First Necklace

This was my first attempt at stringing beads together into something I could actually wear. I used plain beads from my Martian Bead set, which are the first beads I made. They look like they all have flat spots, but they don't, that's just the light reflection in the picture. Which, by the way, is not actually a photo. It's a scan. Put the necklace on the scanner and wah-lah! - nice pic with very little effort. Thanks to Tammy of Shimmerwyck Jewelry for that great tip!

But where was I? Stringing. This is when I learned that 1) there are LOTS of choices for what to string on, and 2) that at some point, learning real wire wrapping techniques would be a good idea. ;)
I strung it on an ultra-fine jewelry wire and then there it sat, no clasps, until I fudged my way through finishing the Earth Bead Bracelet. With that experience under my belt (Hah!) I tackled these ends. Better but still far from proper.

My New "Craft Corner"

It's finally done and I am one happy camper! (Or maybe that should be happy crafter instead?) I now have a dedicated work space that is cheerful, inspiring, and organized. YAY! We knew the shelf unit was longer than the table and would overhang it so we had to add a base to it. Looks a little off-kilter over reaching the table as it does but the bonus is I ended up with extra storage space that way. The large right-side cubby-hole had doors which I initially thought would be nice for hiding large unsightly items, but I decided to leave them off instead so that the little 3-drawer organizer holding my hand tools fits in there. The shadeless light used to be a nice bankers type lamp with a green glass shade. But I of course broke the shade. :( So it looks tacky but I like the extra light it gives off without a shade so am keeping it, tacky or not.

After countless coats of white paint inside the trays and drawers and STILL seeing the wood grain "bleed" through, I decided to heck with that and lined the bottoms with heavy-duty paper from the craft store. Adds an extra touch of color when I open them and bonus, I can easily change the paper lining if/when the current stuff gets gooked up. But I have lots of drawer space now. YAY!

The tall, narrow blue drawer slides out to reveal three more long shelves with semi-sides on them to keep things from falling out when I open it. I originally wanted to keep that space open, for magazines, but Other-Half made a magazine rack on the left end of the piece, so no need. Now I have a magazine rack and a nifty extra pull-out storage place. :)
In the main "inside" area, we added two wooden dowel rods for hanging strands of beads or works-in-progress or what not. Not sure yet, but they seemed like a good idea. ;)

The wall outlet had to be changed. It was only a two-hole outlet while most everything I want to plug in has three prongs. Sigh. Always a complication somewhere. So Other-Half replaced the outlet for me. Wonderful! Except, the outlet was already nearly blocked by the edge of the table. When we put the shelf in place with its back lip, the outlet became inaccessible. :(
Raising the outlet was out of the question so ever-thinking Other-Half cut the table legs down a few inches. :) Great! That made the outlet fully accessible, 'cept now the rolling cart I have my clay and beads stored in didn't fit under the table anymore. So I had to move the cart elsewhere which meant moving a chair that had occupied the space the cart is now in to the living room which meant re-arranging the living room some to make room for the chair. Whew!

But it all worked out and I am deliriously happy with my new "craft corner" and with my Other-Half who not only gave his time and talent to this project but also gave up half his kitchen so that I could have a nice work space. :)

Green Chair

A year or so ago I bought some soft stretchy sort-of-fuzzy bright green fabric. I intended to cover my dingy gray utility chair with it but after a battle with my sewing machine I banished both machine and fabric to the basement.
But now that my kitchen/craft-corner makeover is mostly complete, I HAD to cover the chair, it was an ugly frown in an otherwise happy room.

So I retrieved the fabric and set to it. The seat was easy. I just cut a piece roughly the right size and stapled it on to the underside then trimmed the excess. Did the same with the arms, but added some extra padding first.
The back though, that's another story. It's curved and both sides as well as the edge all the way around are visible. Now some time ago, back when I was still on speaking terms with my sewing machine, I covered an identical chair in purple. For that one I cut a front piece, back piece, and edge piece, and somehow managed to sew all three pieces together, ending with a cover that fits right over the back and can be slipped off for washing. Ok, but not something I wanted to try with my fuzzy green fabric sans sewing machine.

So what to do? Well, like with many things, I just winged it. I stretched the fabric around the front and edges and stapled it on the back side, same way I did the seat. Half-way there; now I just needed to cut a piece to cover the back and attach it in a manner that wouldn't leave awful-looking seems all the way around.
I cut the piece and got some invisible thread I had lying around and set about trying to sew it on. Have you ever seen invisible thread?
It looks like this:

Don't see it? Neither did I. Just trying to thread the needle was an ordeal; sewing with it made me want to pull my hair out. I gave up and switched to a green thread instead, normal thread. Much better. I got the back piece sewed on and much to my delight, turns out the fabric is just fuzzy enough that the seam virtually disappeared. Great! I didn't have to worry about nice neat stitches or a straight seam.

