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2010-04-30T16:32:00.001-07:00

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Les Clés

2009-11-28T08:05:00.000-08:00

I've been collecting keys for years, so I have bags full of them. I'm not sure how many exactly, but they probably total several pounds in weight. Some of them have ended up as necklaces, some have been given away as gifts, and there's one with a red ribbon tied to it that I keep with me all the time for good luck. I had some of my favourites mounted on a piece of framed matte board hanging in the living room, but I dismantled it a while ago to make room for a new painting and I have missed them ever since.

Last week I found a vintage needlepoint kit at the thrift store, still in the original packaging. It came with a pre-stamped pattern of potted plants, enough yarn to complete the embroidery, and this small shadowbox to display the finished piece in. I wasn't all that wild about the potted plants pattern (very 70's--looked like something that would have hung on the wall in Jack Tripper's apartment! Oddly enough though, I actually started embroidering it the other night while watching tv.), but I loved the shadowbox and knew it would be perfect to house a few of my keys in.

With some orange textured cardstock, a liberal amount of E6000, and a few minutes, I had a new key display that I like even better than my old one! The key in the top left square I found somewhere a long time ago, and I think it might open an old, forgotten trunk or chest. The very large one in the upper right I purchased recently as part of a lot of keys at an antique store, and I love it to pieces--it's one of my all-time favourites, even though I bought it and didn't technically "find" it. The bottom left key is very rusty, and has a small piece of twisted wire attached to the top hole. It's embossed with the number 3, and came from a store that sells old furnishings--they always have a huge box of keys for sale and the nice man that works there lets me go through the box at my leisure and always gives me a bargain. Incidentally, 3 is one of my favourite numbers. The small key on the bottom right probably goes to a padlock. It's also rather rusty, especially on the back side. I found that one outside on the ground a long time ago. It isn't as old as some of the keys in my collection , but I really like it anyway.

Do any of you have collections? What are they, and how do you like to display them?

Kupo!

2009-11-27T09:31:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I was in a thrift store and happened to catch a glimpse of this little guy as I was passing by the toy section. For half a second I thought he might be a stuffed moogle, so I had to double back to get a better look. Obviously he's not a moogle, but he is terribly cute, so I felt compelled to rescue him from a potentially dismal future of winding up at the bottom of someone's toy chest or being chewed on by a dog. I'm not sure what the story is with this character, but the tag on his bottom says his name is Mowbray, and he was made in the UK. I thought Mowbray possessed enough moogle-like charecteristics (light tan fur, large purple nose, cute little roly-poly body) that it would be easy to perform a little plastic surgery and make him into a moogle. So Mowbray the Moogle was born a few days later. The transformation was pretty simple. First, I picked out all of the embroidery for his eyes, mouth, and eyebrows (very tedious, that. In fact, it was the hardest part of the entire project!). Then I gave him a bath in the washing machine to get him nice and clean and loosen/remove any threads I missed. After that, I opened the seam at the back of his body and removed his old fluff. I gave him new eyes (solid black 12mm safety eyes), anchored his antenna/pompom (made from the cable of an old pair of cheap circular knitting needles & some hand-dyed vintage wool), and re-stuffed him with new fluff. I made his wings with felt, heavy-duty interfacing, and low-loft quilt batting with some dark purple embroidery for detail. After inserting & attaching the wings, I stitched him back up and embroidered a new mouth for him, and then he was finished! He doesn't look exactly like a moogle, but I think he's super cute & I love him. ^_^

Now I just need to keep him away from my dogs, who seem to think he is something new for them to rip to shreds. :/

Ultra-easy Makeover: Cardboard Magazine Holder

2009-11-23T09:58:00.000-08:00

Little known fact: I always have tons of papers and mail in a stack next to my computer. I'm just one of those people who can't throw anything away, but I also need to keep letters, bills, and important papers nearby so that I don't forget about them. But I despise having that messy-looking stack of papers next to my computer. It drives me nuts, and every time I see it (roughly 1281267623 times a day) I'm tempted to hide it somewhere out of sight.

I've tried a few different solutions for organizing my papers... office-style trays, folders & binders, and most recently I had them all clamped in a giant clothespin (no, I'm not kidding). None of these worked out, though, and all of them ended up stuck somewhere else and repurposed. They were just too large, too unattractive, or too...something.

