My kitten made me do it...

This is not going to be a crafting post. Sorry to disappoint.
So you may or may not have heard that my boyfriend and I recently adopted a kitten from the Lawrence Humane society (Go adopt yours: http://www.lawrencehumane.org/). We had trouble on deciding which animal and of what species to adopt. He fell in love with a grey tabby named Tom. Tom was a five month old, active, playful kitten. He was also $75. Obviously Tom was not meant for us. We went on a Thursday so cats older than 6 months are free plus you receive a free collar, a free bag of food, and the cat is micro-chipped for free so it can be tracked if ever lost (go here http://www.lawrencehumane.org/ or find your humane society).
I am not one to jump into a decision. Sure, I jumped into getting a pet but deciding on the specific one was tough. Especially after I saw Dozer. Dozer is a dog that was left by his owners on the side of the road. Not only that but Dozer was left by people who had previously adopted him from a Humane Society. He looked so sad. It reminded me of my first puppy, Romeo.
After settling that no, we weren't going to buy Tom or Dozer since both cost $75, we had to choose between two very similar cats. The problem with choosing is that we each chose one cat and wouldn't budge. We walked around trying to decide and then I found her. We had just walked into Cat-topia where all the cats roam free and the cutest of little black cats walked by. It didn't take much time and we were on our way home with our Phoenix. We kept the name that the Humane society gave her.

So this lovely story of how the newest member of our household came to be brings me to how my cat drove me crazy. Phoenix is fully housebroken. She was cleared with a clean bill of health at her check up. So you can image my annoyance that she continually goes to the bathroom on the carpet in front of her litter box. This has been going on for about a week now. All we need to do is make it to Monday and then she is going to the vet, and this is why. Her litter is clean and new. We thought that maybe she was mad that we kept her locked in our room while we weren't at home so now we've been leaving the door open. Still using the carpet. She also has been dragging her butt on the carpet which has been going on for longer than a week so maybe she is trying to tell me something. Either way it's not her fault. I understand. But after working a double shift and then coming home to her presents on the carpet for the second time today you can imagine my annoyance. I snapped. I came home, saw it, got pissed. As soon as the carpet was clean I nailed a towel to the floor. Now you might say "why on earth did you NAIL a towel down??". Well here's my reasoning. I've put a towel down before and she just goes on the towel which is great. Exactly what I wanted. The thing about Phoenix is that she isn't dumb. She's actually a really smart kitty. She knows that we'll be mad. My boyfriend is just as annoyed with her. So she covers it up like I won't notice. She pulls rugs, towels, nearly anything she can over it to cover. She even pulled my hair straightener of the dresser by it's cord once (the horror!!). As you can tell I am annoyed and I refuse to deal with it anymore. So I nailed a towel to the floor. I have no advice other than, if your cat is dragging it's butt on the floor take it to a vet.

Rental Horrors

This is the project that I am the most proud of and I get to see it every day!
Recently, my boyfriend and I began renting a room out of a house with other college kids. Specifically boys. Before we moved in there were five guys (burgers and fries?) living here. So, needless to say, this place was disgusting (sorry if any of you are reading this).
When we moved into the house we noticed that everything is pink. Ugly pink. The rooms, the bathrooms, the kitchen cabinets. It's so strange. I guess the story is that the owner's of the house let their two little girls paint their rooms and the bathroom whatever color they wanted. And apparently they didn't help them paint it, at all. I have no clue what happened to the kitchen but that explains the paint job in the rooms. The nails and plug-in covers were all painted the same pink. The air vent on the wall was pink too. The worst part? Not only did the girl who lived in our room paint over tape but she painted over dust. Actually, to be more accurate, a spiders nest. I got the privilege of cleaning up dead baby spiders that were trapped until their death in their own egg sack. Aren't rental horror stories fun?
Anyways, I had this vision. I decided to get crafty. The room is mostly for my boyfriend so I decided on the colors of beige and navy blue. It's a pretty dark navy blue. We spent a few days painting the entire room beige. Three walls took two coats. I wasn't sure what to do about the ceiling. I didn't want to paint the whole ceiling but the girls didn't tape anything when painting so there was a lot of pink on the ceiling. We decided to just paint over the pink with beige since it wouldn't be THAT noticeable from afar.
Okay, enough talk. Here's the fun part. It'll be easier to show you.

