Birth of a New Damn Hobby

Here's how it usually happens. I stumble across a photo of something that strikes me and I think, "I can make that." I stew on it for a while until the thought becomes "I WILL MAKE THAT." You know how it proceeds from there.

So flipping through a metal magazine I found this:

"THIS IS NO METAL BAND," I shouted. "This is music for dudes in ironic t-shirts and their blonde girlfriends. What is it doing in my metal mag AND WHY ARE THOSE ALIENS COMPLETELY RAD. IS THAT SCRATCHBOARD? I CAN MAKE THIS." (I did go ahead and check them out on Amazon, and it seems to be inoffensive stoner rock. Or like a decaf Ultra Vivid Scene. So they could be way worse.) (Also I can't remember which is the band name and which is the album. And the alien artist's name isn't listed anywhere.)

It probably isn't scratchboard. It's probably Photoshop or Windows Paint or something. But I decided it needed to be recreated in scratchboard. I was lucky enough to go to Hobby Lobby first, as they seem to be the only place that carries it. I picked up a three pack of 5x7 boards, a scratch tool and inks, and while all that was in my basket I found a booklet on how to work with scratchboard and sat down in the aisle and read it cover to cover. Screw you, Hobby Lobby!

Here's how it turned out:

Not bad, right? Also I learned to leave more space for the frame to cover up. Oh wait, I didn't learn that until I simultaneously made this next one for my friend's birthday. Remember how I always begin immediately foisting my new hobby on my friends? Regardless of the fact that this is literally my second project? Technically first and a half since I wasn't finished with the aliens when I started this?

That's my friend's guitar as depicted on the wall of a Mexican restaurant. I kept pestering her with annoying cryptic texts such as "Uh, there's a thing on your headstock that looks orange. I need to know what color it is. Like right now." To which she would reply, "WTF i'm driving." Fun Fact: I had to purchase reading glasses to finish that guitar. I am Officially Old.

Lucky for me, I was also in time for the BFF's birthday:

And I'm actually stealing his shot from FB because I either failed to take one (NO WAY!) or haven't retrieved it off the camera yet.

I need to start making badges for all these crafting techniques so I feel I'm accomplishing something. I can put them on a sash like I never had time to do that whole two weeks I was a Brownie. Surely all this useless knowledge will serve me well during the coming Apocalypse, right? Someone will need to be in charge of painting stupid shit on the cave walls for posterity, and bedazzling the torn rags that we're forced to wear by our overlords. Right? I'll just have to kill all the crafters that are better than me. I can do that.

Biggie in a Box

Oh yeah, here's the box I made for the Biggie stuff.

I got one of those perps catalogs from a gas station for a dollar and used a page from that as the background.

Inside I put the lyrics to "Me & My Bitch."

Here's the bookmark and bracelet wrapped up in tissue:

And since I didn't want her to think I bought her an iPad and then have her open it and be horribly disappointed, I covered all the Apple logos with little Biggies:

Then I slapped a bow on it and it was all ready.

The End

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:

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

I put this image:


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

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....

Vyvyan & Cthulhu

My brother's been asking for a Vyvyan denim vest forever. This year I decided to give it a whirl. I found the vest on ebay, got the studs from StudsandSpikes.com, powered through all my DVDs for screen shots, and made this:


That's my long-suffering husband modeling for me. Thanks, honey! My brother is bigger than my husband is, so it's a wee bit baggy. I hope it fits my brother. I know he received it, but he hasn't yet dispatched a missive from the bunker Re: Gift Satisfaction.

And if you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, watch this:


Genius. I could watch that all day.

And the holiday season wouldn't be complete without an Elder God. Here was the scene before:


And when he stopped dreaming and decided to go for a walk:


I do believe that's the last of the Xmas gifts. And now it's 2012 and I still don't have my flying car or robot servant. What a load of crap.

How About Another Hobby?

At Dragon*Con this past year I attended a beading workshop just out of curiosity, and was given the chance to make my very own ugly dangle earring. Luckily the earring wasn't the point; the technique was what I was after, because apparently I was in the market for YET ANOTHER HOBBY. I'm trying to remember what the hell happened next. I think I stumbled upon this beading loom on Amazon and ordered it, hoping to get it in time for the next craft group meeting. Which I didn't. But when I did finally get it, along with some terrible seed beads, I quickly began the stumbling, fumbling learning process. Which usually goes something like this:

1. decide potential new hobby looks totally awesome
2. dive in with cheap shitty tools because "these'll work"
3. output terrible shitty product and foist it on friends, hopefully in time for Xmas
4. also adopt Organizational System One for new hobby
5. splurge on more expensive quality tools and quickly realize why no one uses the cheap stuff
5a. also realize just how shitty original output was; feel shame
6. throw out cheap stuff, replace with new quality stuff
7. throw out Organizational System One and replace with Organizational System Two
8. see fulfillment of husband's motto: "It's not a hobby until you spend $200;" feel more shame
9. produce better quality product and give to friends as Xmas Gift Redo; apologize profusely
10. espy new exciting hobby possibility; return to Step One.

Just to clarify, I'm not hating on that loom. It's rad. I'm mostly hating on the really awful beads that I bought to go with it. I won't mention any names. (If they even had one.) But when I finally upgraded to the Toho Treasure Beads, I never went back.

So here's some stuff I made, just in time for Xmas:


The bracelet on the left is on the cover of the book "The Big Book of Beading Patterns: For Peyote Stitch, Square Stitch, Brick Stitch, and Loomwork Designs". I loved that bracelet and wore it everywhere until it disappeared somewhere in my house. (I also made the second from right with the star pattern but did not take a photo. Surprise.) The second bracelet in the photo is of course N.U.T.S.A.C. (awarded to Gaby for "Outstanding Achievement in Assclownery"), the third you might recognize as Domo, and the last one is also a pattern out of the book. That one and the N.U.T.S.A.C. bracelet were done on the loom, the other two were peyote stitch that I learned from the same book.

This was also done on the loom, from a border pattern I swiped off the ludicrously huge beaded lamp (!) project in the back of the same book:


Also done on the loom, this pattern is from the book but I changed it a bit to give the UFO more personality:


It's viewed like a filmstrip: starting at the bottom you see the house, then a UFO comes into frame, zaps the house, and leaves a smoking crater as it flies away. Here's a close up of it zapping the house:


So that's the new hobby. I also discovered that cross stitch patterns translate very well to the bead loom, so I'm working up some ideas from "Makato's Cross Stitch Super Collection!!" and I'm hoping for good things. Perhaps a Killamari.