I have very limited space, so I wanted something that would store the paper vertically and be very low-profile so I could slide it in between my monitor and printer. I've looked at magazine holders at different stores and always felt they were way overpriced for essentially being a glorified cardboard box. For a while I kind of forgot about the whole thing and just lived with my horrible stack of papers....until I got lucky and happened to spot a magazine box at a local thrift store. It was only 0.25$ and in brand-new condition, so of course it came home with me! As you can see, it's a bit on the plain side. Red is one of my favourite colours, but since I'll be looking at it whenever I use my computer, I decided it needed something to make it prettier. After some fiddling around, I came up with a plan: cover it with hot pink bows punched from vintage flocked florist's ribbon! Here's a picture I took right after I started:

Note the wee Chihuahua foot in the upper right hand corner. She always has to get in on whatever I'm doing and nose around. Such an attention seeker! At least she behaved herself, though...my Boston Terriers spent their time sneaking around to try to eat my punched out bows! D:

Anyway, let me get back to my overly-long explanation of this simple project! :D

Punching out the bows was fairly easy and went a bit quicker once I figured out the best way to line up the punches. The ribbon was only about 1.5" wide so I had to be creative about placement. Unfortunately, I had used up about a foot or two of ribbon before I realized I could fit more than one punch across the width. So much waste! Woe is me. :[

The entire project took quite a bit longer than I expected it to. In fact, I was kinda over it by the time I was halfway through gluing bows to one side of the box. I don't remember the exact number of bows I punched out, but it was around 200 or so. I do really like the result, so I think it was worth the time. What do you think?

If you'd like to try something like this, here's a tutorial for making your own magazine box from instructables.com. I may give it a go myself, because I could really use a few more of these (but maybe without the 200 bow punch-outs next time!).

Two quick make-overs...with leopard print!

2009-09-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

Several years ago I bought these cheap snakeskin heels at a thrift store. I'd planned to somehow make them leopard print, but after removing the outer layer of snakeskin (in the photo you can see one shoe in its original condition and one with the skin removed....yuck.) I sort of stalled for a very long time. I thought about painting them leopard print since the under-fabric was a relatively smooth cream coloured cotton twill, but it all seemed so time-consuming and I just never got around to it.

Well, I finally completed these shoes, and I ended up covering them with fuzzy leopard fabric instead. I used some black bias tape to trim the top edges and give them a more "finished" look. I think they came out pretty nicely after it was all said and done. What do you think?

Next is this sweater that I purchased at a thrift store. My best friend was looking for a light weight, short-sleeved black cardigan that did not have a vee neckline. I told her I would see what I could find, because I was confident I could turn up something like that after a bit of thrifting. Yeah, but no. After hours of hunting around, the closest I could get to her request was a light pullover sweater that had short sleeves and no vee-neck. I bought it anyway, thinking I could probably make it into a cardigan.

Of course I didn't think to take a before OR an after picture because I'm an airhead, but I do have an in-progress shot. Basically, I just cut the sweater straight up the middle, and then trimmed the raw edges with some leopard print jersey fabric. When the photo was taken I was in the process of basting the trim on. I also added a small elastic loop and a covered button to the neck area for closure. My friend said she loved it, and she looks super cute in it, too. The whole project turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be, especially considering how frightened I was at the idea of cutting a sweater open. ^^;

Quilting outside the box.

2009-09-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

It's September, and that means my mother's birthday is quickly approaching. Each year I struggle to come up with the "perfect" gift for her. Sometimes I manage to succeed, but my failures certainly outnumber my successes. This year my gift-planning process has been hampered by a severe lack of funds brought on by a number of different things which I will not go into here. :P

It's not life-threatening, it just means I have to be extra thrifty and creative when figuring out mum's gift. After a few weeks of stressing myself out and coming up with and then discarding a number of different possibilities, I finally came upon a solid idea: A quilt!

I'm not talking about one of those cute decorative quilts that some people make. I'm talking about a heavy-duty queen/king sized monster meant to be used like a comforter. Last year I made a beast of a quilt for Adam & I, and when my mother saw it she asked if I could make her one. At that point, I was totally over the whole quilt-making thing and I told her in no uncertain terms that if I ever did make her one, it wouldn't be any time soon.

Fast-forward to this July. In the process of cleaning/re-organizing my sewing area, I found that I needed to purge a lot of my stashed fabric. I didn't want to get rid of any of it so I decided I'd make us another quilt, because honestly, is there anything on earth that will use up more fabric than a large patchwork quilt? ;)

I did things a little differently than with the beast-quilt I made the year before, which helped to simplify things and allowed me to finish in record time. I didn't work on anything else during that time period and somehow managed to stay very focused as well.

