Sneak peek! I’ve had this piece done for awhile now, and need to get it up soon. The chain is made of several (recycled) chains, and marks a new direction I want to try to go into: more remarkable chain components, and more recycled parts.
fact of life: living in a tiny apartment and working full time makes crafting hard.
![that’s my plastic heart necklace on the top right! on the etsy homepage, linking to a storque tutorial on how to fuse plastic bags. i saw the article in my rss feed and was just about to do a little promotion by linking to some of my creations [since, as usual, they only mentioned using the fused plastic at fabric…] but when i got there i’d been scooped! in a totally awesome way! my necklace [though admittedly my least favorite of my plastic bag creations, what were they thinking?] is one of the related items. free promotion!](http://13.media.tumblr.com/CDoqwmlNph9n7wv1XrJ6KJUno1_500.jpg)
that’s my plastic heart necklace on the top right! on the etsy homepage, linking to a storque tutorial on how to fuse plastic bags. i saw the article in my rss feed and was just about to do a little promotion by linking to some of my creations [since, as usual, they only mentioned using the fused plastic at fabric…] but when i got there i’d been scooped! in a totally awesome way! my necklace [though admittedly my least favorite of my plastic bag creations, what were they thinking?] is one of the related items. free promotion!
adventures in plastic bags
boy, it’s been awhile. i was on vacation [the kind of vacation that is spent at your parents house getting lots of invasive dental work done] for about three and a half weeks, and so did not do a whole lot of crafting. i made up a batch of a different, smaller variety of plastic bag heart pins for some of the ladies in my life for christmas. i was really proud of myself for the way i packaged them—i took one of those little flimsy plastic bags you put fruit in at the grocery store and cut it into rectangles. then i put the pins in and fused the edges closed around the pin with the hot end of a glue gun to make a little recycled baggie. i topped it off with a little folded over bit of newspaper. voila! i’m glad i did this because it presents an interesting solution to a problem i’ve had in the past—namely, how to package recycled things. putting a recycled plastic bag in a new plastic bag just seems…to defeat the purpose. hi, i’m going to toot my own horn some more. anyways. moving on.
i also went to a family friend’s partner’s school to talk to her classes [she’s an art teacher at a montessori school] about how i make recycled crafts. it was a lot of fun; the kids were just so full of creative energy. they astounded and inspired me. in the second group we went on an ironing plastic bag binge. the kids had so so many great ideas about ways to use ironed plastic bags. i don’t mean to be totally cheesy, but i think i was really the one who learned the most that day.
since being back i’ve mostly been doing things in the area of getting ready for the new semester. it’s my last, and it’s going to be a doozy, but i think it’ll also be incredibly worthwhile. maybe [hopefully?] my most worthwhile yet. i started in on a little crafting today while the homework situation is still tame. my big projects at the moment are finding more things to do with fused plastic bags, and creating a really intricate necklace made of bits of paint that have been peeled/chipped off of my apartment building. they recently painted it beige [gag], so there’s bits of the old eggplant and forest green laying around, in addition to a perplexing [but pretty] teal, and some beige. no photos yet! hopefully i’ve have some progress shots to add soon. if i don’t get completely obliterated by homework first. WE’LL SEE.
here’s the official poster for the event i was referring to yesterday. turns out the charity wants to give homeless people downpayments on RVs, not rollerskates. go figure.
acknowledge me!
on december 1st, i’ll be taking part in a diy event called “acknowledge me” at the scoot inn in austin, which is a bar that is about 150 years old. this happens to be right around when all my final papers and projects for school are due, so i may not have as much to sell as i would like to. ah well. it’ll be fun! more about this as i know it. it’s a benefit for a charity that provides something like rollerskates or bikes to homeless people? clearly i’m mightily informed.
![the sampler. i contributed 100 heart pins made out of plastic bags for the holiday sampler. this ended up being WAY more work than i had anticipated. i made about 100 plastic hearts to give away at maker faire, and remembered the process as being easy and quick. boy, i was pretty wrong. after spending several hours several nights after work ironing plastic bags, running out, having to raid my boyfriend’s stash of bags, and ironing more plastic bags, i literally spent about 10 hours one saturday cutting them out and epoxying the pins to the backs. in this time i watched clue, how to lose a guy in 10 days, the last 10 minutes of a cinderella story, the entirety of cinderella story, and saved. whew. and THEN it turned out that the epoxy was snapping off because i didn’t follow the instructions and press it for awhile first [i had used hot glue before and mistakenly thought that epoxy would work even better], and so had to reinforce or re-do all the hearts with hot glue. and then my business cards [from moo, which i love, but consistently come weeks later than they say they will] didn’t arrive in time, and i was SEVEN short. so i had to do a slap-dash job of making my own. i also made about 50 more to include in future samplers as promos. i’m a little embarrased to have had to send them and not something more professional. i considered writing moo an angry letter, but relented. it’s been more than two weeks now and my cards STILL aren’t here. sigh. but hopefully people like my pins. they were a HUGE hit at maker faire, so i think they should be OK. i hope.](http://13.media.tumblr.com/CDoqwmlNph9nv259zdOYvH9uo1_500.jpg)
the sampler. i contributed 100 heart pins made out of plastic bags for the holiday sampler. this ended up being WAY more work than i had anticipated. i made about 100 plastic hearts to give away at maker faire, and remembered the process as being easy and quick. boy, i was pretty wrong. after spending several hours several nights after work ironing plastic bags, running out, having to raid my boyfriend’s stash of bags, and ironing more plastic bags, i literally spent about 10 hours one saturday cutting them out and epoxying the pins to the backs. in this time i watched clue, how to lose a guy in 10 days, the last 10 minutes of a cinderella story, the entirety of cinderella story, and saved. whew. and THEN it turned out that the epoxy was snapping off because i didn’t follow the instructions and press it for awhile first [i had used hot glue before and mistakenly thought that epoxy would work even better], and so had to reinforce or re-do all the hearts with hot glue. and then my business cards [from moo, which i love, but consistently come weeks later than they say they will] didn’t arrive in time, and i was SEVEN short. so i had to do a slap-dash job of making my own. i also made about 50 more to include in future samplers as promos. i’m a little embarrased to have had to send them and not something more professional. i considered writing moo an angry letter, but relented. it’s been more than two weeks now and my cards STILL aren’t here. sigh. but hopefully people like my pins. they were a HUGE hit at maker faire, so i think they should be OK. i hope.
maker faire. completely fantastically amazing event. got to talk to so many people about my work, talk to others about their work, feel both appreciated and inspired. i hope i get the chance to do it again.
