Oh Patty Dearest Have You Heard?

Good day to ye! It's been aye but a long time since ye last heard from me. And that's the end of me trying to type like an Irish person. As a little girl (a lass perhaps), my mommy used to sing me the song that inspired this post's title -- "Oh Patty dearest have you heard the news that's going round -- they're killing men and women for the wearing of the green." It's a morbid song lyric I realize, but it does remind me of why it's so important to wear the green on St. Patrick's Day. It's not just a sign of liking green beer or being drunk -- at one time and place it meant something. Words like solidarity, faith, perseverance come to mind, that plus, well, the Irish are so charming and witty, it's hard not to love them.

I always wear green on St. Patrick's. Otherwise I'd get pinched. And though this post has already gotten its fair share of useless asides, I'll share one more from the archive -- when I was about four years old, my mother was asked to be Godmother to a distant niece of hers (Devin) and when we showed up at the church for the baptism, I saw that the baby was wearing all white. Having been told that one is allowed to pinch all non-green-wearing folks on St. Patrick's Day, I walked right up to the infant and pinched her. She was doing so well in her little white Christening dress until that moment. Whoops.

And to the craft, I didn't really intend to make a St. Pat's necklace except that I found in my big box of materials that I actually owned two St. Pat's themed plastic items. And like the siren song of the Emerald Isle, they were calling my name and tempting me to string them up for a necklace that will ultimately be worn, what, twice a year at best? Assuming the wearer uses it on both the holiday and the Saturday night before or after?

Look a Gift Necklace in the Face

Take a look kiddos, these are my three craft necklace Christmas presents. I noticed at my craft sale that the hottest necklaces were ones that were done in neutral colors, everyday colors, you know, your brown/grey/navy/black/white color families. Ones that work at the office as a subtle piece. And while I'm all about the boldest colors and the most outrageous shapes, I recognized that beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or the buyer) so I did a collection of five black, white and gold necklaces, each one with numbers as the theme for their center wooden coin. Both of these feature prints of bingo cards.

And finally, here's Cousin Meg's donkey necklace up close. Hee haw.

Gobble Gobble Jewlery

My coworker Mattdawg (that's what I call her, her real name is Mattie) has the most amazing collection of holiday themed earrings. She has a dozen Halloween ones and enough Christmas earrings to last from Thanksgiving to New Year's without repeating a pair.

Last year it bothered me that she had no Thanksgiving gems. So I promised her a pair. Perhaps some cornucopias or a pilgrim and Indian combo. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't find anything Thanksgiving last year. This year, however, I found these turkey buttons. I chopped off the button part and drilled holes and attached earring hooks.

And bless her heart, Mattdawg wore them all November long! Gobble Gobble Gobble! (and if you click on that link, sorry for the bad language and then the German version, I really just love when she's on the phone with her sister.)

Take A Walk On The Wild Side

Three buttons merged into one necklace. Tiger print. What more could you want to know about this? The fact that you could own it, because you can.

On Target

Same theme, different arrangement. After getting the hang of making trios of buttons, I thought I'd try my hand at strings of buttons. And here's one I came up with. The white ones remind me of a St. John's suit, minus the thousand-dollar price tag. I'm not saying this necklace is worthy of wear beside a St. John's suit. I'm just sayin'. And you know, everyone's just sayin' something.

Stuck Like Glue

And again with another button trio. This one's a bit bigger than some of the others I've shown. It's a nice little centerpiece necklace for a V-neck sweater or an open shirt. It would also go well with a strapless dress. It's got a wee bit of bling epoxied on to one of the buttons. At the time of this adhering, I learned for the first time how to epoxy. Smelly, smelly stuff. It's like burning rubber and dead fish combined -- and my apartment reeked for two days. That's how much I love you readers, shoppers, crafters. I was willing to live with that wretched smell for the glory of it all. And I've actually always wanted to learn how to epoxy, so it's cool. And now another type of adhesive to have laying around. I don't like to write advice columns or anything like that, but I tell you what, I sure have a lot of ways of affixing one thing to another and I've learned a lot about which products go with which types of glue. I'd go ahead and say that if you're trying to build a glue wardrobe, add some epoxy to it. The bond is very intense. I would liken it to the bond between Angelina and Brad, but I've heard that bond is now searching for his own apartment in Paris. That's straight from the tabloids, waited a few days, and then passed on to you here.

