30 Days of Creativity -- Day Twenty-Three (Moar Jewelry)

Today I ventured to the craft store and found this nifty charm in the clearance section. I bought some gold and green beads to match and made a necklace I'm quite happy with. I did forget to buy one of those rings to attach the charm with, so I'll have to get some soon, but for now wire will have to do!

Don't mind the yellowish bruise on my chin!

30 Days of Creativity -- Day 22 (I ain't lost, just wandering...)

After being cooped up for a week with my wisdom teeth out, it was really nice to be able to take a walk this evening. I was hoping for some more interesting photograph material, but going with my mother didn't give me much of an opportunity to awkwardly take pictures with totes gritty realism, so instead I mostly stuck to flowers.

I think I'll be coming here next time I want to do a bit of outdoor reading!

I went to this theater a few times as a child before it closed down. The only movie I remember seeing there is Pinocchio. I thought it was a boring movie, but for some reason I loved to sing "I Got No Strings" constantly. I only knew two lines.

30 Days of Creativity -- Day Twenty (Team Bisclavret)

When I decided to make a collage today I assumed it would end up being something totally silly with illustrations of dinosaurs and other odds and ends thrown together. I used the trusty P-Z encyclopedia that was still lying around in my room from my book jewelry box project and came up with some surprisingly wonderful things. With pictures from the werewolf, Odilon Redon, Richard II of England, Madame de Pompadour, and unicorn entries, I made a pretty awesome collage on the one of the thicker first page discarded from my nook journal project.

Being a Medieval literature nerd, I thought a quote from Marie de France's "Bisclavret" was fitting. I don't have my book in front of me, but the best translation I've found online is:

The werewolf is a savage beast;

When he is in a rage,

He devours men, does great evil,

Roaming and prowling through the great forest...

When I took a class on monstrosity in Medieval literature, I joked that to mock the "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" shirts from Twilight, I'd make a "Team Bisclavret" t-shirt. This will have to do! Tomorrow I'm off to look for a frame for it.

30 Days of Creativity -- Day Eighteen (Birdhouses)

Having my wisdom teeth removed has really cut back on my crafting! I've been pretty out of it for the past few days, so the only thing remotely creative I've been up to is photoshopping, which isn't what this blog is for. Yesterday, in an attempt to get me out of the house, my mom asked me to paint bird houses with her.

PAINT BIRDHOUSES?! The nice one that I made in technology class in seventh grade?! Nooooooo. But paint them we did, because my mother thinks that birds like them better that way. The paint we used was left over from when my room (that I share with my sister) was repainted -- the green being my favorite color, the purple hers.

We also painted the bird feeder that hasn't been used for years because it only attracted black birds.

The birdhouse my sister made and painted years ago is inhabited by a bird family and their eggs! You can see both of their heads in the picture. :)

30 Days of Creativity -- Day Fourteen (NOOK!!!!)

Normally I'm not one to brag about my sister, but today she gave me the wonderful awesome terrific graduation present of a nook! I'm so excited, and it's perfect timing for my wisdom teeth being removed on Thursday. The covers at Barnes and Noble started at around $25 and I was not quite willing to pay that much, so I decided to make my own!

To make it, I gutted out a journal I didn't use with a razor. Then I covered the inside with material to make up for the rough binding. I covered the styrofoam that came in my nook's packaging with material as well and glued that onto the journal. I couldn't find any elastic at home or at the pharmacy, so I picked up some headbands instead because I want to keep this thing secure! I'll put it on top of the elastic when I want to read.

It almost doesn't shut anymore, but I barely squeaked by and I'm quite happy with the result!

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30 Days of Creativity -- Day Thirteen (Oops... I Did It Again)

Oops! It looks like I've missed several days in a row. I am going to attempt to rectify it by making multiple things over the next few days, but we'll see how that goes. I don't have super high hopes. Today I painted my nails again, and again it turned out kind of horribly. I used painters tape to do the stripes because I cannot freehand draw a straight line to save my life. They could be worse!

30 Days of Creativity -- Day Nine (Hot Glue Guns Are Painful)

Today's project came from a tutorial I bookmarked a few months ago right over here. For someone as craft challenged as me, it should have been a piece of cake. Felt, hot glue, string, and beads. All things I can handle. I only had a silver headband, so I wrapped black ribbon around it and glued that on, causing me to burn my thumb and then instantly put said thumb in my mouth while there was still glue on it. Yum. After that, the beads kept falling off my string because the holes were too big.

I was just about to start putting tinier beads on before my big beads when my sister came downstairs with some of the beads we used on our Christmas tree. Who am I to say no to pre-attached beads? I'd be a fool if I did. The rest was super easy from there.

30 Days of Creativity -- Day 6 (Terrarium!)

I am a huge fan of terrariums. I made a few back in April (seen here!) that I really loved. I gave the stegasaurus to my cousin, but alas mine grew to smell like something akin to rotten eggs to the point where I couldn't even be near it long enough to change the moss. Soooo I tried again with a little jar leftover from some peaches my dad bought! This is the tutorial I used to make them all.

Unfortunately, I always add too much dirt but am afraid I'll mess it up. So you can't really see the little guy. But I think it is adorable all the same!

30 Days of Creativity -- Day One (Inevitable Suffering)

Jewelry box in the shape of a book?! I HAD TO HAVE IT.

The other day I found out about this thing called 30 Days of Creativity, wherein the participants try to do something creative every day for the month of June. I have not had much luck with stuff like this in the past, but as I've graduated and am currently unemployed, what better time is there to get creative than the present? Everyone in my family has always been crafty, but I was definitely skipped over on that gene. I'm going to give it my best shot and hope some neat stuff comes out of this, even if I don't succeed in making something every day!

I started with a wooden box in the shape of a book that I purchased at AC moore and primed it with white primer, no big deal! I was feeling confident. "See, Katie," I told myself "Crafts are not that hard." And so far, they were not.

I painted the box with dark green and light brown acrylic paint, hoping that the brown would sort of look like pages and pretending that the streaks made by the brush I bought for fifty cents made it look "antique."

The "cover" of the book was made with clip art from Graphics Fairy and découpaged on with the cheapest glue I could find at the drug store. For the inside of the box I used pages from our old encyclopedia, picking entries for the Tudors, Poe, witchcraft, Peppin the Short and other nerdy things that could be found in the P-Z book. Things were looking lovely! With gold acrylic paint I added some details to the "binding" and "cover." And then I was ready to put a coat of something on it to make sure it all stayed shiny and where it was meant to.

And so disaster struck.

I did not find out until it was too late that the spray-on enamel I was given, left over from redoing our kitchen years ago, was in fact white and never going to dry clear until I had coated the entire box in the stuff! I'm not going to lie, there were tears. Something I had been so proud of was ruined! Luckily, my mother was able to remove it all with some paint thinner and none of the acrylic paint came off. Now it's a lot more faded than it looks in the pictures, but I'm thinking I might try to age it tomorrow before I buy a proper coating for it.

No, I cannot paint a straight line, thanks for asking!

I'm still really pleased with how it turned out!

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