March Crafts

I haven't made too many crafts lately, but I have made a couple things that I like a lot that I thought I'd share today. I'll post links to the tutorials/inspiration for these projects along the way.

I am not a seamstress. My sister got the sewing gene. She's made a lot of t-shirt quilts, and when I found a shirt that I got in New Orleans 4 or 5 years ago that doesn't fit anymore, I asked her if she would make a pillow out of it. She's pretty busy with dance and school, so I just put it in her sewing room for her to get to whenever she felt like it. A couple weeks later I happened upon this "10-Minute No-Sew T-Shirt Tote Bag" tutorial on Pinterest. I immediately thought of my New Orleans shirt and went to get it from the sewing room. Usually when I'm on Pinterest I'll pin something that I want to do and say "Maybe I'll do that some day" or just keep the idea in the back of my mind. This time, however, I did it right after I read the tutorial! I was so excited! The tutorial is really clear and the bags are really cute. They're great beach bags or craft bags. I currently have my crochet project stored in one of them. It's the perfect size for my skeins of yarn.

 

I actually messed up on this one. If you read the tutorial, you'll see the part that says to draw a line to cut your fringe (which you use to tie the bottom of the bag together) up to. I ended up CUTTING ACROSS THE LINE and being forced to make my fringe shorter and the "New Orleans" part of the shirt pretty much unreadable. But I don't care all that much because at least I still have the shirt and it's great for holding all the other T-shirts that I plan on turning into bags! 

The "Duck! Cover! and Remain Calm" shirt is from the first competition play that I was a part of. It's always been a little bit too small because it was long-sleeved and I should have ordered a large instead of a medium just so the sleeves would be long enough (tall people problems). I hadn't worn it for a really long time and I was extremely hesitant to cut it up because I love my show shirts a lot, but it's now my favorite of all 4 of my T-shirt bags because it's made of the strongest material and has the most sentimental value. This is the one I have my crochet project in.
"I'm a ninja... You can't see me" wasn't too small, but I hadn't worn it in a long time. The last time I wore it was some time in my senior year of high school and I was self-conscious all day because I felt like I was dressed like a middle schooler. I think it's much cuter as a bag.
Both of these bags have bows tied to the handles. I don't think she does that in the tutorial, but I thought it was a cute touch. The pieces I used for the bows were cut out of the collars of the shirts.

My last T-shirt bag was a little more of an art project. My mom gave me a white T-shirt that Tessa was getting rid of and I ended up making it look super fancy.

The first picture is the design for the bag drawn on a canvas. I put the canvas under the shirt and traced what I could see clearly (I had to improvise a couple times) with a fabric marker. Then I colored it all in over the course of a few days (because it was kind of tedious). After it was all colored in, I cut the fringe and tied the bottom of the bag together. I might try to find some black ribbon to tie onto the handles. 

So that's a fun thing to try if you have some T-shirts sitting around that you don't want to give away. I wouldn't put any heavy books or electronics in them unless the material is really thick and sturdy, but, like I said, they're great for yarn projects or for carrying a change of clothes or other light things. 

This next project was just something I picked up at Walmart for $4. I got one of those wooden plaques and a wooden "L" to paint for my bedroom door. If you already have some acrylic paint and mod podge/ hot glue at home, it won't cost much to make. I hand-painted mine, but for those that don't have a steady hand or don't like painting, this tutorial might inspire you to try it out with some scrapbook paper. I was going to make mine that way, but I enjoy painting and wanted to attempt the whole "using cardboard triangles to paint a chevron pattern" thing. That tutorial did help me decide on my colors though. I loved the black and white background with the black on the edges, so I ended up doing this: 

I should have done more planning to avoid wasting all of the paint that I did, but it turned out nicely! I did not screw my letter onto the plaque like she does in the tutorial. I thought "Hey, I have all this mod podge, maybe that'll work," and it did! The ribbon is stuck on with a few staples and duct tape. The flower was a last-minute addition because my bedspread is blue and green (which is why I painted the letter blue) and I just happened to find it in a basket of hair accessories that I was giving to my sister. I ripped it off of the hair clip and just duct taped it onto the plaque because I didn't want to wait for any more glue to dry. I used this tutorial mostly as inspiration for the bow on the top. I just wanted something to cover the nail.

Close-up and far-away views of the plaque

I think that's all I've been up to lately in the world of crafting. Maybe I'll get some more projects finished or started in April (my birthday month yaaayyy!). I hope this post has inspired some of you to start a couple projects of your own!