Czech It Out

Another one of my favs. I'm not completely sure that there is another soul out there who can love and care for this necklace as well as I can, so I'm not sure if I can really part with it. We shall see. The point is though, this pink piece is a combination of buttons and a charm from the Czech Republic. I bought it from a man with a glass eye. Ask my cousin Mary, she was there. She too bought some loot from the one-eyed Czech. You could kinda tell he had some wild stories to tell, but there was that whole GIGANTIC language barrier. Cousin Mary and I went on a whirlwind tour of the C.R. by visiting Prague, Brno and Olomouc (which is pronounced more like O-lo-moutz). We searched high and low for antiques and wonders the likes of which we'd only seen in catalogs and movie sets. We found Heaven when we found the one eyed man's shop in Olomouc. We loved it so much, we came back and shopped there again. And somehow because of the crazy conversion rate, we each thought we were buying way out of our price range amounts of stuff. But later we realized that we'd each spent somewhere around $20 for arm fulls of former Soviet stuff. That's just a little travel story to bulk up this post. You see I'm finding it harder and harder to come up with new ways of describing these necklaces. I love them all, I made them all, but eventually one's proverbial well runs dry. And thus you hear about the one eyed man.

I don't know why I like this picture so much, but I think the quality is really good. Note the texture of the button! Wee!

Secondary Colors, Interesting Shapes

And yet another glamor shot of my neck. I have a really hard time envisioning a piece of clothing that would actually involve any of these three modern buttons. I mean, who would wear a shirt? coat? skirt? dress? with that huge purple and gold thing on it? No one! I suspect that's why I was able to track down that button and purchase it for use in a craft project. It looks pretty cool in its current arrangement.

What I dig about this one is the secondary colors and the shapes. It all reminds me of preschool art class when you learn that red and yellow together make orange and there are cartoon posters on the wall with the shapes telling you "triangle" and "square."

Green Re-Do: Chandelier to Jewelry

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Go green. Think about the Earth. Use a tote instead of plastic. Shop locally. Unplug appliances when you aren't using them. Carpool. Use mass transit. Ride a bike.

So those are green suggestions that you've no doubt heard a million billion times by now. If not, please tell me what rock you are living under and if there's room for another person down there. But here's a creative solution to going green -- tons of my jewelry are made from "found objects" meaning that I'm giving a new life to something that was otherwise considered junk or potentially bound for a landfill. You're looking at a great example of this. This was a piece from a chandelier, but it's life in lighting fixtures came to a close and I've retooled it as neckware. And I am in love. The red, the elegance, the contrast between the chain and the the gems... it's just awesome. And what's cool about this necklace is that I have a few copies of it. And three copies feature a goldish brown color instead of bright red.

Like Some Old Western Movie

Yeah so this three dime store plastic figurines on a copper chain. What are you going to do about it? Buy it (pretty please). I think its whimsical and childish, colorful and fun, a wee bit ironic and generally just a cool thing to own. I think it would be super cheeky to wear it with a white button down and a wool skirt, you know, to show the world that you're a fun person with a spunky sense of fashion trapped in a boring working world. I dig the deluge of primary colors. If this was some old western movie, long tall Gary Cooper or John Wayne would be the blue one in the middle, the sheriff standing straight with his Winchester. He better watch out buddy -- there's an Indian with a bow and arrow on one side and a tomahawk on the other. I'm not a betting kind of gal, but my money's on the scalpers and not the scalpee. Of course, that's the thrill of the western movie, Gary Cooper is always so wise and lucky, he just might make it, provided he survives some lengthy horse chase scene.

