Like A Boss

You know those people who always have a sense of false modestly and it makes you so angry because you're all "but fuck, you're really really really really good at this!"

And the conversation goes as such: (Person A is the false-modesty asshole and Person B is the complimenter)

Person A: haha, nahh. I'm okay (fishes for a compliment)

Person B: Are you kidding? This is amazing!

Person A: Nah, it's okay (still fishing for compliments).

Person B: What are you talking about? It's gorgeous!

Person A: Really? (adopts false expression of surprise)

Person B: Yeah, really. It's great! You could sell these you know...

Person A: Haha, nahh...

And so it continues..

As you may or may not have noticed, I am not one of these people. If I suddenly come to the conclusion that I am good at something, I will say this:

*BLEEP* YES. LIKE A BOSS. I AM AWESOME.

I have issues with modesty sometimes. Though in other situations I am incredibly humble. Anyways, the point  of this discussion about modesty is to show you two projects that I ridiculously proud of. Well, three. Although you can't really see one of them because it did not photograph well. 

First Up:

My hippie bag. That is, HIPPIE and not HIPSTER. There is a difference. Hippie is all flowy skirts and laid back attitude and Hipster is drinking bad beer, dressing like a slob and quoting dead american poets. 

I am crazy proud of this bag. Not only is it big enough to hold school books and other crap, it is really really sturdy. The only thing I would have changed is the length of the strap (speaking of which, it's connected to my bag via these really cool round plastic beads that I found at Chaton Beads. They match the bag quite nicely). 

Anyways, I found this pattern in "Stitch n Bitch: The Happy Hooker". I'm sure you can find this book at your library or you can buy it. I think it's around $20.00 CDN...But yes, since this pattern is from a book and not an online tutorial/other user I don't think I should post the pattern, especially given that it was three pages long...

But here's the gist of this bag:

1. Find a pattern for squares that you like (make sure they don't stretch too much)

2. Make 12 of them.

3. Crochet them together

4. Crochet a couple rounds around the rectangle you've just made. Turn it inside out, sew the bottom together and turn it right side out. 

5. Make a strap (any width) started from a solid ring or from the side of the bag, make it as long as you want and attach it to the other side.

Et voila! A useful, awesome bag that'll make your friends ask you for one too. Then you can say "Sure! But it may take a while (even though you made yours in like, 3 days...)

Oh, and make sure you use a sturdy, non-stretchy yarn like cotton. Nothing is worse than making a large bag out of acrylic. And if possible, buy a strap/ribbon/cord for the strap of your bag as the cotton strap stretches a lot, or just make a short strap. And if you do crochet your own strap, double the yarn to make it thicker and sturdier.

So now that you've seen my boss bag, here is something pretty cool too:

This a style of crochet known as "Turkish Crochet". This is not a place where I will be posting a tutorial but if you go on Ravelry and type in "Turkish Crochet" you will undoubtedly find the same tutorial as I did. I made these bracelets for a couple friends of mine for their birthdays (these bracelets make wonderful gifts as you can use any beads your want really-I used seashells, go figure- and they can be as chunky or as delicate as you want. 

So now that you've seen what I am good at, here is the piece de resistance: 

Oh yes. 

These are mini origami crane and water bomb drop earrings. Each earring comes personalized with your choice of figure (crane, water bomb, flower, owl etc...), paper (patterned, plain color...) and matching crystal drops (I have no red crystals so I use white instead, though I will be investing in red crystals as soon as possible!). Each pair is $10 if you would like to order and each is customized according to your specifications and coated in FIMO glaze to ensure stability and protection (and shiny-ness). The figures are about 2 cm in height and width. 

So there you have it. I am feeling incredibly pleased with what I have accomplished over the last two days (origami figures, turkish crochet bracelets--the bag was made a couple months ago--). 

God I'm good sometimes ^_^

Oh, and I forgot about this hat that I made the other day (in case you couldn't tell, I have quite a bit of free time because IT'S SUMMER TIME BIIIITCH!! Ah, the perks of being in CEGEP. You start the same time as high school students but finish a month earlier :)

Yup, that's me. I have huge eyes sometimes. Mostly when people point cameras at me...
But anyways, this hat is made of a mixture of 20% Alpaca/80% Acrylic and doubled with a pink/grey/white/black variegated mohair that is 30% Mohair/70% Other wool. It's really REALLY comfy. And warm. And it has braided straps on the sides. And a big, fat, giant POM POM. This is the first time a pompom has looked good so I'm really excited :)

Craftybits

I had a very good friend over the other day (yes, I have friends. I don't just sit at my desk all day writing blog posts...*twitchy eyes*) and we spent a very pleasant afternoon beading and making things out of FIMO for my booth at my CEGEP's first ever craft fair! Well, she beaded while I made things out of polymer clay. I had run out of ideas for jewelry and she, being creative and wonderful, came up with these:

Double Stranded Bracelets

Simple, yet elegant and pretty damn cool. For some reason the ones I made came out looking like crap but essentially what you do is you take a piece of wire about a foot long (make it a little longer just in case). It's supposed to fit snugly around your wrist so just measure it like that, I guess. Fold it in half and put your clasp on this end. Next, choose your beads wisely. Don't use beads that are too large because it might look funky. Slide one bead on one strand and then another over BOTH strands. Repeat until it's big enough for your wrist. If you have really really tiny wrists and you're planning on giving the bracelets away, please, for pete's sake, don't measure it on your own wrist. The person you're giving it to will NOT thank you. In fact, they might die from lack of circulation. So that's a pretty simple design but the silver wire running in and out gives it a pretty cool finish.

Being unable to bead that day, I had busied myself with making more cheesecake charms for the craft fair at my school. They came out better than I had expected to be honest...

Cheesecake Charms 2

Ahh, so much nicer than the originals :) Clockwise from the top: ...let's say..Lemon/Peach or Orange Cheesecake, Strawberry Banana Cheesecake, Strawberry Cheesecake, Very berry Cheesecake, Lemon Key Lime Pie, Blueberry Cheesecake!

Damn, now I really want actual cheesecake...
Anyhow, these ones have silver findings and they're a little bigger than my first batch. They're also a little more realistic..except for those weird Lemon/peach/orange/godknowswhat ones. Don't know what I was thinking but they do remind me of canned peaches. I love canned peaches. I also love fresh peaches but that's really not the point here.

So, we made bracelets, cheesecake charms...Oh yes. I also made these:

Cupcake Earrings :)

My first batch of FIMO Cupcakes.
For a first try, these are rather smashing. Still need some work on the actual cake parts, but hey.
These are all for sale so if you have any questions/comments/screams of rage/jokes or riddles, drop me a line!

Oh, I forgot about this:

Green Antique Bracelet

It's not actually an antique. The caps on each side of those giant green ceramic beads kind of give it an antiquated look I find. A little bit Gothic (Victorian Gothic. Not 80's goth)

Happy thanksgiving!

November, Movember, Rovember, Nanowrimo!

It’s been a busy November so far this year; Movember, International Day of Tolerance, and dipping into serious mode for Remembrance Day. But something you might be less familiar with is an event that could explain the mysterious disappearances of aspiring writers across North America: 

NaNoWriMo, short for National Novel Writing Month, is an annual, month long creative writing project started by Chris Baty on the internet back in July 1999 where aspiring novelists and angsty writers alike disappear from society until December 1^st where they finally turn off their computers and let out a collective sigh of relief. In 1999, Baty offered San Francisco a challenge: Can you write a 50 000 word novel in 30 days? And while this may seem extreme, NaNoWriMo has expanded from its original 21 writers recruited by Baty, to include more than 200 000 aspiring novelists from all over the United States and Canada with more than 37 000 winners each year. The collective word count of 2007 was a mere 6 million and it has grown to more than 1 billion this year.

1,856,502,337 to be exact...and November’s not even over.

So don’t forget, Nanowrimo’s not over yet. There’s still time to jump on the novel wagon, sharpen your pencils and brains and just write whatever it is you want to write about. And after four weeks of stressing out about midterms and finals because you’re just a thousand words shy of being on target, or your friends are wondering why you’ve disappeared off the face of the earth and you come to class every morning with a permanent glazed expression because you’ve been staring at a computer screen for too long watching small lines of script cross the screen since you’ve been writing all night trying to stay on the 1,666 words per day goal...crossing that golden finishing line will feel better than winning an Olympic medal. Or at least it should. 

But what do I get for finishing NaNoWriMo? Unfortunately, you don’t win money. Nanowrimo is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing their love for writing to classrooms across the continent through their Young Writer’s Program and the Office of Letters and Light (HQ to NaNoWriMo). So far, they’ve raised $493,822.54, but they’re hoping to raise at least 1 million by the end of the month. So, what do you get for all the stressing and caffeine induced jitters? Prestige (you just wrote 50000 words in a month. You rock), a crazy cool certificate that is awarded exclusively to NaNoWinners and various widgets, bookmarks and printable items featuring cartoon monkeys and palm trees. And there’s an added bonus to people willing to pay a mere 15 dollars to support the YWP: you can get a printed copy of your novel with the cover art of your choice from the Office of Letters and Light so you can show it off to your friends and say “that’s right. I’m a published author”.

 

 Note: this is not me! This is someone awesome who has actually managed to finish NaNoWriMo whereas I have not to this date!


NaNoWriMo: Thirty Days and Nights of Literary Abandon!