Increased mobility

I was reading up on sea glass this afternoon, because I have literally bagfuls of the stuff and I really don't know what to do with it. Someone somewhere was showing decorative stuff they made, and I remembered this mobile I'd seen in a craft book I have, made out of coat hangers, wire, and paper. I figured I could modify it. Unfortunately, my wire cutters couldn't get through the coat hanger wire, but I have some thick silver stuff that worked pretty well. I took only pieces that are porcelain/opaque. I don't really have anywhere to hang it, which is why I took this photo in my bathroom:



I'm pleased. I have to say that I'm not really a fan of wire wrapping sea glass, as I find it can look a too New-Age-shop-ish or overly cute, and it tends to conceal the natural jaggedness of the glass (if the piece is rough to begin with), but because my wire wrapping skills are minimal, I think it turned out okay. I particularly like the piece in the middle; it gives it a nice toothy, pointy look and severely reduces the twee. I think I'm going to make another one out of brass wire and porcelain.

I have plans to do something with the really big pieces I have, the ones that still kind of look like garbage because they're not completely smooth or are still shaped like a bottle or whatever. I also have plans for three necklaces, one with the Fire King semi-opaque green stuff, one with porcelain pieces that still has designs/paint on them, and one with milk glass, but I really don't want to wire wrap, so I'm going to wait until I have the time and extra cash to play with bezels and soldering. I'll take pictures of my collection sometime.

I also whipped up some jewelry with beads that i got in my Christmas stocking:



My camera is tough to figure out. I can't seem to get it to focus properly on closer shots like the one above, even when I put it on the special close-up setting. And when I can get it to focus, the colour tends to get really red and bright when I don't use the flash. I tried to retake this photo but like I said, it wouldn't focus, so, yeah, big ol' flash spot.

Now to clean like I meant to do three hours ago.

Chaos will always triumph over order; it is the way of things.

My brother was visiting over the Christmas break, and a few weekends ago he came home bearing DVDs of Reboot, the very first full-length all-CGI TV show, which we used to watch obsessively as kids. We spent a Saturday night watching old episodes, and I have to admit that it holds up surprisingly well. I actually laughed out loud a few times. I see it differently now from when I was younger (more sex jokes, mostly), but one thing has stayed the same: Hexadecimal and her power of AWESOME.

Well, I guess that's not entirely true, since most of the sex jokes center around her ("I think she likes being tied up!"). Still, that only makes her more AWESOME to my grown-up self.

So anyway, I also re-discovered this little website called A Minor Glitch, which used to be run by a talented chick called MG. It hasn't been updated in several years, but the whole site is still up and accessible. She seems to be the queen of Reboot-related crafts (admittedly a niche market), and she came up with the Hex Nut Earrings. I got inspired and tried it myself:



They turned out okay, not bad for my first attempt at shrink plastic. I covered the basic emotions - happy, sad, angry, intrigued, and joyful rage. Unfortunately the loop on the angry face broke off, so I'll have to redo that one. I'll probably redo the sad face too, the colour got a little muddy. I left out the actual hex nut part of the earring, so they're not quite like the original, but still, I'm pleased. See, I even made an odd number of them. Of earrings. Which normally come in pairs. How... chaotic.

So wherever you are, MG, thanks for leaving your website up, and thanks for the seeing the crafting potential where others might only see a pun.

Says Hexadecimal: "Who made me look like this? I like it!"

I'm pleased to announce my triumphant return to photo-taking!

So yesterday I finally snagged my new camera. It was $10 off, and it was the last one they had in stock, too. Everything was coming up Milhouse! I got a Nikon Coolpix S210. Like a good little Capricorn I read the manual last night and played with it a little today. There's a ton of modes and settings and options, but thankfully it's pretty easy to just click-flash-here-have-a-photo. In light of that, I went around my apartment experimenting and taking better pictures of some old projects I've already posted. First, the old stuff:

Here are those photograms I did in my art class and hung on my wall back in September. It was probably a little too hasty - I didn't mount them very well and they're kind of wrinkly and un-smooth. Oh well.







Here's that collage I mentioned that I made out of CD liner notes, currently on my bedroom wall:



And here are some shots of that ink drawing I posted way back at the beginning of the blog, when I had to use the camera on my Macbook. I started it in Gaspé in the August of 2007 and finished it over the next few months. You can probably see the words I based it around.



