Just Some Updates!

I'm still poor, but I've been pricing items that I want to invest in and if I wait until I'm in NH again, they will be tax free!

• E-6000 glue (For anything, particularly friendly plastics though)= $3.99
• Lisa Frank Stickers (Collage Wallet)= $3
• Art Supplies Organizer/ travel bag= $60-90 (it's more of a wish list thing)

I got some broken beaded necklaces and old earrings from my Grandma and Jess, so I'm using those as inspiration for doing more beadwork. Beading is good for me now because I don't feel like committing to a big project lately.


My next mission is to make some tutorial videos, it's a good way to learn and I can make my friends video tape me so I can spend time with them!

Fake Fake Hair

So apparently the hair that I got is fake hair thats made of plastic, which means it is impossible to dye. :( So what I need is human hair, which is pricier. I think it was $5 for 12 inches... so I think it will amount to around the same price.

Clothes and Hair!

 I spent good 3 consecutive days in my room altering my clothes with my sewing machine. Here's the results! I had to take them with my webcam so they didn't come out very clearly :(

1. A Sarah Original

Faux Belt/ Bow Detail

I like this cut for the collar 

And the whole thing!

2. A Version of EVEnI's T Shirt Shrug 

so cute!

3. Slightly Altered Version of T shirt Shrug

First I sewed it to be fitted

Then I made a casing right in the middle to make the shirt scrunch up and down with a draw string
The sleaves were created by cutting off the sleeves and then bunching them in at the front.

4. Shrink Plastic Pendant

Hello clawed taruntula hybrid

Right now I'm working on making Heather K's Clip in Hair extensions! At first I was not going to waste the money because I found clip in hair extensions for $5 for 2 (a really great price) so I thought that the $7 for the hair and $3 for the clips wouldn't be worth it. However, with more consideration I realized that even though $1 per clip seemed a little steep,each one would only have costed $1.35 to make! So I've got green, yellow and lime green in my room waiting to set in and dry! More pics of me rocking them later!

Summer Fashion

My Summer clothes bore me. Even though I may be coming into some more money (hours at the daycare center FINALLY) I still want to try my hand at DIYing my summer wardrobe! I get inpatient, but I want to keep with it because I feel so much pride when rock my own creations!


Crafty Bulletin

• Yesterday was spent doing EVEnI's tshirt shrug 
• Today was spent doing my own creation. I made one of my bigger tshirts more fitted and made/ sewed a fabric bowtie on it. 
• I also did some Friendly plastics projects, but I'm getting frustrated because what I end up with is never good enough
• Upcoming projects

• More tee shirt altering: featuring my 4h camp counselor shirt, ribbon, cinch technique and size altering
• Spider Web Cut out Shirt

An Inspirational Project

New Ideas

I haven't felt the craft bug for the past couple days, i'm wondering if this is because I possibly have a bug bug (i've been feeling uncharacteristically drowsy). I don't want to force myself to craft for the sake of my blog because I think that could ruin the fun experience of being creative. Anyways, I was browsing Cut out and Keep and I found some projects that may or may not put the spark back into my creativity!

Jewelry Mannequin

Shallow CD Dish



I more or less experimented melting cds before, but this how to is more structured than  my first attempt



I want to cut up my shirts like this

That's all the inspiration for now, I think I will try making a friendly plastics cuff again (the first one I made was pretty horrible) 

Finally Friendly!

About 4 years ago When I was working at my first job I found a big 'ole bucket these flat, colorful, shiny sticks. Needless to say I was intrigued! The bucket read "Friendly Plastics" so I googled it. Thats Where I found tons of pictures of beautiful jewelry and pendants made of this stuff! I was seduced, so I asked for them for christmas! I think it was my little brother who ended up giving me a gift certificate to sunshine crafts to pick out my order.


I didn't get very far with them at first because 1. I didn't have a book on how to create and 2. They are kind of pricey, so I was afraid of messing up! However I eventually came across some videos created by Linda Peterson who has a few tutorials on friendly plastics projects! She so great!






Seeing her work and learning different techniques with friendly plastics really inspired me to get on it! Anyways, today is the day that I have made my first beautiful sellable piece and I am so proud of the way it turned out

It looks a lot lot lot nicer in person, I'm still having trouble making my mom's camera capture my art properly

About my Collage Handbags

Good Lord, do I love making these!!!!!

So far i've made about six of these, so I feel like i'm pretty qualified to build upon Cindy W's tutorial and give you guys some tips! 

• The hardest part is sewing the round edges. This might help:
              

       

1. draw your corner on cardboard and cut out






2. trace your corner on the side of the collage that will be the inside of the handbag on the right and left top corners

        You might also want to use a straight edge to draw some sewing guidelines for putting it all together as well. 
• Don't put your stitches too closely together
• When they're finished, they are really durable, but if your stitches are too close together you can rip the paper and the sheet protector!
• For extra durability, sew on another sheet protector. I find that the best way to do this is to first put your piece in one sheet protector, sew one side to keep it all together and cut off the excess sheet protector on the side, so you can fit it all nicely into another sheet protector
• If you want to put a button on:
• fold your bag the way you want it, decide where to put your button. BEFORE SEWING IT CLOSED use a needle to poke two holes about 1mm apart. Use stretchy string to secure your button on the bag because it puts less stress on the material than sewing it on would!

What I've been Selling:

High Fashion/ Mod Inspired Black, White, and Red Handbag

Just Another Typical Colorful Sarah Piece (it's bright colors)

Lisa Frank Stickers Clutch!

This one is my new favorite. I'm selling it for more than the others on ebay because

1. I used a lot of Lisa Frank Stickers that are both pricey and rare

2. If someone finds it  and is as much of a Lisa Frank fan as me, It will be worth their money

3. I just love it and can't part with it for more than 10!!

What I did when I visited Alex!

