That Time I Updated

So, I haven't updated for a while because I've been feeling kinda stagnant. Since I have nothing interesting in the way of recyclables to post at the moment, I will instead regale you with tales of tie-dye, stars, and desert journeys.*

First, to start with the least epic of all the undertakings aforementioned:



This is my latest pipe cleaner work in progress. It's been a little slow going because of how damn tedious it is to cut up little pieces of neon pipe cleaners into seemingly random sizes and then hot glue then into a mirrored spiral shape. It's enough to make a crafter want to pull out her hair and make some fuzzy art with that.



Inspired by the many crocheted Mario blankets out there using the afghan stitch, I've decided to try something of my own. This picture is actually my first attempt to use 'tunisian crochet' and my first attempt at cross stitching. I've decided to start on the first world map of Super Mario Brothers 3. It was my favorite of all the Mario games and now I'm going to add it to the Google search for 'Super Mario Bros. Afghan Stitch' bwahahahaha



Wait, what? Desert road? A little incongruous you say? Well, maybe a little, but it was of note. This past weekend Brother B, Friend C, Boyfriend J, and I spent about 9 hours driving around desert mountain ranges looking for Ghost towns. Naturally, we didn't actually find any. Mind you, we found some backwoods places. Ever hear of Crown King, AZ? I hadn't until that morning. It's over thirty miles of unpaved road (some of it snaking, without a rail of course, up a very large, steep slope of doom) until you can get to very secluded town of Crown King. I think there's something like 10 people living there-no joke.

Anyways, that concludes this wonderful, brief but full update of gloriousness. By the By, if you ever meet Tony in the Watchtower, tell him I said Hi.









*Blogger is not, at this time, on any kind of mind-altering substance

SALE! (or how I learned to stop rebelling and pay my student loan)

Ok everyone, I've pimped myself everywhere else and now I'm pimpin' it to you! I have to make a student load payment and I'm a little short, so I need your help!

What will you get in return? Why, AWESOME DEALS, of course! I'm offering 20% off of ALL of my jewelry (including the fancy stuff!) until next Monday. I guess this is sort of a Memorial day sale, so you have until then! BUY! The power of poor twenty-somethings compels youuuuuu!!

Thanks even if you don't buy something (you miser, you)
-Carrie

CLICK HERE FOR SUPER AWESOME DEALS OF MADNESS

Why the World Would be More Epic if Xena Were a Craftster

So, how would the world be without plastic bags? Well, it would be cleaner first and less one wallet, second! Well, as of today anyway. After all the trouble I took to make the soda tab curtain in my last blog I've been unable to complete any other projects(hence the lack of bloggies).

I firmly believe that this is the fault of the plastic bag gods who have wanted me to jump on the fused plastic bag bandwagon for some time now. Not that it was difficult, mind you. If nothing else, fusing plastic takes patience and persistence. That wagon is moving pretty damn slow, really.

So, with a will to fuse and an internet connection I journeyed to the great prophet Google to look for guidance to the Way of the Plastic.

Naturally, I found it on Etsy! It wasn't tough to obtain-Etsy is one of the great freely traversed temples of all that is crafty. You may visit the great tome of fusing through this gateway.

On a more serious note, I took too many photos and so, instead of burdening all with a ridiculously long post with a ridiculous amount of pictures, I went the way of the...SLIDESHOW! Enjoy.

In the end I created the Great Wallet of Fuse by sewing together bits of two seperate fused plastic bags. If you'd like to know how I fused the plastic then the knowledge you seek is through the aforementioned Etsy gateway. There are too many teachers of the Way of the Plastic for me to add my paltry beginner's advice.

I hope you enjoy my small bit of brief enlightenment!

Tab-tastic!

So, as I was wandering aimlessly around Threadbanger when I stumbled across a contest on Craftstylish to make something recycled. Immediately various ideas zipped through my head as to what to make. It had to include recycled and found objects. Should be easy, right?

..Right! Well, sorta. The idea was easy. The execution was a little experimental. I made a bead curtain! Well, a soda tab curtain, anyways. I ended up using about 35 plastic bags to make plastic yarn which I then chain stitched, inserting a soda tab every fourth stitch.


Soon, however, I was to discover that I didn't have near enough soda tabs for the job at hand.

See?

So! I looked up and visited a recycling drop off center. They were nice enough let me and boyfriend J pick through the cans and pull off the tabs.

Ew.

People, clean your freakin' soda cans before recycling! PLEASE! You never know when college- age innocents (shyeah, ok) are gonna have to pick through them to collect the shiny tabs of awesome for a recycling project contest. The smell coming from that bin was rancid, to say the least. Smells of congealed Coke, sticky fumes of Mountain Dew and an overwhelming cloud of stale Beer smell mingled together to create an odor that could be used as a biochemical war weapon. The kind that could send people running WEEKS in advance just to avoid even the idea of it permeating their town.

Moving on.

After picking through the cans and finding as many a I thought I needed I immediately headed to the recycling facilities facilities (ha!) and poured about half a gallon of peroxide over my black, sticky fingers hoping to kill whatever had, at that point, decided to try to colonize them.

Turns out, though, that the tab harvest wasn't good enough! Luckily, however, a neighbor of the recycling facility had a mountain of tabs he and his wife were getting rid of that I could pick up the next morning. So I did.


