Refreshed!

Aaaaah, you know that feeling you get when you clean out and reorganize your house/craft area/purse (or in my case, backpack)?  Yeah, I'm working on that.  And, as I go along, I've gotten more and more ideas.  I'm slowly but steadily working on cleaning out the junk and keeping the good stuff.  Every crafter knows that really their craftiness is just an excuse for being a hoarder.  "OH I could use this for....something...." and you end up keeping it.  Right now, I'm thinking of the random jars and coffee cans and everything that I've kept for NO reason..haha.  Except I found a reason for my coffee can, but, that's going to be another project post sooooon.

Anyway, so I have been on my "make x amount of projects a week" thing still, and last night, while shamelessly listening to OneDirection, I made a cute little Perler Bead necklace I wanted to share!  The purple wasn't as vibrant as I wanted it to be, so I might remake this in pink and red or white or something.  Who knows!

Found Stuff!

Looking through my old photos, here's some other fun stuff I made!!

Here's a fairy in a jar with some cute butterflies!  

Polymer clay steam punk style earrings.  Very loosely Steampunk

Hylian Crest Hat for Jarod

Soon...

Today is the day I finish quite possibly the most awesome pendants I think I've ever done.  I've combined all the techniques I've learned, and added some new ones, and have seemed to have great success!  They are so awesome looking.  I used a new technique I was playing with for awhile and then found a couple of videos on how to do it (Of course, cannot find the link for it now, but, if I do, I'll be sure and link it up.) And things I just kinda made up as I went along. 

My original idea was to attempt an image transfer but, the ink I have in my printer, despite it being a special photo printer, was a cheap knock off brand, so it doesn't do what it's supposed to with the photos.  I normally just use it for general printing for school or invoicing or whatever for the shop, so I didn't think to spend the extra on potential crafty awesome things. 

I usually go in with a big plan that I sometimes don't completely deliver on, which, is disappointing sometimes, so this time, I just printed up some clip art for ideas, and went with it.  I used a plain off white polymer clay base, and used layers of paint, sand paper, paper, and my favorite favorite thing ever, Mod Podge Dimensional Magic, and the results are phenomenal.  I'm so happy :)  As a note, these pendants are all in the midst of curing when I took these photos, so they're still a work in progress.  All that's left to do on them now is a final coat of glaze to cure, and then making it into the necklace.  But, photos anyway :D

These two got a thin coat of metallic paint that gives them a very lovely sheen.

My Sharpie skills were failing here but, this one got the best coloring, it looks kind of like painted wood.

My favorite one! The butterfly came out perfect, and it looks like it's painted wood.

This is just an idea I'm working on... I was thinking it kind of looks like a sandy beach.  These are seashells and white sand from Virginia Beach!  I have a few more seashell designs, but they were not ready for photographing. 

Shrinky....Duds?

Adventures with shrink plastic!!  As I spend countless hours roaming through Pintrest, I came across a whole bunch of shrink plastic jewelry and ideas that were super simple looking, and some ideas to use any type of #6 plastic, like Solo cups, food containers, etc.  SO of course, I'm off to the dollar store and pick up a pack of clear #6 plastic cups for $2.  Not a bad deal, right?  After several duds, I've determined that I think this plastic is too thin, and I should have spent the extra 50 cents to get the red, durable Solo brand that have turned up better results.   Oh well, but, here's what I salvaged from the near 10 attempts I made the past few days....

A Lesson in Double Knitting

Despite my near five years experience in knitting, I really don't have that much actual skill to show for it, other than being able to knit a bad ass hat and some toys.  Which, is good, it's more than some people can do... my friend Phil can only knit square or rectangle things still...

So, the project I took on for this week seemed challenging enough, and was directly translated into a swap project!  DOUBLE KNITTING.  I know...scary for a novice knitter, but not so much for me!  I referred to several different sites to get the help I needed.  First up, was one of my favorite go-to sites for any knitting predicament I find myself in, called, of course, Knitting Help!  Here's a link to their double knitting video, but there's lots of free videos available there to look at and refresh on or learn something new!

Double Knitting Video from Knitting Help

Second, and a bit more detailed on how exactly to start and everything is this nice site I just Googled and found.  The power of Google is great!! 

Double Knitting Cast On/Bind Off How To Site

And, here's what I came up with!  :)

More Bows!

My not so secret love of bows has escalated rapidly with the addition of these way too cute Perler bead bows I've been jamming out the last few days.  I'm up to four different designs now, and... wow... I just can't decide which one to wear today!! I love them all.  I'm going to be posting them on my shop soon!  I want to get better clips for the backs, but I've figured out how to glue and bend them properly now, so I'm really happy with how they turned out.  Can't wait to bead up some more tonight! Also, will be posting the re-do on the Pac Man necklace here soon, once I get to playing with more clay, and posting that in my shop, too!  Can't wait! :)

Pixelated Magic

So, with this 8 Bit Swap I'm all up in, I've come to find myself very much in looove with the 8 bitty pixelated awesomeness that is the magic of 8 bit games.  They have such character, despite not having much in terms of definition.  You can make anything pixels, so why not do it up??  I invested a small amount of cash into getting myself a little Perler bead starter kit, and I've been having too much fun!! 

So, there's no real limits, I think, to pixel-ing something.  I was thinking you could get a whole bunch of peg boards and make a huuge picture or something... it'd be real cool, but, I'm not sure about what I'd do or use it for... But, just ideas :)  I made some junk, check it out!  The bow has a clip attached to the back that looks really good in my hair, but I was unable to get a decent picture of it in action, but the 'shroom is just a thing.  Maybe I'll use it as a coaster on my desk or something...