Bookmarks

Yes, bookmarks. I NEVER use them. For one, I'm a dog-earer, from WAY back. I wholeheartedly believe that the shabbiness of a book is a fairly good indicator of how much it is loved. This makes dog-earing not only an act of self preservation, but an act of love (which just happened to be validated by one of my favorite college professors, who told me that reading without a pencil in hand to make notes in the book is just stupid). Secondly, I own a Kindle, so I've really cut down on reading print books. But I joined a bookmark swap on Craftster, pretty much because I couldn't call myself a self-respecting bibliophile without joining.

So for my swap, I was put in a group of five (counting myself), which means I had to make four bookmarks to send to my partners. I tried to go with individual bookmarks catering to the recipient's taste, but I didn't want to make them TOO different. I ended up with two that have cut felt letters, and two that are embroidered.



Starting from the left:
Green and blue: For my partner that likes Oscar Wilde. It has a Wilde quote, "Illusion is the first of all pleasures."
Brown: For my partner that likes dogs. It's embroidered with Milhouse's infamous quote, "Dogs are outstanding!" I've heard it said before, but I'll agree... I laugh like a moron every time I hear that!
Red: For my partner that's a big True Blood fan. It's an 'official' souvenir from the vampire bar Fangtasia. The logo is embroidered.
Purple and green: For my partner that likes fairies. It has a Charles de Lint quote, "We call them faerie. We don't believe in them. Our loss." I thought it was cute.

I'm hoping to get some super cute bookmarks in return. Don't know if I'll actually use them or if they will be strictly decorative. Either way, fun swap.

Cost breakdown of swap: $0.00
Cost of materials for bookmarks: $0.00. I continued using my current stash-busting momentum, and did not buy any new materials. The felt was $0.10 on sale at Hobby Lobby when I bought it, and the cardstock was purchased in a bulk package for $9.99 for use in a Christmas present for last year. So I guess, technically, it could break down as about $0.17 per bookmark, if you're going to get all picky about it.
Shipping: $0.43 each for stamps, $0.01 each for envelopes.

Total cost of entire swap: FREE in that I didn't have to buy anything, or $0.61 per bookmark if you count stuff that I'd bought before, working out to a grand total of $2.44 for eight bookmarks (you're probably asking yourself why I am counting eight, but only made four. I sent out four. I will receive four. Four plus four equals eight. Duh.).

Gotta love stashbusting.

Kanzashi Flowers

I've been seeing these things all over the crafty forums I follow, and they are surprisingly easy to make. Once upon a time, I worked as a supervisor at a Pier 1, and I bought some fabric napkins there on clearance. I have been saving them for a few years now, trying to think of the perfect project on which to use them. I went with the kanzashi flowers. These are going to be in the Etsy shop on hair pins/clips, and I am going to use a couple of them in a swap I'm doing for some fabric. But I think they're really cute, and my Mom keeps coming up with ideas to use them. Brooches, bracelets, necklaces, on a skirt or pants, pillows, bags, etc. So all in all, a cute and cheap way to add a little something extra.

I definitely think the hairpins and a necklace would be so cute! I'm going to do another several hundred thousand, knowing me. I'm also thinking that I might do some for hairpins for my sis-in-law's upcoming wedding (I'm a co-matron of honor, and am thrilled to be a part of her special day!).

Cost breakdown of these: $0.78 cents for the fabric
Buttons were free (in stash)
Total cost, per flower: $0.06

Crocheted Mary Jane Slippers

I have been wanting to knit socks for a LONG time now. However, I am an impatient crafter. I want results now, not later. I did some researching, and got a pattern, a tutorial, some yarn, and the needles to knit socks. And I started to knit socks. They are going to take me a very long time. In the meantime, I found a great tutorial on Craftster about how to crochet slippers. I decided to try it out. It didn't take me any amount of time at all, I literally finished them in about half of 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince' (movie, not book). Here they are, in all their glory:

I'm not a giant fan of the colors, but it was a practice run. They were easy and really fun.

