Showing posts with label embroidery projects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label embroidery projects. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

DIY: An Optical Illusion of Embroidery

Dontcha think it's pretty safe to say that the interests you had as a kid kinda-sorta shape your interests as an adult? Now, granted, not all the things you were fascinated with translate into adulthood (my super mad collection of Hot Wheels cars never resulted in my becoming a mechanic even if the grimy paint/clay combo under my nails kinda makes me look that way) but you gotta admit, some things leave their mark. For example, if you know me even a lil bit, would it surprise you that I loved my Fashion Plates growing up?
Gah, anyone else out there have these? My fave thing to do was to put together the most ridiculous outfits possible. Not at all like what I do on a daily basis. Not. At. All. 

There were some toys that I wanted with every ounce of my lil kid fiber which my parental units just flat out refused me. Take this Make Me Pretty Barbie, for instance. Just because I had this habit of hacking the hair off my dolls didn't mean I'd do the same to ole Babs. If Ida had this bad boy growin' up, I wonder how that woulda translated to adulthood. Would I have frosted my tips? Become tanorexic? The funny thing is, as I'm typing this post, I'm currently wearing a hot pink necklace, a side pony and a bow. So I guess some things stick with ya no matter whut. 
 What toy creator thought, "hey! Let's create a decapitated life-size Babs to make lil girls feel totes inadequate about their looks!" Sadly most of my buddy's Make Me Pretty Barbies ended up with Sharpie'ed faces and half burnt scalps. Which, with her edgy and punk-ish looks, always made her the Angsty Artsy Babs in my book. 

Naw, my parents couldn't be bothered with fun stuff like Decap Babs. Instead I was given educational and crafty stuff like my beloved calligraphy set and a never-ending latch hook kit. If you grew up in the 1980s, I wanna know what toys you had, yo. Take the wee quiz on the right and click on the toys you grew up with. Do you think stuff had anything to do with who you are now?
I spent weeks latch hookin' the crap outta that mushroom on my babysitters couch. I never did finish the thing...but I have always loved creating with fibers. So there's that.
Oh, my bad. They DID get me a Barbie (or twenty) along with an office chair (whuh?) and a 500 piece puzzle. To this very day I freaking hate puzzles. Why would anyone wanna put together 500 pieces of anything let alone a crappy 1980s landscape. These are the questions that haunt my sleepless nights. 

Often times, when I'm dreaming up lesson plans for the kids, I think to myself, "what did I love to do as a kid?" It's then that I think back to my Fashion Plates and my latch hookin' ways and retro fun-ness comes to mind. Like working with my spirograph for instance.
I'd totes forgotten about Spirograph until I discovered one in my art room a couple years back. Granted, it's missing some key pieces but I still had fun toying around with it. Over the summer, I found this very vintage version of a Spirograph called a Magic Designer. Did y'all have either of those growin' up?
When I first found that Spirograph in my room years ago, I spent a couple hours playing with the designs. I love the look of 'em -- they are so 1950s space-age-y. It was then that I decided to make several photos copies of them, trace them onto a piece of fabric and embroider a design. Hence the pillow. 
If only I'd had a Magic Designer in my life. Have y'all ever seen this bad boy? Check out what it can do.
Yeah. Magic. I don't think I'll be stitching up that anytime soon but I do love the look of the designs, don't you?
I really want like a half dozen of these in my art room for the kids to tinker around with. That's not too much ask, right? What I really like about the Magic Designer is that it's like a little self operating machine. You seriously just adjust the settings, insert your drawing tool and turn the crank. It's fascinating to watch. 
The only problemo? That little holder for your drawing tool is so narrow that I can't seem to get anything to fit. I tried to place the inside of an ink pen into the holder but it didn't work. The lovely artwork I showed above was left behind in the box from the previous owner. So now I'm in search of a wee pen. Along with the meaning of life. Wish me luck. 
But back to teaching. So you know I scored all those lovely embroidery hoops for my fourth grade kids. Now my brain is just in "embroidery project"mode. I dunno about having the kids stitch up this kind of optical illusion-ness as it took me forever but I do like the thought. So I'm working on it. Any and all advice/comments/here's-what-you-should-do's would be greatly appreciated. Purty puhlease and tank ew.
When I stitched this up a couple years ago, I really wanted to play around with a variety of stitches. My grandma taught me how to embroider one summer as a kid (see, back to my what-you-do-as-a-child theory). At the time, I really only learned the running stitch. It was fun creating this pillow because it forced me to learn add new stitches to my life.
So, whuh about y'all? Where there interests/toys/things-you-learned-and-loved as a kid that hang with you to this day? Still going to therapy because you're freaked out at My Buddy going "anywhere I go, he goooooes" (gah, stalker much?) or at Jem and the Holograms [my bad, spelled her name wrong in my poll!] being so "truly truly truly outrageous" that you'll never measure up (really? I wanna know what crap songwriter came up with those lyrics, y'all!). Take the lil quiz and fill me in! Oh and if I've forgotten any of your fave 1980s toys, please do fill me in. 

