Skeleton hand necklace and Nerdvember

Hello! I haven't yet finished my biggish project, but I realised that I also haven't shown you my skeleton hand necklace! So, here it is ^___^

My hair is looking a little different, huh? This is actually a wig! I don't think I will wear it to my brother's wedding since my dark red hair is looking pretty good, but I think this wig will come in handy for cosplays and costumes. You may have also noticed that I'm dressed kinda like Wednesday Addams, this is because for the last couple of days I've been doing #nerdvember, which is basically where you dress nerdy during November ^___^

 

As you can see, I've been repping for Alice in Wonderland, Star Trek, LSP (in my skating gear), Hermione Granger, retro video games, and Adventure Time. You can also see that my hair has been lightening over the days ... ~___^ Honestly though, while I find this fun, I'm probably not going to keep with it this year. I don't down a lot of nerdy clothing, so I feel like mostly I'm taking photos of my jewellery which I think kind defeats the purpose of a fashion challenge. Also, I kind feel like my outfits are all a bit boring! I think if I do this again, I'd keep the Instagram photos to a once a week round-up kind of thing, and make sure that I had enough time to craft a few things to fit the challenge. As it is, I feel like I'm overwhelming my feed with too many selfies and I most definitely need to get a tripod so I don't have to bug Scott or rely on my bedroom mirror! ^___^

 

I've been working on a crochet project and a furniture re-do which aren't finished yet, but jewellery is something that I can actually complete! ^___^ I brought a couple of packs of wooden shapes from Typo which I believe are meant for papercrafts. However, some of them are a great size for brooches!

 

I covered the heart with washi tape, but left the others as they came, and just glued the brooch pins onto the back. Easy peasy!

 

The skeleton necklace was made with more of the plastic Halloween skeleton hands (no, you don't say??). To make this, I glued pendant backings to the middle fingers and joined them with a jump ring. 

 

The wrists of the hands are connected to the necklace chain via a piece of wire that has a loop at the end and which I have completely forgotten the correct name of. Hmm. Well, you can see what I mean in the picture below anyway.

 

I was pleasantly surprised that the necklace sits quite well! It doesn't flip itself over constantly, which was what I was most concerned about.

I simply can not believe it is almost December. I really must get a move on with my holiday crafts! I don't craft for many people anymore, just the people who I know appreciate it ^___^ And the ones that don't mind if their gifts are a month or two late ~___^

Are you crafting for anyone this year? Also, would you do Nerdvember? I think I'm going to make sure I stock up on nerdy clothes so I can make a better showing off it next year!

- Lisa xx

Recovered recipe box

Hello! Scott is currently taking some off work and he's been cleaning up a storm. I don't think our house has ever looked this neat, plus we've donated a heap of stuff to the op shop so our karma levels are at a peak ~___^ I've been feeling a bit bad for not contributing since I mostly sit at my computer all day. I mean, I'm doing homework, but it doesn't really feel very productive when you're reading articles all day and then all you have to show for it is a couple of pages of notes! So over the weekend I thought I'd go through our recipe collection and make it so it didn't consist of post-it notes and ripped out magazine pages shoved in an old plastic sleeve.

I've had this paper mache box in the craft room for quite a while, and it's a good size for fitting postcards inside it so I decided to transfer the recipes onto my postcard collection and use the box to store them. However, it was pretty boring looking, so I first needed to make it look pretty! ^___^

I used mod podge to stick scrapbooking paper on to every side of the box and lid but the edges didn't look very neat, even after I had trimmed them down.

So I used washi tape to edge all of the ... edges ... (mmmm, word difficulties!) and trimmed the excess with a scalpel so the ends were nice and flush.

I didn't want to make this box too "this is a box for recipes!!!" in case I decide to use it for something else one day but I did use some tea pot and saucer patterned paper for two sides of the box, and added a "slice of the good life" sticker to the lid which I thought was a subtle reference to what is currently inside.

The "so very lovely" piece of paper on the lid is from another sheet of scrapbooking paper; the kind where the whole page is covered in these little quote like designs and you can just cut out the one you want to use. My kitchen has kind of a retro vibe, mostly because I insist on buying homewares from opshops, so I think the font will help the box fit in with the rest of the decor.

 

As you can see, I've still got a while to go before I get anywhere near filling up this box with recipes! And I must give a shout out to Rebecca for inspiring me to do this project by actually sending me postcards with recipes written on them; I've gotta admit, it's pretty fun to find a risotto recipe in your letterbox ^___^

My final assignment for my degree is due this Friday (gah!!) so after that I'll be trying to finish off this big (well, bigger) project that I've been doing for my brother's wedding. I hope I finish it on time! ^___^

- Lisa xx

Easy skeleton hand hair clips

Hello! I just have a tiny little craft to show you today since I am in the final weeks of my degree now (!!!!) and have been making more essays than projects. I have just handed in the final assignment for my Cultural and Media studies class, and have two weeks to write two more research essays. And then I am done! I am really excited, but also very nervous as this means I will soon have to find myself a job. Eeek!

