A Lovely Gift

The wonderful and talented Patti Dee sent me the most beautiful hand-stamped card:

How gorgeous is this? I love the color palette!

Knowing my addiction to patch-covered jumpsuits, Patti Dee included a couple of patches that I can't wait to use:

These are great! And if that wasn't enough, she also enclosed this gorgeous pendant:

I love it all. Thanks, Patti!!

I meant to post this sooner, but my regular March allergy/illness throat-golfball came in August this year which is super awesome, hooray, and I'm still clawing my way out of it. Special thanks to Hennessy Cognac, ibuprofen, benedryl, and honey-lemon lozenges. Extra special thanks to Netflix Instant.

Now go learn all of Patti Dee's secrets while I take a nap on the desk.

N.U.T.S.A.C. Field Report

Still putting the new Shartwork up over here: drcraftenstein.com, but the very shartiest I save for you, dear reader.

Couple of promotions to announce - Former N.U.T.S.A.C. "Rookie of the Year" Chili Bowl has proven himself truly worthy of the title "Agent." Congratulations, Chili Bowl! In recognition of his diligent assclownery efforts, we presented him with this handsome plaque:

In addition, Agent Chili Bowl's brother Balzac is proving to be the top contender for N.U.T.S.A.C. "Rookie of the Year 2014." In addition to fully immersing himself in any and every N.U.T.S.A.C. mission, Balzac stays focused in his off hours, bringing assclownery, piracy, and church burnings to the good citizens of Minecraft. (Also he was super cool about me covering his room with Justin Bieber duct tape.)

To officially mark Balzac's acceptance into N.U.T.S.A.C.'s Elite Rookie Program, we were pleased to present him with this handsome plaque:

Special thanks to Friend of N.U.T.S.A.C. Brunofsky for the sweet ass alien:

You are truly doing the lord's work.

And finally, I found this beautiful lady at the new Goodwill that just opened near my house. The organization embraced her immediately. Behold, N.U.T.S.A.C. Nana!

A classy dame deserves a classy frame, so I sanded down a black one and repainted it white, failed to take a photo of that, and now her comforting cottony head guards over my studio. Hooray for Nana!!

FYI: I have taped those letters into a permanent stencil. Consider yourselves warned.

***END OF REPORT***

drcraftenstein.com

I know what you're thinking: "Gee, I've admired your terrible shit art for so long, but I do not yet own any. How can I bring some of this awfulness into my own home?" Friend, I'm glad you asked.

BEHOLD: DRCRAFTENSTEIN.COM ( <-- click there)

It's an Indie Made template, so please do not judge the non-existent design too harshly as most of it is out of my control. But do admire my awesome Microsoft Paint banner! That's all me.

Basically my house is filled to the brim and it's time to take action. Also I figured I'd better purchase the URL before someone stripped me of the title (because it is so awesome that surely everyone is clamoring for it).

I have the Madonna clowns over there, as well as two ceramics, and a bunch of this mixed media stuff:

I'm cranking out about a piece a week, so please check back if you don't currently see any shart to your liking. And if you place an order, you will get a free gift! Hooray!

One caveat: I'm really bad at computers on my days off. And I spend from Saturday night until Wednesday afternoon up to my wrists in gel medium. So if you have a burning question and you don't hear anything from me for a couple of days, I apologize in advance. But I'm going to try to make a real effort to stay on top of it! Or at least I promise I will try to try! It's the NU.T.S.A.C. way!

See you in the lab!

Tiny Patch Vests

My memory is terrible. Very often I learn about something and then completely forget about it. Which is how I can watch the Predator a thousand times and always be surprised by the ending! And it's also what happened with inkjet printer iron-ons.

Upon rediscovering a pack of them in my sewing table, I stood completely erect and announced, "I WILL MAKE BUBBA A PATCH VEST."

I spent a couple of (work) hours on google image search collecting band logos and shrinking them down in Microsoft Word (very technical, you understand) filling several pages. I then took the file home and bullied the husband into printing it out on his inkjet printer.

While he was doing that, I designed a tiny vest shape on paper and forced poor Bubba to keep trying it on until I got one that worked. Then I cut up a pair of old jeans into a bunch of little vests and hemmed all the edges. And THEN I invited my friend to bring her rat Loki to my house for craft night so we could make tiny vests for him too! SQUEEE!!

We cut out the tiny patches and ironed them onto the tiny vests.

AHHHHH!!!! SO CUTE!!! Then I got out the Bedazzler.

AAAHHH!!! But what if Bubble wants to go to a punk show?

SO PUNK AND SO METAL!!! I also sprayed bleach on that one before I put the patches on. Oh shit, I just now decided to make him a little Vyvyan vest. And so it shall be done. But what if Loki wants to come too?

AWWWW!!! SO CUTE!! I have star studs for leather work that I put on the back too:

By the way, I kept my tack hammer near by and made sure the points were all down on the studs. Don't want the little dudes suffering for fashion.