I did this (by myself) while my boyfriend was at work. I intended to surprise him with it since he had no clue what I was trying to describe to him. It was pretty funny. Every time someone would ask about the paint job he would describe it to them wrong. I would correct him and then the next time he tried to describe it he'd get it wrong in a completely different way. I digress. Like I said, we painted all of the walls beige but, since most of this wall was going to be covered up, we only did one coat on this wall. I ran out of tape half way through the wall and had to walk (my boyfriend had my car for work) to the hardware store (that ended up being closed) and then Dollar General to get tape. It didn't matter if it was the same type of tape, just the same thickness. I was worried that the tan tape, which wasn't painters tape, wouldn't work as well but it worked just fine. All of these boxes were free handed so some of them are a little crooked but it kind of added to the look, like it is supposed to look that way.
After making all of the boxes I used a roller and painted blue over the entire wall. I used two coats to make sure it covered. This whole project didn't take that much time but I had to wait for the paint to mostly dry before peeling off the paint (in case I needed to paint over a few places). I think this is the perfect accent wall for our little room. This wall is the biggest of all of the walls and isn't broken up by doors or the closet. You can kind of see in the left corner of the picture that our ceiling slopes so all of our other walls are short.

This is the end project and my boyfriend. Both cleaned up nicely don't you think? We painted all of the other baseboards blue as well as the doors because, again, they were all pink. That explains why the window, which wasn't pink, is also blue. It really doesn't make sense that the only thing that wasn't pink was that window. All well. My next painting project is the bathroom which is a slightly less disgusting color of pink but I think that the left over beige will cover it since it's so small.

Some cool alternatives to this project would be diamonds rather than squares. I am a big fan of accent walls. Stripes can also be made. I am a fan of many different sized stripes on one wall but that's just me. Any two colors can be used. Always do a light and a dark or a neutral and a light/dark. Never two dark colors, because the room will be dark and depressing and never two brights, because it will be blinding. One day I want to do a brown diamond wall in my living room. I will probably use beige again but have orange accents throughout the room.

Dream Big

So this is a project that I did for school. The one I made isn't very crafty but I really liked the idea and have a few ways that it could be made more appealing to the eye so I'm ognna go ahead and share it.
This is my dream board:

This would be a good project for a rainy day or with kids. The way we did it in class was to make a list of 5 dreams that you hope to complete within the next year, 5 within the next 5 years, and then 3 for the next 10. I really didn't like the "within a year" part because I didn't really have anything important I wanted to do. I used things like go to college (which is important but I knew I would do it already), get clear skin, get healthy, and things like that. Honestly, I didn't even attempt these goals. They just weren't that important to me. It's the other ones that meant a lot. I've had dreams of traveling and a son for a long time. It's was important to me that they go onto my dream board. All of my pictures were cut out of magazines and glued onto a piece of constriction paper. My teachers laminated it and it hangs on my wall today.

This project is pretty plain. So I came up with some ways to make it look prettier.

1. I have seen online where people have taken cookie sheets, spray painted them, and then used them as a magnet board. The same idea could be used for this. Remember, the idea is your dreams from now so don't change the dreams out. Just add on new ones as they develop.

2. A shadow box from Hobby Lobby would be a great idea. This way not only pictures but actual objects could go into your dream board (box). If I had made a shadow box then I would of included a miniature Eiffel tower since I have always dreamed of going to Paris. Use scrapbook paper to decorate the background of the shadow box.

3. Goodwill has a lot of large, cheap picture frames. Buy one and remove the picture as well as the glass from the frame. This leaves the cardboard backing to the frame. Cover the cardboard with scrapbook paper and attach the pictures of your dreams. It's the same idea as what I made, just better looking.

Basically all of these have the same idea: give yourself a visual of your dreams to see daily. This makes you remember them each day and will most likely cause you to think about how to achieve them. For instance, lately when I've seen my board, I have thought about my trip to Washington that I am working towards. I hope to be at the Presidential inauguration. No matter what your dreams are just give yourself a daily reminder to help them along. Don't let yourself forget about them.

