Week 13

This week I made another bolero. I made it a size smaller, because I felt the other one was a little big.

 Both this one and the last one are reversible, but I picked more exciting lining this time :)

I also did a little teeny project I've been meaning to do for awhile now, and that's to take my souveneir shirts, cut the nostalgic logo out of them and sew them all together like a quilt. I only did my volunteer/special event shirts in this one, but it's a lot easier than holding onto a bunch of shirts i'm never going to wear again. I cut up what was left of the t-shirts into large rectangles (size of small towels) and plan on donating them to an animal shelter since they're always looking for fabric bedding for their crates and kennels (towels, sheets, tshirts, etc) 

Week 12-Fabric is Back In

I've decided to allow fabric into the mix, and this week I made a leather-look bolero.

Year 2: Week 4

Early in the week I made another dress, with a matching headband and a matching collar for Honey:

Then tonight (Saturday night), I still needed a piece that fit my new rules. I didn't really have anything in mind so I just painted a glass black and went to town.  

 I kind of wish I had left an outline around it, but I always figure that out after I'm halfway through taking it all off...

Looks pretty awesome with orange juice. lol.

Like most of the glass I  do at the end of the week, it still needs its final rubbing alcohol clean up and clear coat. I stabbed myself with the knife I was using to take paint off though so no more of that tonight.

Year 2: Week 2

This week is similar to last week with a glass and a dress.

Pilsner Glass Lava Series:

I really like this dress. It's a black and white paisley with a fitted waist and a very gathered skirt. I did alter the pattern some.



Yes, I chopped my head off because it was not a flattering photo. No, Bob cannot be compelled to tell me when I'm not facing the camera.


I still have 4-5 fabrics left so expect more dresses in the weeks to come! I also have a lot of blank glasses waiting to be painted so anticipate some fun little ones soon too!

Year 2: Week 1

And so The Xarata Project continues...with RULES!!! lol. It should come as no surprise that having given myself rules, I feel like making something outside those rules. However, I made the rules and I'm going to play by them so first- Glass!

This is my very first pilsner glass. Scratchglass Tree Series: Pilsner. I chose the tree bark design set because the very cool thing about this design is that if you fill the glass with a dark beer, naturally the whole glass looks black. As you drink it, the lines appear in the glass which is really pretty fun to look at. This particular design has never really photographed particularly well, but here you are:



This picture looks funny because the light from the room and the flash shined through the glass and created reflections of the opposite sides of the glass, but you get the idea.

  So...if I didn't feel like working with glass or metal, what did I feel like making? DRESSES!!! I've been looking for springtime dresses and you know what, they just aren't out there right now- you can find the same 3 bohemian style dresses in every store between 2 racks and that's it. You can get swimsuits and formalwear, but springtime dresses are apparently out. So I decided to make them. Yesterday I went to JoAnn Fabrics (and was pleasantly surprised to find it was the first day of their 3-day sale) and bought lots of fabric and a few patterns at $1.99 each. This is the first:

I was going for whimsy in this picture. lol. Note the matching headband.

Doesn't it look like it's straight out of the 50s? Yellow has never really been my color, but it's been so cold and I'm ready for Spring darn it!

Week 45

You may recall that last week, I started on a project for a coat. There were a few snags- the fabric that i originally chose that happened to be an end of the bolt cut just wasn't enough (without some serious creativity involved) and rather than go back to the store and pick out something else, i switched to a pretty color gradient- green that I bought sometime in college (let's say 4 years ago). I didn't have quite enough to do the facing too so some of the black lining shows, but it blends fairly well. It was also originally going to be sandwiched with a fleece layer, but i changed my mind when i changed the fabric to satin, so now it's a jacket. It's basically a peacoat- except that it's green satin...

pay no attention to the wet hair...

Also, I realized around the beginning of the week that my procrastination on this project stemmed from one very identifiable source- i did not want to spend 5-6 hours at a time in the freezing cold basement with my sewing machine. Solution? We went to walmart and bought a folding table and folding chair and set up a temporary sewing area for me in the library- the library isn't really big enough for this which is why i stress temporary- i don't mind going into the basement in the summertime. It ended up being a good thing, because our furnace started pouring hot water all over the floor today. Most of my things (all the important things) actually are elevated/not on the floor down there, but my sewing machine pedal and some of the cords would have been on the floor so at least they were safe upstairs instead.

Week 20

I've been pretty burned out the last couple of weeks so I'm trying to find my motivation.

Like presents...I thought my neice was going to be in town (she was actually on her way to Chicago so it was just a quick visit), but I've been meaning to make her a dress out of some smocked tinkerbell fabric my mother-in-law gave me a year ago, so I did that this week.