Anyway, after realizing that quilt-making did not have to be so torturous, I figured it was time to give my mum something she had actually asked me for. :)

But by that time, it was already the end of August. Mum's birthday is the 28th of September, so I knew I wouldn't have much time if I didn't want to rush. By using a plastic square template and planning a simple checkerboard patchwork pattern (every other square is from a blue flowered print, and the rest are cut from a few different, random fabrics) I saved a lot of time in the cutting squares/planning rows stage. I know that I probably do not make quilts the way that real quilters do, but I don't care. I do whatever works best for me, and the quilts that I have made in my own little way have turned out pretty well and held up to a lot of wear and tear. I can't say that I enjoy making quilts, because I typically start despising the entire concept by the time I am ready to start sewing squares into strips, but oh well. :P

I definitely reached that point with this quilt as soon as I had finished cutting, sorting, pressing, and stacking all of the squares into row piles. For some reason I felt like I had plenty of time, so I took a break before beginning the sewing process. I was only going to "break" for a day or two, but before I knew what hit me it had been at least a week. I started to panic, because I knew I had less than a month to finish everything, and I knew that it would be very time-consuming (and I am atrocious at managing my time!). So I've plotted out a schedule for myself that, if adhered to, should allow me to complete the entire project with plenty of time to spare--even if I am slower than expected or just plain undisciplined. I've got a decent start on the sewing, and just need to keep chugging along now. Hopefully I will be done well before my planned finish date. Expect pictures when everything is said and done. :)

Long overdue.

2009-06-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

Oh, my.
This blog is so neglected. Someone really ought to call the Blog Welfare Agency and report me.
I am so not fond of the word "blog", and I can't believe I just typed it twice. I'm slipping! D:

Anyway, I have been busy with a variety of different things (some good, some not-so-good), and they have kept me from updating here as well as my pages at other sites (facebook, twitter, myspace, etc). I have about a ton of things I need to post here, but I'm going to slowly chip away at it.
Oh boy! A post about upcoming posts that will feature content that is well past its expiration date!
No wonder no one reads this thing!

Before + After

2009-02-02T15:39:00.000-08:00

Quite a while ago I convinced my daughter to give me this empty Elvis Presely 45 display case (she removed the fake "Jail House Rock" 45 long ago... :P). I've been planning to take it apart, revamp it, and use it to display a 45 by my dad's old band Dahcotah, and I finally got around to doing it today!

Here it is after I took it apart. The original cardstock insert made a perfect template for my new and improved one, naturally.

Here it is all finished. I used some cardstock from a Martha Stewart set I got cheap at Wal-mart. There are a lot of really attractive prints in there for only around 7$, and they carry them at Michael's too, if you're opposed to Wal-mart. For the title I used self-stick letters in a circus/carnival-esque font. I love things that look like they should be at a carnival or circus! ♥ (Except for clowns...I really hate those. O_o)
Anyway, a little more info...
The band was called Dahcotah, and they were from Iowa. They were active during the early to late seventies. My dad played bass, lead, and rhythm guitar at various different times. He also wrote a lot of awesome songs, sang backing vocals, and once or twice sang lead vocals. He had a great voice, and was such a talented musician and songwriter. This 45 is signed by all of the band members except for my dad, unfortunately. I purchased it through an Iowa record dealer sometime after my dad passed away in 2004. I have a record player, but can't play this record because I don't have an adapter for the larger centre hole. I know the songs, though, and I do have a remastered CD containing many of their recordings, as well as old tour posters, live & promo photos, and various other memoribilia (including some of my dad's old "rocker" clothes ^^). The A-side of this 45 is "Too Easy to Love", and was a minor hit for Dahcotah in the 70's. The B-side is "She's a Bore". :) It's kind of hard to describe what they sounded like, but if you could cross early Cheap Trick with maybe Mott the Hoople, that would be a fairly decent description.
Anyway, I have a lot more things I'd like to finish today and I don't want to get all sad and nostalgic to the point where I'm depressed, so I think I will end this here....

Testing something for Kate...

2009-01-18T13:53:00.000-08:00

I don't really have anything to say, I just want to test this flash player. :D
Oh, I did make good progress on the broomstick lace scarf, though! I started over with a smaller chain and different yarn, though. LOL.

