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Category Archives: crafting

I make! Book box edition (1)

I’ve mentioned before that I have been suffering an acute infection of the attention span.  It’s made it hard for me to accomplish things in reasonable amounts of time.  I think I’ve mostly fought the ASD off, but now and then I relapse.  Such was the case last weekend.

I had picked up a book shaped box on sale from a craft store not too long ago with the intention of refinishing it and using it as my main stationery box (it’s important to support the USPS).  The problem with picking things up on sale is that they’re often not quite what you want.  Here, I’ll show you.

So, I liked the fact that it was a box shaped like a book.  I’m not terribly interested in mutilating a book just so I have an interesting place to store things.  But this supposed book was about butterflies…or something.  Maybe it was a book about postcards on butterflies.  French butterflies.  It’s not terribly clear.  Anyway, I don’t really like butterflies.  But this was the best box out of the selection that was on sale.  If I’m going to use it, obviously it has to change.

So I did this to it.

This is where the ASD comes in.  I meant to have all the refinishing completed in time for today’s post.  But I haven’t and it’s not.  I’ve only managed to re-cover the box.  Arguably, I have recovered it.  Anyway, this isn’t all I had intended to do to the box.  There’s more to come.  But right as I was starting the re-covering process, I suffered an EXTREME lack of motivation and I stopped doing anything for about five days.  I think I’m better now.  And, at least the box passable now.  It was absolutely hideous before.

But if you look carefully, you’ll notice I made some mistakes.  I should have left a flap of paper at the hinge on the inside of the box so that the hinge would be covered.  I forgot.  Also, since I wasn’t thinking, I rather beautifully covered inside of the book cover that is now completely obscured by “pages” of the book.  Because I did that, I ran out of large sheets of the green cardstock and I had to use two different pieces for the bottom of the box.  Oops.  Some of this stuff will be obscured as I proceed to the next segment of the process.  I’ll post that when I finish.

Btw, today is Chocolate Cake Day.  Have you had your slice of chocolate cake yet?

Needle felted guinea pigs

In preparation for another (secret) craft that I plan on making, I decided to pick up needle felting (as it is a technique that I think I may need to use).  I’ve long thought about learning needle felting, after seeing so many projects that Tally has made with felt (yes, all separate links).  It seemed so very easy and versatile.  And also possibly a good way to relieve some frustration (since needle felting involves jabbing a needle with some vehemence over and over into some wool roving).

Seeing as how I’d never done this before, I picked up a needle felting kit and made me some guinea pigs.  The kit ended up being totally unnecessary in the end.  I could have easily picked this up on my own.  It really isn’t a very hard technique at all.  Anyway, here are the results.  Or rather, just one result.  Because I am too lazy to take pictures of more than one guinea pig.

I will call him Roofus.

Here is another photo of Roofus.

Incidentally, I have been seeing things about needle felting all over the place online and so I thought it was popular technique.  Lots of people had mentioned that they were able to pick up supplies at their local craft store, like Michael’s or Joann’s.  Yeah…apparently not.  Or at least, no one else needle felts in SoCal besides me.  A trip to my local Michael’s yielded a pitiful selection of wool and needles (i.e., no separate needles, only in handles, and nearly everything was out of stock).  My trip to Tall Mouse yielded nothing.  They had no needle felting supplies.  But at least they were able to answer my query on whether or not they had supplies for such.  This is important.  Because at my local Joann’s, they had no idea what I was talking about.  None.  They had no idea there was even such a thing as needle felting.  They pointed me to felt sheets.  And then to sewing needles.  And then to the quilting section.  They were very nice and tried very hard to be helpful, but they had no clue.  At all.  I was surprised.

Oh well, online shopping it is.