Thing-a-day.com

Well, I did it. I made a thing a day for 29 days. I decided to sign off from TAD2 with another shrinky-dink-magnifying necklace. The charm says “create beauty,” and has a bird carrying an olive branch. I included the bird because I had been thinking about “cultural diplomacy” today. I heard the term being used to describe what the New York Philharmonic’s performance in North Korea was all about. I like the idea of vastly different communities coming together around cultural activities (i.e. art) in a way that fosters constructive conversations - who wouldn’t. These conversations may ultimately lead to peaceful solutions to foreign policy problems. The whole world could use some of that these days.

However my necklace came from a place much more personal than cultural diplomacy. My husband tells me that one of the reasons he loves me is that I “make our life beautiful.” He is not talking about my habit of spending evenings in stained pjs, with my hair piled on top of my head, while I eat Chinese food out of the container. He is talking about how I like to fill the room with sunshine, how I point out details in the world that he may not have noticed, how I make pretty jewelry and stationary, and how I love to throw theme parties. He is talking about my approach to life in general, and it is a most lovely compliment.

I love beautiful things. I like to create them. I like to share them. I like to keep them. I must continue to make them without TAD, because beautiful objects inspire me and making things energizes me.

For future musings and creations by yours truly (I have a handful I did not even get to tackle during TAD), check out my new blog Lady Lulu’s Braindump Hut and Craftarium. Although I will not be posting a thing a day, I do intend to keep up the good work. So set up an RSS feed and keep tabs on me.

-Lu

I got home this evening, barely in one piece, but my unwavering commitment to TAD continues to be unwaver-y. I just finished making a pretty vacation book using Blurb. I think the book is a pretty fly way to commemorate my adventures with my mother and wee-one. As usual, I also took another bajillion pictures today. Here is a picture from out landing during sunset at JFK.

It needs some work, but then again I am totally unknowledgeable about photo-editing software. Next on my creative agenda will be to take a Photoshop class.

Today I suffered through a a bad back, a cranky baby and a crabby self - but I still managed to TAD! I decided it was time to create my blog Lady Lulu’s Braindump Hut and Craftarium. I realized that I could not leave being the blogging and crafting. I hope you some of you check it out, and of course let me know what you got going on.

It’s back to NYC for me tomorrow.  See you then!

Oh my goodness, I love being in Miami. I made another hair clip in my hotel room this evening. I used part of Bryan Brutherford’s eames a day image.

Thanks B.B. I think this will look way cuter as a pendant on a slightly tough chain. I will take that project on in March.

It is at this point that I must thank my most splendiforous, genorsity-havingest, mother for a wonderful time in Miami, for photographing my hair clips and for lending me her super-sweet underwater Minox underwater digital camera so I could take self-portraits of myself in the pool. I got in touch with my inner-mermaid. Here is one; let us call it Bubbles.

What a friggin’ day. I will save complaining about my day for some other venue. After a margarita and a switch into pjs, I used my suite’s kitchen to make shrinky-dink hair clips using Bryan Brutherford’s, BUGS,BUGS,BUGS,BUGS,BUGS,BUGS. I wish I had traveled with better hair clips, but I think they came out pretty cute.

I actually think this particular image would look better larger as a pendant. Maybe I will try that at home.

I also took a bunch of photos from my hotel balcony.

Although I am not a packrat, I have a lot of stuff, including several small objects of importance. The dark wood of the cigar box invoked thoughts of libraries and museums, so I thought it might be a nice vessel to display some of my small objects of importance.

I am fascinated with the act of cataloging items and with the look of specimens and exhibits. There is something interesting about objects being defined without emotion but being held as important enough to preserve them and sometimes to display them. I decided to include a list of factual titles for each one of the objects, but I added no more information. I leave it to the viewer to make their own story, or to research an item’s significance (read: ask me). I was originally going to tag each of the items with a number that corresponds to the list pasted into the cigar box lid, but I thought that would look cluttered - and detract from the objects.

After TAD I plan to explore tagging, coding, and cataloging some more.

Tomorrow morning, the wee one, my mother, and I are off to Miami! TAD from the beach!

Today, as usual there have been a lot of “What the…” moments at home. I still have a broke down back, but I am improving. Thanks to everyone who has let me know they feel for me. Despite my can’t sit, can’t lift status, I did some work on my next TAD project.

Yes, I mounted a cigar box on my wall, upside down. To find out why, you will have to check back tomorrow.

So I am still in disrepair. In fact I am kneeling in front of my computer because I cannot sit at it. But I will still TAD-away.

This morning we woke up to our first real snow of the season. It was just past dawn when I came downstairs and saw the snow in the bluish-gray light. I snapped some photos of my terrace. Here is one:

Can one of my fellow TADsters make a snow-angel or snowball for me? That would be lovely.

