Bunny bags

This is not the most high tech project but it is fun and good to do with the kids (or for the kids as it is in my case).  If you've not been in the shops since Jan 1 when the hot cross buns hit the shelves, Easter is coming.   I have three nibblings (my favourite word discovery recently- the plural of both nieces and nephews) and of course as a doting aunt, I have to get them chocolate.  But there is a bit of a mix of things to give (in part because one needs dairy free chocolate so that has to be different from the other two).  So I needed bags.

However, when I went to the shops, 'Easter bags' were starting from $2 each which seems silly for a bag you can't reuse for the next birthday/Christmas/present giving occasion the way that normal gift bags can.  But plain brown paper bags were only $2 for three.

So I was at home looking at my boring brown bags and decided to try and smarten them up.  Step one, cut out three pairs of ears from white paper and pink paper.  Nothing fancy, but I was sneaky and doubled over the paper prior to cutting so the rough, uneven ear would match the other.  Glue the parts together.

Next step, the tail.  I don't have a pompom stash at home so if you do, you could miss this step if you liked.  I tried two methods- using two discs of card with a slit cut through it to wrap wool around or wrap wool around the four fingers of the other hand (there are tons of pictures and explainations on how to do this on google).  The finger method was far faster than the card method, although the pompom was much neater than using the card method.

Both methods are much easier without certain assistance from George...

Finally glue the ears on the inside of the front of the bag and glue the pompom tail to the back (craft glue was good for this) and let dry.

Have fun and happy Easter!  And if you are one of my nibblings, no you can't find out what is inside until Easter.  Assuming the bunny inside doesn't eat it before then...

Quick and simple earring holder

Yes, it's school holidays again which means I get to see what my house looks like during the day and can pull out the old projects that have been sitting abandoned and alone for months.

Today's project to get me back in to the mood is more practical than pretty although you can glam it up as much as you like.  It's for a earring holder for hanging earrings.  Something I needed as the holder that I had was pretty enough but only really useful for 5 pairs at most.

Picture frame style earring holder

I'll be the first to admit that this is not an original idea (I first found it on Pinterest so who knows where the original came from!)  But I do like the idea it's simple enough that I spent less than $5 on the whole project and most of that came from buying the frame I used from the Salvo's Op Shop.

Materials

• A picture frame
• Pretty paper-  OK, I went with black as I wanted the jewellery to be easy to see but you can go as wild as you like
• String or wire or chain with bigish loops- I used a discontinued product called DMC Desire, it's a wire wrapped with cotton thread

Method

Here is my frame with a pretty but boring and yellowing picture from the op shop.  But who cares, I'm not keeping it anyway.  Oh but do check that it's easy to remove the picture or have patience if you bought a frame with the image stapled in...

 ...like I did *sigh*

Oh well, a bit of leverage with a screwdriver got those staples out and I cut a piece of black paper to fit the frame (hey it could be art- go listen to Martin Pearson's 'The Black Painting Song') or use pretty paper if you prefer!

  Now, assuming that your frame either had glass or backing card, place the paper over the glass and start attaching your lengths of wire.  Just tape should be fine unless your earrings can double for fishing weights.  Do keep in mind how long your earrings are with your spacing.

Then pop it into your frame and you are done.  Ridiculously simple but it holds a lot of earrings in a way that lets you quickly look for and get any pair that you like.  In fact, I think I could get a few more pairs now...

Final touches

Nullus Anxietas is only a bit over a week away and I need to start getting myself packed.  I did want to make one last little thing for my costume that had been kicking around in the back of my mind for a while- my own dis-organiser.  I had found a cute little empty locket at Spotlight and thought it would make a great start.  Only problem was, it was tiny!  The cutting board I use has 1 cm lines marked, so you can see this is NOT a large space to work with.

My first attempt was less than successful. With the note on it, you couldn't see the interior.  On the other hand, that was a good thing since the interior was rubbish.

My imp (fimo) was way too big, as were the gears and the DIY bicycle the imp was meant to ride to power the clockwork was way too small.

So it was onto plan B.  Step one of which was to get my hands on some model railway figures (N gauge or 1:160 scale).
A bit of paint on a seated man reading a paper, a finetip marker to make it the AM Times and some scrap paper to make large ears and I had an imp.

New imp next to the old one and the old background in the top left

Next was to make a home for him.  The easiest way to to that with this scale was to use the printer.  A few google searches for suitable images and I had a gear background (actually the image of a old pocketwatch workings), and a room.

