It's a flipping addiction. I am nearly done with my little zine, "zineswap" and I signed up for another swap: book marks. You craft 4-5 book marks and send them out. You receive 4-5 book marks back. I figure it will be a good chance to do some embossing!
I can't decide how I want to upload my little zine. So far, it's all original writing (poetry, short essay) plus an easy sudoku from websudoku.com. I think I'm going to include a little mix cd too (I wrote my 2008 anthem playlist up in my zine) but not sure how that plays into copyright laws.
Yeah, so the writing is good. I went back as far as when I started college. I have my high school journals that I might be able to salvage some good pieces. I also want to do a few etymological pieces. "did you know that ______ came from _____?" I love etymology.
My good friend is getting married soon and we might work on invites with this little wonder. I see a lot of plates I would use for embossing or die-cuts. They're all pretty reasonable (under $5) until you get into the alphabets ($50+).
Having the Cuttlebug has made me seriously question whether or not I could/would use a Cricut. I looked up some reviews and projects and I think I would totally use it but the best part would be the add-on, "Sure Cuts A Lot" ($75-90 retail) where you can use True Type fonts (stencils?!) and cut out them perfectly with the Cricut, instead of using a boring X-Acto knife. Though I sure do love cutting out stencils. I also got a self-healing mat, two rotary cutters, some tiger-eye beads and a Michael's gift card! Eee! Craftyness!
That would save SO much time. I am going to start hunting on eBay and Craigslist.
I'm starting on Greg's shirts. Additionally, I'm making a shirt for him a la Crackdown that says, "Skills for Kills, Agent."
I am probably going to make 3-4 Jesse and the Rippers shirts. I mean, really, who doesn't love Full House?? Awesome.
The cover and a smattering of the papers I will be using. Nothing is done at this point, just a rough idea of how the sizing and papers will look together.
Because Rachel is a scrapbooker, I went over yesterday to use her papercutters and nifty tools to start my zine. I have a few ideas for the contents, but so far I've just been working on getting my paper ready. Then I will type up (or handwrite) my short essays, lists, etc and print (via compy or hand) on the fun paper. The whole idea for me is to look very DIY, very unfinished, raw and kind of sloppy. But Fun! I will post some pics later of my zine. I have a really cute type-set stamp set that really made the cover look cute, it says "zineswap" in a funky broken typewriter/"Problem Secretary" font.
I finished a project for my good friend Rachel who told me she likes "fruity" fragrances. This definitely qualifies. It's uber-sweet, thick and def DEF fruity. She also is going to be receiving a solid fragrance from me (all natural but not vegan friendly d/t beeswax). It might be the most richly scented candle I've created so far. It has a good cold throw and obvi I don't know about the hot throw. It's in a repurposed old POM tea jar. And it's an awful photograph. I have two really nice cameras: one is on non-rechargable batteries and my other needs some autofocus repairs. So I've been using my camera phone for all my pics. Not such a great idea but you can get the jist.
"Do You Know What I Love The Most?" (She loves turquoise and brown, as I do)
(excuse the crappy phone pictures without adequate lighting)
The set has four candles. Two 10 oz candles and two 8 oz candles.
We have:
- Rocks Tonic Juice Magic (lemon and palm trees)
- Coconut (strawberry, coconut, palm trees, ocean breeze)
- Morning in the Moonlight (jasmine and ocean breeze)
- She (melon, breeze, lemon)
Morning in the Moonlight (Jasmine and Ocean Breeze)
"Coconut"
A little explanation of the scent using the lyrics of the song. Each candle has one of these.
She and Rocks Tonic Juice Magic
I love buying things when it includes a free gift. Because lately I'm only buying for others, so the free gift is a way for me to get a little something for myself. It's also important to be able to sample the gift before I give it, if it's a company I've never dealt with before. I have gotten a few little freebies lately. If you suspect you're getting something from me for Christmas and you'd like to be surprised, don't read anything else.