Anyway, if you can see the music thing below, and it plays...then I guess I did everything correctly! :D

Broomstick Lace Scarf

2009-01-17T12:50:00.000-08:00

I totally suck at crochet and generally prefer knitting for that reason, but I decided I would try to make this scarf, because I think it is probably the prettiest crocheted scarf I have seen in a long time. Hopefully it will not prove to be too difficult for me!
I started late last night before bed, using an H crochet hook and a skein of vintage worsted weight yarn ("Nature Spun" 100% Virgin Wool, in "plum"). I have an adjustable hairpin lace device/gadget that I got at a thrift store, and plan to use that to regulate the height of the loops (conveniently, one of the adjustable widths is exactly 3 cm!). Here's a picture of my sad-sack progress so far:

Crappy cell phone photos, ahoy! :D
As you may be able to see, I haven't even finished the first 2 rows of single crochet. I also switched from a chain of 60 to a chain of 40, because 60 would have been unbelievably wide. 40 is plenty wide as it is. I hope I have enough yarn on that skein to make a lengthy scarf. I don't like short scarves. I like to be able to wrap them several hundred times around my neck. :D
The yarn looks brown-ish in that picture, but trust me when I say it is a nice plummy colour in reality. I do not really want a brown scarf. No sir.
Anyway, we'll see how this latest foray into crochet turns out. Generally I am so full of fail that I give up well before finishing any crochet project (usually after multiple restarts). I have managed to complete a couple amigurumi in the past, but apart from those and a very plain scarf or two, that's it.
Initially I wanted to crochet some wristers that I saw in the Lion Brand catalog, but I kept messing them up, so I put that aside for now. See what I mean? I'm riding the short bus to fail town with the crocheting. Maybe if I can master this pattern I'll feel better about trying the wristers again.

In other news, I have been neglecting this blog far too much. I do have good excuses (chronic pain + surgeries), but I've promised myself to try to stop making excuses and motivate myself to do something. So hopefully you can expect more posts here from now on. If anyone's reading that is... hah.

Ridiculously easy side table makeover!

2008-09-16T15:36:00.000-07:00

I finished upgrading my side table quite a while ago, but am just getting around to posting the pictures.
Unfortunately, I've been having a lot of issues related to my neck injury which has made it difficult and unpleasant for me to be at the computer for more than a few minutes, or really do much of anything to be honest. I'm supposed to be having a second operation soon, so hopefully that will fix everything that is wrong with me and I'll be back to "normal".

Anyway, without further ado, here are the pictures (you can click them to see the larger versions):

I didn't really think to take a "before" photo, but be assured that this was one sad, ugly side table. I bought it a year or two ago at a thrift shop for 2$. I needed something to store my knitting gear in, and it was cheap, structurally sound, and just the right size. When I purchased it, it was varnished an ugly brown wood-tone, had tacky faux-brass drawer pulls (the kind that scream 1976-bicentennial), and had several really old unicorn stickers plastered across the front of some of the drawers. They were so old that they had become almost transparent. There was also a large amount of yellow acrylic paint spilled inside and on the front of the small top drawers, not to mention random globs of glitter glue everywhere. Nice. :D
So I decided I'd paint it black. It looks better with our couch, for one thing, and it matches the paper I planned to cover the drawer fronts with.

Here are the drawers after I covered them with paper and painted the edges. That is just some of my obscenely large collection of knitting needles, crochet hooks, and gadgets, many of them vintage. There's really no room in the drawers for much of anything else, but I usually keep a few small skeins of yarn in there. You can see some vintage Red Heart and Rochelle brand wool in there, plus some random black yarn.

And here is the finished product! I am very pleased with the way this turned out. When I started this project, I didn't plan anything and I was kind of half-assed doing it while watching Cold Case and Law & Order on tv. The gift wrap I used on the drawers (purchased on clearance at Old Navy last year) is so pretty, it really made this makeover remarkably easy, and it didn't require much forethought or planning at all. I had all of the stuff I used for this laying around here already, except for the black drawer pulls...my husband picked those up at Menard's for me, and they turned out to be just perfect (when I sent him to the store, I asked him to get the cheapest, least ornate drawer pulls he could find, lol).
Anyway, the whole thing cost me maybe 10$ or so, including the cost of the table itself, gift wrap, black paint, foam applicators for the paint and mod podge, and the drawer pulls. There's nothing I like better than doing something myself, and doing it cheaply. :D
Ever since I finished the side table, I've been shrewdly eyeing all of my other furniture pieces, wondering what could be done to update them, lol.

2008-09-04T21:26:00.000-07:00

Revamping the second-hand side table that stores all my knitting gear. I need it to look pretty now to go with our new couch! Pics soon...

Thrift Haul: 08-02-08

2008-08-03T01:54:00.000-07:00

I love thrifting. ^_^

I usually end up going at least once a week, sometimes twice if I'm lucky. Mondays and Saturdays are my usual thrifting days, but I missed Monday this week so I wanted to make sure I had time to go Saturday. I was feeling a little sick when I got up on Saturday, so we didn't get out of the house as early as I would have liked, and the thrift store was about to close by the time I arrived. Still, I managed to turn up some good items even in that short amount of time.