Cost breakdown of slippers: Yarn, free (purloined from my Mom's unused yarn kitty)
Buttons, free (donated to my button stash by my cousin, Joey)

So yeah. Free craft projects will abound while I stash-bust. These were fun. More to come.

The (Free) Wonder of YouTube!

The most frequent question I am asked about my craftiness is, undoubtedly, the question about who taught me/how I learned something. While I did learn quite a few techniques from the amazing women in my family (thanks, Mom, Nimfa, Grandmama, Mamaw, and Grandma!) and some friends (notably my Connecticut bestie Kseniya, who patiently taught me the basics of knitting), I tend to get wild hairs to try things I've never tried before. And when that happens, I consult books. Sometimes, those books are able to coach me along and I can learn to do something quite well just with reading (like the soap). Other times, books made me scratch my head, try, mess up, try again, mess up again, ad nauseum, until I throw the book across the room in a fit of frustration. At those times, I turn to youtube. I had NO idea about this, but you can find a tutorial about anything possible on youtube. What did I do when my Acer lappy had the dreaded 'black screen' and my super nerdy tech guy computer-savvy husband didn't know how to fix it? I found a tute on youtube, and fixed it myself. I wanted to knit socks, but the thought of knitting on four double pointed needles made my head hurt. Again, youtube to the rescue. And lastly, I had a lot of makeup that I really liked but never wore. I didn't want to throw it away, but desperately needed a new look. Go go gadget youtube. I found a tutorial to do some looks that are not only extremely flattering, they didn't cost me hardly anything because I already had the makeup. So the moral of today's blog? Buying stuff is for the birds. Learn to make it yourself for cheap or cheap as free. Consult books and youtube. Check out www.craftster.org for a TON of free tutorials ranging across the DIY spectrum. Why buy when you can make?

Cost breakdown for socks: $1 for the yarn, $3.99 for the needles (which I will reuse)
Cost breakdown for Acer: Zero, zip, zilch. SO MUCH CHEAPER than paying someone to fix it.
Cost breakdown for makeup: Actually, I had to buy a set of brushes for $9.99. Still cheaper than buying a whole new makeup bag worth of stuff.

All in all, doing things yourself saves not just an arm and a leg, but also a foot, a hand, a torso, another arm.... seriously, you can save SO MUCH money doing things on your own!

$5 Wrap Skirt

For those that don't know, I'm a teacher. I love my job; it's not just what I do, it's who I am. And yes, I'm that quirky English teacher you remember from high school... the one with the really awesome handmade earrings that was a little too into the readings for your taste. But I digress. The last thing that I'm required to do at the end of my school year is attend graduation. I needed something cute to wear to graduation and I didn't want to spend a lot of money on it (I'm in the midst of some lightening of the ole load, if you know what I mean, and didn't want to spend a lot on something that will be too big in a few weeks). Decided to make a wrap skirt based on a pattern in my head.



I went to Wal Mart to get some cheap fabric, and ended up finding a print that I fell in love with. It's loud and obnoxious (just like me!). It was also heavy enough that I wouldn't need to line the fabric. So I bought about a yard and a half and headed home.



I cut a narrow strip from the edge to use to fasten the skirt, but other than that, I didn't really cut much besides the hem. I hemmed all the scraggly edges, then created a fabric tie. I sewed one tie to each end, wrapped the finished product around my waist, and in less than an hour had a really neat new skirt. This was seriously the easiest sewing I've ever done. I got a TON of compliments on it, too; to be fair, I'm not sure if that was about the wrap skirt itself or just the pattern of the fabric. Comments and suggestions are always welcome, as I seem to be relearning how to sew on an 'antique' Singer.

Cost breakdown: $4.49 for the fabric

Peasant blouse and 'new' skirt on the cheap!