Shoes! Shoes! Shoes!

Alright, so here is another project that I absolutely loved!!! A while back my sister was getting rid of a lot of her clothes and such. First, she came to me with her unwanted clothes to see if I wanted any. She had these heels.

I really love shoes and will pretty much take any I can get so I grabbed a hold of these. That was a while back and I have yet to wear them today. They're cute but the black/brown combo makes me unsure and I don't wear a lot of brown anyways. Then I saw a tutorial on pinterest for painting your heels. I really wanted to try it so I decided to use these as my Guinea pig.

What you'll need:

1. The first step to adding some color to your heels is to use rubbing alcohol to clean the bottom of the shoes. My shoes have ridges in the bottom so I made sure I was extra careful and cleaned them well.

2. The second step is to cover the bottom of your shoes in a layer of white nail polish. It doesn't have to be thick it just needs to cover the area you want to be colorful. I used a regular paint brush to cover the bottom quicker. This ruined my brush. The tutorial said that nail polish remover would get rid of it but that's not true apparently. Luckily I have cheap brushes.

My shoe is hanging on and upside down stool to dry.

3. Once the white is completely dry you can begin to cover with your second color of nail polish. This will be your final color. You will probably need two or three coats to cover it completely. Remember that the shoes will be viewed from afar so it's not super important that the color is thick.

This is my end result. I think they're super cute now. I chose pink because it matches most of my "Going out" outfits. It also was my most popular nail polish color and this project takes a good portion of the bottle so I wanted to use something I have a lot of. There were some spots on the underneath of the shoe where paint got onto the black that I didn't want to paint. I just used a black sharpie (!!!) to cover up these spots as well as any scuffs. The shoes look great now!

My boyfriend James has been bugging me to write a blog post about him. So I'm just going to quickly include that he is the weirdest guy I have gone out with but also the most interesting. He changes the words to the music of songs and sings to me. They don't rhyme and hardly make sense but its cute. We have a kitten named Phoenix and, before we got her, he promised he would clean out the litter box every day and that I would never have to if we got a kitten. Now that we have her that's completely changed. He complains every time I ask him too, but it's worth it because she's pretty great too. That's pretty much all I have to say. Just trying to embarrass him as any good girlfriend would.

Add some class to that....

This next project I absolutely loved. Ever since I was a kid I've had a problem with long legs and a small waste. Now how could this be a problem you might say? It's a hell of a thing to complain about. With jeans it's not so bad because I can buy jeans in long but shorts are ridiculous. As a kid they weren't so bad but now fashion companies are responding to the skankiness of my generation (I apologize on our behalf) and shorts are getting shorter and shorter. When you have a small waste and long legs the shorts look even shorter. Every year it gets worse. I hate it. Shorts that are supposed to be mid thigh are my shorts these days. Anyways, until recently I've been either selling or collecting my jean shorts as my legs get longer and my shorts look shorter. Now, I'll be honest, at some point to high school I did succumb to the flaw of my generation and my shorts were pretty short, but they always covered. I grew out of it and ended up throwing away or selling a bunch of shorts. Since I got rib of so many I barely have any now and summers are hot. Rather than throw away the few pairs of shorts I have left, I found a picture on pinterest that will make shorts that are only a little too short a little longer.

When I found this link online it was only a link to a picture of shorts. I've put off wearing these shorts for a long time because of how short they are. The lace has added about an inch to them. I wish I could unroll them but they are sewn at the hems and I don't know enough about sewing to undo that.

As I've said before I don't have a sewing machine which makes this difficult. I do have no sew stitch from a toga project I did a few months back. I bought this liquid stitch at Hobby Lobby. So what I did is I turned my shorts inside out. The lace I used was identical all around (same pattern, as most laces are) so I found a spot on it that would be where the edge of my pants reaches on the lace so that the lace would be even all around. I applied a line of no sew gel and spread it out with my finger. After placing the lace on the gel I used some pins to keep the lace in place until it dried. I did this all around to both legs of the shorts. Then I took my mini sewing kit. I hand stitched at the places that probably wouldn't stay on just the no sew gel like the inner and outer thighs. Then I put a few security stitches in random places just in case they started to fall apart the first time I wore them. This way they wouldn't look ridiculous if that happened and they would still look together until I could get home. They didn't fall apart. The no sew stitch gel is machine washable. You'll need to let the gel dry completely. I let mine sit out 24 hours before I wore them even though it doesn't take that long to dry completely.

