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.

Yay!

The SPCA person emailed me back and seemed really excited. So I'm going to start with some truly heinous orange stuff that my mom gave me and which I never make into anything that anybody will ever want to wear. Hopefully I'll get to start this weekend.

An interesting idea...

So when I started knitting, I got a bunch of yarn from family members that had been lying around. Some of the colours are, well, ugly. And it's good yarn, but mostly acrylic, which I don't really like the feel of. Also, I'm low on cash right now and I can't really afford to buy yarn to work on my other planned projects, stuff that I'll be wearing and so would rather do in wool.

But today I came across a great suggestion - use the yarn you don't want to wear to knit small blankets to donate to a local animal shelter! They're washable, warm, free, and good practice for me! So I emailed my local SPCA branch to see if they'd be interested in a couple of blankets. I might also make some ipod "socks" and other small projects with it. That way I can use the crazy colours.

Anyway, I'd really like to get some practice with circular needles in AND help keep some kitty warm!

New projects in mind

Okay, so it's been a little while since I posted. I'm working on a couple of knitting projects right now, one of which is the Noro scarf you can find here. The others are Christmas-related and so I can't post anything right now, since my "fan base" is made up of mostly family members. Anyway, I'd like to post some better photos of projects when I get my camera back. I've also got some photo-related things I'd like to work on. 

My main crafty time right now is spent on knitting and reviving my journal, which used to be noting more than a place for whining but which I'm trying to make more interesting. 

I started by gathering a bunch of odds and ends that I've been saving and gluing them in, scrapbook-ishly. Heather, if you're reading, can you spot the thing you wrote (hint: it's backwards, it's blurry, and it's in German).

There's also the Great Wall of Movies, spanning 1999-2003, otherwise known as the Era of Cheap Tickets.

Anyway, that's it for now. Hope to get the camera back soon.

And the hits just keep on coming

I've been extremely productive this weekend. I took a break from homework this afternoon to put these things that I wrote about yesterday:

I glued them to cardboard backings (thank you Amazon.ca!), glued on picture-hanging things, and put them up above my dining table, where there were already three nails. I have a couple more of these things that I might do something with later.

I just need to find something poster-sized for my poster frame and paint the second canvas and my walls will be interesting again! I wanted to put up some chalk and charcoal nudes that I did in my art class, but they're way too small for the poster frame and the one that I really liked is almost ruined anyway. Plus it was done on crappy newsprint. Anyway, I'm thinking maybe a Rasputina poster for the other frame.

On a roll of some kind

I actually got those photo print things cropped this evening and thought I'd post some pictures of them so my mom could admire them (hi Mom!).

These are done by placing various objects (the Love thing is an earring) on photo paper on an enlarger in a darkroom, then exposing the paper so the images of the objects is left behind. We developed them with chemicals and everything, they still kind of smell. Plus something spilled on them, so there are little brownish patches. Luckily it's not too noticeable. 

I wish I had permanent darkroom access, these were a lot of fun to make and I can only imagine how often I would do it if I could!

Lots of crazy crap on the walls

I recently found myself with nearly bare walls in my living room. I hate painting rooms, and I'm reluctant to do it when I'll just be moving in less than a year. So I figured I'd better buy, make, or steal something to make my place look less I just moved in and more like I've been living here for two years (which I have).

I stopped by an art store and bought two medium-sized canvases. I painted one today with some acrylics I had from my studio art class a few semesters ago. I really enjoy painting, but I'm not that skilled and I'm hopeless at painting anything realistic (everything tends to look cartoonish), so I thought I'd go with something very simple.

First, it has to be said that simple design does not equal easy. I didn't realize how difficult it is to get a good sharp line or do small details. As a result the edge of the red portion is not quite straight. Also, the big fields of colour show brushstrokes really clearly, and it was hard to get the colour opaque and an even shade. Looking at the photo I can still see some streaks, which I may touch up later.

It was a lot of fun to do though. Painting, for me, takes so much careful planning and preparation, from coming up with the design to mixing colours to choosing brushes, that it's not quite a spontaneous expression like drawing or writing can be. It's more like doing a craft, like making jewelry or knitting. In any case, at least I have something decent to break up the white expanse above my TV.

I also wanted to add that I did something with some of the neon yarn I posted already. I made a scarf out of the neon yellow, neon green, and a navy blue. I knitted 3 strands together in a big giant garter stitch with orange pony beads. It took me about two hours, it's bright, and it's long.

Good way to do a project when you don't want to put in too much time or effort. I think I did this while watching a couple of episodes of the X-Files.

Still to do: get my digital camera back so I can stop using Photo Booth to show off my stuff, and frame some photo-lab-black-and-white-objects-type photos I did ages ago in my art class. Results to follow, I hope.