Get Your Horns Ready...

So a really special team is playing in the Rose Bowl tomorrow. It is, in fact, my favorite college team (Washington and Lee would technically be in first place there but you never see them on TV and, really, few people see them live in Lexington). The Texas Longhorns are going to beat the Alabama Elephants or whatever their Roll Tide symbol is beyond just a really big A.

To celebrate their awesomeness (and the extreme adorableness of QB Colt McCoy), I made each of my Longhorn relatives a forever gingerbread Longhorn for Christmas. I've shown you earlier how mine looked when finished. I thought I'd show how the collection looked on the baking sheet. So there you've got Cousins Meg, Laura and Mary with Uncle Trey and one for my mom. I guess I needed to make a couple more, since I didn't make one for Cousin Em or my Aunt Beth... Whoops.

And in the event that you thought I owned a cookie cutter, you're wrong. Each of those horns was hand cut with a sculptors knife from a printed out pattern of the logo. Hard work but someone's got to do it, right?

And below I'm going to let you in on a sad secret that would warm the heart of every dreaded Aggie, one horn did actually get sawed off. (Around Texas you'll see UT haters with logos on their cars that say "Saw 'em off" and have a picture of a hornless Longhorn.) I patched it back up and then added a little wire so that it would be stronger where it had been broken.* Good as new and no one ever needed to know about it... I covered it with glitter.

Hook 'em Horns! Go Texas!

* This sentence is meant to recall an Ernest Hemingway quote from A Farewell To Arms that was shared with me by my old journalism professor Ham Smith when I broke my legs:

"The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong at the broken places."

Out of Town Crafting

Do you remember me writing about how busy I was because I had this fair, and all these things to do to get ready for the fair and that a trip to Chicago was thrown in for good measure? Well, perhaps you don't remember me being stressed out about lots and lots of to-do's on the to-do list or the fact that I made a trip to the Windy City, but I did. And, being of the craft minded, I couldn't resist volunteering (perhaps commandeering is a better verb choice for the situation) to do a craft for a friend, the lovely Jo, for a VIP event. And yes, I call the sweatpants and fanny pack pub crawl a VIP event. After all, it takes a lot of class to look as good as we did for hours upon hours of ridiculousness. I believe I'm digressing here, but I wanted to set the scene well. Jo wanted to go "Jon of Jon and Kate Plus Eight" level of classy by wearing an Ed Hardy shirt and Juicy Couture sweatpants. Of course, why buy when you can make?

Luckily, Emily, Joanna and Steph (my adorable hosts for the weekend) live just down the street from a hardware store (the kind of mom and pop place that advertises mace in a comic sans sign out front). So in Jo and I went to buy some electrical tape for this improvised project. One rerun episode of Sex & the City and it was done. Just one roll of electrical tape and a pair of scissors... voila!

I decided not to show you the Juicy Couture pants because, well, I got the sizing off a bit. Actually, a lot off. From the back, it just said UIC, which, by the by, is a university in chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago. There are actually people out there with UIC on their butts on purpose. Jo is not one of them. It was supposed to say JUICY, but the J and Y were on her hips.

Not to brag on myself, but I was a little sad that not everyone could tell that it was homemade. Some people thought it was a legit shirt. You kinda had to look up close to see that it was in fact electrical tape. My favorite letter was the "E" of Ed. The "a" and "r" proved really tricky for no reason that I can determine.

