My Hideous Skyrim Helmet: Part 1

I have been saving a massive cardboard box in my attic for nearly a year. It is enormous*, large enough to contain me. I am about 5 feet worth of person.

For nearly a year, I have defended its presence, drowning out my husband's protestations against "clutter" with my insistence that, just as Michelangelo sensed the beauty hidden within a block of marble, I too would one day discover the hidden universal purpose of my cardboard box.

I would bring out the essential cardboard box-ness of the cardboard box.  

Within this bold declaration, I would inevitably close the attic door and completely forget about its very existence.

So a few weekends ago - surprised (as usual) to find it, slumped in a corner, I resolved to do something with it. Anything.

Out of sheer laziness, I resorted to Pinterest. My heart told me this would be a pointless endeavor, and after several variant, progressively specific searches...

cardboard + craft

cardboard + craft + no jesus

cardboard + craft + no jesus + no children + adult = this is not happening

this is tempting but also not happening

... I accepted that Pinterest has little to offer the artistic cardboard crafter. I mean, yes. I found a few amazing pieces - dresses, dinosaur heads, weapons, etc. - but anything remotely cool looked, to my disappointment, like real work. The kind involving skill.

{I should mention that I broke my wrist last month. Why I was compelled to try to craft something out of stiff, difficult-to-cut corrugated cardboard with only one hand on a Saturday afternoon, I have no idea. There are 11 entire other months this year in which I could have elected to do this! Why such poor timing? Why, cruel muse of cardboardery!!!!}

But I found one exception, thanks to the plethora of Cosplay bloggers, who have flooded social media with helpfully unhelpful tutorials, raising one's expectations that you, mortal, can readily mimic their mastery of Worbla.**

Behold: Skyrim Iron Helmet, presented by ByGoneEra!

Easy, right? Right?


*Some would point out that 5 feet does not make for an enormous person, but I believe it unequivocally makes for an enormous box.
** Foreshadowing.

T-shirt Deconstruction Bullshit

Thinking to do my part for Mother Earth, I grabbed two ugly pink t-shirts from the Goodwill pile at work.  Because our office is moving this fall,  a wealth of Goodwill-appropriate riches have accumulated in the main hallway.

And I hopped onto the Internet, to determine a wise way to "upcycle" them.  Or "deconstruct," if you will.

I was looking for something easy as well as theoretically useful.  Hence, I came upon the upcycled t-shirt scarf (or, l'echarpe du t-shirt recycle, for my French friends).

It really did take about 10 minutes of simple snip snips:

And then I streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetched the strips, and bound them with the hem:

OH MY GOD A SCARF!

Will I wear this?  That remains to be seen.  I'd like to wear more scarves in my everyday life, but the ones you can buy at Target (le Target) entail way more fabric than my small frame can bear.  I wind up looking like I'm trying to artfully hide a neck brace.

I had one more shitty tshirt to go, and so I thought I'd experiment with something more daring... a workout shirt (un t-shirt de l'exercise, Froggies!).

While I liked the back...

                                                                                                                                                               

Well, I mean I kinda liked the back... Ialthough did just leave the bottom twiney bit loose, which looks stupid, but.  When you get lazy, you get lazy, ya know?

WHOA Blogger is acting stupid.  Ignore the brand new word above, which should read "although I".  Obviously! 

Anyway.  Would I wear this as a workout shirt?  Sure, except that for this particular deconstruction did not change the very cringe-worthy frontside of the shirt.  So fucking cheesy, but it made for a power shot:

Give Life, Live life, bitches!  Register as an organ donor today, etc.

Just for a laugh, I pulled a sleeve over my head and tried to convince Husband that I'd crafted a tiny hat.  He nodded very respectfully.  When I told him I was just kidding, this is just a stupid sleeve, he looked relieved and said "Oh, phew.  I was having trouble pretending that your hat didn't look stupid."

Ha!