And the whole thing reminds me (for no truly obvious reason) of Jerry Jeff Walker's Desperado's Waiting for a Train. Google it, jam to it... it's such a great piece of Texas Country Music. And yes, I know, the original version was by Guy Clark. I just like Jerry Jeff better.

What's Black And White and Red All Over?

This necklace.

It's a button collage! On a chain! And I made it all by myself.

Going Once, Going Twice, Sold!

Here's where the fun begins folks. Presenting the finished projects, the stuff that's for sale. What I've been working on all summer long. The deal with these two (well three because I'm keeping one for myself) necklaces is that I've already sold them. I guess that means I can now say I'm a professional jewelry maker -- because, hey, I've been paid for my creations. I made these necklaces and sold them to my coworkers out of vintage buttons. I don't have too terribly much to say about all these necklaces I've been making. And if I did write a full profile of each, I'd have a lot of writing to do. You're going to see a lot. Like a lot a lot.

P.S. Muchas gracias to my neck models (a.k.a., the purchasers). All the rest of the necks (unless otherwise noted) are, well, my own neck. You'll get used to freckles soon!

Little Stacks Everywhere

All around my apartment are little arrangements. Preparing for this craft show or, more accurately, my booth at a shopping market, has turned my little crafting life upsidedown. And I'm not kidding when I say there are little collections of projects sitting out everywhere. Above you see a collection of Mexican bingo tiles with fresh coats of a kind of plastic lacquer that will make them hard enough to stand alone on necklaces. More details on that to come.

And here are some vintage/random buttons gathered together. Also awaiting their turn at the chopping block, or so to speak, when they'll be turned into projects. All of them have polished, flat backsides so they are ready for use. Sanding a hundred buttons is like a dream come true. (I've never gotten into sanding; if it could be skipped, it would be.)

And, yep, some more future projects. It's amazing to think that I've made any progress at all, since looking at these pictures reminds me that all I've done is set up more work for myself to do later. Yikes. Two weeks and a trip to Chicago thrown in... I better get busy!

And finally, here's a completed project. Woohoo! But like all the others, perhaps a bit difficult to explain. I'm just happy that there's one thing that I'm done with. I guess I do still have to worry about the packaging... I doubt this post has shed much light on my current bevy of projects, but it should let you know ... colorful, found objects...

Synergized: A Lemon Yellow Necklace

Click on the picture above and you should be able to be magically transported to another blog of wonder in which you will see the exact same picture but on an ever-so-slightly larger scale.

I bet you thought I just plum fell off the face of the Earth seeing as I haven't posted anything new in many many moons. Well, there, my reader, you are wrong. I am here. I am vibrant. I am going to have a booth at a market and well its going to be full of crafts and, dagnabbit, I'm busy making crafts. Like the above necklace. I made that. Yay!

As you must have gleaned from previous prior posts, I'm a little too in love with my Dremel. And inheriting a small collection of antique buttons from my mother and finding a warehouse full of similarly interesting buttons and realizing how easy it really is to buy a length of chain -- it was inevitable that I'd decide to make my own necklaces.

I'm calling this line the "Mother May I" line because of the prim and proper lady on the buttons. She's so cute, with her hat and her hair. I just love her, enough to saw a hole in her portrait, sandpaper her backside and varnish the buttons to finish. As Led Zeppelin would say "A Whole Lotta Love."

I'm not going to make any wild promises that I'll post more soon, but if I have the opportunity, I sure will. I have so many things to show you and so little will power to photo, photoshop, upload and write.

Well Versed In 1 John

You know what? I'm still in Europe (just like I was the last time a post was published) but I've written this in advance so you can get your Hilary fix even when I'm far away.

And it's another one of my church/calligraphy projects! Yay! About a month ago I had the privilege of doing three repetitive calligraphy projects in a row. It's fine. There's nothing like having a Red Sox game to keep me and my nibs company (especially when their offense is so impressive and deep). Lest I digress into my favorite topic of all, I'll get back to the point. One project was for money (no pictures taken because I forgot), one was because church ladies asked and the final was a gift. I already showed you the project that I was asked to do (the rose tags) and this is the project I did as a gift.