So I didn't automatically sell my patch necklace like I had hoped, but I tapped into my savings and visited Alex anyways because I missed him so much! I didn't get to spend much time with him because he was subbing on the days I visited, but I took advantage of the free time and I spent the day using his acrylic paints for warmachine and painted some shrink plastic pendants. My inspiration henna designs and bright colors (no surprise there ;)


I broke out the glue gun today to glue them to the embossing paper to make the back look a little more sophisticated.
The plan:
1. put holes on two opposite ends of them
2. use purple wire to attach them/ make links with the wire

The beads were picked out by my mom. She came up with these rich colored small glass beads, my black seed beads,  some random black glass beads from an old necklace, and small wooden beads. I would have never come up with that, so i'm glad I got her input because  I think it will look really beautiful! 

New Discovery: Wire!!!!

I had originally bought 20 g wire for a Friendly Plastics Project but it's taken me a while to find the courage to try to make something pretty from them (they're kind of pricey, even though I have a ton, they're so pretty  I don't want to ruin them). I went through Raafia's jewelry the other day to get inspiration

These are pictures I took of her unique jewelry that I thought I could replicate with the supplies I already have. I really like the one with the beads on the wire post linked together. I started making this, but I ended up making a ton of earrings instead. They look really classy and unique, but I still want to try some of this other stuff.


Anyways, this wire is great, my brother bought it for me for Christmas in a bunch of different colors.l I like it because I can use it to make coil beads of various sizes which I think will really compliment my mixed glass beads! I'll post more pictures later. In conclusion, invest in wire

My Favorite Project Yet!

I am so so proud of this necklace!!! I had a big bag that my friend's mom gave me a while ago, but it got a huge hole in the bottom. It had these beautiful patches on it so I cut those out and used some for this piece. I started with the flower, I put a needle with several threads through it, tied a knot, strung beads, and then took another patch and sewed the end to that and tied a knot. The clasp at the back is a button and a beaded loop.


My inspiration for this was basically bus money. It was kind of a pain to make, but I figured it would look really nice when I finished and I wanted to have a good piece I could confidently sell for a decent amount. I really want to visit Alex but I need to be careful with my money, so I made this hoping to sell it for a ticket!


If you're interested, the starting price on ebay will be $10 and the buy it now price will be $20.


It took me about two hours to make.

New finds and New crafts

Look What I found in the basement!

Look what I made!

The one on top is for stacey, the one on the bottom I made to sell

I also painted my shoes, but i didn't spend a lot of time on them and I don't think they look exceptional, so I decided not to post ever little artsy thing I do because I do so much!!! 

I got 2 hits on ebay woohoo! for the shape earrings and for the button necklace! so basicaly i made $3.01 so far! thats pretty cool I think!

No more spending, time to make money!

So far i've spent $51 on this blog/selling art project. $50  is all i'm willing to spend on this project (maybe i'll spend more when I find more work, but probably not) I feel that the I have made good investments though. The only display piece that I splurged on was the bracelet display from ebay. Here were my choices
         
about 7 from Michaels                                 I won for $13 on ebay


I think that the hand display unique in it's elegance and will make my bracelets look more delicate.  The bar one I might invest in if I end up selling at the Mansfield Flee Market this summer.


I also feel obligated to show my botched converses that I painted since I spent so much time on them
1. I was rushing more (I got frustrated with the coarseness of the material and the multiple layers)
2. I wasn't in love with the colors (that and white were all that the kit had)
3. I didn't have thin enough paint brushes (so I couldn't make nice neat little designs to look more professional)

They were in pretty bad condition anyways, so I didn't feel bad calling it a fluke and buying a new pair of sneakers. My new sneakers I'm not in love with either (they're more my sister's style actually!) but they were only $13 and look nice and fit well. 

The print is really cute, but kind of plain for my style, so I want to take my white acrylic paint and put some little design on outer sides. I think I am going to get a thinner paint brush and do a henna-inspired design:

Awesome, I know. 

My First Item I've ever put up to sell online

New Spool cap for Sewing Machine

So My brother and I spent over an hour job hunting today and on our journey we ended up at a local sewing store. As I waited to get an application I thought Wait a second, this is exactly where I need to be!! The woman who runs the store keeps parts from sewing machines that are beyond repair and resells them to people who need them! The spool cap cost me $7.32. It turned out that this was not overpriced as I had imagined, so I was really happy I had a store so close by to get me


Right after we got home I started sewing a collage handbag project for stacey that I started a long time ago, but couldn't finish because all I had was my dinky hand sewing machine. [Note that for this project, I used the spray lacquer sealer (from my shoe painting project) around the edges so that they won't rip or fray (this project is actually pretty durable without the lacquer, but i'm paranoid so I did it anyways.)] Anyways, before I started sewing I wanted to test my machine on fabric, so I grabbed an old shirt from my fabric pile. And ended altered my qbert shirt from mod cloth 

Finished Shoes

Craft News Bulletin!

At the Painting Station:

hello kitty slippers are almost done, just need to dry, then some finishing touches, lacquer and ready to wear!

Sewing station Update

missing the thingy that holds the spool in, once thats fixed I can make a new little spool

Selling Progress

I unpacked my jewelry I tried to sell at the cafe, and I bought a necklace and earring display (necklace dispay $5.49, earring display $2.29 at Michaels)currenty bidding on bracelet display

And in Other News:

Michael's has a rewards card now! I'm not sure yet exactly what specific rewards you get, the website is kind of vague and I think the program may still be underdeveloped BUT i've been shopping there for years so why not get some rewards now!