I also have realized that I've been hoarding a tube of clear liquid lipstick base I have from obsessive compulsive cosmetics because it's around $13 a tube and i don't want to have to re-purchase. Knowing the ingredients list is really short and simple, I finally decided to give it a go and make it myself. I bought castor oil, liquid vitamin e, hemp seed oil, and peppermint oil for about the same price as a tube of clear liptar, but in quantity to make a whole tub of it. To start out, I only made about 2 tablespoons (which is still 2 tubes of clear liptar and didn't even dent my ingredients supply). It's a sort of clear yellow color, slightly sticky, supermoisturizing, and holds color extremely well. I would say mine came out just as good as theirs.
Here it is with a coral powdered mineral blush thrown into it to make it a lipstick. For more opaque lipsticks, you just add some white mineral foundation base (zinc oxide/titanium dioxide) and it'll make your color pack even more of a punch.

I really love it- it's especially great for nude-ing out your lips with foundation. You can put any powdered mineral makeup into it that doesn't contain ultramarines or ferric ferrocyanide (those are mostly greens, blues, purples which most people aren't into putting on their lips anyway, and you can still find those colors without those ingredients if you really WANTED green lips). It's great for costuming too. It's basically conditioning oils and mineral colorants. I don't know if I want to come up with a standard recipe and put it on etsy or not. First off, I wouldn't want to be considered in some sort of infraction on OCC though all i'd really have to do is add another conditioning oil for the ingredients to be different and I could change the flavor, and they probably wouldn't care so long as i don't dupe their whole mixing system (they sell you primary brights like red, orange, yellow, black, white and then you mix a drop of this and a drop of that to get the color you want. But at $13/tube that's a really expensive lip system even if you do get an endless amount of colors from it. I personally, don't want to mix that much). There's also all kinds of rules about the conditions of the environment you make things in, and i'm sure my kitchen doesn't constitute as up to code being that i own a dog and she's allowed in the kitchen and all. However, if you currently read my blog and would like this clear liquid lipstick base, I will happily find a way to package it and sell you some through a custom listing on etsy.




This week's doodle was kind of me playing at a design for a tattoo (no, mom I am not planning on getting a tattoo anytime soon and am very aware of how you feel about them). It consists of my dog's pawprint(in theory, her actual pawprint), a symbol that I created for Bob in college, and the traditional filigree vines that I seem to love so much. Sorry the picture isn't great, but i didn't go over it black pen.

On a side note, i finally got a battery charger for my other camera (because i lost the adapter that charges it through the camera) and in theory, i should be taking some much clearer pictures of my jewelry than previously achieved through my other camera.

Oh! Also this week, I ordered some more custom-art products from vistaprint with one of my doodles on them. It was one of their big everything free sales, so i just paid shipping and $2.79 to upload my photo (which was also half off from the regular $4+). I got custom business cards, business magnets, postcards and notecards (which will be listed in the original art and stationary part of my etsy site)

Also...I sealed teabags this week with loose teas i have in the house which was way easy and very convenient. I did it mostly because I wanted to be able to take my favorite teas to work (which i did, made myself a little variety pack), but also because i cut my finger on a loose edge of the screen in my tea- diffuser pot this week and i was annoyed.


I did start on a magic wrap dress this week, but i made several stupid mistakes which are fixable but kind of sucked the fun out of it for me and i abandoned it for the time being.

On the veggie garden front...I have so far harvested: 2 zucchinis- there's a 3rd on the vine, 2 cucumbers with a 3rd on the vine, 3 very large radishes with more in the ground, lots of peppers, and 1 red tomato with lots of green ones on the vine. My pumpkin seems to be recovering and i finally have a lettuce plant big enough for a salad. We moved Bob's strawberry plant out of its topsy turvy (dumbest thing ever) and into a strawberry pot, and it FINALLY has strawberries.

The dog is angry with me because i replaced the end table and now she doesn't fit under it anymore. Her new living room cave is apparently behind my chair...

Edit: After posting, I decided to make a new copper feather pen for my etsy store. Completed right around midnight-ish.
I'm also working on some smaller feathers to go on hairpins, but the section of copper sheeting i used has some kind of glue/sticky backing. I tried pickling, soap, scotch brite pads, and brass wire brushing it. None of it worked so i lit it on fire. I *think* the pickle should take it off now. I'm leaving it in there overnight so we shall see. I made one into a feather while it was still sticky. I guess worst case scenario, they're not sticky anymore but they'll be heat patinaed. I also revised my method to get rid of the extra space in the middle of the feather. I was folding and then cutting (which is easier) but if i cut first i can go all the way to the channel and then fold the channel- it's more difficult, but prettier.