A Milli

A million projects. Really. Like Weezy, but with projects instead of dollars. We moved two weeks ago and though none of the rooms is totally unpacked and finished, I'm excited about how everything is coming together. Anthony built a bed based on these plans, which we're also using to build a daybed/sofa. Pics to come once they're in a photographable state. The same goes for everything else that's in progress, so I won't spoil the surprise by trying to describe the crazy/amazing things we're doing. 

There are a few small things I can share, though, like this thrifted lamp (above). It was originally painted a weird mauve. I sprayed it flat white and added a shade and a finial and suddenly it was amazing.

Anthony built this sweet and simple stand for the tv and stereo. Just five pieces of 1" luan plywood (which I got for $5 from the scrap cart at Lowe's) and some deck screws. I've thought of a bunch of ways to paint/embellish it, but for now I'm digging on the bare-wood-and-screws look.

Last but not least, more lighting. Since the place is a rental, we couldn't paint the chandelier like we wanted, but then I remembered a post I'd seen on Design*Sponge and decided to try it out myself. I rolled some pretty paper around the outside of the tubes that were already on the fixture (which just slip right off, btw) and glued it to itself with rubber cement. If you wanted to get fancy, you could use PVA, but this worked just fine and is a lot more forgiving. Bonus for the fact that, seeing how a sheet of scrapbooking paper generally costs less than a dollar, I can switch it out for something new whenever we get bored of this.

Printing, Binding, & Lil' Wayne

I disappeared over the holidays for several reasons. One of those was that Anthony and I were working on the most amazing project of all time. We compiled all of the hip-hop tracks from the Billboard Hot 100 for every year from 1993 to the present. Getting all of the music took forever, then the track and artist names had to be formatted. I also went through and tagged all of the songs for easy organization in iTunes. Massive undertaking. But that's not all, folks. We also screenprinted posters for a few friends. The background text is (most of) the track and artist names from the compilation. The main copy is the title of the compilation, but more importantly it's how we feel about our friends. I was thrilled about how the project turned out, and so happy to send these little packages out to people I love.

This was my first time screenprinting on paper or with multiple screens so Anthony's experience was clutch. We printed on a craft paper, which I love the look of, but came with its own set of issues. Not only was the paper uneven, but it came off of a roll, so curling was a big issue (I ♥ masking tape). The first layer was originally intended to be a vivid turquoise acrylic mixed with screen printing medium (a method that allows you to get a lot of colors you can't otherwise get, and more cheaply than buying some of the nicer screenprinting inks). The ink ended up on the thin side, though, and as it was the middle of the night and we really needed to get printing, we changed colors. The heavier body of the white we switched to made wrinkles in the paper less of an issue.

I'm really looking forward to more screen printing projects, but I think I'll wait till I have a little more space to dedicate to the activity. Doing it all in someone else's house without a proper studio was not ideal. So in the meantime I've been working on some smaller scale paper projects, including different sized portfolios based on one that caught my eye at an art store last week. The largest one I'm working on is for 11"x17" paper. Above is a half-sheet (5.5" x 8.5") test run that I did prior to starting on the big one. Digging it.

Moleskine Re-Pimp

Say "hello" to my (re)refreshed Moleskine. The spine of this little trooper was threatening to give out so I gave him a facelift. Plus it gave me an excuse to trade out the green endpapers (from last year's fix/pimp) for yellow ones. Pantone^® may find it passé, but I'm still about it.

This was my second attempt to fix this particular issue, so I'm extra proud that it turned out so fly. On the first go the book cloth refused to adhere to the cover. This time I scored the cover along the perimeter of the to-be-recovered area and (carefully) peeled away the black plastic-y stuff, leaving exposed book board. Problem solved. Moleskine pimped. Fresh as fuck.

Pre-hibernation

I've had a bizarre couple of weeks. Sometimes exciting, sometimes depressing, always crazy. There have been points when it felt like a lose/lose situation. I was just hoping to salvage something recognizable from the aftermath. But now it appears that everything is alright, and my worries are coming to nothing.