The window is from a model railway kit.  I was going to put some white paper or hints of another room on the other side but when I saw what it looked like with the gears, I left it as is.

A bit of very thin wood cut to size made a floor, aged up with a drop of woodstain after drawing floorboards with a fineliner.

The chair is hijacked from a 1:144 scale house that is a work in progress on long term hiatus and the corkboard and clock are another google image result, shrunk down to size and printed before being cut out and stuck down.

Finally, to add a bit of extra colour, I made a mini pot plant for the imp out of a seed bead, a scrap of green landscape foliage for railways, dotted with red paint for flowers.

And here is the result!

The note is now on the inside lid as now I want people to see the interior!  If anyone reading this is coming to the convention, come find me- I'd love to show it in person.

D'oh!

I had and have big plans for these holidays but the universe seems to be against me right now.  I have managed to scientifically demonstrate that it is safer for me to do craft than it is to do housework.  While washing the dishes a glass decided to shuffle off this mortal coin and one of the bits embedded itself into my right hand.  A trip to hospital, four stitches, a course of antibiotics and a tetanus shot later and week pause in crafting (bending hand in certain directions was Not A Good Idea).  So instead I did what any sane person would do, and went on holidays to NSW- Parkes and Bathurst specifically.

Anyhow, over the Christmas break I stayed with my parents and managed to put this necklace together that had been in the queue for a while:

Celtic Knot necklace- kit bought at a craft fair from Bead Shack

And make the beading on this pretty perfume bottle (sidenote- while there doesn't seem to be anywhere to get this kit online, look on ebay or similar for woodworking supplies for pen, bottle and other bits that beading can be used on)

And my old desk pen holder (an old mug) was starting to look a bit battered so I put this together.

Parkes Telescope: 'The Dish' from the movie The Dish

So as I start to unpack from my trip, enjoy my first day without stitches and nurse a sore back (pulled a muscle just before driving home.  Turns out 7.5 hours driving is not a good thing either... urgh, I need a holiday....)

More to come- some new stamp albums to bind, I need to get my convention costume sorted for the next DW convention and just before I wrecked my hand I had started a new beading project.

Beaded Christmas tree update

Tis the season to bring the Christmas tree out.  Since I live in a small unit, a big tree is not going to happen so for the last few years, since I made it, I've had my beaded Christmas tree.

But see that ugly wire down there?  This year I decided to hide it away.  Now I could've just put stuff at the bottom to hide it but that wouldn't completely hide it as the lid would be problematic.  Instead I've gone a bit more posh and cut the wire to let me thread it where I would.

Step one was to make a hole in the box so it can be turned on/off from the outside.  I had a new box I was going to move the tree to as part of this process that was a bit taller so the battery pack fit in well.  A bit of scrap paper to rough out the shape of the end of the battery pack and the location of the switch and I had a template.

The template is upside down in the photo relative to the pack but oh well

The template then let me draw where I wanted the switch hole to be easily.

The final spot is on the left- the bottom is where I tried to freehand draw it and failed.

Using a craft knife I cut out a hole for the switch, making sure that it was long enough to let it be turned on and off.

Next step is the lights.  LED stands for Light Emitting Diode and the diode part of that means that they only work when the current is passing through the correct direction. If you have the poles around the other way nothing will happen.  So I used a black marker to colour one of the wires in so when cut I could tell which end went with which.

The wire is coloured in so I can identify it later- I'm using a different set of lights for this part to make it easier to follow

Then cut the wire using wire cutters and strip the ends.

Wires cut and stripped- note the bottom two are coloured black for easy identification.

Before doing anything else, checking things are still good is useful- just hold the bare metal of each wire together and see if it lights up (note- this should ONLY be done for low powered battery lights, not something running off mains!)

Yep, still works

I had to remount the tree into the box so that meant making four holes for the trunk of the tree (four rigid metal wires bound together with florist tape) and an extra hole near the trunk for the lights wire to pass through).  Once things were stable in the box lid it was time to fix the base up.

Place the battery pack into the box so the switch is in the correct place.  I used tape initially but will go back later with hot glue as I am finding the pack is moving just enough to make using the switch annoying.

Interior of the box showing the battery pack in location and my lovely wire connections (real electricians should probably turn away here)

Inside, check that you have the wires around the correct way again (it's only paranoia if the universe is NOT out to get you!) and then join the wires- a light twist then lots of electrical tape is my method of choice.  Just a light twist mind you- too much and you'll break the individual wires.  And the tape is important as it will prevent any short circuit occurring which could kill the lights, tree or batteries or all of the above.  You should also check that there is enough length in the wire to allow you to place the lid on a table next to the box easily.  Otherwise you'll be trying to hold the tree while also replacing batteries and that's just annoying.