"Must not sleep,"



"must warn others."



The words are from "Commencement at the Obedience Academy", by Aesop Rock.

And now the new stuff:

This is what Kyle painted when we took my new acrylics for a test run. He very graciously let me hang it on my wall. I particularly like the funny 70s sunset at the top and the little round window-y part underneath it. The colours are more vivid in person, it was just bright in my apartment when I took the photo.



Here's a necklace that I don't think I've posted yet. I bought a bracelet at H&M that had these great little origami crane charms, but I never wore it because the charms were always clinking on my desk while I wrote and it drove me crazy. So I got a length of chain and some jump rings and made this lariat necklace. I still don't really wear it, but it's more because I haven't figured out the best way to put it on. I might turn it into a regular necklace eventually.



This is my first attempt at a tuxedo t-shirt for my brother (see last post). It failed. I guess it's a little punk rock, what with the splatters of bleach and fuzzy design, but, well, eh. I kept it to sleep in. It's huge.



Here's a top I made last summer from an idea in a book on refashioning old clothes. I had this ugly, paint-y Episode I t-shirt that was too big, so I made it into not-quite-halter-ish tank top. It's really comfortable and it looks awesome under a cardigan. I just wish it wasn't Episode I.



And this is a Presidents of the United States of America t-shirt that was also way too big. Again, I followed a pattern (if you can call it that) from the same book, but I'm not really crazy about how it turned out. The front doesn't drape very well, though I like how I tied the straps.



I'm not sure why this shot went all crazy glowing coals red, maybe it was the sun and the combination of red shirt on red sheet. Anyway, if you can't see, I cut the back up the middle, cut strips into both sides, then tied the strips into knots. Neat idea, but I didn't really measure, so the two sides aren't even, and also it looks kind of funny when I put it on. Maybe some wear and tear and lots of washing would soften the shirt up, I don't know.



Anyway, there's a Whole Whack O'Photos. I'm hoping to get the rest of my Noro yarn soon, so maybe I'll have some knitting to show off.

Oh, I almost forgot. This is two of the four balls of Noro Silk Garden that I need for the scarf. It's very pretty.

Simple jewelry

I played around with my jewelry stuff tonight. I made a few pairs of earrings, really quick and easy ones. Hopefully I'll wear them a few times. I'd like to improve my jewelry-making techniques - all I can really do is bead and attach things with jump rings. I'd love to pull off complex designs, but... I've got a list of hobby-related "things to do" up to here. I have to pick and choose. As an interesting contrast to the homemade-ness of my jewelry, I've drooling over the jewelry here. My favourite is this pair of earrings. Nerdy, but not obvious! Also - thirty dollars. But beautiful.

Anyway, I finally got my camera back but don't really know how to use it, so I can't figure out how to get my photos any less blurry than these. Onto the jewelry!



Pretty much the easiest earrings ever. Add beads, make a loop at the top of the straight wire, attach hooks. Done.



Slightly more "labour"-intensive, but not by much! Still, looks good.



Wacky picture frame earrings! They don't match! Zany! I like these. The picture frames are actually meant for scrapbooking. They came with these little pointy things to stick them into paper. Dollar store, baby!



Memory wire bracelet. Again with the same beads. I like doing memory wire stuff, it always looks good at the end and it's so easy.



This is a weird little lariat necklace I made awhile ago. You'll notice I have pretty limited supplies - that's the same picture frame-y pendant as the earrings. Plus I have only one type of bead. I don't wear this very often, I haven't quite figured out the best way to.

I have plans for some sea glass jewelry, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to mount/attach/secure the glass. I'm not crazy about wire wrapping, I'd like something more polished. I don't really have the tools for anything else more metalwork-ish. I have some really great pieces that would make an awesome necklace.

I started my first doggie blanket too.



You probably can't see in this tiny photo, but I'm doing a seed stitch border and garter stitch for the rest (I was going to do all seed stitch, but I kept getting distracted and making mistakes and I'd like this to be as quick a knit as possible). The colour looks pretty yellow in the photo, but it's really a bright, not-quite-neon orange. I have about 12 skeins of the stuff, which is good because it will probably take me several more to finish this. Also, it's my first time using circular needles, which is great. I'm not knitting in the round, but it's great to have everything attached and all. My next project will probably be something in the round, once I finish my Christmas stuff.

Oh, the plaid backdrop on some of the photos? My couch. Yeah, I know.