Sorry Kid, You Really Do Use Math In Life

The title says it all here, but upon the rarest of occasions, I have to use math to be creative. Yuck! You know I was the president of the math club in high school (mom said it would look good on the transcript for college applications and I was the only one who showed up on Mu Alpha Theta election day). And then you know I got a D- in calculus freshman year of college and retook the class to get to B-. Oh Paul Bourdon! That class was all but impossible (to me, lots of other people seemed to ace it, overachievers). Not that my personal relationship with mathematics is particularly exciting (Does it count that a lot of my favorite people in college were math majors -- Dj Jazzy, LDA & Molly McGint?), I just wanted you to know that it is only on the solemnest occasions that I will get out the tape measurer, graph paper and draw something to scale. You do know that "to scale" means solving some math equations, right? So being a regular Archimedes, I decided that I wanted to make a wall of art. And I couldn't decide on the right arrangement for these prints and paintings. So I took measurements of the wall, the height of my comfy reading chair and then measured each little work of art. Above you see the results. I'm actually planning to show you a collection of arrangements I come up with and letting my general readership vote on the final selection. We'll see if that works. I fully expect no votes at all, but who knows.

Also, it has always bothered me that people of UK-ish origin (Aussies, Kiwis included) call it "maths" instead of "math" with the idea being that its a shortened version of a plural word: mathematics. I've never bugged a Canuck about that particular English misnomer, but I ought to. I'd like to think we have Canada on our side of this crucial linguistic debate. And today, I've really strayed away from the usual topic. Err, sorry.

First Carved From Stone, Then Painted On

So my friends, this is a t-shirt with an Easter Island head painted on it in glittery silver paint. So that doesn't need an explanation, right? Pretty simple?

Well, it goes something like this. My coworker was in quite a tizzy. It seems schools these days won't just let their kiddos dress in costumes for Halloween. (Yes, this is the first of several extremely belated Halloween posts. Sorry about that folks, I got a little teensy weensy bit behind.) Her middle school daughter had to dress in a costume that reflected her geography research project, which happened to be the mystery of the Easter Island heads. And as my coworker had neither the budget (hey, she blew the costume money assembling a kick-booty Hermoine Grainger outfit for Halloween night) nor the time to find a true Easter Island head costume, she decided to go for a different tack -- she decided to play up the fact one silly explanation for the statues is that aliens from outer space came down in their shiny silver UFOs and built the statues and lined them up facing the East. So she made a lovely foil headpiece and got up extra early to paint her daughter's face silver. All she needed was a t-shirt to tie the alien bit to the Easter Island thing.

And that's where I come in. She was lamenting this ridiculous story to me and asked if I had any iron-on transfers so she could print something off the Internet. I volunteered to undertake the project because its just the kind of ridiculousness that makes me love public schools in America. Off to target went my coworker for a cheap t-shirt -- got this one off the clearance rack -- and I brainstormed to make the Easter Island thing as alien-y as possible. Silver paint and some extraterrestrial stars do the trick as far as I'm concerned.

I sketched the guy on paper until he looked just right, put the paper beneath the t, used a sharpie to outline the design on the shirt and then filled in the rest with a home-mixed paint that used silver craft paint with some high-end pigment dust from Azel Art Supply. I used real silver flakes to up the luster and voila!

Little Miss Julia looked awesome, so I'm told, and she was really excited about her shirt. Too bad the silver flakes can't weather the washing machine. It's kind of a one time use only project. It was fun. Let me know next time you need something this ridiculous.

Giving You The Bird

What in the world is this? You should be thinking that thought when you look at the above picture.

Well, it is a bird that I carved out of garden foam--you know that stuff that you soak in water and then stuff into flower pots to make an arrangement? I don't know what it is officially called, but I do know that it is super easy to use for carved projects. Of course, it's easy pliability can be a problem, too. As soon as you are done carving your little object, you'll need to coat the the sculpture with a bunch of layers of sealant. I used modge-podge but I think you could use rubber cement if you wanted to.

The picture above is the little birdy all carved and covered in a coat of glue. He's being held up by a toothpick stuck into another brick of plant foam.

Tune in for updates on this project! Pretty soon he should look a lot more like a precious birdy! He'll even be perched on a log!