That's pretty much it.  Not fancy but it does make for a nice tree.

Look at that base- isn't it nice with no wires!

Happy Christmas everyone.

80's throwback- Soft toy in a car window

When I was a kid I loved Garfield.  I liked lasagne, and so does Garfield.  I wasn't any more thrilled with Mondays then than I am now and while I didn't have a coffee habit when I was a kid, I love my coffee now.  For a while in the 80's having a Garfield in the back window was a popular thing- similar to those nodding dog figures that were a thing for a while or fluffy dice handing of the rear vision mirror.  I always wanted a Garfield in the car as a kid so when I got my first car (1979 Toyota Corona) my sister gave me one for my birthday.

Aside from fulfilling that childhood wish, Garfield has also been brilliant to identify my car in a carpark.  Particularly since Garfield is much rarer to see these days!

This was particularly useful as for my first and second cars, my key could open the door of any similar make and aged car (and vice versa!).  This caught me once on the way home from university when I hopped into my car and noticed that my stuff inside wasn't right.  Moments later the lightbulb dinged and I quickly slunk out of the stranger's car that was the same make, model and colour as mine, and walked up the road several meters to get into MY car to get home!

But my Garfield is getting old.  Years in the sun have bleached his orange fur, while the rubber in the suction cups and the thread holding them on both failed.  So Garfield needs a makeover.  Since the method is ridiculously simple and could be used for any soft toy if you were looking for a car identifier, I thought I'd share it.

Equipment

• A small soft toy (too big and the suction cups may not hold the toy up- not to mention issues blocking a view when driving!)
• Suction cups- I found a set of 9 with hooks built in, in a local $2 shop in the hardware related section although I sometimes see them with bathroom related stuff
• Sharpies of assorted colours (optional if your toy is faded)
• Sewing needle
• Strong cotton thread
• Glue or nail polish for knots (optional)

My Garfield fresh from the car after his previous suction cups died.

The first step is only if you have a faded toy you wish to revive for nostalgic reasons.  I wouldn't do this if it is a treasured childhood toy that is still snuggled, but if the toy is going to sit on a shelf or similarly it should be OK.  Basically, it is to give your toy a dye job using Sharpies (or non-brand name permament markers).  Sharpies these days come in all sorts of colours these days so it shouldn't be too hard to come up with the colours you need.  In my case, an orange, yellow and black.  Just run the side over the toy for the large areas or the point if colouring smaller areas.

As you can see, he looks a little blotchy but that's mainly because the camera lighting, plus that will fade a bit over time and even out.

Then sew the suction cups to each limb.  Ensure you use a good amount of thread there as UV light is going to weaken those joins over time.  If you are paranoid about your knots, add a drop of glue or nail polish to each knot.  And that's it!

Not the most exciting tutorial in the world but if you've ever wandered constantly in a carpark looking for a car in a sea of very similar coloured cars it might be worth a go!

Magnetic pen holder from a mint tin and making wire flower vines

This was a post inspired from the sense of Eclipse mints*.
waste every time I finish a tin of

Browsing Pinterest and other sites I've often seen very cool things people have done with Altoid tins.  However, Altoids (or their tins) are not available here (and I get the impression that the mints are really strong which is not my preference anyway).

Sadly the design of an Eclipse mint tin does not easily lend itself to repurposing.  The opening is on the short end and is small enough that putting in a finger to dig out a mint is a little fiddly.  But pinterest did show me one idea that I've run with- a magnetic pen holder to pop on the fridge.

My finished pen holder doing it's job on the fridge- hence the weird reflections

Making it is fairly easy.  Step one was to roughly sand the surfaces so the paint will stick to it.

Then using acrylic paint, paint it with your base coat.  You may need to do several coats to cover all the original printing.  Also, the front of the tin has the name embossed- I used the other side on my finished tin, or you will have to think about a creative way to hide this.

At this point, the design possibilities are endless.  You could paint it, stick stuff on it, anything really.  Or just glue some magnets to the back and call it good.  I have gone with a creeping vine that I made in the previous post so below is my very simple idea for joining it on.

Basically my secret tool is my hot glue gun.  It works well for fast fixes and the join is strong enough to hold the wire to the painted tin.

Secure one end to the tin and fix in place.

Then artistically curve the vine up and secure whenever you like at the back where it will be hidden.

