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for the weekend. We're heading off to the crazy city of Las Vegas today for a big weekend shindig with Jerry's family. Hope you all have a great weekend! I'll be back on Monday, hopefully with some fun photos and stories to share!
A while back I mentioned that I was ordering some of the shrink plastic inkjet sheets to try out on my computer, and today I'm here to report on the results. I ordered these sheets from Dick Blick because I was unable to find them anywhere locally. In keeping with the monkey mania, I decided my first experiment would be to make some little monkey charms that could be used for keychains, zipper pulls, etc. to give out with the favors for the other kids at the party.
Using the same fabulous monkey from Myra that I used for the party invitations, I created a sheet of colored monkeys to print out. Although the sheets look and feel the same on the front and back, there is a specific side for printing that appears to react to moisture. So, you're supposed to slightly wet a corner of each side and print on the side that gets a little tacky when wet. My printer had some difficulties handling the sheet, but when I switched the media options to "Ink Jet Transparency" it seemed to feed a bit better. I forgot to take a picture of the pre-shrunk sheet, but everything looked pretty good upon coming out of the printer (with a few roller marks that I blame on our printer...).
After letting the ink dry, Jerry cut out the monkey shapes and punched holes in them to hold a keychain ring or... We tried both the oven and a heat embossing gun to shrink the monkeys, with the same results. Although the instructions say that you should heat these until they flatten out (in the oven they recommend 2-3 minutes), we found that no amount of heating resulted in a flat monkey. Jerry suggested that maybe this didn't work for us because the aspect ratio of our monkeys was pretty oblong. I don't know if this is true or not, but all we could get were shrunk, curled monkeys. So, I had to reheat them, one at a time, with the heat embossing gun to re-soften the plastic and smash them flat using a spoon. This was quite the juggling act and resulted in a couple of close encounters with the heat gun, but the shrink plastic seemed to hold up well to being reheated and re-shaped.
Here are the final results:
You'll notice that the monkeys have no eyes. I chose a brown that was too dark for the area around the eyes, and upon shrinking, that brown got even darker. So, the black eyes are lost and impossible to see. I can either try to salvage these (glue little beads on for eyes?), or remake them using a lighter brown color around the eyes.
I'd love to hear from anyone else who has used shrink plastic sheets (either ink jet or conventional) with other tips and tricks. I hear that colored pencils work really well on the conventional sheets. Has anyone else had the problem with them not flattening out? Hopefully there's some useful info here for anyone thinking about trying these out...
This is going to be a very quick post - so much work to do! But, I wanted to share a great weblog with you that I discovered through ljc fyi. Threadbared takes vintage patterns and has a little fun with them. After all, if you can't make fun of this, then what can you make fun of?!? Enjoy!
I don't know when my sewing machine's actual birthday is, but we celebrated last week. Upon arriving home from a full servicing, I presented the following gifts:
From left, darning foot (for free motion quilting), Teflon foot (for sewing vinyl), and (drum roll, please!) a walking foot! I had a little bonus from work, and I decided to invest it into my hobby. So, now I can actually quilt properly at home instead of faking it (and struggling!) with a standard foot or waiting to quilt in the lab in my class. It was hard not having the machine around for a week, but now I feel ready to conquer the long and ever-growing list of projects... Unfortunately, my "real" job seems to be heating up at the moment, so I don't think I'll get going as quickly as I would like, but I'm definitely well prepared when the time comes!
I also got some great mail from Susie:
I bought her amazing little owl painting, and also got a cute note, owl sticker, and her amazing business cards. Her cards are great - they're printed on high gloss heavy card stock and look very different from the standard business card. I need to find out where she gets these made... If you haven't seen her stuff before, I strongly urge you to see her amazing wares - and, her blog is a lot of fun too!
Also a little housekeeping note: Therese is interested in selling this Japanese needle felting book ($10 plus $4 shipping). Please contact her directly if you are interested.
