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 Twenty Six

I have a couple pairs of jeans that I rarely wear because 1) they are flare cut and 2) they are pale blue. Both of those factors just don't do it for me. So I got to thinking, I'm sure it's possible to turn flare jeans into skinny jeans... it can't be that hard right? So I went to digging around the internet and found a couple videos (this is one of the better ones) and today I started on one of the pairs. After I've altered them (assuming I do it well enough to wear them regularly) I plan on either dying them darker or bleaching them white. Or both, since I have two pairs of these jeans!

I have crappy webcam photos of me wearing them as a before as well as with a bunch of pins in it, but they are on my husband's computer and I want to go to bed so I'll add them tomorrow. Sorry.

For now, I just have this photo of the jeans after I cut out the extra fabric from the flares. Unfortunately I've already messed up; at least in the video she leaves the extra there while sewing so that there's room to mess up, then cuts it out after everything's sewn up. Blllaaaaarrggh that's what I get for not watching the video all the way through before diving into a project. Typical Jessica! Guess I'll just have to not mess up. Ha. Likely.

Ok, time for bed.

Day Eighteen

My Lovely came over for dinner today (it's so weird to say that I had my husband over for dinner) and it was so nice to see him! A lot of couples are apart all the time, but I'm not used to it: we got married and then lived in different states for two months which was totally bizarre, but in the year since then we haven't been apart for more than a day or two. After tonight I won't see him for another week or so and while it will suck for that week, after I'm done watching my cousins and he comes home from his ski trip we'll be so glad to see each other that it just might be worth it!

Anyway. I only worked on my rug a little bit today, but since hubby was here, I got a better picture of it- hooray! It's almost a 18 inches in diameter by my estimation.
Again, the great tutorial I followed can be found here.


I also made a bunch of beads made from sculpey. I haven't baked them yet - I'm kind of scared of ruining them. I've never baked sculpey before.
EDIT - I baked them, and they're fine! They look exactly the same though, so I won't post another picture.

You can tell that I'm not in my own house from the gorgeous counter tops and the real hardwood floors.... but it's fine because I love my little house and I know that I'm blessed to have it!

Day Seventeen (and Sixteen?)

This morning I just about had a heart attack when I realized I didn't do any art yesterday. I spent the first half of yesterday packing for my five days living with my cousins while their parents are out of town, and the last half of yesterday receiving mountains of instructions for keeping them alive. I completely spaced (and had zero time even if I'd remembered) doing something creative. I did however pack a bunch of supplies for art-making while I'm here. It's a TOTAL cop-out, but I'm going to count it. And even if I did fail yesterday, I'm not going to let that stop me from continuing like nothing happened. (If I let myself think I failed even one day, I'm a lot more likely to give up on the whole thing. It's happened to me many times).

Today I started something I'm pretty excited about: a rug! For my dining room/kitchen!
I found this great tutorial for cute little coiled baskets [click here], and just adapted it by never coiling upward to make it into a rug. You could also make hot pad/trivet things with this method.

I gathered all the damaged or never worn clothing I could find in my house and brought it here (my aunt and uncle's house) with me. My aunt has five huge trash bags full of yarn that she gave me permission to use - hooray! As soon as the kids were off to school this morning I got to cutting and coiling and looping yarn.

It's only about a foot in diameter after a looong time working on it today. This is something that will take me awhile. Hopefully I can also get a couple small projects in while I work on this so that you don't have to see a slowly progressing project five+ days in a row like you did with the shoe drawing.

And last but not least, please forgive the horrendous photo. Usually I take my pictures with my husband's iPhone, which is not ideal, but still preferable to this... my computer's webcam. AWFUL! Next time I see the hubs (he may come visit me tomorrow or the day after) I will take a better photo.
EDIT: A much better photo can be seen on Day Eighteen

I tried standing on it to get a glimpse of what it will be like in my house, and I love it! It's surprisingly soft. I'm excited!

Day Fourteen

I FINISHED THE SHOES. FINALLY.  My kitchen is free! And Mitch can wear his shoes again!

I am really pleased with them! After a refresher in drawing I'm feeling good about tackling new projects. I'm going to be taking care of my three cousins for the next week while their parents are out of town, so my next few posts are most likely going to be fun, crafty things that I can do with them.

Day Thirteen

Yesterday

Almost done these danged shoes. Just need to finish off the laces.

Day Twelve

Still working on the shoes. I need to finish them tomorrow so I can get them out of the middle of the kitchen floor- that was poor planning. I've been having to put a dining room chair on top of the shoes so my husband and I don't trip on them. (Clarification: I put them in the middle of the kitchen in the first place because the kitchen has the best lighting of the entire house).

I'm liking this rule change; getting to take my time on one piece and really make it perfect, instead of hurrying to do something new everyday. Though it's lot less interesting for anyone reading this. Sorry.

Two days ago

Yesterday

Day Eight

I finally finished the project I started on day four! (I showed you my mess from this project, but it hadn't dried yet so I made a melodramatic drawing instead).

I can never decide if stuff like this can really be called art, or if it's more just crafts... personally I want to call it crafts. On a larger, more sculptural scale I would call it art. This is could turn into a huge debate centered on the definition of the word "art," but for now I'm just going to say that it's a craft but it's still creative, so I will include things like this in my art a day quest.

My other problem with this project is that it's unoriginal - I saw it on pinterest. Really, very few of the artsy things I do are original at this point. I found a video that taught me how to make the plastic fabric stuff, I saw poetry done on book pages on deviantart a long time ago, and I drew a picture straight from a TV show. I don't know, I'm just having real issues coming up with any ideas of my own. I'm hoping that this blog will help me to be more original along the way, and that researcing other artists will help me to see what I like, and turn that into my own style. I'm reading this great book called How to Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon, that gives great advice on finding inspiration and gradually building your voice as an artist. I'll write a blog post about the book one of these days. I really recommend it.

ANYWAY. My lovely, unoriginal craft for today:

These bowls are made from paper mache using both magazine and dictionary pages, one kind on each side of each of the bowls to create contrast. I put plastic wrap inside bowls I already had and used them as molds for the paper mache. The bowls were completely dry today and I just finished them by cleaning them up a little then applying a coat of mod podge to give them shine!

Day Five

Today (since it's after midnight, technically yesterday) I finished my sister's belated Christmas present... I know. I'm terrible. I definitely bit off more than I could chew this year. It probably wasn't very smart of me to decide to sew seven full sized bags and three small bags as gifts a week before Christmas, and then set about learning how to use a sewing machine in order to do so. And I couldn't just go out and buy fabric, I had to use a material that I pretty much have to make myself. That's how I roll- making everything as hard as possible, and with as little time to do it as possible. I really am stunned by my own intelligence sometimes.

Rather than using plastic grocery bags as I did with the bag for my mom (day two), this time I just used plain trash bags: black bags for the strap and the black panels, and white bags that I designed with Sharpies before ironing to fuse the layers of plastic together (if you try this, make sure to turn the bag inside out if there is any ink, or it will be ruined).  This bag goes over the shoulder and has a cute little flap. I half used a free pattern I found online and half winged it, and I think it turned out quite satisfactory! Probably the most time consuming part of the whole thing was drawing/coloring in (inking? saying "coloring in" feels so... elementary school) the different designs, which I did before Christmas, I just needed to sew everything together.

If anyone wants to try my method for making trash bag fabric, I can post a more detailed step-by-step process with photos. On day two I posted the link to the video I learned this from, but after lots of trial and error I've figured out a few tricks they don't mention that help it go more smoothly. I can also post a link to the pattern I based this bag on (which came from a site with a huge list of links to free purse patterns).

And again, this was a gift so I can't sell it, but I could do a commission. If someone commissioned me to make a bag for them out of this material, I could do the designs in a color scheme of their choice! It's rather time consuming though, so it would be a bit pricey.

Day Two

Today's piece is one that I've worked on in bursts over the last week, and it's a belated Christmas gift for my mother (I made these things for my family and couldn't get them all done in time). Since this is a gift I obviously will not put it on etsy, but I can do commissions. I've made one using mostly Target bags that was very cool, and one with brown plastic bags that was a different look.

It is a reusable grocery bag. Glamorous I know!
The cool part is that it's made from used plastic grocery bags, melted together into thicker pieces and sewn together. To add some color and interest I scribbled some Sharpie on there before ironing them- my mom likes blue best.

I learned how to do this from this great video.
I can answer any specific questions in the comments!