I would def DEF recommend Ten Digit Creations on etsy. She makes fragrance items (lotion, spray, roll-ons, etc). The one I bought for myself is Be Delicious (a yummy green apple floral made by DKNY). It's probably not perfect but my nose can't tell the difference. I also bought a thick "body frosting" (just a thick cream) from a seller named Savvii. I'm not such a fan of the cream because I feel like it needs more fragrance. I smell the lotion base more than I smell the apple but maybe that's just me. I bought those two to sample before I decided to give gifts. I don't want to give the cream to anyone since it's so light. But it was a good buy and I'll def use the rest of it. I might give it for someone who liked a little bit lighter fragrance in their items.
So I bought Ten Digit's take on Heavenly (Victoria's Secret) for my sister (and got Island Fresh Gain[?!?]...yum!) for myself. I bought a "Buy 2, Get One" from a seller named Sassyfraz of "dry oil" perfume roll-ons. I got those two for my friend Rachel who likes fruity smells.
Then I went to good ole' CandleScience (where I bought all my beginner supplies) to restock on wicks. I looked on eBay but the only wicks they had were auctions and I don't have the patience for auctions anymore. So I bought wicks and got a free 1 oz (enough for a lb of wax) fragrance oil.
I also spent about $30 on fragrance oils at Scentimental Gifts, etc. I got a few for me and a few for others.
I went Xmas shopping yesterday and got my boyfriend's mom a few things. My sister is done, I think. Rachel is done. I need to get my mom something. I'm thinking jewelry. I'm going to make her a few candles.
And! I made my solid fragrances. I used beeswax, olive oil, shea butter and fragrance. They came out cute, I just need to get some paper and dec them out.
I'm going to make a bunch of candles. I'll probably need to reorder wax after I'm done. I ordered enough fragrance to make my sister's Saves the Day set but one of the glasses broke. So I'm at an impasse there. I might just make a set of 3. She wouldn't know.
I bought two products from two different sellers. One product is perfect, awesome, I love it. The only hitch was that it arrived a little banged up from shipping.
The second product I'm not that impressed with--it's like the materials the seller used weren't right for the task. I like it, I mean, I can tell what it's supposed to be, but it's not something I would get again or buy as a gift.
I also placed my first order with ScentimentalGifts, for a bunch of fragrance oils for Christmas presents. This was the holdup on a batch of presents. I spent a lot but I think it will take care of 3-4 people. Maybe as many as 5-6. I would like to send out a few little things as small gifts to friends.
I am excited to receive these as they are the last piece of my gifting puzzle. I'm still working on the shirts for Greg. I am also going to make him an awesome Camp Anawana shirt in addition to his "Skills for Kills, Agent." shirt.
AND! I signed up for my next swap. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time but never really had a reason to do. I'm going to be participating in a zine swap! You make 5-10 copies of your zine and distribute it to your craftswap partners. Yay! I'm thinking of a very small book, like 3x3 inches with 10-15 pages that will include a few short poems, a short essay, a few drawings, maybe a short tutorial on something, a few recommendations (books, websites, cds) and that will be it!
I made my first purchase there today! I thought I would try a "type" fragrance (a proximal imitation). If it went well, I might order some gifts. I'm testing a few scents and if I like them I will present them to others.
Other than that. I haven't made ANY progress on my Dexter clock. I'm in need of some different red thread. Something like embroidery floss. Red and thick, but not yarn. I need to get my butt in gear. We're supposed to do 7 points. That means like 7 hours of crafting time. I've spent 2 hours or so on the clock already. I want to make a needle roll for her (she knits/crochets/whatever) that says "Tools of the Trade" and maybe do a bamboo tile bracelet that has a bunch of Deb quotes.
I got my tins from Specialty Bottle Co. Guess what? The Co is based out of Seattle so it only took a day or two to get my order. The tins are perfect. I'm brainstorming fragrance ideas.
I may have found a local supplier for fragrance oils and soy wax. That would be awesome: No outrageous shipping charges. I looked at Michael's and I'm going to say, straight out, their stuff looked like ghetto trash. The fragrance oils smelled bad. The wax was some no-name brand (I've been doing my homework on the "good" brands). I'd like to go check it out tomorrow or Monday before work.
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And here's a little smidgen of life that has nothing to do with crafts but I still want to blog it out.
I gathered my Secret Santa items today. I'm not crafting anything for my partner since I know nothing about her. She's pregnant. And she wears red nail polish. That's all I'm working with. I also got a Shaker Gift for Greg's parents.