Originally I wanted a fallen tree branch or an old wooden broomstick for the base of the curtain, but I found something better-a belt! With two whole rows of holes! One row I tied my strings of plastic and tabs to, but alas! The cursed things wouldn't hang straight! Solution? Rocks! Rocks in little plastic pouches on the ends! MAGIC!! Ok, not really, but it did take a lot of patience, which is about the same thing.After some rock-rehab, the strands finally agreed to keep straight:


And so, the wondrous, tab-tastic curtain of awesome was installed:



Now that's what I call recycling! As far as the contest is concerned, though, I don't really mind losing. It was a fun excuse to finally recycle those bags I have hanging around the apartment and use all the tabs I collected in highschool but was too nostalgic to get rid of. Truth be told, if I even placed I'd like to get one of the third runners up places-you get a lot of yarn for that! First only gets a portable screen printing machine. I have embroidery hoops, modgepodge and nylon fabric for that.. But that's a whole other post, chickies.

Glue Gun MADNESS!!

Ye gods have mercy-they let me have a GLUE GUN!!

..Why didn't I have one sooner? This thing is MAD FUN! I've been holed up in my apartment with it all afternoon and-big surprise-the building is still standing!

My very first encounter with a glue gun was when I was about 6 or 7 when my mom became, for a time, obsessed with making these little decorated straw hats. I couldn't understand it at the time. I mean, really, what were the little hats for? They weren't even large enough for anyone to wear! My mom never explained it to me, or maybe she tried. I don't remember. In either case, at one point, when she wasn't looking, I stuck my little fingers into the pretty, clear fluid. It was all burny-like on my fingertips, but what I remember most from that incident was the smell of the glue. That, and the clear plastic threads that ensued as I tried my best to wave the glue off my miniscule digits.

Ahhh, fun times.

These days I'm still prone to little bits of curious mischief, but they let me have my own glue gun anyways! Who're they, you ask? They're nobody important! Well, not important aside from their occasional efforts to keep my mad genius self away from things that could eventually cause death and destruction with the right button-combo. Curiosity can take us to all sorts of places-just ask Pandora!

So, without further long-winded ado here is my first experience with my own glue gun!

So first, I wanted to try it on something actually useful and that I might need intact (I don't care what ANYONE says-that's totally the right order! >.> ) SO I started on this lovely desklamp that I broke yesterday accidentally.....


Then I fired up my lovely little glue gun. Did I mention it was a mini? Oh yah, It's mini alright-in everything but AWESOMENESS!


And VEEOHLA! It was fixed! Like MAGIC!! :D I was so proud!


So then it was time to move on to something a little more fun-like. I decided to revamp this hideous little notebook I got a set of three of at the dollar store..


Halfway through and already this lovely little leafy shape is proving to be quite tasty!


And here's the finished front bit! Only took me... an hour and a half! That's good*, right? :)


Here's the back. I got lazy so just went with a simple stripey design. Took less then 10 minutes and compared to the rest, it was quite a relief!


So that sums up todays glue gun extravaganza! I'll be posting that little notebook on my etsy shop tomorrow for a keen five bucks if anyone is interested in supporting my spaztic little rantings..


*blogger is not referring to the pictures which are obviously of rather fuzzy quality-and not entirely because of the pipe cleaners. >.>

Laundry Day~!

I have about a million and a half* t-shirts from Goodwill. Not sure what I'm going to do with them yet, but I'm sure they'll have their uses.. Goodwill is awesome for the shirts. They have this huge rack of HUGE men's t-shirts for only two bucks a piece.. How can a crafster resist?? The women's tops, of course, are more than twice that. The great thing is, though, that not only can these large t-shirts be pared down to woman's size, they lend a creativity to the wardrobe that simply buying a fully made t-shirt can't match.

So, where does the laundry day come in? Well, this post certainly isn't about me taking my dirty socks to the laundromat.. or IS it?? dun dunn DUNNNNN!

Ok, ok, it's not. The internet has enough banal crap for me to not throw THAT in...

Lately there have been spiders in my apartment. I'm rather arachnaphobic so naturally this doesn't slide. Every time I've seen one, though, is when I've been handling a t-shirt from Goodwill. The result is that now, regardless as to whether or not the shirts are spider vehicles, I get this creepy crawling feeling and can't seem to get anything done for al the paranoid looking around and shuddering.

My solution? Is it maybe taking my dirty T-SHIRTS to the laundromat? Of course not! That would be too easy! Instead I took the stick by our sliding glass window and filled the bathtub..

This is me pushing the t-shirts around trying to get all the detergent out.(fair warning if you try this: USE RUBBER GLOVES. My hands HATED me when I was done with this :( )


These are the t-shirts hanging quite neatly from the shower curtain rod in my bathroom


This is the same thing, but with a shot of the soon-to-be-soaked towel on the floor.


And, finally, last but CERTAINLY NOT least... my trusty stick! It's been with me through so much: the washing, the swirling, even the rinsing! Good times.. Good times..... (insert nostalgia here)


That about sums it up, really. Right now I'm waiting for them to dry so I can make new things with them! (this time, hopefully, without the crawly feelings.)




*blogger is prone to exagerration >.>