I only did this because I didn't have a sewing machine. If you have a machine I highly recommend doing it that way so that there isn't a chance that the lace will fall apart. You will also want to sew (by machine or hand) the two ends of the lace together once they wrap around. I had the lace begin and end on the inner leg so that the stitches and ends couldn't be seen. The lace I chose wasn't very wide (maybe 1.5 inches). I'd base the lace width on how much you want to add to your shorts. I also chose off-white lace because I think it will match more and give my outfits a country feel.

Craftastic Hoarding

So I guess one of the things that makes me so crafty is that I hoard crafts. Not that it doesn't also take some artistic ability to connect pieces and make something but hoarding is definitely part of it. Over the years I have hoarded everything. I still have some mosaic tiles that I found in the art supply room in middle school. I don't do this on purpose but there is always a little voice, that I listen to, that says "hey that might come in handy one day. You might NEED that" so I keep it. Now, some things do come in handy but many just sit in my craft box.

Over the years I have collected feathers from failed projects, paints of the same exact brand and shade (past and present me both have great taste), and scraps of fabric as well as many other odds and ends. While all of this is a large part of my craft creating collection, I think that there are some essentials that everyone trying to craft should have.

1. The very first and most important is a hot glue gun. From the beginning of crafternity the hot glue gun has been the center of the craft universe. When I lived at home I used my mom's. Soon after moving into college I realized I couldn't function without one. Elmers or super glue just aren't my thing. So I went out and bought my very own glue gun. I thought they would be expensive but turns out Hobby Lobby has mini glue guns for around $5 which, though I am poor, is in my budget. Definitely the most important part of my crafting. I use it for nearly every project.

2. While not as important for crafting but still important in daily life, I think the sewing kit deserves to make this list.

This is just a small sewing kit that my boyfriend picked up at Walmart for me for Mother's Day (proud mom of three goldfish). It was mostly a joke between us but still a good gift since I needed a kit. It comes with pins, needles, threads, and all the other essentials to sewing and was only $5. It's no sewing machine and could never replace one but has been helpful thus far. There are a lot of DIY projects I would like to do that involve a lot of sewing but, until I get my own sewing machine, this will suffice.

3. I don't have a lot to say about this next item but paint brushes are important for the obvious reasons: to paint anything other than your nails (I have a secret for that). I bought a large pack of assorted brushes at Hobby Lobby for probably $5 (it was a while ago so I may be wrong on the price).

4. Number four is important to me and my crafting but may not be a necessity to others. I love sharpies. Of any and every color. I have used them for a lot of things and I think that they are very useful, especially for things that would be hard to paint (mostly small things like lines). When I was a preteen I used to carry a Sharpie with me wherever I went. I once drew in (on) a JCPenny elevator. It wasn't a bad drawing either, pretty artistic (haha). There was also a long time that I would write on my shoes whenever I felt the need (no idea why I needed to write on my shoe). So, anyways, sharpies are important to my crafts. I like to doodle.

5. This is probably only going to be a list of five important things for your magic craft box so last but not least is the magic craft box itself. Mine is just a green tub I bought at the dollar store, though it has been transported over the years to several different containers. For Christmas last year I received a carrying case to sort my crafts so I actually have two bins now for my crafts. In my craft box I have pictures that don't yet have a home, tissue paper from presents, buttons, old artwork, and lots of other odds and ends. Like I said, any little thing that you might want to keep can go into this box. I have one cherry clip-on earring because it's pair was used in a BFF frame for my best friend from high school. It's important to me so it goes in the box. Anything you might want to use one day, that the voice says "don't get rid of that", goes into this box. Without it, all your other items are useless...

Obviously this is just my opinion on crafts but it's worked for me thus far. Get crafty this weekend!