If you don't know, Shaker Gifts are the Shizz!! You wrap something up on December 1st. Then the recipient can shake it and try to guess what's in it. It's definitely fairplay to place misleading items like rocks or candies in the box with the gift to lead the others astray. If the person guesses it, they can open it. If they don't guess by Christmas, they can open it then. Greg's parents introduced me to it. It might be unique to their family, but I doubt it. Greg and I do Shaker Gifts and we also do it with his parents. Last year, I guessed BOTH my gifts in the first few days. Shhh. I got his parents dishtowels. They're Christmas themed. I'm throwing in some loose Tic-Tacs for diversion.
I think I'm going to end up making him a bunch of white tshirts that I've decorated.
The next one I'm going to make is "Skills for kills, Agent." It's from Crackdown. I watch him play a lot of video games but I don't really play them. I think I'll probably end up making him a lot of "inside joke" shirts. The only shirts I've ever made him had the Reservoir Dogs movie cover (took forever!) and "Sucks to your ass-mar!"
I just bought ten small tins online. I think I may just do all my Xmas shopping online this year. I don't feel up to dealing with crowds and fighting for deals.
I am going to make some solid fragrances for some friends. I am thinking the tins can be decked out to be super cute. I've also just thought I could use the same recipe but substitute flavors for scents and give out lip balm. I bought ten tins for now.
So now I will need to stock up on beeswax and probably buy another small tub of shea. I wonder how much (if I can get it) cheaper online? It would save me the trip to the store.
I also found out that Michael's sells soy wax but 4 lbs costs $22!! That's really pricy. Somewhere I heard that Michael's does 25% coupons every week(?!) and that their soy wax counts. But I'm kind of leery of the store brand that I've never heard of--I smelled some of their fragrances (they had oils and small wax concentrated blocks) and they did not smell good at all. So I'm thinking at least for now I'm going to stick with my supplier online.
I finished his shirt tonight. It came out ok. I think he'll like it. I feel ok about it. I'll take a picture later.
I was just brainstorming some ideas for my sister for Xmas and I thought I'd make a record in case I need to come back to it later.
I'm thinking I'm going to make her 4-5 candles in a set that are themed. The theme will be Saves the Day, one of her favorite bands. I was googling their lyrics and found a few songs I thought could translate into fragrances. I also thought I might create her one or two solid fragrances in some kind of cool little alternative looking tin that would echo these fragrances. I thought a good tag for outside of the box would be "Do You Know What I Love the Most?" as a nice little teaser.
So here's what I came up with so far:
- "Hollyhox, Forget Me Nots" (obvi a strong floral)
- "Morning in the Moonlight" (sandy beach smell + night blooming flower)
- "Rocks Tonic Juice Magic" (sounds like a fruity smell to me. the lyrics reference anger so maybe something angry and spicy like cinnamon or ... and it also references lemonade)
- "My Sweet Fracture" (fall: pumpkin, earthy, warm, caramel, something spicy again)
Obvi the packaging could be super cute and tailored to her style (polka dots, pinstripes, whatever kind of scrapbook paper I wanted to use). Smells I know she likes are tuberose and basil/sage.
I haven't looked at all for any kind of tins but I am betting I could find some really cute ones. And I really liked the recipe I used for solid fragrance. I could make it look pretty professional, I think. She might not even know it was homemade until she tried to reorder some.
Here are some tins that are cute. $.42 each. I can get the shea and beeswax for cheapz0rz.
I'm sure I could theme this stuff out to anyone I know. I know what sort of music my friends like and it would be a fun, sneaky way to surprise them with my skillz.
I'm still working on my Gob shirt for Greg. It's got Gob silhouetted on a Segway and the back will say "A trick is something a whore does for money...or candy!" I've got about half the stencil for the words cut out. . .I've been slacking. I've just been busy.
I don't know what else to make him. He wants some homemade stuff from me. I already know what I'm going to do for his storebought stuff.
I got home tonight and saw I had a package. I have been waiting for my CandleScience order for about a week. I was pretty fired up to try my hand at making soy candles for all the reasons people speak of.
So let's get to it.