Today my back seized up and then went out.  The nearest bed at the time was my at my mother’s house.  She kindly gave me a bed and an ice pack and I took a vicodin and laid still for over 2.5 hours.  If you knew me, you would know that I never, and I mean never lie motionless for long period of times.  I can be lazy but I am very fidgety.  Nevertheless, toward the end of my afternoon catatonic experience, I planned out my next non-shrinky dink project.  I did jot down my thoughts at the end of my lie down.  My back hurts too much for me to sit here and type and upload pics, but trust me, my second cigar box will make an excellent jumping off point.  I also worked a bit on another shrinky-dink necklace.  Neither rain, not sleet, nor back spasms…

This evening I finished my complete your own fertility-shrine kit that I started yesterday. I outfitted the fertility-shrine kit with a candle, glue, 12 jars of acrylic paint, and a guide written up by yours truly.

Here is the pretty package ready to ship!

It is being sent to my friend with love and well wishes.

This TAD is a special order for a friend. She wrote, “If you have any openings in your craft calendar for the rest of the month, I would totally love some sort of fertility/get my mojo back craft!” My friend has been trying to conceive and recently experienced a miscarriage. Understandably, she has felt out of sorts, angry and a deep sense of sadness. Immediately I knew I wanted to make her something that would allow her to focus on positive thoughts for her future. It is my belief that this sort of focus will help her restore her aforementioned mojo. It is always a good idea to have one’s mind (mojo) jive with one’s body (fertility). I also know she has a penchant for religious art. My friend is a prime candidate for a shrine.

But you cannot make a shrine for someone else - it is a deeply personal item. So I thought I would get her started by creating the exterior along with ideas and tips for filling it.

I knew I wanted to incorporate the image of a pomegranate, because that is my favorite symbol of fertility and I thought my friend would really like it as well. I also wanted to give the shrine a similar feel as to my Hugh Hefner tribute candle, minus the camp. So I used aluminum foil and incorporated a candle. When I pictured the structure itself it became clear to me, that my best bet was to get my hands on a wooden cigar box.

Today (after my semi-annual trip to the dentist) I headed to a fancy-schmancy cigar store (in my dentist’s neighborhood) in search of the perfect box. Now, I can be pretty fancy-schmancy myself, but I was intimidated by this store because I am a 29 year old woman looking for empty cigar boxes, not a 56 year old man looking for expensive cigars. But my worrying was for naught. The clerk was super nice. He led me into the humidor, showed me a pile of boxes and kindly told me to take whatever I wanted. I selected two lovely wooden boxes - one for me and one for my friend’s shrine. What a score!

After I put my daughter to bed, I began work on the shrine and could not stop. I used craft glue, Krazy Glue, acrylic paint, a glossy copy of my favorite pomegranate image, shiny paper, a metal flower and precisely 1 rhinestone. I managed to complete my part of the shrine. I just have to package it up with instructions and tips. That will be tomorrow’s TAD.

Closed Box (Back of shrine when open)

Open Shrine (Side view)

The Inside (Calling out to be filled. That candle holder is Krazy Glued in place so it is secured even with the shrine closed and upright.  The candle is not!)

Top of the Cigar Box/Bottom of the Shrine (When I use objects in ways not originally intended, I like to leave evidence of their former life)

This evening I completed three pieces of shrinky dink jewelry. Although I did some work at the Church of Craft meeting, I found it a bit too dark to work with tiny jump rings, so I finished up at home. The nice thing about the Church of Craft meeting was that I was being social while doing something I love to do. Many of my interests can be pursued in the quiet and solitude of my own home, but that does not mean that I necessarily want to be holed up with jump rings, shrink plastic, a glue gun, and cupcakes. Okay, I always want to be holed up with cupcakes. Since I got pregnant and then had my daughter (so for a year and a half), I have felt slightly brain dead and a bit like a bore. Thing-A-Day has been P.T. for my hobbled brain and made me feel like I could contribute to society in a social manner once again. Woohoo!

Anyways, below are photos of my TADs for today. The first one is a name plate for my super-rad friend Katherine aka Free Radical, a member of the Secretaries of Hate. Surprise Free Radical! I also made myself an initial ring and a Transformer keyring for my husband.

What can I say, I love working with shrink plastic. Today I took another trip to Toho Shoji to buy more jewelry supplies. I am working on 4 pieces. As of right now, I have printed out the shrink plastic.   I am going to cut out my shapes and add ink tonight.  Hopefully  I will have something finished to show you when I return from my crafting adventure. Tomorrow evening I am joining my friend at a meeting of the Church of Craft. Hopefully I will get some work done there. In the meantime, here is my shrink-plastic printout.