But Bubba might want to go a little understated sometimes, like for a more formal event. Luckily Hobby Lobby carries many many many many many many many (breath) many many many different types of cross iron-on patches, which work even better upside down:

LOOK HOW TEENY MY LITTLE DOODLE USED TO BE. They grow up so fast!! Bubba now has a whole rack of little vests to suit every occasion.

I do have some sad news, and I hate to bring the room down...but sweet Loki is no longer with us. Rest in peace, little man. It was an honor to have you turd on my floor.

Now I've Discovered Soap

AKA Because I Needed To Fill My House With More Crap.

But the upside to this is that I also get to USE a bunch of crap that I've been hoarding! In addition to buying more crap. Hooray!!

So: Microwave melt & pour soap is the jam. It's $20 for the 5 lb. block, so print out the weekly 40% off Hobby Lobby coupon before you leave!

Then: Get you some soap molds. These plastic soap molds:

...do not mention it, but you need to coat them with vaseline before you pour the soap in or else you will break your thumbs trying to get the soap out. Luckily I happened to read that tip in a book, because the one time I forgot to use vaseline was very painful. However THESE:

Silicone molds for candy and cakes, and THESE:

Silicone novelty ice cube trays are AMAAAAAZING. No vaseline, no nothing, the silicone flexes allowing you to easily pop the soaps out. I have just ordered more silicone cake molds off Amazon because Eff that plastic junk. I'm gonna pawn them off on some ignorant sucker. And big thanks to everyone that has gifted us with novelty ice cube trays over the years.

Predictably, I went from Zero to Suspend-Shit-In-The-Soap in under a minute. You will note the purple bat in the first photo. Did I take a photo of the bloody rats? Damn. Well here are some spiders and flies, but the flies wings visually blend with the soap so you can't see them unless you hold them up to the light:

Here's a hippo:

Some aliens:

And I bought one of those overpriced "Toobs" of mythological creatures (use the 40% coupon!):

There's a unicorn, Neptune, dragon, minotaur...it rules.

So what I do is pour some melted soap in the bottom, let it cool for a few minutes, then toss in an alien and let that cool for a couple of minutes (usually while heating more soap), then pour the rest of the melted soap on top.You can't wait too long because the soap poured on top won't blend with the bottom if it's too cool, it will just peel off when it hardens. But if you pour the top on too soon, your alien will just float to the top. I left my husband holding Neptune's head under the soap with a popsicle stick -- "DON'T MOVE" -- for like a minute and half before he would stay down.

After I pour the second layer on, sometimes I stab a toothpick around in there to try to fuse them together just in case. It's not perfect, and it takes a few attempts to get it right. (Don't forget: just like a cake, the part touching the mold will look nicer than the rough bottom, so put your stuff in upside-down if you want it to appear right side up on the good side when you pop it out.)

Then someone gave us one of these new silicone ice cube trays that make giant 2" cubes for whiskey:

And I bought a sack of astronauts and some yellow soap dye.

OH THE HUMANITY!! I like how this one looks like he has a lunch pail and got slimed on the way to work. Sometimes I dropped the dye in the bottom pour, sometimes I waited until the top pour. So they're all slightly different:

This fellow was apparently planning to do some light dentistry. I did not put these guys into the tray upside down, and the little base stuck very nicely to the slightly cooled soap in the bottom. Obviously their heads are too tall for the mold, which I thought would bother me, but it actually sort of adds to the hopelessness of the situation. The poor bastards.

Another benefit of this craft is that it cleans up after itself!! Everything is soap! Hooray! And it's pure glycerin, so I'm not allergic to it, and it's unscented (you can buy scents if you want) so it's basically the perfect craft. Which is good because my husband basically just comes home and says "What now??" I already had to buy a container to hold all my molds and colors and soap blocks. It's ridiculous.

More Embroidery

A few more embroidery projects in the pile:

This is my last Great Big Postcard swap entry, chronologically last and also the last one that I will ever submit because this is the second year in a row that I have received nothing in return, nor seen a hint that my postcard was received. So that's it for me. Patti, did you get anything? [Edit: I see that you did. Congrats!]

The theme this time was "Celebrate":

This video is in my Top Ten Reasons The Internet Kicks Ass:

And the joke was on me because I had that song stuck in my head for two weeks.

One of my gym buddies is a secret LotR nerd, and she loves Legos. So her son buys her the huge LotR Lego sets for Xmas, and she excitedly builds them and takes photos, then disassembles them. She was showing off her latest Lego photos to me one day and I told her how jealous my husband would be if he saw them. She said, "You want it?" I said, "Are you kidding?" She totally gave the set to me.

The night I brought it home I walked in the house and just silently held up the box. My husband froze, gaped at the box, pointed, and in a cautiously optimistic tone said, "Is that.....IN there??" Turns out he knows I'm a complete shit, and would totally have just taken an empty "Battle of Helm's Deep" box and filled it with oranges because I am a horrible person. I said "Yes it is. Now make that face again so I can show her a photo."