Since the beginning of the year, I've been watching what I eat and exercising (more) regularly. I know, I know, kudos to me *cough*. Anyhoo, I've lost weight. And am still, slowly but steadily, losing weight. This is great, of course, and I'm really excited about it. But it also kinda sucks. See, when you have a bunch of extra to lose, you end up losing more than just a size or two. And this makes for big money going out the window to outfit yourself. Which is what makes losing weight even more of a pain in the bootay... buying clothes that fit me now, since my old clothes no longer do, even though I know I will be too skinny for them in another two or three weeks.

Solution?

Make do with what you have. I found a skirt with an elastic waist that I hadn't worn in FOREVER. It was really cute, elastic fits me at my fattest and skinniest, so why haven't I been wearing this fabulous piece of white heaven? Oh yeah, it's white. See through, you betcha, but also stained because I'm hard on clothes like that (not to mention super DUPER klutzy). Instead of trashing it and getting a new skirt, I decided to break out that old stand by of peace loving pacifists everywhere and TIE DYE THAT BAD BOY. Yep, it's purple with white circles now.



It still looks kind of knotty, I cut the rubber bands off and haven't rewashed or ironed it since. I love that the white thread in the hem and waist (also the cargo pockets that you can't see in this pic) didn't take, it's a nice contrast. Very summery.

I had four or five old tshirts, picked up from craft stores over the years with intent to use (Dumbledore's Army and Chudley Cannons shirts ring a bell) that were buried under a mountain of old clothes. I needed to make them a little dressier so that I can wear them to work, so I cut off the neckline and threw in some elastic. Did the same for the end of the sleeves. Wonder craft powers, activate!


Don't think you can see the neckline too well in this picture, but oh well. Am planning on adding some beaded embellishments one of these days. For now, it's fine.

So, all in all, I ended up with two pair of tie dyed socks, one tie dyed tshirt, one tie dyed skirt, and five tshirt-turned-peasant-blouses.

Cost breakdown: $1.49 for dye
$4.77 for elastic
Which brings it to:$6.26 for a 'new' summer wardrobe, or $0.76 per item. Buying new stuff= waste of time and money.

Cleanliness is next to....

So I know that some of the projects that will be written about in the coming weeks are pretty old. I also know that, traditionally, blogs chronicle the now or the future. But in the spirit of blogging about craftiness, I'm going to add old projects as I see fit.
Back in early May, Lisa and I made soap. I had been itching for quite awhile to try making soap with lye, but didn't have a. lye, b. the space, or c. the time. I did find a great recipe in a book called 'Better Basics for the Home: Simple Solutions for Less Toxic Living' by Annie Berthold Bond, and decided I'd better stop making excuses and just set a soap-making date. Lis liked the idea of the project, and readily agreed to share her yard, garage, and kitchen implements (of doom, MUAHAHAHAHA). I spent the week before the date feverishly searching for lye. I called every hardware store in a 20 mile radius. No one carries it anymore. After resolving to order from Amazon and move the date back, I FINALLY found some at this little tiny mom 'n pop hardware store here in Porter.


Please ignore the Sonic cup in the background. I'm well aware that this sends a message of lye=Route 44 vanilla coke with extra vanilla goodness, but this simply isn't so.

So we followed the directions from the book. This involved a lot of mixing and measuring. We had to mix the lye outside and be very careful because it supposedly would cause a big caustic fumey Chernobyl-like mess when it hit the water.


This is Lisa (rt) and me (lft), using our shirts to dispel the potential stank of lye and water. Bottoms up!

We had to wait FOREVER for the water-lye mix to cool down enough to mix with the melted oils (shortening, olive oil, coconut oil). After about a zillion hours, everything came to temperature, and we mixed oil and water. We were supposed to stir it for about ten minutes until it began to trace, but it took our soap a good hour or so before we reached barely trace. Meh. Need an immersion blender for next time....

So we poured our concoction into a 9X13 cake pan, covered with wax paper and towels, and then played the waiting game. FOR THREE. WHOLE. WEEKS. If you know me personally, you know that I don't play the waiting game very well. After the soap took FOREVER to cure, Lisa scored it into bars and broke it.