The picture above is kind of an overview of all the small items I found. It's hard to see thanks to my crummy cell phone picture, but basically there's a ton of vintage rick-rack, lots of lace trim and seam binding, a lot of blanket binding and quilt binding (some vintage, some newer), and a couple packs of bias tape. Also, there are two size Q crochet hooks and plastic size 12 knitting needles. In addition to all of that, there are several never-opened packages of vintage snap kits in a couple different styles, and some vintage brass buttons on a card. That big spool on the upper left is a 50 yd. roll of industrial strength iron-on mending tape, which I was beyond thrilled to find for a thrifty price. I've already found a fantastic use for it: repairing the holes in my dog's stuffed lizard toy, which becomes shredded instead of splitting along a seam, making it pretty much impossible to sew shut.

I love the wrapper from this old pack of rick-rack. I already took the rick-rack out and put it in my storage box, but I had to save this because I thought it was so pretty. ^^

I really have way too much rick-rack, but I can never say no to more when I see it, especially if it's old. In fact, I can't seem to resist any type of old sewing notions. ^^;

Anyway, I also got several bundles of lovely vintage fabric, including approximately 5 yards of bright, grass green pleather. I was thrilled about the pleather...usually when I find vinyl or pleather, it's just scrap remnants, and often the colours are not exactly ideal (taupe, anyone? Yeah, I didn't think so...). The pleather had its original purchase tag still attached: 1.75$ a yard. That must have been quite a few years back, because I've never seen pleather that cheap, even on sale.

Besides the green vinyl, there was a pretty "patchwork" pattern fabric with a border print. I might make a dress from that if there is enough of it for what I have in mind. I also got some pin-wale baby blue corduroy, royal blue fleece, green silky-type material, a light green and blue printed polyester, some stretchy blue fabric with abstract lions printed on it (yes, this fabric is a little strange...), and...I think that's it!

But no, I'm still not done. ^_^;

I have to spazz about the really cool old knitting row counter I found!

It's hard to see well in the photo, but it's made by Susan Bates, and it has 10 red pegs that you move around to keep track of your rows, pattern rows, and increases and decreases. Each kind of thing you count has its own little area on the raised plastic peg board. This was a lucky find as it still has all of its pegs and came with the original instructions. :)

This thing will definitely come in handy when knitting season rolls around again. I do have several of the counters that you slide onto your needle, but I hate those because they always either fall off, or the little counter wheels are too loose, and they turn on their own when my knitting is stored in my bag. I also have one of those Clover brand clicker-counters, which I love (mostly because of the clicking action ^^;), but of course it only counts one thing at a time.

Finally, this is my last item: a vintage blue plastic sewing "tackle box". This baby is in perfect condition, nice and deep, and came with a cool top tray that has labeled, shaped compartments for your gear (ie: "scissors", "bobbins", "spools", etc). About a month ago I purchased a new sewing box thingy on sale at Michael's. It's padded and covered in this unbelievably ugly fabric, but it was cheap and I needed something to keep my "second set" of sewing gear in near the sofa, for use when I am watching TV. It isn't nearly as deep or big as this blue one, which I like much better. So, yeah. The new box will probably be exiled to the closet in favour of this old box. :D

Awesome!

2008-07-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

As of this afternoon, I am the ecstatic new owner of a Print Gocco PG-10 Super! The Print Gocco is a compact home printing device that allows you to create screen images that you can then print onto almost any surface with special inks. The Print Gocco was manufactured in Japan for many years, and was a common household item there. It has really become popular in the U.S. in recent years, but unfortunately the manufacturer (Riso) decided to stop production of this fantastic machine. Since then, the Print Gocco has been hard to find, to say the least. I have been coveting this item for more than 3 years now, but was never able to obtain one.
So how did I manage to get this wonderful piece of equipment now, when they are more scarce than ever? It was donated to me by the very generous and fabulous Higuchis, who said that they no longer needed theirs and would rather see it in the hands of someone who would enjoy and use it than sell it for a little extra money. I am completely overwhelmed with gratitude for them and am currently trying to think of the best way to show my thanks to them (other than just telling them, which I already have done ^^;). I'm thinking I will have to make them something very special. The plotting begins now..... :D

2008-07-28T15:04:00.000-07:00

Testing the mobile post function ^_^
-e

2008-07-27T15:24:00.000-07:00

Yet another test post. I had no idea that my idea for seamless combination of this blog and my website would turn out to be so complicated. :P

2008-07-26T15:13:00.001-07:00

This is a test post at 5:14PM.