Something that I didn't do because I only thought of it too late, is to make a trellis from paper or card that the vine can be climbing as I think my background colour was too dark to let the flowers and leaves glow suitably.  Next time I finish a tin of mints, perhaps I'll try version 1.2!

One tip though that I unfortunately discovered- hot glue is not strong enough to hold a strong magnet to the tin if your magnets are strong.  When I went to pull my pen holder off the fridge to reposition it, the magnets were left behind.  Ooops.  A bit of E6000 glue later and I hope the problem is solved.

I also added a label to the lid, mainly because that oval shape screamed 'label' to me and I needed to add something.

So there you have it.  Simple but useful and very cheap to make.

*Disclaimer:  I don't even have Adsense turned on on this blog, let alone get sponsored by anyone so this post is not an endorsement to Eclipse mints or any other company*

Making flower vines

I was going to have this as part of another post but decided this is better as a stand alone tutorial as there are many potential uses for this technique.  The next post will show you how I used the flower vine I made here.

To make the vine, estimate how long you want your vine to be.  The main wire should be about 2.5X this length.  I went with about 50 cm long.  Using something about the right width (a pen or pencil are ideal), create a series of loops roughly evenly spaced along the wire.

Each of these loops will become leaves, so now shape them as you wish.  The easiest way to get a leaf shape is to gently pinch the top.  Of course if you are a botanist, feel free to go and google the species you wish to mimic and shape your leaves accordingly.

Now use your medium of choice to fill in the shapes.  I went with Mod Podge Dimension Magic but in this post I investigate several different materials you can use.

Let this dry and (if you used a transparent filler as I did) use a permament to colour in the leaves.  The layer may be very thin- be careful not to make holes, but if you do (or if you feel it is too thin anyway), add another layer of medium.

Flowers are made in a similar way to leaves.  It is best to make each flower from a separate piece of wire (about 20 cm is a good length).  I used a slightly smaller diameter stick to make four loops very close to each other for the petals and sometimes also added a leaf or two to the remaining length

Now to put it all together.  Take the main length of leaves and double them over.  Start at the bottom and gently twist them together.  At intervals, add the flower wires and incorporate them into the main stem as you twist.

Continue the length of the main wire.

You can trim any stray bits of wire if you wish.  You may also want to wrap florist tape around the 'stem' to hide the wires and make it a bit more natural looking.  This is also a good idea if you plan on using this length of wire as jewellery or a hair decoration as those little ends of wire may try to poke the wearer otherwise!

I love the transparent effect you get using permanent markers.  The depth of colour can be increased by using multiple layers of your clear filling material (a good idea for strength anyway) and colouring each layer as you go.  Or get fancy with a fine tipped pen for further detail, similar to the painting on stained glass windows in old churches.

Somewhere in the distant future I plan on playing with this more to make some jewellery but if you beat me to the punch, I'd love to see!  Leave a comment or shoot me an email.

Nail Polish flowers- technique and material testing

Every now and then I like to take a browse through Pintrest.  I find that it can be interesting to find ideas, but the big downside is that you see a lot of things repeatedly, find things listed in the wrong category (cooking recipies do NOT belong in the DIY and Craft category!) or are things that you could not pay me to would have to pay me a great deal of money to do and even more money to have me keep it in my house!

But some things are truely lovely and I do end up pinning them to my own boards.  One that has been regularly on my list of things to try is this lovely nail polish flower bracelet/necklace?

NB, as far as I can tell, this is the original web page plus it has instructions.  Downside is that it is a russian page, but thanks to the excellent pictures and google translate, is understandable.

I've a little project on the go that I thought might work with this technique but I faced a problem.  While fine wire is simple to get, I am not a big nail polish plan.  I only have five bottles of the stuff and only one of them is something in a 'flower/plant' shade.  Going out and buying some would get very expensive, very fast as well as being a waste.  So I started thinking, is there anything else out there that would work?

So what else is one to do but put some things to the test?  Going through my supplies I settled on a short list of the most likely alternatives.  In addition to some nail polish as a control, I used some paint on glass paint that I had left over from a kit; Mod Podge Dimensional Magic; Lisa Pavelka Magic-Glos, a resin that sets when exposed to UV light; PVA glue (aka white glue); and clear craft glue.  To test each one, I make equal sized loops using a Bic ballpoint pen, out of some fine wire (28 or 32 gauge I'm guessing as it was not labelled).

For all these materials, I have either painted using a brush or 'dipped' the loop into a small pool of the material in whatever method worked best to form a film in the wire loop.