Mean Green Clothes Dryin' Machine

Notice anything green about my bathroom? (Besides the plethora of green clothing...)
This weekend I successfully installed my drying rack in my bathroom. And when the shower curtain is closed, you don't even see the plastic monstrosity. Of course, in the eyes of an environmental protector (or whatever green people want to be called), the drying rack is a thing of beauty. For me, it means I can run four loads of clothes through the washing machine but only two in the dryer, saving energy and having softer, less shrunken clothing.
I recognize that this isn't a particularly crafty project, but as my little mission statement says (see the Left Panel), I like doing things that are cheap and using the dryer less is cheap!
Plus installing the thing was nightmare-ish. My ladder didn't fit in the space so I had to stand on the (very) narrow wall-side ledge of my bathtub to install one half of the thing. And all whilst using a power drill at an awkward angle. All in all it's worth it though and I get a kick out of being a little friendlier to the Earth.
And really, it isn't that ugly. I enjoyed artistically arranging my clothes on the hooks beneath the mirror and on the drying rack. Note that no, as Martha would say, "unmentionables" are visible! Goodness gracious, even a green girl has to have some standards!
And now for a completely useless aside... when I was a study-abroad student across the Atlantic in Florence, Italy. I lived with the lovely Bianchi family and enjoyed many, many moments of it. Of course, I declared war on the clothes line that was precariously placed outside my fourth story window. I had to dry everything outside! And I had the absolute worst eye for Tuscan weather. I'd often go to classes with my "unmentionables" and other assorted clothing items blissfully blowing under the Italian sun only to remember as I rode the crowded bus home from school through a blustery downpour that all my poor clothes were getting pounded! And naturally a sock or two wouldn't be able to stand the storm (this compounded with my weak clothespin skills) and would plummet to the ground and gated garden below. I'd have to knock on these poor old people's door and try to explain in very sad and broken Italian "sock" "ground" "over there."
Oh Italian laundry. How difficult it all seemed then. How quaint it seems now. I'm delighted to recreate the situation right in my very own bathroom!
"Posso fare un bucato?" -- That's Italian for "Could I do a load of laundry?"

Off the Shelf

Normally, I don't like to post pictures of projects until they are completed. But today I wanted to give you a preview of something that I am anxiously working on. Of course, fate isn't cooperating as I'm having a hard time getting my greedy paws on some of the key ingredients for this project. What is this project you ask? Well, I'll tell you. It's a spice rack/shelf for my kitchen. And it is super personalized, as the spices will be stored in glass Diet Dr Pepper bottles, with precious little red, yellow and blue rubber caps (from Sweden) on top of the bottles. I was really inspired a few months ago when I saw a project by a super cute pair of designers in Virginia, who painted up bottles for storing odds and ends. And I immediately wanted to do something like they had done, but instead of using it to store ribbons, buttons and the like, I thought it would be fun to use to store cake toppers, cocoa powder, curry powder, cinnamon sticks, you know, kitchen items. So I've been tossing this idea around since April! That's when I first saw the Virginia version of this project and was really inspired.

Often in Dallas, I go to Corner Market, which is on the corner of Greenville & McCommas. It's so old school and the food is delicious! It really feels like it's not in Dallas somehow. I feel like I'm some other city... try the A-1 To Go in Gardiner, Maine. Anyway, whenever I'm there, I order my sandwich, read my Observer and drink Diet Dr Pepper out of a glass bottle. In a stroke of genius, I decided that instead of using milk bottles, I'd use Diet Dr Pepper bottles! Of course, I have this idea at the very time that Corner Market sells out of Diet Dr Pepper. I've been waiting a couple of weeks for them to restock their selection and then I'll be buying 30 bottles. The next step will be drinking them, then I buy/fill all the bottles with exotic spices and baking decor items and, voila! Project Completed.

For now, I'll tell you what I've done. Above is a picture of the supplies I needed to make the shelf. And below is a picture of the area to be perked up with the shelf/spice rack. Pretty dull, huh? Give me some credit though, I usually keep a collection of cookbooks, cute plates and cups and that kind of thing in that corner, but I really don't use the area as a cooking surface, so I thought I'd build a spice shelf. I got a 48" wooden beam and covered it in Mexican oil cloth from La Mariposa, right in my neighborhood. Then I painted little "L" brackets to match the bright Mexican oil cloth. And that's my progress thus far! I'll update as soon as the project marches forward.

* Sorry I went a bit links crazy today. No explanation. I just got carried away.

I've been driving around with glass in the trunk of my car for a whole week

Hi everybody! I feel like the doctor on the Simpsons every time I type that. I just realized that I have been driving around with a trunk full of glass sheets for about a week now. That thought led me to this next thought--I never blogged about the new glass tabletop for my dining room table. It's a pretty odd choice of tables, I'll give you that. I bought it off craigslist on a day that can only be described as serendipity. I was planning to drive out to Ikea and buy a completely run of the mill dining room table (oh goodness gracious it was boring but ever so cheap!) and I thought, hey, why not look on craigslist just once? So I saw this thing and emailed the guy and before I knew it, my father and I were piled into his big ole' Texas Edition pickup truck, driving to halfway-to-Oklahoma suburbs for this table. It's an antique German drafting table, the kind that architects used (before CAD) to do all their work. It's wrought iron and hardwood. It has all kinds of industrial knobs and wheels so that the architect could raise and lower the table and adjust the angle of the table, too.

Unfortunately for this piece, it was separated from the drafting table top and instead, a white piece of Formica was put on it instead, which really messed up the style. No wonder the guy couldn't find anyone besides me to buy the thing. I finally ordered a piece of cut glass to go on top of the table from the friendliest people over at Alamo Glass on Henderson (they subsequently supplied me with the glass that's in the trunk of my car, which I plan on painting and then blogging about). And, well, above (and below) you'll see some artsy shots of my new table centerpiece. I'm calling the thing in the middle of the display a terrarium as it has a couple kinds of dirt and a couple plants, too. And some shells, though the shells don't really add too much to the whole thing. I clearly got camera happy when taking pictures for this post. I can't even explain what happened. I had no pictures stored on the camera's memory drive and suddenly, there were dozens of pictures of these little jars and ceramic flowers. No explanation at all.

A great thing about these plants is that they are basically really hard to kill, so they require almost no work at all on my part, which is good because I'm prone to planticide. Though I do have one complaint about the succulents--those little green beady things fall off really easily. More than one stem is now a mere stump. Too bad. I think I was multitasking a bit too much the day I bought the plant or you'd be seeing a better looking succulent on display. Also the use of a succulent in a terrarium officially makes me "green." So there, I'm green.

(And I can't seem to fix the amount of space between the end of the text and the start of the photos. I'm sorry. Believe me, it bothers me more than it bothers you. I used to work as a page designer and I'm predisposed to abhor the poor layout options provided to me by Blogger. I'm only asking for one little pica of space here!!)

Garden Checkup

A few people mentioned to me that my previous garden post didn't allow for a very comprehensive understanding of the "after" version of the garden. Well, you people tell me something and I'll deliver. Here's a new picture of the garden, allowing for a bit more scope. I had some wind issues with the astroturf. It's been ridiculously windy as of late on the North Texas plains (where the Big D sits) and my apartment is no exception. So I kept coming home to a bunched up roll of astroturf and fears of agitating my neighbors. And after many hardware discussions with my father about how to solve the issue (including one idea that involved modifying clothes hangers into some kind of tent-style spikes), he and I found garden stakes that fit the bill perfectly. I didn't take pictures of them, but they are basically 18" stakes with a round circle of wire at the top, supposedly to prop up your plants in the garden. For me, however, I used them to anchor the astroturf in place by hammering them in the dirt, leaving the round circle of wire to pen the green astroturf to the concrete driveway. So far, a few gusts have blown through and it's staying put. Fingers crossed...

Speaking of good luck, so far I haven't killed my plants! So that's exciting, too.