Jerry and I have agonized over this post for quite some time. The fact is, we've decided to remove a great burden that has been carried for a long time by our neighbors living in the Pacific Northwest. Sure, I know you've all heard of Bigfoot - there's nothing new there. But, what you probably don't know is that Bigfoot has been desperately trying to produce offspring to carry on the family name. Bigfoot knows his time is limited, and would really like to start a family. The problem is, Bigfoot's offspring aren't terribly bright; it seems they all end up wandering onto the street and meeting an untimely end.
Now, you may ask, "how is it that Jerry and Kelly know this secret? They live in California?" The truth is that we've spent quite a bit of time up north, and on a trip to the Hoh Rainforest we saw first-hand one of the Bigfoot Jr. victims. We know how hard it's been for our northern neighbors to keep this a secret - the unusual insurance claims, the sadness of it all... It's so hard to explain to the kids! So, we're hoping that this post will alleviate the stress of keeping this secret and may even help to establish some protection guidelines. (Plus, we'd really like to keep these people away from these little guys!)
But, because we know there is a doubting Thomas or two amongst you, we are here to show you the truth. This is Satchy, a lovable little guy who has been adopted by Brynne as her very own Roadkill CuddlyTM.
We were also privileged to catch the final words of wonderful little Satchy; we're sure he would have grown up to be an impressive Bigfoot, had he not met that car at such high speeds...
[Note: the preceeding post is purely fictional. Satchy is presented as a collaboration between Kelly and Jerry for the April Month of Softies: The Recycled Monster. Satchy is made of thrifted faux fur, with appliqued felt eyes, mouth, and "tire tracks". His eyes and mouth are embroidered for detail. The concept of Roadkill CuddliesTM and preliminary sketches of Satchy belong to Jerry (the darker side of the two), while the assembly and embroidery is courtesy of Kelly. We hope you have enjoyed this tale.]
For those of you who haven't yet snatched up those tea towels or dishes from K-mart, I thought I'd tempt you further with this info: tea towels are on sale (but one get the second 50% off) and the Chromatherapy and fruity dishes are on sale ($19.95 for a 16 piece set).
I had also been chatting with folks about finding fun melamine sets (and here in CA we're lucky enough to get a long season for outdoor eating), but missed these on my last trip to the big K. So, I snatched up a bunch of these from the Martha Stewart collection:
I was pretty surprised that these were Martha because they seem much more modern than most of her designs, but I think they'll go beautifully with our patio furniture. I got the stemmed glasses for that touch of elegance - zin anyone?!?
While on the topic of melamine, some of you may not yet know of the wonderful French Bull designs (available through the fab Plum Party store). They have fabulous, retro designs like this:
and this:
and this:
Of course, I'm still to cheap to get an entire set of French Bull at this point - the K-mart version will have to do. However, nothing is too good for my little soon-to-be birthday girl, so she's going to be eating off of this:
(Please tell me when you've overloaded on monkeys!!!!)
For those of you who can catch this, today's episode of HGTV's Crafters Coast to Coast (episode 220) features the amazing Peng Peng creating one of her gorgeous bears! Catch it if you can!
I finished the second hat for my Craftster Baby/Toddler Hat Swap a couple of days ago, but hadn't yet had a chance to take photos. So, here is Brynne being a very cooperative model for my latest creation.
The hat is crocheted with 5 colors of Tahki's Cotton Classic yarn (I really like that stuff for 100% cotton yarn that's available in many colors!) on a size G (4mm) hook. The pattern is from Candy Tots: Unique Crochet for Babies & Toddlers. This hat is for the same unborn little girl that the previous hat was made for, but this one should fit her when she's a bit bigger. The hat is a combination of half-double crochet for the stripes, and a simple granny square for the top. The rows took a little while, but those granny squares sure do work up quickly! I'm not totally happy with the pom poms; it seems no matter what technique I used, I couldn't get them tied tight enough to make me happy. Both Jerry and I struggled together to get the tightest knot we could, but you can still pull the yarn pieces out of the pom pom. Does anyone out there have experience with pom pom makers? Do those help with tying them tight? Or, is there a secret to tying them that I'm not aware of?
