Penguins for Sonja

For as long as I can remember my grandmother has always loved penguins, she had penguins on her checkbook, calendar, and a painting of them hanging in her hallway. Last Mother's Day when she saw the earrings I made for my mother, she requested I make her a pair as well. Naturally, I thought penguins would be the right design for her.

Instead of repeating the same design on both earrings, I decided to doodle a whole family of penguins. I'm so used to working with a lot of colors (I can't help it, I like rainbows) it was interesting working with a more limited color pallet. Overall, I like them, even if they don't perfectly match, they look like they belong together.

Hopefully, my grandmother likes them too.

Mother's Day Earrings

My mother is an exceptionally difficult woman to find gifts for, then again I was an exceptionally difficult child to raise (still am). So I suppose stressing over what to buy or make her every time the occasion arises is fair payback (at least for the times I turned my nose up at roast beets and asparagus...ick) Well, its a start.

I decided to make a pair of earrings, and since shrink plastic is quite light I thought it would make an ideal material. I started with purple, one of her favorite colors, and quickly realized I had made a mistake. Instead of tracing my little birdies so that they were mirrored, one tweeting to the left one tweeting to the right...I had just turned the design 180 degrees.

I decided to forge ahead, regardless of my mistake and color the birds in. I tried to keep the color scheme very cool-toned and purple-centric overall, with a pop of yellow here and there for contrast.  

Here is how I would have liked my birds to turn out. I love symmetry! However, because shrink plastic has a rough side and a shiny side I couldn't just flip the design over. Well, I suppose I could, but the discrepancy in texture would have bugged the heck outta me.

Have I mentioned how much I love shrinking stuff?  :)

I had to find the perfect hardware for my mother’s earrings because she can be remarkably picky: they can't be too heavy, they have to stay in during all manner of activities from skiing to windsurfing, and they cannot under any circumstances be studs. After a bit of searching I found some lightweight silver earring fastenings that latched in the back.      

Finished! Fingers crossed she actually likes them.

Experiments: Dreamcatcher Wings

I've written a bit about my annual attempt at learning how to knit (yes, I know loom knitting doesn't really count, but at least I'm making an effort) anyhoo, as a symptom of this unfortunate habit I've developed a bit of a yarn problem. I'd hardly say its out of control, but I do have far more cheap acrylic "practice" yarn than any one person needs. So, in a long standing tradition of using materials as they were never intended I thought I'd play around with my yarn stash and try something new. My original idea was pretty simple: dreamcatcher fairy wings. The only problem, I've never actually made a dreamcatcher before...     

I began with two wire hangers.

I kept the wing shape very simple, because I wasn't sure how the dreamcatcher pattern would translate on an irregular frame shape, and I was worried the wobbly edges of a more natural wing shape might distort the dreamcatcher pattern.

I wrapped the frame with yarn.

To prevent the yarn from unraveling I brushed a few inches of the frame with glue then wrapped the yarn. A binder clip came in handy to hold the end in place if I needed to set the project down for a moment.

I felt like the frame needed a little something extra so I wrapped the top edge of the wings again, this time adding a glow in the dark bead every inch or so.  

Dream catchers are usually circular which means there is an equal distribution of tension along the perimeter, because my wings were more marquise shaped I was worried the uneven tension might warp the flexible wire frame out of shape...which it did, a little bit. I think if I were to remake these wings in a larger size I'd need to use a much stronger wire for the frame.   

Weaving the web of the dream catcher was the most time consuming part of the wings. I blame the yarn that I was using (and my complete lack of experience), because it was so stretchy I needed to keep it under constant tension or my weaving pattern would go all loopy and not look as nice. The wrapping and weaving process was also a lot more repetitive than painting some of my other wings, so the whole process seemed to take much longer.

Overall, I think this little experiment was a success, if I were to make them again I think I’d use something like embroidery floss for the weaving, and some stiffer wire for the frame. These wings feel a bit more fragile than other pairs I’ve made using stockings, but I really like the delicate shadows these wings cast when I wear them. 

T-Shirt Nightgown

My mother asked me to modify a T-shirt to make it a bit longer so she could wear it as a nightgown. I asked if I could take a little bit of creative liberty, and she said sure. I think the finished nightgown is relatively cute, and I was able to throw it together in a snap. (Well, a snap compared to some other projects).      
I didn't take many pictures while was working, because the dreary winter lighting was wreaking havoc on my phone's camera, and I wasn't sure if this little project was exciting enough to document, so I'll try and keep it short. 

This is the shirt I started with.

I dug through my scrap fabric and was able to find an old paint shirt in a complementary shade. It was in pretty bad shape, with lot of wear and tear around the back and shoulders and more than a few paint stains, but there was enough usable fabric to make the accents I wanted.      

I sketched out my basic plan.  

I kept the body of the dress very simple, because it’s meant to be loosefitting and I wanted to preserve the cute manatee design.

I sewed together the strips I cut from the other shirt to form a long strip.

I did a lettuce hem on the long strip and the sleeve pieces I cut out to give the material some extra flounce.

Then gathered the top edge of the strip with a running stitch. 

I laid out all of the pieces, to see how it was coming together, and decided to use the hem I cut off of the original shirt inside out to create a tie for the back of the dress.    

I sewed on the neckline and sleeves first, centering the sleeves at the shoulder seam. Then I sewed from the end of the sleeve to the bottom of the dress securing the waist ties in the seam as I went. Lastly, I pinned and sewed the bottom ruffle to finish off the dress.      