After I took a shot of him gaping, he told me how expensive it was. Sweet Holy Sauron!! I decided right then that I had to make her a thank-you gift. So I google image searched LotR maps and made this:

Check out the dope scroll frame I got at either Hobby Lobby or Joannes, I can't remember. I think Hobby Lobby:

Just the wood part -- the metal poles on either side are my door-mounted folding ironing board, simultaneously the greatest AND worst thing ever invented.

I made this for my friend Sara's birthday. I can't take credit for the pattern because it was pre-printed on the pillow case:

(There's the ironing board again. We fight a lot, but I can't quit it.)

Here's where you can purchase the pillow cover:

Sublime Stitching Mark Allen Pillow Cover

I stuck to the suggested colors, then added her name and a lot of beads. The raccoon now looks like he's part fly:

And check out these guys:

I'm pleased with how the flowers came out:

If Jenny Hart checks her linkbacks and finds this, I have a message for her:

1. I love you, Jenny Hart.

2. Thank you for teaching me how to make a perfect french knot. You should have seen the bullshit I was producing before I read your book. An affront to god, that's what they were. Please know that you have touched my life.

Now everyone go buy stuff from her. Oh damn, I just saw the Loteria patterns. BRB y'all.

N.U.T.S.A.C. Rolls Deep

My paramilitary assclownery organization Got Real for last year's Dragon*Con because I decided it was high time for official gear. When did I decide this? I think like three weeks out from the Con. Why? Because that is the way of N.U.T.S.A.C.

Working my fingers to the bone, I somehow managed to hand embroider all of these Agent patches in the nick of time:

It seems I failed to take a photo of the patch I made for 2012 N.U.T.S.A.C. Rookie of the Year, Agent Chili Bowl. Well, it looks pretty much the same.

And for the Wingmen:

Viper is our Four Star Wingman, being that he is the only sober adult member of the organization. Viper suffers, friends. Please keep him in your thoughts.

Iceman heads up our International Wingman Division, and earns his Three Stars providing on-call Wingman support to the UK. Iceman keeps our borders safe from intoxicated Brits, is what I'm telling you. VERRRRY intoxicated Brits.

And of course N.U.T.S.A.C. would not even exist without Cougar, whose ready supply of bail money and diplomacy keeps my Co-CEO on the streets. She suffers, friends. Please keep her in your thoughts. (I also failed to photograph Wingman Slider's patch, AKA Agent Poopstuff. Poopstuff is proving himself to be a solid Wingman, and an asset to the organization.)

We needed something to sew these Official Patches to, so I (again, like a week out) painted us up some vests. Here they are in action:

I didn't get a chance to paint Mopey's. RIP little dude. :(

AND I MADE BUBBA A LITTLE VEST!!!!

I thought I had a better photo of it, but I had to work quickly because he was clawing my friend's shirt off. N.U.T.S.A.C. REPRAZENT!!

Xmas Embroidery

No, I haven't finished handing out last year's Xmas presents yet. Don't be crazy. But the ones I have left were purchased, not made, so I am safe! Hooray! Here's what KC/DC received:

This is a quote from Joan Jett embroidered on linen, and all I have done since is whine about it. Linen sure moves around a lot while you work with it, and no mistakes are tolerated. Not sure I'll do that again. I would not have survived Pioneer Times.

I made this for my hairdresser:

I started with "Mid-Century Girls Pattern Set" from Cherry & Cinnamon that I found on etsy, but I needed more heads so I traced some that I found on google. Then my husband sketched a scissor and comb and I added those, and the names. And it's stapled around a bizarre wooden frame that I got at TJ Maxx and from which I removed and promptly destroyed whatever sappy sentiment was originally attached.

Also from Cherry & Cinnamon:

Aren't these great? The whole Firefly set is adorable. I should go back and do the rest.

Who here hasn't seen "The Room"? If you raised your hand, I must insist that you drop whatever you're doing right now and see it immediately. You will thank me. And these will make sense.

Well...you know, sort of:

And I meant to crop those photos square, but time is of the essence!!

If you embroider, you should know about Jenny Hart and Sublime Stitching. I have made many a purchase. Go ahead, check it out. I'll wait.

One of the fine ladies in our craft group did a big supply purge and gave the rest of the group a TON of stuff. Actually mostly just me. I took most of it. So to thank her, I made her a little gift based on a pattern from this Jenny Hart book, "Embroidered Effects":

There's wire edging the banner, the knife hilt, and the point of the blade, and I stapled the whole thing around a teeny canvas panel so she can hang it on the wall.

And THEN, based on THAT pattern, I made Becca a thank you gift for checking up on Beelzebubba while we were out of town:

DAWWWWW!! That's almost as cute as my little Bubbles!! Sweet doodle.

I'm gonna go home right now and kiss him on his scaly little head.