Until then, hope your week is Truly Truly Truly Outrageous! 
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Tuesday, October 8, 2013

DIY Car Crafts: An Embroidered Necklace

Many moons ago, a buddy gave me a big ole bag of junk jewelry. Most of it I crafted into Bedazzled Bobbie Pins but this oval pin/necklace blank was left untouched. When I found it while riffling through, what's known in this house as, the Hoarder Room, I decided to use it for my latest car craft.
Hubs and I are just back from a recent trip to Birmingham (that'd be Alabama, not England, fyi) where we spent time with the fam. It's a good three hour road trip, so I decided to take along an embroidery craft to pass the time. Stitching a little floral motif for this brooch blank seemed like the perfect car-aftivity (that'd be car-and-craft, Bradgelina'ized).
The benefits of having a Hoarder Room: I also had the perfect necklace for my pendant. My moms-in-law gave it to me a while back and it's a perfect fit.
But before I get into all that, I gotta tell you about a lil incident that happened during our visit. My moms-in-law was complaining of an ear ache and I was just convinced that there was a monstrous mountain of ear wax in her ear. Bee-cuz that's totally what was housed in my canals recently. Not wanting to freak her out, I gave her the low-cal version of the story. But for you, I'm presenting the Chock-Full-of-Calories, High-Fructose, Carb-Overload version. You can thank me later, gator.
What my lap looks like on our car rides. I know, the scissors, ack! Not wanting to see me impaled, hubs requests that I keep 'em in the cute lil craft cubbie that's built into the door of the passenger side.
So, I had this problem where I couldn't hear for the life of me and I had a sinking suspicion that there were alien-baby-sized balls of ear wax lodged in my ear canal. Sure enough when the doc stuck his little magnifying-glass/miniature-flash-light thingie in my ear, and I gave a meek little, "do you see anything...?", he sucked in his breath and shouted, "NURSES! Get in here, you've gotta see the size of this thing!" After each and every nurse, intern, secretary and lawn mowin' dude (who they convinced to come inside after beating on the window and making wild alien-baby-ear-wax gestures) had witnessed the freak show, I hear the doc say, "NURSES! Bring in that new instrument." Which, by the way, are words you never wanna hear.
Instead of 'splainin' my stitches to you, I thought I'd just share with you the directions from the vintage embroidery book I used.
Okay, ya'll, get ready. Because the instrument those nurses brought in was a sight to behold. Imagine, if you will, a long, slightly phallic, clear shaped instrument with lights illuminating the length of it. Now imagine the thought of said instrument penetrating, for lack of a better term, your EAR. The first words outta my mouth? 

"Is that some sort of Alien Anal Probe?!" 
Which was met with no response. 

Thinking that, perhaps, they were the ones with the wax buildup and therefore couldn't hear me, I repeated myself:

"I said, IS THAT AN ALIEN ANAL PROBE?! Please, for the love of all things, lubricate that thing!"
The last thing I remember was the doc saying, "NURSES! Hold her head!" while my poor ear canal was taken advantage off. I do remember screaming, "Ouch, you've hit brain!" a coupla times before ole doc extracted the largest wad of wax known to man. After the nurses swaddled the thing and I named it George Michael, I repeated my alien-anal-probe inquiry one more time which was met with a "please pay the secretary as you exit." 

Needless to say, I didn't tell my mom's-in-law that. She got the Disney version which ended with me being able to hear so well that I heard birds chirping in the Amazon and monkeys making monkey love in Africa. Well, okay, I didn't exactly tell her that either.
Don't have a Hoarder Room full of pendant blanks? No worries, I did a lil homework for you and found blanks a plenty on etsy. Check out this wee shop.
After a trip to the 'bama doctor, looks like my mom's-in-law was actually suffering from a lil cold not a case of ear wax'itis. Some folk get off easy, I guess. No lil ear wax George Michael baby for her.
But, really, gnarly stories of ear wax is probably not why you dropped by this here blog today...or was it? Regardless, let's get back to the DIY at hand, shall we? Once I was finished with this little piece, I cut a small piece of cardboard to size and glued the embroidery to it. That was then glued inside the pendant. Wow, did I just explain this DIY in 150 words or less? And to think you had to suffer through all that other nonsense. Sucks to be you.
Hey, you embroiderers in the house, how do you store your floss? Until yesterday, I kept mine stuffed in a jar. Which meant I had to dump out the contents each time I looked for another color. Which the cat took as an invitation to start devouring strands of floss. Which is totally bad for kitty and makes for some seriously slimy floss. Ewww. Wait, where was I going with this? Oh yes, storage. When I came across this old spice rack at the thrift store, I thought it'd solve my problems. Well, one of 'em anyway. I painted the top of the rack black before hanging it (it was a little gnarly looking) and it's found a home on my sewing room wall.
Which looks a little like this. I've recently decluttered the crap outta this room (which you'd never know with one glance at the reflection in that mirror!) and thought I'd perhaps give you a little tour in the future...assuming you'd be interested. Well, would ya? I'll show you where I keep my jar of ear wax! If you ask nicely.

Wow. I just called this a DIY post and hardly spoke of said DIY. Eh, you get the idea. You don't really come here for the education. I'm not sure why you come here (and I'm guessing you aren't either) but I do appreciate you stopping by! Now, go get those ears checked! And, if you're so inclined, you can check out more of my embroidery madness here, here, here, here, and here.
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