I didn't really have anything on hand to make candles out of but I was super excited to try so I decided to go for the ole blank pint glasses. We have a zillion of them and I knew the glass would be thick enough to use for a candle.
I got 5 scents in the order (one of which was FREE!) and they all smelled great. I picked well, I think. That was my favorite part...I can't wait to order more scents, especially now that I own 5+ lbs of wax (which constitutes the majority of the shipping cost).
So I don't have a scale or anything (or a thermometer or whatever) I had to guesstimate a lot of this work which may or may not work out for me. I found out that the ratio of flaked wax to melted wax is about 2:1. So if you melt down 2 cups of wax, you're going to end up with 1 cup of liquid pourable wax. This worked out pretty great. And, if you're making a pint glass, you are making less than a pound of wax so use less than an ounce of fragrance oil. I used a table that said 3/4 oz = 1 1/2 tablespoons (which IS something I had on hand). So I made up my 5 pint candles and they're in various stages of drying now. I want to burn one to see how the throw is but I also just want to give them all as gifts. So I guess I'll have to sacrifice one to see how important it is to measure perfectly and if the temperature was too scaldy to pour fragrance in. Also! I ordered colored wax bits to color the candles and those were really neat. The color during the liquid stage is SO much darker than the set wax. The lavender bits looked *super super* dark purple, like almost black, but now that they're almost set up, the color is a very modest lavender.
I don't think these will be gifts in and of themselves but I think they'll make a pleasantly surprisingly gift-on-the-side. Like a large stocking stuffer. I plan to have fun making custom labels. I don't want to say too much in case someone is reading who might be receiving but one of them is very cute and clever, if I do say so myself.
I can say without worry that Greg's mom, Joanne, is going to be getting a Lavender Vanilla candle that smells SO yummy. I thought this would be my least favorite (since I'm not a lavender fan) but it smells really good. It's mostly vanilla but a sweet floral version that doesn't smell like candy. I hate the frosting/cupcake/candy vanilla smell. Sickeningly-cavity-sweet vanilla. This isn't like that at all. It's a fresh vanilla with an extra something (that doesn't smell like lavender to me). I also like the Yankee candle that is "Lavender Lemon," so go fig. Maybe I do like lavender.
I've spent part of tonight working on my Dexter clock. I'm going to try to use the yarn blood spatter trackers as the theme of the clock. I painted my numbers and the hands tonight. I glued my background to my backing. I'm just not sure how to create a dynamic piece. I could just do a pinwheel looking randomized pizza type looking thing with the red yarn but I'd like to create some height and some 3-d to the piece to echo the origin more clearly. So I'm stuck at that point.
I have my yarn cut but I'm just not sure how to create pyramidal shape without it looking too bigtop. I just want it to be clear that the yarn spatter analysis was my inspiration, not just, "oh, red yarn. thanks?"
Hmmmmmm....
I got my undies back from my partner. She chose pandas and zombies. Someone pointed out that I had a "cute" and a "scary" theme. The zombies were kind of adorable. The butt of the one pair say, "BRAINS!" and the panda set (we sent out two tops and two bottoms, new of course) had the WWF panda model. On the butt it says, "save the pandas!"
So cute.
I didn't take pictures but I did have an awesome time experimenting with that recipe. I used some sample oils that I got from haydria perfumery (google it) and they turned out great!
In the future, I would use a little less beeswax to make the solid a little less so. It came out pretty hard which I should have surmised from the name but I hoped it would be a little less than "solid" and a little more like a congealed mass. Something like a thick oatmeal.
Anyway, my favorite one was actually a surprise one. I had a leftover/75% full bottle of papaya mango fragrance oil from the old Lotions and Potions that used to be downtown. I held onto it knowing someday I'd figure out a better use for it. It smells SO good. But. I used too much oil thinking "more oil equals more fragrance." No. The wax concoction has a saturation point so don't use more than the recipe calls for--you will end up with an ooze of extra oil along your solid's walls. When you press down, you will get a little splooge of oil. Not sexy.