Here's the chair:

A very quick make-over - if you don't count the year+ I had the fabric. :)

Work In Progress

I've been very busy lately. So busy my brain is too fried to even come up with a cliche for how busy I've been.
One of the things that has been taking up my time is this work in progress. When finished, it's going to be the bestest custom craft-storage thingy ever. After, gads, three weeks? I hope to finally have it finished tomorrow. But hopes and reality often don't mesh, so we'll see ...

After my re-decorating of our kitchen this Spring, I claimed the table and surrounding area for a craft area. We never actually eat in the kitchen and having nowhere else to set-up, well, the kitchen it was. This is what my "craft corner" looked like then:

Yes, the table is an eyesore, but after years of abuse as a craft table, that's what happens. So until I decide what to do with it permanently, I'm just going to throw a table cloth over it. ;)
Anyway, my "craft corner" doesn't look like that anymore. It's messy now. Very messy. Thanks to my extremely generous Aunty Moe I have accumulated a grand amount of wonderful claying goodies. Wonderful stuff, delightfully colorful bottles and jars of assorted powders and paints that inspire me on sight. Except, they are all over my table, leaving little room to actually work and offending my sense of aesthetics. Something had to be done.

A few weeks ago, we're driving up the alley the night before garbage pick up. I will admit right here and now - I have no shame - I will pick up "curbside finds". One man's trash is another's treasure right? I like to call these finds "reclaimed goods". So we're driving along and spot this piece out for pickup. Either a hutch top or maybe a headboard thingy for a kids bed set, don't know, but it was in great shape, absolutely nothing wrong with it, and it had cubby-holes! Cubby holes! I want that! I can put it on top of the table to use for craft storage. My other-half agrees so we take it.

The piece was your typical heavy pressboard type piece with every surface veneered and laminated to look like white-washed oak. I can deal with it as-is and would have put it on the table right away but Other-Half decides it needs a major overhaul. He wants to make drawers for it so that all the cubby-holes are more practical. Sounds good to me.

So we take the piece to his brother's workshop where we have room to, well, work on it. Let the games begin. We decide along with making drawers, the whole thing needs to be painted. And painting means also having to sand it all first 'cause painting over slick veneer is not an option. So first, the whole thing has to be dismantled. Ever-thinking Other-Half decides a paint spray gun will be more better efficient than brushing. I agree. So off we go to our storage unit across the river to get our spray gun. Back at the shop, I have 18 zillion now-sanded pieces to cart outside for spray-gunning. Now, pneumatic paint spray guns kick out a lot of air so you have to have your pieces well above the ground so dirt and leaves and what not is not blown up into your wet paint. So that means gathering all sorts of what-nots from the shop and carting them outside to set up make-shift above-ground tables to put the dismantled pieces on. THAT done, we get to spraying. Then there's nothing to do but wait for paint to dry. And while the paint is drying, every gnat within five miles as well as a two bees and six flies, decide to land in my wet paint. Sigh. Now I need to buff out the bugs and dust everything down between coats. We have to take all the pieces and all the what-nots that make up our make-shift tables back into the shop each time we're finished for the day. And dis-assemble and clean out the spray gun each time. And then bring out and set up everything again the next time. So the first step of base-coating became a dreadfully time-eating process.

Some eons later, we have that done. Other-Half re-assembles the now solid-white pieces into their former state of wholeness. I decide this thing is NEVER getting taken apart again so decide it'll be a good idea to fill all the screw holes with wood goop so I can paint over them. Great. Except that means waiting for the goop to dry, then sanding it, then, sigh, painting all those areas again, then, sigh, waiting for THAT paint to dry.

Meanwhile, Other-Half is contructing the drawers and trays to fill the cubby-holes. This involves clamping and gluing, which, you guessed it, means more time waiting for glue to cure. The there's more wood goop to apply to fill imperfections left from assembling, waiting for that to dry, and finally, sanding it all down. Whew!

So we finally get to the point where I can begin top-coating everything and me being me, I have to do it in four different colors. Five if you count white. All the drawers & trays need base-coating in white first, then color. This means lots more time waiting for numerous coats of paint to dry. This make-over could have been done in two days if it weren't for all the WAITING time. Plhppp. Patience is not a virtue of mine.

So, here is the main piece, re-assembled and painted:

and here is the painting-in-progress of the drawers:


Tomorrow, I hope to have the painting finished and the drawer bottoms lined, and that'll be that, we can finally put this baby to bed and move on to other things. I can't wait.

Time Off For Bad Behavior #3

I just want to know, how do you mistakenly butcher a deer? Did he mistake it for a big log of pepperoni?