Friday Update

Not many "blog-worthy" things have happened in the past week or so, so I figured I'd post a mini update.
I just finished my first week of my second semester of college. Despite the horrible drivers in the horrible parking lots caused by horrible, pointless construction, it's going nicely! My pre-calculus class is going well considering we're only graphing right now. My history class seems like it's going to be interesting and I'm not sure what to think of my English class, but I missed the first real classes of those subjects yesterday because of weather. The best part is that I'm already over 2 weeks ahead in my online astronomy class. I'm not particularly enjoying it, but I'm way ahead, so that feels good.
Since I didn't go to class yesterday, I pretty much knitted all day long. I actually made 3 things in one day out of two skeins of yarn. I finger knitted two headbands, one of which is going to be bought by one of my friends, and I arm knitted another scarf. I'm starting to enjoy finger knitting a little bit more than arm knitting, but it kind of makes my fingers hurt so I'm not going to try to finger knit a scarf or anything, that would just be ridiculous.
This weekend I'll be doing some modeling for my favorite entrepreneur, Kaylie, so she can list some more jewelry on her Etsy shop this month. Keep an eye on Lost Cause Revival for those!
Next weekend I'll be going to Atlanta for my sister's dance competition. I really like dance competitions and I can't wait to see what Tessa's group earns at awards. I'm not allowed to talk about the dance online because there are dance thefts out there, but I'll let you guys know how the competition goes awards-wise.

Some projects I'm hoping to start soon:
-Crochet a Hufflepuff house scarf
-Paint a few canvases for the kitchen
-More arm knitting!

There's my little update, I hope to post more as more share-worthy things happen around here, but with classes starting back, I'll probably just be posting mini updates for the most part just to keep this blog active. Thanks for keeping up with my ramblings!

Photoshop Experiments

Recently I've become somewhat obsessed with Photoshop. I downloaded a bunch of new brushes and had some fun with them. These are what I've made so far:

The flower was a stock photo, so the quality isn't all that great. I was playing with my paint splatter brushes, which I've had for a while. The last two were mostly for experimenting with my new brushes. The hand and the leaves were outlines, and I colored them in. The green in the hand picture is all brushes. They're not super great because I'm just starting, but practice makes perfect, and I'm sure I'll be doing a lot of practice.

It turns out that Photoshop is really calming to me and it helps me when I'm feeling anxious and stressed. I made the leaves when I was having some anxiety, and it took a couple hours but it really helped a lot and turned out better than I had expected it to. I've been hoping to find a good outlet for my anxiety, and I'm pretty sure this is it. I'm so happy that I've finally figured it out. I don't know why drawing and hand lettering never helped and this does. I assume it's because this requires a little more thought and focus which helps me to think about something other than my worries. 

When I realized how much fun I have in Photoshop, both with editing pictures and making graphic art like the pictures above, I texted Michaela and told her that I'll happily be her personal photo editor since she's majoring in photography. I'm still going to major in English and edit for newspapers and magazines and such, but I'll need something fun to do as well. English is really boring me at the moment. 

On another note, I started doing some tech work yesterday morning! I'm so excited to be back in a scene shop working on a set. Katie and I finished painting a wall and a ceiling. The first thing we heard when we walked in was the sound of a saw, and I think we both got excited because it had been a while since we had heard that. It had also been a long time since we got sawdust in our eyes, but that's kind of inevitable in a scene shop. After we finished the set piece, we went to Panera for lunch because we realized how hungry we were. After we ate, we went to Oktoberfest! We were there for the rest of the day, riding rides and playing stupid games and eating funnel cakes. We waited in the hour-long line for the ferris wheel, and we were pretty disappointed that we were the last ones to get on and the first ones to get off. Other than that, the whole day was awesome and fun and exhausting. I don't know if I'll go back today or not, but I'm hoping I do so I can take Tessa and introduce her to it.

So that was my little update. I'll be back on Wednesday with the weekly quote!

Basket Renovation

As I said in my little descriptions and "About Me," I like to make stuff and paint. Recently my mom gave me a basket to fix up so we could possibly sell it.

Obviously my sister and I got a hold of it as children and made it sooooo pretty. Well now it was my job to make it look prettier. There were a couple bottles of brown paint with the basket, so I used the darkest one. I started on the inside because I knew that would be difficult to get to, and I was right. I wished I had a tiny brush that would fit in the basket so I could get in the little corners. This is how it looked once I got the inside painted: 

There was also a bunch of purple paint in there which I didn't get in the "before" pictures. The paint covered it up surprisingly well. I had to add an extra coat in a couple spots, but other than that it was fairly covered. Painting the outside was a lot easier.

Wow bad photo. But this is what it looked like completely covered with the "burnt umber" paint. I've never liked that color name. What even is umber?

This is when I got to start having fun. I painted little designs on the rim of the basket with white paint. Then I used an old brush pen to outline them and make the lines smoother. The reason I used a brush pen and not a sharpie is because my experience with sharpies on paint has not been positive. Plus sharpies tend to look weird and shiny and almost tinted blue. If you ever want to use pen on top of paint, be sure the paint is completely dry! I've lost a lot of pens because of my impatience. That's why I used an old brush pen, just in case I got a little excited. I used a Faber-Castell PITT brush pen. These are very nice pens, and they are permanent like sharpies, but don't leave that weird sharpie look. I recently got a new set of these pens, so I used one from the set I've had for a couple years. And I didn't mess it up, either! Here's what my designs looked like before and after outlining:

I was very happy with how they looked after I outlined them. The before and after pictures are at the top. So much better! I almost don't want to sell it.

The whole painting process took about 4 hours or so, with one break for lunch. I don't like waiting to finish things... I hope I've inspired someone to update something sitting around in your house! You really need no artistic talent to do it, just paint, brushes, a good pen, and a steady hand. And it doesn't have to be perfect; imperfections are what make things unique!