Worrying is something I've been trying to do less, actually. It's not terribly easy to tell the difference between necessary consideration and unnecessary anxiety, but when it's obviously fruitless, I try to remember to leave it alone. Of course that brings up the whole other issue of noticing a thought or feeling and letting it go, rather than just suppressing it. They say these things get easier with practice. Keep your fingers crossed.

As part of my efforts, I've been putting away the accumulated mess of a million unstarted projects. I invented these activities for myself, so why do I get so stressed when I don't make them happen immediately and all at once? Back into the boxes you go, crafts. You will not get done until I damn well choose, which may be two years from now. Or possibly never. So there! And as simple as that, I'm no longer worried about the wood I didn't refinish, the vinyl I didn't paint, or the books I didn't bind.

My mind has got other things on it, anyway. There are only a few days left of razing, building, cleaning, curating, and drinking before my little artkidcommune experience goes into hibernation for the winter along with the sleeping beauty of thriftstoreartmuseums. It's an unavoidably microcosmic, life-in-fast-forward environment, and there's nothing to do but be in it till it's done, apparently. I'll miss the campers when they're gone.

Pretty soon I'll be going to New York for Thanksgiving. Then I'll be looking forward to a wedding and seeing everyone over New Years. But right now, the only thing I want to think about is all the Nintendo I'm going to play. I love you, Professor Layton. I'm coming home.

Busy Bee

Too terribly busy with made-up work to even take pictures of it all, but here's the recent stuff:

Mini cheesecakes, half swirled with blackberry, the others plain, and...

...lavender earl grey cupcakes with lemon buttercream for Tim and Kaylan's joint birthday party. I made the cupcakes from this recipe. I added a step which was to heat the milk and steep some tea in it before letting it cool and adding it to the batter. It was pretty bergamot-ish before I put it in the batter, but the cupcakes still didn't have enough of the tea flavor for my taste. Next time I'd say more tea in the batter and less lemon in the icing (delish, but totally overpowered the other flavors).

I finished up an order for a toddler-sized kimono recently, too. Babymamma requested pink, which wouldn't have been my first choice, but I think I made it work. The kimono itself is about 23" long, just to give you an idea of the size. Besides the standard obi, I made a pre-tied bow that snaps on over a simple knot. Probably easier than retying a traditional knot/bow every time a diaper needs changing.

Selfishly, though, my favorite project (of this post, anyway) was one for myself that Faith helped me with this weekend. She and her dad built a sweet stand for her laptop a few months ago and I've been coveting it ever since. Luckily for her, it was the wrong size for my laptop. And luckily for me, it was way easy to build. It's totally perfect because it lets air get under the computer, but is also totally comfortable on your lap...don't get me started on commercial stand designs.

The most time consuming thing about making this thing was getting the color the way I wanted it–saturated, but with the grain showing through. It was essentially a matter of patience and possibly a little obsessive compulsion. I used watered down interior latex paint at about a 4:1 paint-to-water ratio, and painted on with a large artists' brush. After a minute or two I used a combo of dry and damp paper towels to wipe off excess paint and even out the coat. Once it's dry, you just polyurithane, sand, and repeat. The very least step was to glue the black foamy, rubbery, I-don't-know-what strips to the top of the riser pieces and it was donedonedone. I'm a little infatuated with it, I have to admit. It turned out exactly perfect (look at that yellow!).

Alchemy

I've known about Etsy's Alchemy for a while, but never really checked it out until a couple of days ago. All of a sudden I'm making bids left and right for all kind of things. Mainly it's been graphics or print production stuff but I've bid on fabric-based projects as well. For those of you who don't know, Alchemy is a service where a person places a wanted add for something, with an ideal price and shipping date. It ranges from the very specific (a yard and a half of a particular fabric) to the very general (a present for my mother). Anyone with an Etsy account can bid on the job with a description of what they can or will do, a price, and their own shipping date.

