Ketchup Time

Geez, I have a lot of leftover projects piled up. Let's see...

My English friends received their baby gift, so I can finally post that. Of course I loaded up the baby with Redskins gear (still don't know the gender, doesn't matter. Go Skins!) and USA onesies, and of course a knit devil hat. Then I purchased two blank cross-stitch bibs at Hobby Lobby, and decided this is probably what English babies are thinking all the time:

And I couldn't help this one:

So is the new Flickr layout going to stay this anus-clenchingly horrible forever, or will they revert back to the old one? It sucks so bad I can't form words right now.

I made this at my husband's request:

In metal stamping news, I switched out the badge on my bracelet, mostly just to see if I could do it. I could, so this gives my bracelet a whole new dimension. It will be like those crappy roadside arrow-shaped marquees advertising Bud Light, changing at my whim!

It says "IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO WATAIN." For those of you that don't know, this is Watain:

Specifically, please deliver me to the blood-soaked demon on the left. KTHX

I was finally able to deliver the BFF's Birthday Magic, and part of it included this award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Patriotism:

Is that thing magnificent or what? It weighs a ton. I cut the metal plaque with my dremel and tried to replicate the specific shape, then hammered the words into the plaque and doublestick taped it on. He's earned all that and more.

One last random thing and then I'll close this one out. In Piloxing class (yep, pilates + kickboxing...) we wear these half-pound hand weight gloves. I decided mine didn't kick enough ass, so I studded them out.

That's right. FEAR ME.

Bracelets and a Birthday Monster

I promise I've been busy. Mostly knitting ever more baby devil hats because everyone is pregnant, and also working on one section for a group blanket project. But mostly everyone really needs to quit having April birthdays because it is KILLING me. I need to get new friends.

I made this for yet another friend with an April birthday:

Of course all I did was add the Montauk Monster on the beach there.

Luckily she knew what that was. Or at least pretended to. Happy birthday!

I recently saw a photo online of some leather bracelets adorned with badges saying tripe like "LIVE YOUR BLISS" and shit like that, and I thought, "I can make that!" Michael's Crafts sells plain leather bracelets, and, being the worst vegetarian ever, I stocked up! I also purchased grommets and a leather hole punch. I used ring blanks for the stamped badges because they were a good proportionate size for the bracelet. Then used my metal hole punch to make a hole on each side of the ring blank, punched two corresponding holes in the leather bracelet with the leather punch, then grommeted the whole thing together. I used rounding pliers for some light shaping on the badge after it was attached.

It says, "If I'm crazy, then you're boring." It's a quote from Henry Rollins, but I ran out of room so I put H.R. This was my first practice one. I promise to do better.

I had no idea how the grommets worked. I figured maybe you just put one piece inside the other and mash it with a hammer? This seemed to work! Hooray!

Confident in my amazing proficiency at leather working and grommeting, I decided to make one for my four-year-old friend Lucie. I asked her mom to measure her wrist for me. "4 1/2 inches" was the response. Look at how small this thing is:

AAAHHH!! Can you believe it?? So tiny!!

I trimmed off a good bit of the bracelet length and used the leather hole punch to make new holes for her wee wrist. (And that screwback button right there is what I'm going to search for and purchase a ton of as soon as I hit "publish" on this post. Mental Note.)

Here's Lucie sporting her new bracelet, politely holding very very still for the camera:

Check out that sweet ink. She rules.

April Foolishness

I'm working on more benefit stuff with the BFF. He sent me a partial manifesto which I have been mining for projects such as this:

...and this...

These are the rough drafts. I like the way muslin looks, but I don't like how the floss shows through from the back. I bought some new fabric that I hope won't have the same issue.

The BFF's Manifesto is also being mined for a glorious secret project that is currently in the works. SQUEE!! I'm very excited about that. And I hope it does not break me financially. We shall see.

Yeah, so Gaby's birthday! I made her a bracelet out of lyrics to "Clan in da Front" by Wu-Tang Clan, one of her favorite rap songs, which I cleverly gleaned by asking her, "What is your favorite rap song?"

I practiced first by making myself a bracelet with the lyrics to "Let the Devil In" by Sargeist:

I also made Gaby a trophy she can proudly display in her office:

Everyone at work will know that she is not to be trifled with. Oh, and that backwards "3" in "2013" was unintentional. I am a dumbass.

I put the bracelet in this gold box:

And stuck that gold box and the trophy and all the other crap I gave her into this gift box on which I spray painted a hot pink chimp:

...the stencil for which I got out of the Stencil 101 book. I'm slowly stenciling everything in my house with chimps. It seems like the proper course of action.

Stress Relief

Every year my company hands out squeezy stress ball things shaped like bizarre stuff that makes no sense. Every year this is what we do to them:

We turned some of the M&M things into Fight Club, and I guess we lost most of the hard hats. One of the other operators sliced an M&M thing in half and hung the face on the bulletin board. I decided he was onto something, but I wanted to take things a step further, so I took one example of each home with me and went to work.

Google helped me with the fake Latin names.

Top left: ANTHROPOS CROCUS GLABRA might mean "man, yellow, hairless."

Top right: ANTHROPOS NANOS HIRSUTUS "man, tiny, hairy." (Intact, he shrieks "THANK YOU!!" a million times when squeezed. This trophy no longer has that option.) (Also there's an amusing story regarding another department "accidentally misplacing" all of the little voice chips. Tee hee.)

