DIY Hacksssss

Need a reusable calendar??

Go to the nearest Goodwill or Dollar store and purchase a picture frame. Add some twine and white board marker...Vuola! You've got a calendar forever!!!

Next on the list...

My owl lantern!

I found this awesome lantern at the Goodwill for a dollar!!!....A DOLLAR! I added some twine tied to a push pin and popped it up on the ceiling. Can either use a real candle inside (burns brighter) or use a tea light candle :) Puuuuuurrrrrty awesome if I can say so myself. 

The Art of Baking

#BingeBakingwhatsup

So, art isn't ALWAYS just pen and paper. Sometimes it encompasses food. Since I've made my move back to Northern California I've stepped into a baking frenzy. Within the span of a month I've made the following:

Banana oatmeal cookies

oatmeal cookies (almost every day)

fig muffins

oatmeal muffins

potato & cheese popovers

Peppermint brownies (which you can see below)

What has caused this baking frenzy I've still no clue...but i've had some really tasty experiments to share with others. :) 

This particular experiment came from the mind of an 8 yr old. So I usually send whatever I've baked over to my neighbor and her two daughters. So they're aware of my baking badassery (yeah that's a word!) and today it was one of the girls birthday and she asked if they could bake some peppermint cookies. Being her birthday I was like "hells yeah girlfriend!" (but in more pg lingo) haha As you see these aren't quite cookies, but they came out pretty awesome nonetheless. 

For a run down...

we crushed the peppermint candies into bits and pieces

Threw them in the brownie mix

Baked those babies

Made some vanilla whip cream 

took out the brownies and topped it all off with the cream and peppermint bits

YEAH!!

So we baked some awesome peppermint brownies, played some board games, and ate a LOT of sugar.  By the girls' reactions, they had a great time. So this was a success. 

Molto Amore

Happy Father's Day!

In my family, I'm known for hand-made cards. I'm the DIY genius of the family I suppose. So when my mom asked if I was going to make my dad a Father's Day card..I said Yes! and immediately scanned the world wide web for ideas. Here's what I ended up with...

 This is how my drawing board begins...with a lot of stuff all over the table haha

I decided upon a fishing vest jacket

made some faux pockets with lures

Here's everything ready to be put together 

 Ta-da!

My dad loved his card and the shorts I got him! He said I should work for Hallmark. I don't think Hallmark will hire a simpleton like me...but thanks dad :)

Happy Father's Day to all the Fathers out there! <3 <3 <3

Old School Does New School

I've been wanting an Atari wallet ever since I found out that such a contraption is possible. So I set forth to look for our atari game collection for games we had duplicates of or could spare.

So I found these:

and magic ensued...

 Took the guts out...

 Filed & painted...

 Both...

 This piece was originally from the black Atari cartridge. I painted it white and used it as an insert for the Donkey Kong wallet.

 Added hinges, taken off of $1 boxes from Jo-Anns 

To both cartridges... 

And VUOLA! 

Fully Functional and for the most part, done. The white/DK cartridge just needs a bill holder. 

For the dismantling and assembly of these wallets I used: 

-wire cutters

-small metal file 

-Elmers Super Glue

-small hinges (jewelry box hinges)
-drill

-small screw drivers

-hammer

**BEFORE YOU PRY OPEN CARTRIDGE, make sure to take out the screws hidden in the front (behind images) of games. It will make the games a bit easier to open and you won't mess it up. 

I started to use a small saw to take off the plastic guts...then gave the wire cutters a try and it made the cuts a lot cleaner. I pinched parts of the plastic I wanted to remove and lightly hammered the plastic pieces. They came off nicely. Filed down all the bumps and cuts I missed and started assembling pieces. I spray painted the insides of both cartridges..just so the insides look cleaner. I think they came out pretty good. 

Excited to whip these babies out on my next purchase! :D

Happy St. Valentine's Day!

I'm usually not one to care for February 14th, but my group of kids this year have warmed my heart. Though most of the sweet gifts are actually sweets. Lots and LOTS of sweets. They've also showered me with wonderful drawings and hugs. A very warming gesture. 

So instead of me posting my own work, I'll be posting all the wonderful art pieces done by my very own little monkeys. Enjoy!

 "Colorfully Abstract"

Jason-1st grade 

"Heartfelt"

Lesly 1st grade

"A Flower a Day"

Yuli 2nd grade


"Queen for a Day"

Melany, grade 1


"Self-Titled" 

Zayden, grade 2

"The Proposal"

"The Bling Ring"

grade 1

"The Pretentious Tutor"

Hey, don't be fooled by the rock that I got! ;P

Oh, the wonderful gifts of a young child. I'm sure some of these were just items they found and/or received and didn't want...so they "gifted" them to me. haha But whatever, I love them kiddos. Maybe I can snag a few pics of the Valentine Owls we were making today. They're a HOOT! 

 Hear dem owls!

The Mother load!!!

 The kids bombarded me with candy as soon as I stepped out. My dress pockets literally looked like a chipmunk when it stuffs its cheeks full of acorns.