Poor College Crafts

The summer before I left for college I went crazy and spent a lot of money, on a lot of things. My family jokes about the floor lamp I bought without a reason other than it was $4 (it stands in my living room today, great investment). I was going to college and I didn't know what I'd need. I bought a lot of things I just didn't and a lot of things that while, yes useful, were UGLY. One such thing is my Goodwill table.

Let me just say that Goodwill is a godsend. I spend a lot of time trying to save my money. Buying what I need for as close to nothing as possible. I'm sure one day I will come an extreme coupon-er like I've seen on TV. Every year for Christmas I buy all my presents (family gives me money to shop for myself) from Goodwill. I want the clothes and jeans are too expensive, but I digress.

That summer before college I was at Goodwill and found a side table. It's cardboard but sturdy. It was also purple. Ugly purple. This is one of those side tables that can be bought at Target for $15. I got it for $1.50. Another reason why I love Goodwill: Used doesn't mean in bad shape (but I wouldn't buy couches there). Purple is not one of my favorite colors so I decided to get crafty and change it. Spray paint has become my best friend.

Its actually sideways here but still gets the point across. This is the top. I started off by spray painting the table yellow since it is my roommate and mine's favorite color. I considered her while creating this since I didn't know her yet and didn't want to seem inconsiderate. The legs were sprayed as well. I made the mistake of spraying this on the cement (though I don't regret it) because I didn't want the grass to stick/mess up the paint.

It took about 10 minutes for the paint to dry. While I was waiting on that I went into the house and drew some stars on a piece of poster board. I also wrote the word "Believe" in blue (I will explain what happened in a moment). I cut all of it out. I then went back outside. I placed the "Believe" on the table and used a few pieces of scotch tape to secure the poster then began to spray paint in blue.

When it comes to these projects (and everything else) I am impatient so I started to spray paint the red stars before the blue had dried. When I finished with the stars and removed the paper some of it (the paper) had dried to the table hence the weird spots and the absence of "Believe". I tried to scrape the paper off but that didn't work so well. Essentially I just sprayed the entire bottom to get rid of the "believe" word. Because the table is made of cardboard the paint doesn't scratch off (easily).

I was going for the college, inspirational look. I have seen this same thing done with other stencils (flowers, hearts, trees, children's hand prints). Two of these tables pushed together make a good coffee table. I've seen this with half a stencil on one table and the other half on the other table.

Right now I don't have batteries in my camera so I'm posting past crafts. I didn't get this idea from pinterest but I have seen it on there.

Here's a Tack to Pin That

The Beginning


A friend told me about pinterest.com. She showed me an app on her iphone (part of me envies this app and the other is thankful I don't have it. I would never look away from it). Slowly, or not so slowly, I have become nearly addicted. My drug of choice: DIY & Crafts. I can't help it. I have always been an arts and crafts kind of girl so imagine my excitement when finding a site practically dedicated to doing stuff. All kinds of stuff! Arts, crafts, food and pastries, activities, anything! Obviously, I instantly dumped my stubleupon account and took hold of the pinterest bandwagon. Now I can't get off. Look at this! I'm even devoting a blog to the site! Now that's dedication.

Reasoning


My thing, how I really learn, is mimicking. That's my problem with pinterest (one of very few). Some pins don't go anywhere. When a youtube video is pinned that's just dandy but I'm not interested in the hair tutorials (because, frankly, my hair will never behave as well as Candy's does for her whatchamacallit hairstyle). I'm interested in the make-your-own dinnerware and all those bracelets. I want to do something with my hands that I can look at daily because I don't have the time or patience to mess with my hair, a ponytail will suffice. I want something to be proud of. But again some things are without directions or aren't in English (I should have stayed awake in High School Spanish). So, while I may be frustrated by the lack of help, I'd like to let others know how I'm doing what i am and how I've done what I have with so little (specifically very little $$$).

I'm not going to schedule my blogs and I won't post one about a project today. Some blogs will be short about small projects, some might include several projects, some will be one long project. All projects are open to interpretation and can probably be done differently and even better. Most projects will be my first time and won't be repeated.

ENJOY

-KMOlogy