My second favorite is "tainted love" (Haydria's). It smells fruity. The description says, "A flirtatious and feminine bouquet of violets, berries and light amber drizzled with honey. The scent to take you back to simpler times." It's really yummy. The fragrance had no trouble covering up the wax/shea smell I thought might be present. Somehow, I think more oil might have made the solid more solid because the ones that I correctly measured gave me a (slightly) softer product. Could be a lot of variables but this might be the reason. I also have the mango lidded and the other ones are in double shot glasses. I might end up taking a pic of the products. It sure makes the post more interesting.
- I am about to venture into new territory. I'm going to try my hand at candlemaking. I just bought ten pounds of soy wax chips, fragrance, dye and wicks. The cool part was whatever you bought you got a free fragrance "sample" (1 oz. is what you get and that's enough for a pound of wax). So I got to get some stuff for others (Xmas) and got a "sample" for myself.
- I also collected my clock parts today and a piece of black felt and red yarn for my dexter creepy blood clock. That's all.
- I'm still considering the Craft Fair in town in a month. I don't know if I can have enough inventory ready in time. But. I will attend either way. I will probably do some Xmas shopping there.
- Oh! And I also want to try making solid fragrance. I found this *super* easy "recipe" on Craftster. Shea, beeswax, fragrance and olive oil. That's it! I am now going to be hunting for the perfect containers for solid fragrances and candles.
- I talked to Greg about making gifts, if he was ok with that. He liked the idea. I'm def going to buy him some stuff but I like making things and I like that I can make things that are "inside jokes" for us or stuff that I know he'd like but you can't really buy. I started making him a "Gob" shirt from Arrested Development...the front has Gob on a segway and the back will say, "A trick is something a whore does for money or candy!" I even got the arrested development font (Antique Olive).
so that's it :)
I'm really excited to start on some new projects!
I am done with the undies swap. I'm glad to be done with that package. I probably won't undertake any more swaps besides the Dexter one since Xmas is coming. It's a little sad because they're so fun--I never really know what I'm going to end up with--but I need to focus on redirecting my finances.
I also am in need of a camera repair on an autofocus lens which (I surmise) will not be inexpensive. It should be under warranty but I don't have a receipt (it was a gift).
The Dexter swap will be 7 points (3=large, 2=medium, 1=small). That's my biggest swap recently. I'll have to collect materials. I'll need to ValVil for barbie parts (legs, arms, head) and collect some red yarn.
I'm going to try my hand at clockmaking. I am going to buy the pieces that make it tick in a kit @ a craft store and I think I'm going to make the clock look like the geometric blood representation with red string/yarn. I don't know anymore than that right now but I think I could look really cool.
I finished my top #1 (Anchors Aweigh) tonight. It turned out G-R-E-A-T, especially for me, but really for anybody. I'm really happy with it.
I tried a new method (that's the idea with the swaps for me, trying new things) that involved multiple layers of stencils. I started with the pink as a background then added the blue (the hardest layer; it involved a lot of hand-painting to fill in small spaces.
The anchor came from Microsoft Word's clip art. I just searched "anchor" until I found one that looked feasible. I tried to match the turquoise to the undies, but I sort of failed.
My partner said she likes turquoise and red but I didn't have any red paint. To make red, do I mix pink with black? That wouldn't make red. Yeah, I don't know much about color.
Then I added the black Old English on top. It was "LAMB"-inspired. I just love those Old English letters. Maybe I'll monogram part of her package in some way. Just love it! But I am not sure if I like those A's or not. . .they kinda freak me out. I make them like this-- 'a' -- with the upside down looking g type a, not just an o with a hook. But at any rate, I feel really good about this send out.
All I have left to do is make a cute "owl" top. I think I'm gonna stencil "ORLY" or maybe stencil a super cute owl on the front and do ORLY on the back. Idk.
But I feel super proud of this!
So I bought a three pack of undies to send to my partner. But we're only crafting two themes, so I only sent two pair. I kept a pair of weird lime green for myself and sent off two blues to be decorated.
Here's what I did with my green pair.
It's a pair of rhinestone wings. On my butt. That was fun and a new technique to master. In the future, if I do it, I might throw down some epoxy or mod-podge to create a sturdier bond between the rhinestones and the fabric. Maybe spray adhesive. Something that won't wash off, though. There's also a detail of a wing.
It was fun and totally worth the $1 I paid for the rhinestones (sale @ Michaels, score!)...