I brought these plastic skeleton hands from ebay, which are apparently meant as Halloween decorations. Like, I guess you just scatter them around? I am not sure. I brought them because I wanted the kind of jewellery that I see in the goth shops, but am too cheap to shell out for ~___^

 

I got ten hands, so I now have plenty to work with! These clips were very easy to make; I just glued the clips onto the underside of the palms, making sure that the length of the clip was hidden behind a finger. I used E6000, so they're staying fairly well, but I think a different style of hair clip would work better for this. I just used what I had in my stash, but I will be keeping an eye out for better alternatives.

 

My next task is to make myself a necklace, however, I think I also need to look into varnishing or sealing them somehow as the black on the hands rubs off very easily. I have some spray varnish, so I'm going to give that a go.

Looking at these pictures makes me feel a little sad as I think soon I will have to say goodbye to my pink hair! ; ___ ; At the end of this month my job search begins, and also my brother is getting married, so I was planning on dying my hair a very dark red to look a bit more "normal". But, that's apparently not normal enough and I have been told brown or black is what is required! I really am not looking forward to letting all the bleaching time I've been putting into my 'do go to waste.

I think I will try using Manic Panic black and hope that it will fade, in the same way that the blue, purple, red, and pink dyes that I've used from them have faded, so hopefully I can go back to brighter colours afterwards without having to rebleach. If anyone has any experience in this dilemma, I'd love your advice! Otherwise, perhaps I will just get myself a wig ~___^

- Lisa xx

Hipster Princess Bubblegum costume

Sigh! Another Halloween has come and gone ... next year, when I'm not at uni, I plan to dedicate a lot more time to decorating and crafting and costume creation and just general Halloween shenanigans! However, I did still have a lovely Halloween, and I succeeded in making myself a costume so, without further ado, may I present ...

The hipster Princess Bubblegum! ^___^ Do people even do hipster versions of things anymore? This is how out of the loop I am. However, I have big, thick rimmed glasses and I didn't want to wear my contacts so this is the costume I went with! ^___^

 

The scarf, shorts, and shoes were thrifted (Bec actually found the shoes for me, so a shoutout to her! ^___^), and I already had the belt, top, tights, coffee cup, and bag so this was a fairly easy and inexpensive costume to put together.

 

After I made my crown, I guess I could have called it quits, but what is a hipster without some jewellery? (I actually don't even know. Do hipsters wear jewellery? I've heard they like triangles, do they wear triangles as jewellery?)

I watched this fantastic tutorial video by Nerd Burger and decided that I simply *must* have some donut jewellery. I'm not really sure if there are any donut people in Candy Kingdom, but I just couldn't resist.

They were really easy to make; make sure you check out the video as Cazz explains the process wonderfully. I already had some Super Sculpey in the beige colour that I used for the dough, and I picked up some pink and purple puff paints and blue and yellow sculpey from the craft store for the icing and sprinkles (I already had the sculpey in the other colours).

I made one purple donut into a brooch, and two smaller pink donuts into earrings, just by gluing the pin/earring backs on with E6000.

I also made this brooch using some of the light blue shimmery clay; mostly because I had this song in my head the entire time I was crafting things for this costume.

I also had a go at making a little Peppermint Butler brooch; it's not perfect (I need to work on making sure I don't leave nail marks on everything and I think his head stripes are too raised ...) but I think it's pretty cute anyway.

And, speaking of cute, you may have noticed that in the pictures above I have a little friend riding on my shoulder - Science the Candy Corn Rat! Yay! Pops de Milk made an adorable Science, and even shared the pattern for her so I knew I had to make one too ^___^

Patricia's pattern was lovely to follow; very simple to understand with with lots of pictures! (I always like to have photos to refer to so I can tell if I'm on the right track with a pattern!)

 

I did my Science's face differently in that I sewed on small felt shapes instead of using safety eyes and embroidery for the eyes and mouth respectively. I did actually have some 7mm safety eyes that I was going to use but when I put them in they just didn't look right. I didn't have any smaller ones, and I was too lazy to go back to the craft store, so I used felt instead! ^___^

One thing I must get better at doing is making the legs for amigurumi - mine always come out slightly bigger at the base than at the top and I think they are meant to be the same the whole way through. Practise makes perfect, I guess!

 

My Science also has more of a curly tail; this is probably because I crochet too tight. However, it may loose its curl in time so I'm not too concerned about it.

I also crocheted two more brooches (one can never have too many brooches, right? ~___^). For the lollipop I used a pattern by Twinkie Chan, but used part of a wooden skewer instead of crocheting a stick. For the sweet, I crocheted a rectangle, sewed it into a tube, put a scrunched up bit of paper in the middle, and then tied yarn around each side of a ball. Then I just glued brooch backings onto both of them ^___^

 

As always, there is so much more things I could have crafted for this costume (Peppermint Butler handbag, Lady Rainicorn bracelet, science glassware charm bracelet ...) but I think I did pretty well considering I was also finishing off an assignment ~___^

The zombie project I was planning has pretty much completely fallen through at this stage so I'm not sure if that will be appearing on here anytime soon, which is a pity since I still think it's a cool idea! I might keep working on it. I've still got eight tiny donuts to make into something though (plus three major essays, blah!) so I've got enough to keep me busy. I'm thinking maybe a bracelet? Or magnets? Or more hair bows? Hmmm.

Until next week!

- Lisa xx