And voila! Old fashioned lye soap, like my Great Grandma Schoppe used to make.

Cost breakdown: Lye, $5.99 for 2.5 batches worth
Olive oil, $3.49 for one batch worth
Coconut oil, $8.00 for four batches worth
Shortening, $2.47 for 2.5 batches worth

If my calculations are correct, then it works out to about $0.47 per bar. Still cheaper to buy soap, especially on sale. However, when you figure in add-ins (explored in depth in another entry, soon to come), you get fancier soap for still relatively cheap. For people with problem skin, definitely worth a try. I also have several recipes for all purpose cleaner and laundry detergent that call for castille soap (olive oil lye soap, which is what we made). The soap therefore becomes more valuable, and more cost effective. The verdict? If you can't live without store bought all purpose cleaners and laundry detergent, store bought plain ole Ivory will be cheaper. If you want to save money by making your own cleaners, then lye soap becomes a little more worth it. Either way, it's still fun.

Some notes on the lye- It's so hard to find! Like I said, I almost had to resort to Amazon. I shop Amazon a lot, but I was hesitant to order a caustic chemical from them. Under no circumstance should you use anything other than 100% pure lye. If the label says anything else under ingredients, for the love of all things good and proper, don't use it in your soap! You don't want that on your skin! The fat and lye chemically react, and the lye is no longer caustic, but any other chemicals won't do that. Who wants plumbing chemical burns? I have read many articles about making lye at home. Seems pretty easy, evidently you collect rainwater and pour it over ashes. Let the mix sit for a bit, and it reacts to form lye. I don't really think that my apartment complex would approve of an open barrel of homebrew lye on the porch, so I'll let that one go for now.

The book also suggests recipe add-ins, I will try those next time. Guess what everyone's getting in their stockings this year?!?!?!

Dotees, Round 10!

I have decided to try my first swap on Craftster. I am so excited about this! I've sort of been lurking around Craftster for awhile, I've posted a few projects, but nothing to write home about. Always wanted to do a swap, thought that dotees 10 would be the perfect opportunity!

Swaps are pretty simple, actually- you can either join a group swap or do a personal swap. You exchange a little info (shipping address, basic likes and dislikes) with your partner(s), then you create personalized crafty projects for each other. For instance, in the dotee swap, I create mini dolls for each of my group members based on their personalities, then send them their way. You create one for everyone in your group. I have three other group members, so I will end up with three dotees made just for me.

I started and finished the first one today It was easier than I thought it would be to do a Bucilla-like felt contraption freehand. One of my partners mentioned that she liked nature. I thought that a tree would be great for that. The rules are that the doll can't be taller than about 6 inches, it needs a face, and a tail. I was having a hard time coming up with how to incorporate a tail into a tree, and then decided to add a stuck kite, using the kite tail as the dotee tail. I kept having visions of that episode of Robot Chicken where they show the Charlie Brown kite eating tree as this evil demon tree, but decided to go a little easier on my partner. It's really cute, I'm pleased with it.

There's not really much else to say about it, the end of the tail is not connected and so it swings free, and there is a little tiny bow at the end of the kite. I tried to make the tree look nice, like he's saying, "Whoops, sorry 'bout that!" in regards to eating your kite. The other two are still taking shape, one is going to be a cat, and one is going to be a turtle. 'They' suggest making one for yourself every swap, so I probably will. I might have to stick with my nature theme, which would mean I'd make myself.... um.... something naturey. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Breakdown of cost: Felt, $1.74 (6 sheets total for all dotees)
Shipping, probably around $7 total

Total cost of project and end result: $8.84 for a fun activity, first swap experience, new friends, and three dolls. Not too shabby. I could've spent A LOT more making the dotees, but I had a lot of extra materials in my stash already.

Anyways, it's getting late and so it's beddy bye time for me. G'night!