Wielding the Power of Time and Relative Dimension in Space

My good friends, Mike and Miranda, are having a baby in about a month. I started a little tradition, when my friend, Sarah, was pregnant of finding a pixelated image and translating it into a quilt. Sarah had decided that her daughter's name would be Zelda, and so I made a Legend of Zelda quilt. Sadly, I do not have pictures of that quilt, but, basically, it was a giant Link. For Mike and Miranda's baby, I decided to make a Dr. Who inspired quilt, as they like that show a lot. I like that show, too, and, you know, space is cool. Erik did a bit of research for me and found this image. I used graph paper to map out the quilt and count how many squares I would need to make it. It took me about three weeks to cut the squares (started using a rotary cutter and OMG. Bless that tool--bless it!) and sew them all together. I decided to use 2x2inch squares, which made a smallish grown-up blanket, but extra-largish baby blanket. I think it's a good size to throw on the ground for play time or for snuggling on the couch. Now for the pictures...

Look! It's the Tardis!

Mid-section close-up.

I found this awesome space fabric at Joanne Fabrics. It make a perfect background for the Tardis.

Erik and I held up the quilt, as Mike took a picture.  Erik had a special expression on his face.

Hot Ticket Tuesday Presents Sarah Seagrave and the Fabulous Knit Sweater

I'm trying something new to help me get into the habit of regular Soul Glue posting: Hot Ticket Tuesdays. This weekly post will feature a crafty friend's craft project. I love hearing about what other people are creating, and I feel inspired by others’ inspiration. I want to spread that around on my blog like awesome crafty peanut butter. My pal Sarah Seagrave and I have been wonder-twin-soul-sister-besty-friends since we met each other at the whacky orientation for our graduate school program. I've been watching Sarah diligently knit two different projects over the past month, and I thought that she would be an excellent first person to feature as a Hot Ticket. I sent Sarah a list of questions about her recent knitting projects. Here is how she responded: Tell me about a craft and/or art project you made. DO IT. I have knitted a baby blanket and a sweater. Feel my amazing baby warming prowess! (Flexes muscles) What inspired you to make it? Friends having a baby; but that's a little obvious and not quite it. I hadn't knit anything in a long time. I like to knit, but I don't need anything that I can knit. So many scarves, so little time. But I had tried that crazy ruffle yarn because the novelty snuck up on me. Working with that stuff pissed me off SO bad that I needed to do some regular knitting to cleanse my palate. Did you come up with the idea yourself, or did you find a pattern and/or template that you used? Well I bought this big ass ball of baby yarn and there was a pattern on the label - et voila! The blanket! Then I ran out of yarn with literally five rows left and had to buy ANOTHER big ass ball of baby yarn. With my leftover yarn, I made my first sweater. What type of medium did you use? Um, remember the baby yarn? It's a neat weight though- fuzzy but not hairy. Has a nice pastel heft to it.  

What did you enjoy about making this project? It was wicked easy. Made me feel like a knitting badass. Both patterns were quick and looked cool at the end IMO. What did you think about while you were making it? Well mostly I thought about whatever I liked since it required so little concentration, but I   also spent some time remembering the time before my daughter was born and when she was very small. We got a lot of nice gifts from our friends and family, and a lot of help too, so it was nice to think about that. I want to move that energy forward. Plus Mike and Miranda [friends who are having a baby] are awesome. I thought about them too, I guess.

Were you doing anything else while you worked on this project? If so, what? (For example, sometimes I watch tv while crocheting.) I watched tv and played tabletop RPGs mostly. It was a nice gaming project. Were you pleased with the finished product? What pleased and/or displeased you about it? I think it came out ok. The yarn was a little bulky for the sweater so that's really more a coat and I had to re learn how to bind off, but yeah. Plus babies don't care if stuff is perfect. They don't see that well at first. Will you make it again? Yes I would. My mum donates baby hats and blankets and crap to her church fair so maybe I'll get on that. Lastly, what is your favorite color and glue? Favorite color - today, purple. Favorite glue - hot glue. I like it dangerous and thready. Here are some pictures of Sarah's project:

This blanket is super soft and snuggly!

Sarah added pockets and a button on the collar to finish things off. I still cannot  wrap my head around how she made this with two pointy sticks. Knitting is a mystery to me.

This is fabulous Zelda modeling the sweater and blanket.