Nail Polish

One layer of nail polish

Brushing this on directly didn't work, as I could not form a film without it popping.  However, dipping the loop carefully into a small puddle worked well.  The finished effect was a lovely transparent loop, like stained glass.  It was very thin however, and careful poking with a finger showed that it would not hold up to any wear.  When I tried to do a second layer, it seemed to 'melt' the already present layer.

Glass Paint

Glass paint when still wet

Initially this looked promising.  The paint went on beautifully using a paint brush and a nice thick layer formed.  However, while it also had a lovely translucent look, it also somehow dried with a small hole.

Once dry, one layer of the glass paint dried with a hole or crack

A second coat closed the hole and made a more uniform appearance but does make the loop more opaque.

Mod Podge Dimension Magic

This is another material I had to apply by dipping it into a small pool.  However, this was the easiest of all the materials that needed this method to do as it's slightly thicker consistency meant that the film formed first time.  One layer also appeared to be much more durable than nail polish, although if I was to use this for jewellery, I would plan on using a few more layers.  The layer was also very uniform in thickness so there are no 'blobs' left over.

The other great advantage of this material is that it is transparent.  Once it has set, a sharpie or similar would allow any colour (or design) to be applied.

When wet, Dimension Magic has a whitish appearance, but dries clear.

Lisa Pavelka Magic-Glos

I had the highest hopes for this stuff as I have played with it before and it makes a lovely solid layer when dry.  However, in the past I used it with wire shapes stuck temporarily to a sticky tape background while the gloss set.  When trying to use it directly, without a backing film, it was an unmitigated disaster.  Straight out of the bottle it is almost as viscous as water.  Every tried to dip a bubble wand in straight water?  Hard to make a film, isn't it?

Aha, I thought though.  I'll let it partly cure (it was morning so light was coming through the window enough to set it), then it will be thick and work well.

Yeah, not so much.

PVA glue

PVA can be very different in thicknesses depending on brand and age of the bottle.  My PVA was a little runny so it took several attempts to get it onto the loop.  Once there, it took a bit of careful rotation for a minute for it to dry enough without a thin spot that would turn into a hole.  

When dry, it was mostly clear but with a slight white fog to it.  Not a big deal if you want to colour it anyway but might be a factor if you want it to be perfectly transparent.

Craft glue

This glue was easy to put into the wire loop but it was very bubbly!  If working with some of these materials, a little blow torch is a good tool to pop bubbles (it also works with varnish).  However, DO NOT TRY THIS WITH THIS GLUE.  Fire will not pop the bubbles, it will happily set the whole thing on fire.  Yes I did test this under very carefully controlled conditions (aka, I didn't set the house on fire). Yes it did catch fire. This is generally not a good idea!  As I've never been able to use this glue without a few bubbles here and there, it's best to be used only if you want the bubbles as a feature.

Summary

Rating of different materials to fill in wire loops

Sorry the table is a bit dodgy- Blogger doesn't do tables so I had to improvise

Each category rated out of three.  +++ is the best, + the worst or - for things that didn't work.

What is the best product to use?  Well it will depend a lot on your budget, patience, and the final use of the loops or flowers you make.  For all materials, if you don't want to mess with a temporary backing material like tape, your loops need to be small.  Mine were about 1 cm in diameter and I feel it is about as big as can be managed.

If you had an addiction to nail polish already and so have many many bottles in a rainbow of colours, then go for it!  Modern nail polish reportedly was first derived from car body paints, so it is not terribly surprising that it's a fairly durable product.  The only possible catch is that you may need to buy colours that work for your project and you may find a limited selection of some shades- few people generally wear green or brown nail polish for instance.

If you are on a budget and don't already have nail polish then I would say PVA  glue is best, followed by Dimension Magic -about AUD$8 a bottle but that will go a long way with the amount needed.  Because these can be coloured with markers, it gives you the greatest range of colour flexibility.

If you are after durability, then I would suggest Magic-glos but with a proviso that this assumes you back every wire loop with tape until it sets. Multiple layers of nail polish and glass paint are also options, or Dimension Magic are also possible.  Craft glue also works, provided you are OK with the bubble factor.

And for the scientifically inclined, no, I didn't have replicates.  This was a small preliminary study and these results will be shown in a subsequent report... (or, comment or otherwise leave some feedback to encourage me and I might go and do some more testing!).  

What will I use?  Stay tuned for a future post to find out!
Plus I have not decided yet

Click here to see one use I put these too to make flower vines.