Friday, February 24, 2012

Happy Birfday Hot Wife

It's my smoking hot Derby Wife's birthday today, so I made her a matched set of Notorious B.I.G. cross stitch bookmark and beaded bracelet:

IMG_7495
GUESS WHAT I BOUGHT A LIGHT BOX FINALLY. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? CTHULHU BE PRAISED.

I put this image:

BIGGIE-SMALLS

into this pattern generator: Patterns For You for both projects. Actually, first I had my graphic designer husband stick it in Photoshop and blow out the contrast, cut out a slice, and then feed it into the pattern generator. Voila!

It's wild how much fatter Biggie is in the cross stitch. I guess it didn't translate perfectly to square blocks instead of oblong bead-shaped ones. I will keep this in mind for later projects, and also if I want to create picture of myself I will be sure to bead it instead of cross stitching it. Cross stitching apparently adds 20 pounds in the head area alone.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE HOTTEST HOT WIFE EVER. I LOVE YOU.

PS - Please do not hold these two items close together or you will see how much I effed up that cross stitch. Over & Out

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Finnishing a Tote Bag

Everyone knows that new hobbies require new bags. Right? Right. Once you decide on your Organizational System, you have to have some way to haul it around to craft meetings and airports and whatnot. Otherwise what's the point?

So here I am with my pile of cross stitch supplies -- hoops, thread case, notebook, sundries, fabric, Super Cool cross stitch book -- and no way to lug it all around! Wistfully, I wandered around the dragon-filled, uncharted aisles of Michael's in search of some sort of craft bag. They had the padded ones with wheels, the small blank canvas bags, those granny-looking basket ones...I was disappointed.

Then I spotted one of those totes with the photo pockets, into which one is expected to insert photos of puppies, chubby babies, and smiling families in matching khaki outfits on the beach. That shit sickens me. But as I choked back bile, I had an idea: There's no law saying it has to be puppies and chubby babies and smiling families in matching khaki outfits on the beach. (Is there?? I should probably check.) Couldn't one fill it with photos of, say, Finnish black metal band Sargeist?

And couldn't one affix a metal pin on the top identifying them as such? I decided to try. Thanks to my employer supplying me with google image search and a really good color printer (Patti, shhh), I was able to make this dream a reality!

I encourage everyone to purchase these photo totes and fill them with photos of whatever makes you happy! If puppies and babies and families in matching khaki outfits makes you happy, well, whatever. But if you find that idea repellent, and it is, put photos of disturbing images in there and TAKE BACK THE TOTEBAG!! We'll show those jerks.

Daniel Checks In

I was hangin' with the bros last weekend, and it turns out one of them reads this blog. Ha! Who knew? That brings the sum total of my readers to two. (Hi Patti!)

Daniel had some complaints:

1. I did not give him credit for inventing the Killamari. We were all shitfaced for four days, so I can't remember who came up with it, but yeah, he probably did. So from now on I'll tag Killamari with ™ Dan The Man Industries. We'll let the SyFy lawyers take it from there.

2. Daniel claims he sent me photos of this painting that were not murky and terrible:


I see no evidence of this, therefore I will refer to the case of Spring Break v. Frat Boys, Section A, Paragraph 2: "Pics or it didn't happen, brah!!" The score is now Craftenstein - 1, Daniel - 1.

3. As much as Daniel appreciates the Vyvyan vest I made him, it is too big. I was afraid of that. I swear they left an X off that XL label. It's huge!! He asked if it's possible to tailor it, and I told him that I couldn't, but maybe a dry cleaner could because my Korean dry cleaner can sew anything. Surely Daniel could find a comparable tailor in his town. Failing that, I told him I could totally start over with a smaller vest. And failing that, he needs to rock it on top of a leather jacket.

Final Score: Craftenstein - 1, Daniel - 2.

YOU WIN THIS ROUND.

To celebrate Daniel's win, here's a video about world peace:


*sniff* I have something in my eye....