Day 92

Yesterday's craft was fun, so I decided to do it again today, just with a different size glass container and red paint instead of blue!  Stan helped me with a different design as well.  We wrapped the masking tape on the top and bottom and around the middle at an angle.  This can be used as another candle holder or something else, not too sure yet!

Here it is finished:

I was trying to get another shot of the design, but the camera wouldn't focus:

And here is a shot from the inside, just because I liked the way it looked!:

Day 91

I wasn't feeling too crafty today, so Stan jumped in and helped me because he is supportive and wonderful and cute too.  :)

We made a candle holder, using a glass container we had from somewhere.  I seriously wonder where we get some of this stuff, it just shows up, or so it seems anyway.  We painted it blue, added black sand and a tea candle and it's really gorgeous actually.  The paint finish makes the light come through in a freaky kind of way, almost reminds me of walking the beach at night in Florida, with the moon peeking out from behind some clouds.  It's a nice memory to have with this craft.

Here it is finished, sort of hard to see since it's dark and the candle is lit:

Here are the supplies, and the glass container all ready painted, forgot to take a "before" picture.  The supplies were the glass container, blue acrylic paint and masking tape:

Here is the inside, full of black sand and the tea candle:

And another "after" picture, with the candle lit:

Day 62

Let me explain how I got to today's craft.

About a year ago, someone hit (and ran) my car while it was parked in front of my house and knocked part of my drivers side mirror off my car.  I still have a partial mirror and part of the plastic casing, but it's a mess.  Last May when my car had the yearly inspection, they asked if I would be getting the mirror fixed, I told them yes, and they passed me.  Well I did have every intention of getting the mirror fixed, but after getting a quote, I couldn't afford it!  May is almost here and I'm just about due for another inspection, and my mirror is still not fixed.  I don't think I'm going to pass again.  What does this have to do with today's craft?  I'm getting there...

On the way to work I passed a car parked on the side of the road with a damaged drivers side mirror (and anyone who lives up here knows, it's common to see side mirrors hanging off cars because parking on narrow streets up here is a hazard) but being they had a red car, they had used red duct tape to reattach their mirror and it looked decent.  A tad bit ghetto, but decent!  I make a note that I should try this and go to work.  Upon getting to work and checking my email, I see that Michael's Crafts has sent me an email letting me know that their duct tape is on sale today only.  I decide to run over at lunch to pick up a role of black duct tape to try to fix my drivers mirror, and hopefully pass inspection next month!

Now, this brings me to today's craft!  When I got to Michael's to buy the black duct tape I see they have several pretty awesome printed duct tape rolls and end up finding one that has flames all over it.  My heart flutters and I think, "What can I make with that?!?!".  I remember I've seen duct tape wallets AND I remember that Stan and I just had a conversation not to long ago that his wallet is on it's way out.

After work we went grocery shopping and made dinner so it took me a while before I began the wallet, that is why I'm posting so late, but this is what I came up with using this tutorial I found HERE.  I am posting the "after" picture first so you can see what I came up with, but if you are interested in seeing the process come together, keep scrolling down.

I'm happy to report that it came out 110% better then I expected, it's durable and fun and I LURV it.  Yes...lurv!!!  So does Stan!  He now has a new wallet that is freakin' awesome and cost less then $2.50 to make!

The finished wallet, I put my stuff in it so you could see it finished, and the check register is where the money would normally go!  Notice I made a pocket under the credit cards AND a window for the drivers license (I had to hide vital info, which is why the cards are tucked and pulled out weird):

The beginning strips, layering duct tape:

More layering:

Finished stacking for actual wallet:

Covering the sides:

Actual wallet all done, now moving on to the compartments:

Here is where the credit cards will go:

Credit card compartment attached and pocket for extra stuff made:

After I added the license window, and closed it up, this is how it looks folded and closed:

Day 55

Stan helped me with today's craft again.  I don't know what I would do without him.  I had bought a starter jewelry kit a while back and never really messed with it, but Stan got into it and he's made me two really pretty bracelets.  Today he helped me with some earrings!  And they are in my favorite color, blue!

Earring without flash, hard to see the color, but you get the idea of the design:

With flash so you can see the blue better!:

Day 37

I was at Michael's craft store the other day and I saw a blast from my past - Shrinky Dinks!!!  There was no way I could pass up this kind of nostalgia!  I decided on the kind that you can print on using an inkjet printer.  After some online research for projects, I found a cute sunflower bookmark and used that as my inspiration for today's craft!

I went online and found a picture that I liked, in this case it's a Celtic Tree of Life design (one of my favorites, a top contender if I ever get another tattoo) and printed it on the Shrinky Dink paper.  After it printed, I cut it out, used a hole punch at the bottom for the bookmark and baked.  In three minutes I had a mini version of my original design!!  So fun!!!!  I messed up though, but in my defense, I haven't used Shrinky Dinks since I was like um, SEVEN!  The hole I punched shrunk too (duh!) so it was too small for my thread!  I had to sit there with some small scissors and gouge out the hole to fit the thread, but it worked!  You live, you learn...Once I got the hole big enough, I threaded green embroidery thread threw, knotted it, braided it, had Stan thread a light green bead on (see below, got super annoyed and needed help!) and VOILA,  a super cool Shrinky Dink bookmark!!

I have to give a shout out to me peeps, Stan  (LOL...peeps, whenever I say that I imagine a large marshmallow person) because without him I would have either 1. tossed the computer out the window because I could not find the proper printing settings or 2. thrown the almost finished bookmark out the window because I was having issues with tying the knots!  So as always, he's a life saver...or in this case a computer/bookmark saver!

Here is the big version of the picture I used:

 

And here is what I did with it:

Top view:

 

Bottom view:

 

Full view (you can see that I should have made it longer, but it's still usable!):

 

One more full view: