Day Forty Five

Valentine's Day!

This is the second Valentine's Day my husband and I have been together. I think Mitch must have been working last year because I cannot remember it at all, but this year was awesome. In fact, it's the best day I can remember! We didn't even really have gifts for each other or anything, but we spent the day together and both tried really hard to be kind and loving and let go of the things that bother us about each other, at least for the day. It was so amazing! I hope so much that eventually this can be how we are all the time... for now we're still working on it.

ANYhoo... since the hubs and I spent the day out having fun and being in love with each other, I didn't have much time to create anything.

I decided to make a Valentine's Day heart snowflake. I tried to make an elegant heart,  but yeah.... Mitch said it looks like emo hearts, and I think they look like evil nightmare owls that want to eat your soul. Not exactly romantic. At all.

 
But it's all good, I had a great day and I'm not going to let a failed art attempt ruin it! 

Days Forty Three and Forty Four

2/13/13 Just popping in really quick to say that I'm not dead and I actually have worked on stuff the last two days but I've just been lame and not posted it. Hopefully I will get it done tomorrow! Right now I'm off to bed. Sorry.

EDIT 2/15/13 Ok, I'm finally getting around to writing this post. I'm really excited about it actually!

So. I messed up dyeing my altered pants purple, so I bleached them white. I like how they turned out, so I may keep them this way, or I may eventually try dying them again, who knows. 

Here's what the pants looked like after I finished altering them from flares to skinnies, and then what they looked like after my sad attempt at dying them.

And then... what they look like now! (I'm slowly starting to figure out how to take more flattering photos of my legs, lol). 

I used this blog post to help guide me through the bleaching. Her shorts apparently took 31 hours (?!?) to be completely bleached, which is kind of confusing to me, since my jeans took only three hours. I probably could have done it longer to get them a little more pure white, but I was satisfied with them and I didn't want the bleach to hurt the fabric more than necessary. And it's a good thing I took them out of the bleach when I did, because on day forty four I had to do some repairs.

The bleach literally ate away at the hole where the button goes through the fabric!

I had to sew that hole up before I could attach a new button, but it's pretty rough since it wasn't just a cut, where you can just sew together the two sides, but a big gaping hole. I wasn't sure the best way to go about fixing that, so I kind of just pretended it was just a cut and pulled two sides together and sewed it all up, but it created gross puckers. A better way to do it probably would have been to put a piece of fabric behind it, but I didn't think of that until later when I had to fix the next thing.

Anyway, here's the new button I attached and the inside with my mess of sewing.

The next thing was that when I put these pants on for the first time after bleaching (then washing and drying), one of the belt loops ripped right out. I put a piece of the jeans (from where I cut off the extra fabric after altering) behind the rip and sewed it all to that backing piece. I also did this to one other belt loop that hadn't ripped out yet, but I saw some tears forming so I did it as a preemptive measure.

 

 

All fixed up! I like how these jeans turned out. Hopefully they're still strong enough that I can wear them for awhile without them falling apart. Though I may be getting good at jean repairs in the near future...

Day Forty Two

Sooo... Today I dyed some jeans. (The second pair I altered). I dyed them purple!

I just dyed over the already existing blue with its fading and everything, trying to get a look like this:

It seemed to go well. I followed all the directions and checked around online to see if people had other helpful tips. I used two dye packets because I wanted them pretty dark. After about 45 minutes in the dye I rinsed the jeans and put them in the washer. I was pretty confident I'd done everything right... so I was surprised when I pulled them out of the wash.

For one thing they weren't very dark, and I knew they'd get even lighter once I put them through the dryer. So that was pretty disappointing.

THEN, on the front were all these blotches and streaks where it had barely been dyed! I was shocked! I don't know how this happened... I thought I stirred them around in the dye plenty, but I guess it wasn't enough.

So now I guess I'm going to have to re-dye them. I think that if I try to do it again as it is, the lighter spots will still show up, since the entire jeans will get darker at the same rate (So the parts that did get dye will get darker as well as the un-dyed spots, so those spots will still end up lighter. If that makes any sense at all). What I'm going to have to do is bleach the entire thing white and then redye, which will end up with a look more like this:

A more solid purple, without the darks and lights created by the blue behind it. I'm ok with this too, and I may end up liking it more, but it just means more work and having to wait longer for my purple pants! I'm also worried about the bleach weakening my poor jeans.

I'm just so bummed that this didn't work out today. Sad face.

Day Forty One

Still making "fabric." I'm just making a bunch... I should probably actually find a bag pattern and figure out how much I actually need.

But knowing me I probably won't.

Day Forty

I finished the pattern I started yesterday, but then as I was taking a picture of it I accidentally took another picture which I find much more interesting, so I decided to post that instead. I just put it through Photoshop really quickly to turn it black and white and up the contrast a bit.

I really like how the fake wood grain of my floor turned into these lovely lines that look almost like they are flowing. Or like long soft fur or something. Anyway, I like it a lot even though it was completely accidental!

Day Thirty Nine

Just continuing designing my "fabric."

The finished bag will have plain black (from black garbage bags so I don't have to color a whole white garbage bag with Sharpie) mixed with different black and white patterns. I'm hoping that the fact that all the patterns are the same colors unify them and prevent the bag from becoming too busy. If it does end up busy, I'm ok with that too. I wish I could use an accent color in the patterns but I know if I do that then I'll get over matchy later and only wear it with outfits with that color in it. I want a bag that can go with anything, so I'm limiting myself to black and white.

Day Thirty Eight

I decided I want to make myself a bag like the ones I did at Christmas out of the plastic bags. So for today I just have the very beginnings of the project, which will take awhile. I have to create all the "fabric" first before I can sew anything.

I want my bag to be all black and white, mostly so it can be pretty versatile with outfits.

After coloring the design with Sharpie (or a similar product) you turn it inside out so the ink doesn't get messed up and ruin your iron, and then you layer more plastic behind it so that it ends up as decently strong material.

Day Thirty Seven

I finished the second pair of jeans today! Hooray!

I like how the first pair turned out better, but I I think they fit me better in the first place, so there's not much I can do about that. I think I'll dye that pair dark blue and this pair purple!  Or maybe white with cool designs in black. I can't decide.

This is not my favorite photo of me (or at least my legs) for several reasons, but whatever. I'm not a model, I just alter jeans, and that's what I'm showing you, not my fab bod!

Day Thirty Six

After a for-the-most-part great day, I hadn't made or worked on anything artsy... funny (not really) how feeling good makes me not get any art done because I'm actually being productive and social, and feeling bad makes me not create anything because I have zero motivation and I tend to wallow and/or become apathetic. Great.

So after my good day I just had some nice alone time listening to a podcast I'm addicted to called Snap Judgement and coloring. Whoo! Gotta love it.

Hopefully I'll start being original soon. I really need to start doing some more research on artists/art I love. Since I got a job instead of going to school this semester I sort of promised myself that I'd continue educating myself by doing research on my own, but look how that's gone so far... yeah, it hasn't. Come on Jessica.

Day Thirty Five

I started sewing my second pair of jeans today. It seemed like I spent ages on them but I got barely anything done, which is always so frustrating. The first pair went way faster than these ones, which seems odd to me.

I wanted to do the inner seam right (I didn't on the first pair- I did it the easy way and now it looks a bit weird, I'll post pics eventually) so I found this tutorial on how to do it... but I didn't realize until I had already started sewing it that you have to be able to open it otherwise you'll just sew the seam to the other side of your pant leg. If that makes sense. Since I had sewn the other side first, I can't make the inside seam the right way, and I had to rip out the stitches I did before realizing.

Point is, it was frustrating and took a long time and I didn't even really accomplish much. Grr. And for that reason I do not have a photo today.

I hate how half of the sentences I write start with I. It's true that this is basically a me centered blog, but it still really annoys me. Hopefully as I keep writing I will improve and get better at avoiding that.

Day Thirty Four

I had a pretty mellow day, doing a lot of reading, and went to a Superbowl thing to socialize a bit. I just did some more coloring... what can I say, the kid in me loves it. Colored pencils are just fun! I've always loved layering them to create shading and new colors, especially when drawing plants for some reason.

I switched coloring pages and I'm liking this one a lot better, I think because I love the green living look of it... I can't wait for spring! Winter is not my cup of tea.

The art I'm coloring is from D. Palmer and can be found at the link on day 31 & 32's post.

Day Thirty Three

I started the first stages of altering my second pair of flare jeans today.

I put them on inside out and pinned them close to my legs, as skinny jeans would fit, then used a pink hi-liter to draw along the pins. Then I took the pins out, took them off, and used a ruler to mark cleaner lines with a black sharpie (this may bleed through so if you do this be smarter than me and avoid the sharpie. If you have it, use sewing chalk or something removable). This time around I remembered not to cut away the excess yet (to give you mess up room while sewing).

Day Thirty One and Thirty Two

I missed posting for a couple days there... and I feel like this post, an effort to catch up on those days, is only barely legitimate. I only got enough done on those days to be able to tell myself that I did do something and I didn't fail. But it wasn't enough for me to feel like it was post worthy, hence it not having been posted until now when I need to post something else but have to post this first. If you followed that train of thought I congratulate you. Anyway, the reasons for this almost failure:

I got a job! I haven't started yet, but I've been having to do paperwork and a drug test and had to fill out stuff for a background check and sign lots of stuff. I'm pretty excited to start, but I have to wait another week or two before starting, and in the meantime I just feel useless and blaaaaaaahhh. Depression kills any motivation to create that I might otherwise have. We've also been spending time with Mitch's best friend and his wife before they head back to Texas.

All THAT is why I have been utterly lame at working on anything and posting it. I apologize to anyone out there who actually cares.

So the sad excuse for non-failure I have for January 31st and February 1st is this:

I just started coloring, because that's somewhat therapeutic, and I wanted something to erase all the stress from tax forms etc, etc, relating to this new job.  But because of all that other stuff I barely got anything done on it. By the way, it's really hard to see what I'm coloring in because I printed it very lightly so that the lines aren't visible when (if) I'm finished. The blue things look kind of like finger nails at this point, but they're meant to be gem stones- sapphires I suppose?

I found this site with lots and lots of free downloadable and printable coloring pages. Most of the coloring pages on the site are for kids and would be great in a classroom, but some are good for adults (my favorite artist they have on the site is D. Palmer).