Recycled Mint Tin Love Token

 My friend Britney and I made a pact in August:  to make some crafty goodness for each other.  We would see each other in October (she lives in Boise and I in Portland) at our Arts Management MA reunion in Eugene, Oregon. 

There was no condition stating that said craft needed to be complete by the time of the reunion or that gifts would be exchanged in person, but to be totally honest I totally forgot about our pact until early October.  At which point, I figured I might as well commit and crank a tiny thing of beauty!

I needed the inspiration to get going anyway.  I feel like a bit of a charlatan, given that my blog's title sounds so... recklessly, hopelessly dedicated to making stuff.

But the reality is this: I work 40 hours a week, man.  This week it actually clocked in at 51 hours.  There's something to be said for the arts being a luxury of the rich, because if I had concentrated leisure time, I'd totally max it out with things I love! I'd paint, I'd embroider, I'd cover things in glitter and learn woodworking (mostly so I can make a badass "no soliciting" sign for my house).

But such is not my situation this fall.  My usual nighttime activity consists of struggling to keep my eyes open till at least 9 pm, and usually snuggles with my cat.

Kitty the Cat, Stalwart Companion

Ah well.  Gotta earn those $$ so you can buy those $$$ woodworking kits!

Pressed for time but earnest in my desire to make something she could reasonably fit within her carry-on luggage, I espied an empty mints tin upon my desk at work.

This tin had been empty for a year, but I could not bring myself to throw it away.  I knew it had a destiny.

And so, I decided to craft a small diorama for my Idahoan friend, who spent 2 years living in Oregon as we completed our degrees.

I did not really document the process because I know she sometimes reads this blog, and I did not want to ruin the surprise!

So I will describe what I should have done.  Yes, for mistakes were made and lessons were learned!

1.  I covered up the outside by mod podging on some adorable woodland-themed paper.  Trimming it to size is a bit awkward, so I opted for washi tape wrapped around the sides and hide the misjudgments.

2.  On some watercolor paper cut to size, I painted trees.  Just trees.  After letting this dry, I scribed on my message and added a tiny rabbit using gel ink.

2A.   I was timid about drawing any woodland creatures, and so only committed to drawing an eensy weensy rabbit head popping up.  And wouldn't you know, the first thing she said when she opened it:  "Aaah, a little rabbit!"  So, aim big!

3.  Having purchased beautiful sparkly paper, I cut this to size and used it as a sky background.  I got lucky and found this raincloud sticker amidst my ancient scrapbooking supplies - I just knew it too had a Destiny!

4.  I just happened to have some mushroomy fabric, so I cut a strip to create the ground within the actual tin.  Before totally gluing it down, I arranged a small mushroom-on-wire which I had found at Collage, along with my other invaluable purchases:

• tiny deer
• small, cheerful gnome-man

5.   I had a devil of the time getting the gnome to glue into place, so I would suggest something more serious than Elmer's.

6.  I decided that the spindle deer legs would DEFINITELY not match up well with Elmer blobs, so I decided to frame this to my friend as the "charming moveable component."

Overall -- 
 

Note the tiny, delightful rabbit head

My friend was delighted, I'm delighted to say.  It also made for a very popular Instagram.

Ta da!  Now that she has it, this concludes my blogging about it. 

Creepy dolly

Well, here she is!  Finished project, sitting on my mantelpiece.

I like to think of her as Olga, the Chubby, Germanic, Awestruck Wunder-Child.  Which is a much nicer name that what I have said out loud.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Because even I can't figure out how the hell to follow blogs, I figured I'd make life easier and join myself to the Borg Collective.

JOIN ME

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!

I hath birthed a curriculum!

First off, I wrote a pretty bad-ass $20K grant for this project, so I"m pleased to have been the one who saw it through.  Initially, we were set to hire an external curriculum developer, which always struck me as a little silly - I mean, I do have a teaching license so I know how to do this kind of curriculum-development-jazz.

But anyway, that fell through and I rose up as the Mighty Writer of a Cool Thing.

You can download it now at GoRecycleYourself.com for free.  Just click on Resources for Educators.  And realize that I was the one behind everything you see (even the video selection for the gallery).  Yay!

One sad thing is that my boss made me delete my byline within the actual curriculum's Acknowledgements section.  I'm merely listed as a contributor, along with several people to whom I talked to about the project.  I suspect that sometimes, bosses want to take some credit for projects they did not participate in.  And it helps if they can physically erase the authorship of the actual worker bee. 

But I actually wrote the entire thing, dammit.  Let this be known to the world!

New York Rye and Bob's Red Mill!

Yes, I count my breadmaker as an outlet for culinary creativity. 

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to begin stockpiling exotic bread ingredients, such as sesame oil, raw pumpkin seeds, and non-fat dry milk powder.  I purchased a bunch of rye flour, upon spying it in the bulk bins of Fred Meyer.  I wanted to be able to produce beautifully named mystery breads, such as Lakota, 14 grain, and Rosemary Mugwump, at the drop of a hat.  So impressive and delicious!

But it turns out that I bought DARK rye flour, which is apparently of limited use to breadmaker enthusiasts such as myself.  The majority of recipe writers seem to very much prefer LIGHT rye flour.  What fuckers!

But because Bob's Red Mill is amazing, I found a pretty good recipe, and so dumped my dark rye into the magic tin hole of gluten-based goodness. 

It's called New York Rye, and turned out to be a squat little loaf that my husband won't eat.  "Too minty!" he says.  "Those are caraway seeds,"  I replied.  "Too minty!" was the unwavering verdict.  But he also thinks Coca Cola Zero counts as water, so whatcha gonna do?

Ignore him.  It's pretty good! 

This makes a 1.5 pound loaf.  For whatever reason, the original recipe puts the ingredients all out of order, so here they are properly (because the order makes a huge difference to your machine). 

• 1-1/8 cups Water at room temperature
• 1-1/3 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
• 2 Tbsp Honey
• 1 tsp Sea Salt
• 1 Tbsp Whole Caraway Seeds
• 1-1/3 cups Organic Dark Rye Flour
• 2-1/4 cups Unbleached White Flour
• 1 Tbsp Vital Wheat Gluten (optional)
• 1/4 cup Non-Fat Dry Milk Powder
• 2-1/4 tsp Active Dry Yeast

Result:  BREAD!



Original recipe here:  http://www.bobsredmill.com/recipes.php?recipe=720

I want a DIY Kimono

I'm going to make this, I swear to god!

 

The instructions I found on Babble are a little puzzling, but on the other hand - it ain't no big challenge to make a kimono, which is practically a square with two holes for your arms.  A five second plunge into Google reveals that there are a million free "patterns" out there.

Beyond the actual pattern, I was very excited to discover Girl Charlee, an LA-based purveyor of fabric fineries.   

I think it'd look lovely in Dusty Red Pink Flowers...

And I also feel like there's got to be a good reason for me to buy two yards of Black Chevron on Heather Gray.

Especially since there's a 10% off discount for new customers such as myself.