I'm in such a crochet mood lately. It's fun, easy, and I can do it while watching TV! I'm trying to finish up a dress for Brynne right now, but the skirt part is taking forever! Row after row after row... I guess she could just wear it as an extreme mini, right?!?
I'm excited about this book I discovered through bellablue. I've added it to my Amazon wish list, and I'm sure I won't be able to wait too long before picking it up!
If you're a semi-regular reader of this blog, you already know that I have a complete obsession with kawaii (cute) Japanese zakka (stuff) and Japanese crafty goodness. Well, I'm also pretty fascinated with some of the more unusual Japanese products out there. I'm sure that folks like Jan, Molly and Takeyah know of much more of these, but here are some fun things I've found recently.
The Girlfriend Knee Pillow is a full scale foam pillow that you can rest your tired head on when your girlfriend is out of town. Boy, sometimes I feel like I need one of these...
Apparently, some Japanese have a fetish with getting their ears cleaned. And so, the perfect tool is the mimi-kaki, or Bamboo Ear Cleaner. How would you like to have that feathery end caressing your ear?
Ok, maybe I'm taking things a little too far here, but I'm not making this up! This is Pink Nipple Cream that purportedly keeps that nice coloring to those bits as they (ahem) age.
Lastly, for those of you who never worked at the Gap, this woman can teach you all you need to know about folding t-shirts!
Thanks to the trailblazing posts of Maitreya and Hillary, I took some time today to create a gallery of my collection of Japanese craft books. The gallery is almost complete (I have a few yet to add, but this is most of them), and is located at the top right. I've included ISBN numbers for all of the books, in case you are interested in ordering any of them for yourself through Amazon Japan or YesAsia. There is a wide variety of topics, including amigurumi, felt softies, needle felting, sewing projects, and quilting - so hopefully there's something there for everyone (yes, my crafting interests are wide and varied, and yes, that can be a problem!).
As for searching for other books, I have a few ideas for the uninitiated. Many of the books include English words in the title that you can use; I've had success with patchwork, junk (for the junk style trend), bag, etc. I've also picked up a few Japanese words that I've used in searches: zakka, patsuchiwa (patchwork), and kawaii (of course!).
If you have more time on your hands, you'll notice that the same group of publishers are putting out these books, and you can use this to your advantage. Here's how: the ISBN number has some useful info contained within. The first digit indicates the language for the book (4=Japanese; 0 or 1=English). This is followed by a publisher's prefix, then a number for the individual title, then a "check digit". So, you can do an open-ended search on Google that might look something like this:
ISBN4-579-*
You'll get search results for books published by the company represented by the prefix 579. You may or may not get pictures with your results, so this method can be hit or miss. Also, not all of these publishers are exclusive to craft books, so you may very well get unrelated books in your search. But, it can be a fun way to see what else might be out there. In my collection, common publisher prefixes are: 579, 529, and 277.
I'd be happy to try to answer any questions you might have about a specific book regarding patterns, etc. All of them are in Japanese, but include relatively complete pictorial instructions and patterns (this varies somewhat from book to book), and I've been able to muddle through them with zero Japanese. The amigurumi books also include standard graphic crochet patterns, so those accustomed to reading those should be fine with these books. I hope to add my English language craft books as well, so keep an eye out for that.
I also have a growing collection of Patchwork Quilt Tsushin and Quilts Japan magazines, but I'm not sure how helpful a gallery of those would be, since back issues can't really be ordered from the US. But, I will point out that these are amazing magazines for anyone interested in quilting (chock full of tons of patterns - very hefty magazines), and you can get a subscription to both through Born to Quilt for a very reasonable price.