CraftRoomArtStudioSalon

As I wrote in my last post (in November...argh), Erik and I moved into a house, which has afforded us a great deal more space than our beloved former apartment. Over the past six months, we've been chipping away at projects around the house. Erik tends to focus on electrical projects (yay for networking the house!). I tend to rearrange, paint, and rearrange again. Surprise! Today's post follows the painting and set up of the Craft Room/Art Studio/Salon. (Erik has chosen to call it "The Salon," which the dramatic part of me enjoys quite a bit.) 

Let's start with some background on our house. Our house is two stories. The first floor contains a living room, kitchen, half bath, dining room, and..."parlor." The people who lived here before us had some random sitting furniture in the "parlor" and some lacy curtains. Also, the walls were seafoam green. I dislike the idea of having a room that is only used on holidays and when you feel the need to sit on the expensive furniture you bought because you bought it. I decided to re-appropriate this room and make it into my office and craft room/art studio. I started with the idea that I wanted the room to be bright, happy, and have an orange wall. You can check out the room's evolution below:

The first step in getting the room ready for painting was to clear  it out. Erik and I had to make several trips upstairs with boxes of craft supplies, which made me wonder how I had accrued so much stuff. I thought about this again when I was unpacking everything...

Next to the "parlor" is a flowery wallpapered dining room. It has a plastic crystal chandelier. Someday it will be painted as well.

The wall you're looking at will be ORANGE in a short while.

Before I painted the walls, I needed to paint the ceiling, which was pretty dingy.  Before I painted the ceiling, I needed to pull the recessed lights out of their sockets and cover them up. I read about how to do this on-line, and managed not to electrocute myself.

This is a rather blurry and unfortunate picture that I want to include because it shows more of the prep. work I did. I taped clear plastic along the baseboards in order to protect the floor. I then covered most of the floor with a canvas tarp.

This picture is much less blurry and unfortunate. It shows the supplies I used: Sponges and a bucket to clean the walls; spackle and wood filler to fix the many holes in the walls and woodwork; paint caulk to fill in gaps in the woodwork; rollers, paintbrushes, paint stirrers, primer, and ceiling paint. Missing from this picture are painter's tape and sandpaper. If you want your walls to look flat and, well, nice, you will need to sand them. A lot. .

This picture displays the finished painted ceiling and the beginning of my spackling work.

I spackled many, many holes, and also sanded and re-sanded areas in which the former tenants of our home had done a lousy painting job. There is no reason to brush paint onto the middle of a wall when you can roll it on. NO reason.

Though the paint I used contained primer, I decided to prime all of the walls beforehand  as a safeguard against former tenant wall goo seeping through the lovely "bleached slate" color I had chosen for three of the walls.

In this picture, you can see the painted "bleached slate" wall against the wall that will be orange. Also, all of the brown woodwork was primed and painted after I finished with the walls.

Orange wall!!!! The baseboard and window are not yet painted.

EVERYTHING painted. Even the window. It was a nice feeling.

We need to stop here for a moment because the next set of pictures address the second stage of the craft room/art studio/salon. My good friends, Scott and Erica, told me about some furniture that Scott's parents were trying to get rid of--specifically a large dresser. I had been on the hunt since before we moved to locate some kind of hutch or shelving unit in which to keep the majority of my craft supplies. I went to see the dresser, and it was perfect. Oh, and FREE, which made it even more perfect. I repainted and changed the hardware on the dresser to give it an update.

Scott's parents had had this dresser for 40 years! It is solid wood and full of drawers. Again, perfect.

This is the hutch that goes with the dresser. I ended up removing the mirror from the hutch  so that I could use the space to store more supplies.

Before I could paint the dresser, I needed to sand it. YAYYYYY.

After I finished painting the dresser and the hutch, I worked on the drawers.

Huzzah! It's finished. In typical Chrissy fashion, I decided to put the dresser against the orange wall after I took this picture. Erik is a good sport and helped me move it.

Desk assemblage came next, with a bit of updating to the desk. I covered the flat part of the desk with fabric and attached cork circles to the side of the shelves so that I would have extra space to hang pictures and doo-dads and whatnot.

Now the unpacking begins. How did I acquire so much stuff??!

More unpacking and organizing...

And then....FINISHED! 

Also, I bought an awesome chaise lounge for lounging and crafting and drinking coffee on.