Bottom left: OVUM RES CROCUS DORSUM "egg thing, yellow, backside." (This is the back end of one of the M&M things to which my coworker added some dungarees and an ass crack.)

Bottom right: ASTRON CROCUS OPS "star, yellow, face."

Those wooden plaques came in a pack of four for like $1 at Michael's or somewhere, and I've had them forever. I slapped one coat of wood stain on them, used E6000 to attach the trophies, and hammered out the plaques. Then I screwed some eyehooks into the top and hung them on the wall over the bulletin board:

My boss still hasn't noticed.

And then a friend of mine put out a call for crafts to sell in a school fundraiser. I made this to donate:

I'm sure it will bring millions of dollars.

Gaby's birthday is this weekend and I've made a whole pile of crap for her, but I can't show it yet! So exciting! I'll be back later with all that junk. Also, I've been given a whole pile of inspirational words from the BFF which will be commemorated with many wonderful projects. This is shaping up to be a busy year. Hooray!

Update: I found out from my friend that she had to name the painting for the auction, and she named it "U.F.Uh-oh." I love it!

I Sure Do Like Metal Stamping.

Ages ago an old buddy made these cards and handed them out. Probably at work, because he's a lunatic, but I can't remember for sure:

He claims it reads, "People can be such stupid fucks" in Latin. Or it might be "sorry" fucks, again, I can't remember for sure. But the sentiment is solid and it has held pride of place on the mantel ever since. Then the other day I found ring blanks at Michael's! Hooray!! I sure do like metal stamping!! I bought them, grabbed the framed card, and got to stamping:

I draw reference lines with a thin Sharpie first so I have a better shot at lining things up evenly and cramming it all in there. Then I just rub the lines off with alcohol when I'm done. Hooray!! Now it can travel with me wherever I go!

Meanwhile, lost somewhere in Newark, KC/DC was having the worst day ever. I texted a photo and told her about my project. I asked her if she wanted a ring for herself. Of course she did. These things take like ten minutes to bang out, so I had some free time left to wrap the lid of a gift box with an old magazine photo of a house on fire:

You never know what you'll find in my decoupage box. Hooray metal stamping!!

Don't tell my husband, but I also made this and put it on his keychain:

In other news, I finally found a set of smaller letters! Hooray!! I need to make one of these for the BFF's wingman because they need to know their place and we're pretty sure it isn't legal to brand them. So this will have to do. Hooray metal stamping!!

101 Uses for Pron (and One Use for Plasti Dip)

This year at Dragon*Con I was able to find my favorite vendor again and plop down $20 for 12 vintage porn mags. He didn't have any swingers catalogs like before, but he had a ton of Leg Action and magazines featuring big butts. It turns out that "Leg Action" is code for "foot fetish." Who knew!

The first thing I did was decoupage my very last bamboo tray:

"Bing Crosby says: Man, this is really relaxin'..." Sorry, Bing.

Then I made a puzzle for my brother to thank him for his contribution to Dragon*Con this year:

I found these packs of blank puzzles with envelopes that I guess you're supposed to draw on or whatever. I decided to glue pictures on instead. I have a lot of trouble cutting through the photo around the puzzle shapes, so these have turned out rather messy. But I'm working it out.

I have to return some things to KC/DC that ended up in our stuff after the Con, so I made her a lovely gift bag:

And I wanted to finish up a conversation that my brother and I started in the Hilton stairwell, so I made one more postcard. I ran out of room on the back, so the final sentence had to wrap around to the front side:

Folks, I can't get enough of this foot porn. My apologies to anyone that has this fetish for real, but I just think it's hilarious.

I also think it's hilarious that after inflicting so much pain on me in the past (and future), the postal service has to keep enduring my postcards because it's THEIR JOB, and also because I put no return address on the postcards and THEY HAVE NO CHOICE. MWAHAHAHAHAHAH.

And lastly, I finally cracked open that can of Plasti Dip because I had an actual reason to: stamping metal letters into sheets of metal on a metal block with a hammer pretty much killed my left hand for two days. So I decided to Plasti Dip my hammer. That's it on the far left:

The rest are assorted doll parts that I have been saving up. Dipping doll heads into Plasti Dip is way satisfying. But since the only color Home Depot carries is black, it gives everything an 80s Environmental Statement feel. Like I should pile up the coated doll parts next to an oil drum with "Toxic Waste" painted on the side and mail the whole thing to Emilio Estevez. Outside of that, I have no idea what I'm going to do with this stuff, but the important thing is that I stunk up the whole house for two days.

And here's the project that caused the arthritic hand:

N.U.T.S.A.C. IS GOIN' LEGIT. Our actions can no longer be questioned! We have Important Business that must be carried out, and now we have Official Badges to prove it. Best to just stay out of our way.

My plan is to use these metal letters to stamp new brass plates in order to re-christen thrift store trophies. I have one at home that I am preparing, and I hope it works out. Because I have seen the cost of engraving and it horrifies me. I own a dremel and an engraving tool, but my handwriting is abysmal so that's not an option.

Tip of the Day: Pay close attention if you purchase a set of these metal letters -- many of them are brush script. And no one wants that. *shudder* Also I stamped my keyring (pictured) with the comma instead of the period. Rookie mistake, but you can't actually tell. Okay, that's two tips. Now I need a nap.