Thank you kiddos!!

Te Amo!!

A Doubtful Drought...

I haven't spent much time with my arts collection since my last Landscape Architecture class. I would say that's about a few good years. So I haven't really played around with the various mediums I've acquired over the years. That includes, watercolor paints, ink, chalk, chalk pastels, chalk pencils, color pencils, fancy art markers, charcoal (my personal favorite), crayons, and sewing materials.

When I do decide to pick something up I'm undecided as to which medium I'm actually going to stick to, on each project. It's quite a dilemma. Therefore, you'll find most of my art pieces are mixed medium. For this sketch piece I decided to work with colored and chalk pencils. I'm not a fan of color pencils, because I don't think they blend as beautifully as chalk and charcoal. But they're always conveniently nearby.

Well, that's enough texty-text. Here are i pesci (fish) for this surprise rainy weather.

The B/W version:

Pencil sketch of Angel Fish (upper left); simple fish (right); eel (lower left)

Here's the color version I'm still working on...

Angel fish (top left); mechanical fish (right); eel (bottom left)

....as you can see it's a work in progress.

For those of you that know me or have scanned through my pieces, you'll notice a reoccurring mechanical nature to my figures, and that has a lot to do with my interest in Steampunk and Steampunk culture. There's this wonderful playfulness of soft and hard/harsh textures that make objects so interesting.

I may start over on the yellow Angel fish just because I'm not quite happy with how the chalk took to the color pencil surface....because of the waxy-like texture of the color pencil obvi. ugh. I like my mechanical fishy waaaaay better in blending. I started with the chalk pencils and did some highlights in color pencil. It can use more highlights, and shadowing.

I still don't know what I'm going to do with the eel yet. I want to give it an luminescent look. I may attempt using watercolor for that one. Just because watercolor can give it that transluscent quality.

The background was initially going to be charcoal black..but I didn't want to create too much contrast. Sadly I have not a dark blue medium in chalk. I may just paint over with a deeper shade of blue or stick with a charcoal black background. 

I think I'll play around with my watercolors and ink next. I love the flexibility in light-dark shades of color.

Tutti Amo! <3

That's So Clutch? *_*

I've been wanting to making my own wallet for a while. I had initially started with these ideas...

Hand-drafted ideas of what I had in mind. (sorry for the image quality.
It was tucked away, got wrinkled aaand I didn't feel like scanning) :/

and initially was going to use these materials....

Kitten & sea foam green cloth 

However, that project ended up hiding away in my sewing bag. I even had put placement needles in the green cloth. Finally after some intense Pinterest'ing (gawd I <3 pinterest) and youtube searching I found another way to make a wallet/clutch-thingy. The materials would be more to my liking (as opposed to the very thin and flimsy cloth) and it wouldn't take as much work. 

(Note: I had broken my last needle for my sewing machine so I needed a more hand-stitch friendly project)

So this is what I started with....

Gold napkin, multi-colored (neutral) woven placemat,
scissors, gold yarn, placement needles

 I bought the napkin and placemat at Bed Bath & Beyond for $2.99 (mat) + $1.99 (napkin), coming out to $5 dollars total. I also found a pretty pastel green placemat at the Dollar Tree! I may wait to get some needles for my sewing machine for that one. I liked the colors of the placemat and napkin here (above) more for matching most my outfits, so I got started with this one first. 

I cut the napkin and placemat so that it was a bit smaller. The actual placemat was 14"x14" and napkin was about 1 inch longer on all sides. I wanted my clutch to be smaller so I cut it down to about 8 inches. After cutting to size, I lined the mat with my napkin and pinned it. The napkin wasn't necessary, but aesthetically I thought I would be nice to have a lining. I had to tuck away about 1" of the napkin to fit the size of the mat. 

Top is pinned. Bottom is all sewn up. 

So here is the inside lining and outside of what my clutch will look like. Now onto the next step...sewing up the sides!

Here we have a nice bag 8"width x 9" height (open) & 5" height (closed)

 Almost finished!!!

Time for some embellishments. 

Added a shell button? and a little button hidden underneath (like a pearl!)
Also, a nice off-white, gold-trimmed ribbon which wraps around the clutch

Here's what the clutch looks like closed and open

Side view (empty)

Side view-with items inside

Just another side view with items inside

My hand-sewing could use practice and cleaning up, but it's decent enough that it holds this project together. I used a mix of cross-stitch, button stitch, and other ones that I can't even name. I swear it holds well.

I was going to add a gold chain so I can wear it as a cross bag or purse, but decided against it. It looks nice just as is, and the whole reason for the clutch is that it was small enough to hold items, for me to hold and not be bothered by a purse swinging as I show off my badass dance moves on the dance floor.

Which brings me to the point of why I finally got around to this project. I wanted a clutch to take out for NYE. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to actually finish it before I went out. But now I have a pretty clutch to take out on my next dance/bar-venture. 

So, Eat Your Hearts Out Designer-pimpin fashionistas!

... and Happy New Year!