUT THE TUTORIAL: Different brands of shrink plastic will shrink at different percentages. The PolyShrink I have shrinks to 45% of its original size. This is important to note, as I overlooked this fact, even though it is on the package. My ring is too big. Fail, Tricia. I traced the bear heart stamp using my permanent marker, and it seemed to work well. The process is slightly laborious, however, I took multiple breaks to play my ukulele since I have a short attention span. Today I bought a black permanent ink pad, so my future is void of stamp tracing.
My third project (My second creation was a party dinosaur key chain, but I already gave that to my friend. He seemed to enjoy it.) was a necklace! The image might look familiar; it is the cat on the cover of Ratatat’s Classics album. Despite hating cats in the real world, I’ve always enjoyed the cat on the album. So I traced it.
The end of my New Year’s Eve fun! Have you ever played with shrinky dink plastic? Do you have any tips you could share?
If you’ve been keeping up with my Unemployment Projects, you already know I’ve a penchant for drawing books (check that post out if you want some tips on book-drawing). In fact, I am so obsessed that I have been drawing notebooks full of books:
OKAY I KNOW IT’S WEIRD. BUT, they are coming in handy. I decided to scan all of my drawings into my computer, and make notecard sets, presumably to give away at the next holiday! Of course, you don’t have to draw BOOKS to make your notecard sets, you can draw anything!
SUPPLIES
I am sure you do not require step-by-step instructions, but here are some tips!
Here are some of my final card designs (more or less):
(Except I actually cut a border around these books so as not to have to print in all black!)
(You might noticed I got the above from a certain Catcher in the Rye Desktop Wallpaper!)
As a congrats to those of you who actually finished the post, the first three people to email me at maria[at]stickersanddonuts.com with their address, I will send one of my sample cards, with a little note inside! (There will probably also be stickers on the envelope.) (EDIT: Done & done! Everyone who emailed will get one. I’m a sucker!) Everybody loves snail mail!
This week’s craft is effortless: wall art! It’s an easy way to update a wall, and you can painlessly swap prints as often as you would like.
Supplies
Canvas! Craft stores usually sell inexpensive beginner/value pack canvases . The canvas used above is 16″x12″. For those of you who are more ambitious, you can build your own wooden frame with wood and nails. But I’m a sloth, and that route demands too much effort.
Fabric! Choosing the fabric will probably take longer than assembling the wall art. Below is a sample of fabrics that I’ve used. The left is an OLIVIA (!) print from eQuilter, which I picked for a friend who loves Olivia. The print on the right is Joel Dewberry’s “Sparrows.” If you don’t live near a good fabric store, eQuilter (Quilters. LOVE. FABRIC) and REPRODEPOT FABRICS have great selections.
Iron!
Stapler!
Steps
1. Cut fabric so that there is an inch of fabric around each side of the frame.
2. Iron fabric.
3. Turn canvas over, and staple the fabric to the frame. Make sure that the fabric is taut (and not crooked)! Yes, my staples are purple. Five years ago I had an essay to staple, and no staples. I went to the school store, and discovered that everyone else had ALSO ran out of staples. The lonely staples that remained? Purple. Since boxes of staples seem to last eons, purple staples will scar my documents FOREVER.
4. You’re done! Hang your new creation on the wall.
Remember when I got all excited about American Apparel’s Circle Scarf because you can wear it a million different ways? Well, I’ve always wanted our dear circle scarf, but I never wanted to spend the dough, and since our economy is down the tubes, maybe you don’t either!
As you have probably already deduced, you could make a circle scarf out of any long strip of fabric if you just sew one end to another. Still, I’ve come up with something even more impressive.
A pillowcase!
Cut off one end (or take out the seams), and voila, you are done.
You can spend the rest of your unemployed day creating new costumes (as you can see I’ve already become a head trauma patient and a terrorist). I actually really like the simple scarf configurations. The bestest part of this is the potential for insanely designed scarves (if you have, let’s say, a Mickey Mouse pillow case!).
Yes, that’s seriously the end of the how-to. And, no, I wasn’t feeling very modely (if you want to know the truth — MANGO SKINS CONTAIN POISON THAT HAS REDUCED MY FACE TO AN ITCHING MASS, go to wikipedia if you don’t believe me about that crazy fruit!) so these aren’t my most stunning pictures. Errrr.
Thrilling Tips: (1) If you do have a sewing machine, you can hem the end you cut (I don’t, and my scarf prevailed nonetheless). (2) Use a belt to keep a halter shirt or a skirt from falling down. It’ll work best if you put on the belt and then flap some fabric over the belt after it’s tightened. (3) Add decorative pins. (4) Speaking of pins, the side-halter and the one that goes tight around the neck were created using a strategically placed pin. (5) I used a chopstick to keep together that knot on the bathing suit style top. (6) My pillow was made of stretchy jersey fabric. This made it more flexible for cool configurations.
Finished? Here are my other Unemployment Projects.
First off, Happy Mother’s Day!
Okay, I just had to do this quick post. I was surfing over at the TOMS Shoes 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 (also in men’s sizes), 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.
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).
___
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!)