Before and After

I had a little trouble with my serger on the neckline the first go-'round, so I had to redo it. I'm not entirely satisfied with the way the dress turned out, but overall I think it turned out pretty close to my original sketch, and my mom seemed happy enough with it. 

Saint Patrick's Day Mini Wings

I've already posted an easy step by step tutorial on how to make similar wire framed fairy wings, and you can find more detailed instructions in that post. I was just feeling rather festive, and decided to make a little pair of green and gold wings, and I thought I'd share a few pictures, enjoy.   

Instead of using four wire hangers, one for each wing like I did on my previous pair of wings, I formed these wings out of two hangers.

I was aiming for a swallowtail butterfly-ish shape, but I wasn't quite happy with it so I tried to add a bit of a scalloped edge, which helped.

Because the wings are quite small, I ended up using just one pair of knee high stockings, cutting them in half and knotting the ends to cover my wings.

I was a bit...overzealous with the incense stick while melting holes in my wings, which caused a few runs in the stockings. As a result, it looks like my wings have some sort of horrible flesh eating parasite eating away at them. Oops.

Since most paints don't show up particularly well on dark backgrounds, I painted my design in white first, so that the colors I painted in top would be more vivid.

Yikes, that yellow, a bit too vivid. Oh well.

I wish my camera phone could better capture the true sparklyness.

Then I added a bit of glitter....well..actually, quite a lot of glitter, theres no such thing as too much glitter, right?

I bent the remaining wire, from what used to be the hook of the hanger, into a U shape to create the frame. In hindsight I should have used some extra wire to make the frame a bit larger. The small frame does stay tucked into the back of a tightly fitted bodice, but it doesn't feel nearly as secure as a larger frame.

Here are the two sets of wings together for size comparison. As you can see the wings made from just two hangers are quite dinky compared to the full sized set. Still, I think they're rather cute.     

Shrink Plastic Adventures

Not long ago I was going through some of my craft supplies, attempting to organize them, attempting being a key word here. While I was rummaging through some old beading knick knacks I found some vaguely familiar plastic sheeting, I didn't entirely remember what it was until a month or so later. Shrink plastic! I remembered playing with the stuff years ago, admittedly I got a bit nostalgic...then I remembered why I hadn't touched it in years: drawing...not exactly a forte of mine. Still, I've been a bit burnt out on failed sewing projects, so I thought I'd give it a shot. The results, I'm proud to say where not too appalling.

Not overly appalling, but perhaps a bit tacky :) 

The real charm of shrink plastic is, if you make a few mistakes, (as I inevitably do) you can have the satisfaction of watching those mistakes curl up and shrink into obscurity, then pretend they don't exist. It's delightful. 

There are a few basic varieties of shrink plastic: clear, white, sanded or smooth. The sanded or frosted shrink plastic is best suited to colored pencils because the texture gives the pencils something to grip onto, and the finished pieces will be matte. The smooth or glossy plastic works best with markers and alcohol inks. The main difference between the clear and white shrink plastic, is that the white plastic is opaque, and the design can only be seen on one side, versus the clear plastic where you can see the design clearly on both sides. You can even achieve a lovely stained glass appearance when working with the clear glossy plastic. (an effect, I can't really demonstrate because I only have the frosted variety)

Now this isn't really much of a tutorial, more just an invitation to play with a new medium and experiment. I ended up making a few necklaces, if you'd like to make something similar you will need the following materials:

• Shrink plastic
• Hole punch
• Scissors
• Colored pencils 
• Oven
• Baking paper
• Needle nose pliers
• Chain 
• Clasp
• (Optional) Clear top coat or glaze 

Step 1. Draw whatever you like on the shrink plastic. If drawing isn't your forte you can sketch a few ideas on paper first, or look for images in coloring books and trace the ones you like best. I chose to use colored pencils on mine because it was what I had on hand but you can use all sorts of things to draw on your shrink plastic: permanent markers, stamps, alcohol inks, or Copic markers.      

I drew a few simple gems and traced a swallowtail butterfly from a coloring book. 

Step 2. Color in your designs. Keep in mind that the colors will become more intense when you shrink your images. 

I may have been a bit overzealous with the rainbow...in my defense, its been rather gray this january. 

Step 3. Carefully cut out your images, rounding any sharp corners, and punch any necessary holes. 

Step 4. Prepare to shrink your designs! My shrink plastic's instructions said to place the pieces colored side up on a baking paper lined sheet pan in a 325 degree F (or 163 C) oven, but your instructions may differ, so make sure to read them. Shrinking your charms is by far the most nerve wracking/exciting part of the process.     

First the plastic will curl. If it looks like it might be stuck to itself pull it out of the oven and carefully unstick the warm piece. You must do this while the plastic is warm and flexible, if it gets too cold it will become brittle and snap.  

If you like, you can seal your designs. (However, I would not recommend the spray I used-Kylon Acrylic Crystal Clear, it did not work very well and the pieces stunk for quite a while even after they had completely dried.)      

Step 5. You can really use these charms for anything you can think of. 

I chose to make a couple necklaces. Unfortunately, I didn't have any jump rings that matched my chain, instead I simply opened up the last link of my chain and used that to attach the charm to the necklace.

Lastly, a clasp, which luckily came with the chain I was using so I didn't have to go out and find one. 

Step 6. Enjoy your shrink plastic creations!