Three of my bids have been accepted, so I've got some real (read: paid) projects to work on. One is a custom Pillow Monster, another is a kimono and obi for a toddler, and the third is two fabric reward charts for kids to keep track of their chores and earn goodies. All of them are going to be fun, but I've already discovered that I should bid high, rather than low. Once I've figured it out, I'll be able to make more of the reward charts, but so far I'm afraid I've spent a terrible amount on supplies because I haven't got all the details worked out. I did pick out some really cute fabric, though. There are a couple of bids that I really hope get accepted because the projects are super fun. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Also, if you've got anything you need made, designed, printed, or whatever, you should think about putting up a request. I'm considering using Alchemy to get a coat tailored.

The weekend is nearly upon us and though I didn't get all of my chores done, I at least opened a bank account and mailed out a pillow that I sold the other day. Plus I put together a design portfolio of sorts on Flickr, with mock-ups of some of my buttons and other design stuff. Still no tags, though. Apparently it's going to require getting a North Carolina driver's license. It's been a while since I had one of those. Maybe my picture will be better this time around.

p.s. I put up a new Often Awesome Army skin on Personas. Check it out.

Copycat

I've accumulated this pile of toys to paint, so I made a trip to the art supply store today to get some acrylics. The person working there clued me in to the existence of this totally sweet gallery/shop in Car Mill Mall called Wootini. They show art in the front and sell toys, art books, and magazines like Juxtapoz and Playtimes in the back. Perfect! (I spent too much on an issue of Playtimes with a Tokidoki cover because I'm secretly a little obsessed.)

So that was a bonus, and in addition, on the way to the hardware store for some plastic primer I discovered a radass shop, Chapel Hill Comics, on Franklin Street. I loitered there for at least an hour looking at their comics and amazing art books. I must have written down ten different things that I want to buy when I've got some spare cash.

I'm hoping to do some actual work on a couple of toys this weekend, so I cleaned and primed most of the figures. The Hello Kitties were pretty easy, especially the ones that didn't have a lot of paint on them. The only real problem I hit was with the Ghost Rider Mighty Mugg I snagged on sale at Urban Outfitter the other day. The head part was fine, but the body was a disgusting mess. I figured the body would be black vinyl with just a little bit of silver and white paint. There was black coming off, though, so I thought maybe it was painted over the same base plastic as the head. But no matter how much I rubbed, the black wouldn't come off. It started to get totally gloppy and nasty with bits of cotton ball stuck in it. Ew. I got it as clean and smooth as I could and left it to dry. I'm going to try sanding it a bit tomorrow and then priming. My only concern is that I want to leave the flames the way they are and I'm not sure how to avoid getting spray paint all over them. I'll work that out tomorrow, I guess.

Oh, I almost forgot. My new glasses came today.

Procrastination

Per usual I have gotten a lot of useless things done over the last couple of days when there were plenty of important tasks I should have been about. Once I finished modding my moleskine, I slapped PVA and paper onto anything that would stand still. I ended up with a small softcover notebook for the trip, so my important one doesn't get ruined, and I put a new cover on a completely hideous and useless large notebook, just because it was sitting there. The moleskine has new endpapers, ribbon/bookmark, a new pocket, and (!!!) elastic bands on the spine to hold a pen.



I'm relatively certain that I have everything I need for tomorrow, though I'll have to leave some errands for a trustworthy friend, and I'll be making phone calls during layovers. With all the time changes and everything, I leave on the morning of the 1st, and don't arrive in Colombo until 2am on the 3rd. I haven't gotten a full night's sleep, or anywhere close to it, in longer than I can remember, though, so I'm looking forward to tons of that. When I arrive, I'll medicate myself into the appropriate level of wake fullness and hopefully avoid most of the jet lag. Just talking about this is making me too tired to go on. Nap time.