I got new glue sticks for my glue gun, and then I finished up my giraffe pillow for my daughter’s room. Of course I found the other glue sticks that I searched high and low for when I finished my project.

I spent a good portion of the day working on reorganizing my daughter’s room. As you have already seen, I rearranged the furniture to make a playspace, I made a giraffe collage for her and framed the silhouette I made. I hung both on her wall. Today, after I reorganized and did some childproofing, I made a felt applique giraffe which I will put on a throw pillow. She seems really taken with giraffes. I drew the image, cut out the shapes, and laid it all out. Then I found my glue gun, but glue sticks were no where to be found. I will have to do the gluing tomorrow.

I surprised myself - I did not know I could draw a friendly giraffe. Who knew?

Today I finally got to make my tribute candle, but I was already bored by the end of the writer’s strike so I moved onto a new subject. I made a Hugh Hefner tribute candle for a dear friend of mine, who has actually made Hugh Hefner part of her scholarly life (no really). For sometime now, she has been trying to get into the Playboy library, which apparently contains an amazing personal Hugh Hefner archive. So far it has been access denied. So I figured, why not make a candle for my dear friend to serve as both scholarly inspiration AND campy piece of home decor. Below are pictures of the candle. I used aluminum foil, a photo of Hef, rhinestones, orange fabric that reminded me of silk pajamas, and glue. The glue is still drying (I think it needs to sit overnight) so the rubber bands are just holding everything in place. I found the inspiration for this project in Super Crafty.

My daughter’s nursery is very nice and bright and fun and FILLED with furniture because I have a bad furniture habit. Ultimately, the way her room is setup, she did not have a real area to play in. So my thing for today was to rearrange my daughter’s room so as to make a play corner for her. It was true to my own fashion. It was an impulsive project that started with putting plugs in the outlets. I moved everything by myself, and I overcame the basic laws physics (namely  the one that claims two objects cannot exist in the same space). I threw down a quilt where I plan to put a small rug, and now I have to get a small table to store some other objects that have become homeless. I also plan to add a few more giraffes and elephants to the wall (continuing the “pattern” from elsewhere in the room).

We tried it out this evening and it was a hit. I found the bed to be an awesome perch on which I could lie down, rest, and keep an eye on my little monkey. Now, all I need is to add some books that would appeal to a grown up (namely me) on the windowsill near the bed. It’s awesome!

I will be the first to admit that I have an unhealthy relationship with tv. I love tv. I want to marry tv. I never watched much as a kid and pretty much never did in college or during graduate school. But as a full fledged adult, I make irresponsible television watching choices. The writer’s strike has been hard on me, because although I am an intelligent, literate, and busy person, I have been filling my time by watching very, very crappy replacement television programs (rather than simply not watching).

So, when I was buying a can of tuna at the deli, I noticed that the deli also carried blank tribute candles and I had an epiphany. I would make a candle in tribute to the end of the WGA strike. I fully support the writers and if they vote “no” to the agreement, so be it. They do deserve their cut of the moola. I just really want to see the series finale of Scrubs soon, and a new The Office, not to mention Ugly Betty, Dirty Sexy Money, and so on and so forth.

So I made my picture using rudimentary, self-taught Photoshop edits, and went to print. Well all my shrinky-dink printing ate up my ink, so my project will have to be put on hold until tomorrow. In the meantime, here is my picture for my candle.

Off to watch tv!

Today’s project is from Issue 05 of Craft. When I saw it a few months back, it immediately reminded me of a project I did in middle school. There was a store, Baubles, that sold little kits with all one would need to make a beaded safety pin bracelet. I LOVED that project. I eventually found the kit limiting and created my own patterns. This project takes it to a new level by making beads out of paper.

This was not suited to my mentality. I found making the beads to be tedious. Then the safety pins I had bought were not all the same and many didn’t work right. Then in the end, it turned out my elastic won’t knot! It’s too thick. Ugh. I may rethread this if I stumble upon some more suitable elastic cord. In the meantime, I am done with this project!

It was bound to happen at least once this month!

Keep on keepin’ on.

So the shrinky dinks are my new muse - how odd. I made my owl necklace this evening. I have never made anything like this - and I came up with the project on my own. Out of the ether and into my brain. It’s been a long time since I was awake enough to come up with a project idea AND figure out how to execute it AND follow through. This month I have done it a bunch of times. Crazy cakes. Thanks Thing-A-Day!

I have been wanting an owl necklace for awhile, but I could not find the right one. So I made one. The owl is a shrinky dink I made, and I hung it behind a magnifying glass pendant. I also decided to create a double chain. I have a bit of tweaking to do to the chain - I think I need to adjust the length. I can’t wait to wear it!