I loved the way it turned out. And so did the 30 women for whom the verse cards were made. A few Christmases ago, I sent out cards with glittered Holy Cards of St. Nicholas on the front. Perhaps you recall. Well, the company that I bought that cardstock from was having a buy one get one free sale so in addition to the red paper that I bought for those Christmas cards, I got a stack of pale green paper that had a shimmery look to it. It's nice and thick, too. I always figured I'd think of a purpose for it, but two years of looking at it and I'm no closer to having a use for it than I was when I got it for free. I thought it would be the perfect cardstock to use for these Bible verse cards. So I cut the folding cards into two flat cards each (which, by the way, means I only made a dent into the huge stack of green cardstock I've still got) so that I had 30 flat cards. Then I took some thick vellum paper and cut it to fit using my mini paper cutter. I cut 30 little snippets of ribbon, each sized to hang off the edges a bit of the cardstock. Next, because I like to make things difficult, I jumped into my mom's hand-me-down button collection and found 30 buttons that I thought would match the ribbon and paper colors (trying to keep a Spring pallet in mind). And then, I used my favorite craft tool ever, my drimmel with its diamond-edge drill bit, to cut the "button" part off of these buttons so they'd glue on flat.

And to the sounds (and sights thanks to MLB online) of Red Sox baseball -- an afternoon game I believe -- I wrote the same verse 30 times in a row. Without stopping. As the scripting went along (and the innings breezed past), I noticed that a few styles of scripting seemed to emerge. I tried to capture some of them here. The top picture features a script that is airy than the next picture, which seems dense. And some versions were more cursive than others. As a note, the first "r" of this verse comes in the 20th word, which is odd. I thought I'd throw that out there because I always antagonize over the letter "r" and I was pleasantly surprised to get so many words without having to write that one.

Of course, I can't mention the letter "r" without thinking of my mom's favorite riddle: Railroad crossing, watch out for cars, can you spell that without any r's?

Two More Loves

Here are two more of the thoroughly freeing and completely enjoyable Valentines that I made from available (household) materials. These two feature some snippets from a recent Anthropolgie catalogue. I guess there's not too much artistic merit to these other than the fact that I really enjoyed just making things, third grade style. In fact, I've always been a huge fan of the collage. I usually try to come up with really elaborate plots and fancy materials, but just sitting down with a box of markers, a pad of paper, a few catalogues and some glitter -- ultimate crafting enjoyment!
The one at the top was pretty abstract. It involved finger painting and buttons! And glitter and hearts that I made by folding a piece of paper in half and cutting out a heart, just like elementary school students do! In keeping with yesterday's theme of using cliche love sentiments, this one's inside said, "Valentine, you're as cute as a button."
And the bottom one, that's for my mom. When I was a little girl, she used to sing me a song with those lyrics. I thought it was fitting for the heart with a little heart missing.
Oh and sorry that the pictures were fuzzy. I'm starting to think that I might need a new camera...

It's A Wrap

There you have it! Fifteen pretty little packages wrapped in my homemade wrapping paper. Perhaps you can spot one that you received -- I know that a few of my readers (Katie, Dj Jazzy, Lucy) each have a little-green-tree-festooned box in that picture. I can't tell you how delightful the reactions I got to the paper were. I truly didn't expect it to get any reviews at all. I thought I would make it, use it and feel good on the inside that I did my part to conserve resources and be creative. I didn't dream that the gift recipients would get such a kick out it, too. Lots of people saved the paper. No joke! Uncle Jim, Mrs. Sue Woodward, my dad ... and those are the ones I know about. How touching! To think that my wrapping paper was good enough to save! I watched several of my readers who had the chance to open one of the above boxes try to guess what part of the two phrases they had received. If you recall, the options were, "Once upon a time" and "And they all lived happily ever after. The end."
I really enjoyed adding buttons and bows and various other doodads to each present. The pallet of green and off-white was really easy to work with. Red added such a pop and buttons dressed the packages up and made them very snazzy. And yet, a simple (and heavily hot glued) pine cone kept the paper feeling very natural.
Lots of design magazines and blogs really pushed for a homemade Christmas. And while I didn't have time to home make gifts for everyone on my shopping list, I was pretty excited to have homemade paper. I'm definitely going to be doing something like this again next year. I already have some ideas (and I'm 99% sure I will have forgotten them by next year, but just in case I wrote them on stickies and put them at the top of my Christmas decorations box on the top shelf of my closet). I hate to forget a good crafty idea.

Button Upgrade, Once More

I got this cute little jacket/blazer thing at a ritzy boutique in the West Village for a business trip to California last year. And sadly, the buttons came off the jacket a little too quickly to call the thing high quality. But alas, I'm not here to be a garment inspector or a clothing critic. I'm just here to tell you about this sewing upgrade. Do you think I've been in a sewing mode lately? It's a little ridiculous. I hate pulling out all the supplies so when I made Mr. Gingerbread man, I sewed everything else I could think of so I could put away the machine and the rest of the pins, threads, needles, and assorted other bits and bobs. This is, I believe, the last thing I've got to report on of this nature for a while. Whew! A girl gets tired of these kinds of projects. Sewing is my mommy's game, not mine.
Anyhow, back to this blazer thing... so (or should I be punny and say "sew") I got to delve into the aforshown bowls of buttons to find a good match. I added them to both sleeves and its a big time upgrade.

Cuff Links, the Homemade Version

So I got this shirt years ago at a Gap Outlet in Freeport, Maine. And it came with buttons as cuff links. Well, wouldn't you know, immediately one set (four are needed for the shirt, two per cuff) died in the dryer. And then I lost a second set. And well, then the shirt disappeared into the back of the closet or was only used when the sleeves could be rolled up three or four times each to avoid showing off the missing cuff links. I pulled out the bead kit, found 16 identical pearls (let's admit they are knockoffs) and a nice colored embroidery thread to sew them into cuff links. It was pretty easy as a process and I'm prepared to say this is a big upgrade from the original.

Button Switch Upgrade

Look at my WalMart sweater! I've garnered a plethora of compliments now that I've upgraded its buttons. This is a wardrobe upgrade. I took something that looked OK and made it look great. Clearly, I'm proud of this one. I liked this shirt when I saw it at WalMart. It is so versatile. It can be paired with so many outfits, too. I always thought the buttons were a give away that the thing came from a discount store. So, I bought some new buttons and changed the sweater up, quite drastically. I got these green ceramic buttons at the craft store without measuring the size of the originals. And naturally I guessed wrong. The new buttons are significantly larger than the old ones and, therefore, the buttonholes needed to be changed. I hate breaking into knit sweaters and buttonholes can be so tricky, but as the sweater was both cheap and fuzzy, I figured, what's the worst that can happen? Turns out, not much. The ceramic buttons are so much heavier than the old plastic ones that I had to sew a snap into the neck of the sweater so that every part would stay in place. And while I was sewing that in... I decided to give the label an upgrade, too. I take the sweater off frequently, so I thought it would be neat to have an arty little label inside instead of WalMart's No Boundaries. So you can see that in the pics, too.

This is my arty button shot. I don't know why I included it with this post other than because I thought it was just plain awesome. I inherited this massive button collection from my mom when she was trying to pare down her sewing supplies. I carefully separated them into categories, by color, material, size. I love when I get a chance to dive right in and grab some good ones. I'm always scheming of ways to use these buttons. I think you'll see lots of 'em in the next few weeks!

Here's the before shot. The sweater in its cheap button glory. And behind it is the lovely postcard wall that I've been working on for the past year. Thanks to all of those who have contributed.

I included this picture so you could see the size difference between the green ceramic button and the cheap plastic ones.

And finally, I took this picture and liked the way the fuzziness showed up. Hope you enjoy it, too.