Desk all set up. I'm storing my yarn in the white boxes, which is a much better system than the basket family I was using.

Everything is PUT AWAY. I'm enjoying it.

So that's the story of how the craft room came together. Since I finished, I've been doing some sewing, crocheting, and thinking about what I'll do next.

Moving and General Whackiness

Greetings Soul Glue followers! It has been about six months since my last post--far, far, FAR too long. In short, Erik and I decided to buy a house and move. When you have about 18 tons of craft supplies, as well as cat accouterments, movies, and dishes to pack, you're busy. The summer was spent packing up the apartment. Early fall was spent moving from the apartment into the house. The remainder of fall has been spent painting, cleaning, raking, and painting. So far, we've completely repainted the master bedroom and kitchen. (When I find the camera, I will post some before and after pictures.) We're settling into the house, as are the cats. I've become a bit addicted to using our fireplace. I actually think it was an old addiction that had gone dormant due to apartment living for several years.

Despite the great move of 2012, I have managed to dabble a bit in crafts. Mostly, I've been crocheting an afghan inspired by a pin on Pinterest, to which I am also now addicted. I posted a post about my Pinterest page a while ago, but here is the link, if you're interested. I've gone bananas with craft related pins.

I think I'll keep this entry short for today. Here are pictures of my cats looking like cyborgs:

How to Grow a Collage Garden

Life has been busy up in Soul Glue land with crafting, taking pictures of crafts, and website-making. If you have ever noted the link to the right--yep, that sexy website link that offers even more Soul Glue--then you've taken a look at my under construction website. If you click on that link now, you will discover a much developed Soul Glue website with lots of pictures and workable links and other wonderful things that you can see on websites. Below are a few sample pictures from the website that will tempt you to go look at more pictures:

I planted some collage seeds and they grew into these fabulous postcards. Ask me how!

My lovely friend Sarah graciously posed with this yoga mat bag on a day when she was packing up to move from her house no less.

The pictures of these baskets were a labor of love. While toting them around our building to find neat places to take pictures, I fell off of our front steps and skinned my knee. I felt like I was ten years old again. My accident didn't stop me, though. I stuck a bandaid on the knee, kept on with the pictures, and managed not to get any blood on the bowls. Phew.

As for general craft projects I have been working on, I finished crocheting a new yoga mat bag yesterday morning. Below are pictures of the finished product:

 

Terrariums-ho!

Last month, I read an article in Better Homes and Gardens Magazine about a book titled The New Terrarium, and I was immediately intrigued. I had never made a terrarium before, but the idea of placing plants and objects within a glass container sounded like a fun project. Yesterday, I invited a few friends over for a terrarium making adventure. We decided to make succulent terrariums, which seemed a bit less challenging to maintain. Combining directions from a few websites (Offbeat Bride, BirdHouse, Martha Stewart) we created a lovely array of terrariums for your viewing pleasure. First, here's a brief description of the supplies we used and what we did:

Supplies:
Cactus Mix Soil (found at Lowe's)
Pebbles or small rocks (also found at Lowe's)
A variety of succulent plants (Lowe's again)
Sheet moss (you guessed it: Lowe's)
Glass container with wide opening (HAHA! Not found at Lowe's! We went to the Christmas Tree Shop for this purchase. If you are not fortunate to live near a Tree, you can get a suitable container from a craft store, Salvation Army, or anywhere else you can think of that sells glass containers.)
Gardening gloves
Funky stones, random objects (these will help jazz up the terrarium)

Directions:
1. Fill the bottom of your glass container with 2-2.5 inches of pebbles.
2. Pour dirt into your container until it is about halfway full.
3. Go crazy arranging your succulents, funky objects, and moss!
4. Water your terrarium until the soil is moist.
5. Gaze at your creation!

Now here's the pictures of our terrariums...

We ran out of daylight by the time we finished, which made taking decent pictures a bit challenging. However, these terrariums still look gorgeous and they were lots of fun to make!

The inside of one of Kerri's terrariums. We voted her the #1 Terrarium Super Star!

Another view. We have some Sarah, Alex, and Emily in this picture.

 

 

One of the terrariums I made in daylight.

Inside view.

Another terrarium by moi in the daylight.

The over-the-top view. I included a porcelain ball in my design to change things up a bit.

Thumbs up for the aftermath!