Guest Post: She's Crafty/She Gets Around

Amazing! This loosely craft-related blog has actually helped to inspire a crafter to get crafty! Enjoy this post by Kelly, originally posted at BachelorGirl.net.

- - -

I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

I think I might be sick.

Or have some sort of mental disorder.

All I know is, I NEED HELP.

My life has become unmanageable.

I have a problem, and it involves a glue gun.

I CANNOT STOP CRAFTING.

Frankly, I blame Tracey and Katie. It all started when they debuted their new blog dedicated to scrapbooking.

Now, I’m not much of a scrapbooker, but I love other crafts, particularly sewing. About the time Feast on Scraps came into my life, I realized my mom’s birthday was coming up. Giddy at the thought of playing with paper and glue, I went to MarthaStewart.com and found this project.

The next thing I knew, I was driving all over Shreveport trying to find a three-inch hole punch.

Having finally procured one, I proudly showed it to Intern Chris. “What the hell is that?” he asked, aghast. “I didn’t even know they made three-inch hole punches.”

So while he slaved away on the first Bachelor Girl Weekend Roundup, he had to do so while listening to the constant ka-thunk…ka-thunk…ka-thunk of my newest toy. The end result was this:



High from the success of that project, I then decided to sew my mother’s birthday gift. I used a modified version of a pattern in Amy Karol’s book, Bend the Rules Sewing. That endeavor culminated in these:



I have since made two more sets using different fabrics and trims.

HELP. ME.

Mom’s birthday cake, seen here:



came from the queen of Shreveport crafters, Megan McIntyre. Proof that crafting isn’t just a waste of time, Megan started her bakery business, Graciecakes, as a way to earn a living from home. Though she’s very young (and quite beautiful), Megan has a heart condition that keeps her from being able to work outside her home. So she came up with Graciecakes. Twenty bucks gets you a fancy little homemade cake (which is delicious, by the way) hand-delivered to almost anywhere in the Shreveport-Bossier area.

Like all craft addicts, Megan found herself unable to stop at just cakes, so she also started Glistening Grace, a hairbow-making business. She sells them from her home as well as at Sprout Studio on Line Avenue. Up to now, her bows have been for babies and little girls, but she recently started making headbands for big girls (like me!) as well.

I’ll be the proud owner of a Glistening Grace headband sometime in the very near future, but until then, I started thinking back to this gorgeous felt-flower headband Jessica the Web Mistress and I found in an Anthropologie store in Boston. One thing led to another, and soon I was making several variations of these.

Erik came by to see me yesterday, and he watched in horror as I repeatedly stabbed myself with a needle, trying to sew little pink felt petals together.

“This is out of control,” he announced.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should also tell you that I spent Monday afternoon helping my friend Katie make Roman shades for her dining room windows.

My name is Kelly, and I am a craft addict.

Your letting-go-and-letting-Martha-Stewart
Kel

P.S. Crafted anything good lately? Like all good addicts, I’m searching for my next fix.

Cooking with Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop Cook from Lait Noir on Vimeo.

(Via Craft)

Amen for Rationalizations

Sam: Why is it that what you just said strikes me as a massive rationalization?

Michael: Don't knock rationalization. Where would we be without it? I don't know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They're more important than sex.

Sam: Aw, come on! Nothing's more important than sex.

Michael: Oh, yeah? You ever gone a week without a rationalization?

-The Big Chill

Ten Things I Love Sunday

Best Worst Movie and its subject matter, Troll 2:





StuffedFruit's handmade zip-up cozies to protect the contents of your lunch box:




People who put slides in their houses:




Chocolate Space Invaders:



Subversive Cross-Stitch:





Belts made of bicycle tires:



Egg Chairs:




Pumpkin Paper from American Crafts:



Cloud-Shaped Marshmallows:



Lee Meredith's craft-themed desktop wallpapers:

It's too bad MY bladder only leaks a little when I sneeze really hard.

Great news, ladies! If you're willing to invite ten or more of your closest girlfriends to your home, write and record yourselves doing a short and whimsical skit about the issue of Light Bladder Leakage (LBL), upload it to the Poise "House Party" website, and release all rights to it so that they can use it however they want, you can get a free party pack with"costumes and accessories", a bunch of pads (to protect you from all the LBL you and your friends will experience at your knee-slapping shindig), and a digital video camera!



(I refuse to link to the promotion directly out of fear that their marketing overlords might find me, but if you're actually interested in hosting one of these things for the free camera, I will gladly pass on the e-mail I got forwarded to me.)

Baby pages make me crazy. And not in a good way.

I'm not against enlarging my photos for scrapbook pages like all the best scrapbookers seem to, but let's face it. Not only does it cost more, but takes a lot of extra time and planning to specifically pick out which photos should be enlarged and how big they should be, and that is exactly the type of chore that tends to keep me from scrapbooking. I generally order a giant stack of 4x6s and go to work. So, when I saw this post at Archiver's blog called Save Time with 4x6 Scrapbooking featuring a book devoted entirely to uncropped, non-enlarged 4x6 photos, I got excited.

Then, I saw the cover of the book and had second thoughts:



Up-close 4x6s of BABIES IN FISHING HATS with the title "Growing So Fast" are not quite what I had in mind. Nor do I feel confident in trusting the advice of a book with this nonsense on the cover.

Next up to scrapbook:

My trip with Dan to L.A. in August 2008, which will go into my 12x12 Making Memories binder right after our one-year anniversary weekend trip to St. Louis.



Now, I just need to decide how to record the story of seeing Mr. T. at LAX and ending up in the background on TMZ. Has anyone figured out a way to embed Internet videos into a scrapbook yet?

WWKLD?

I used to have an entire folder on my hard drive full of photos of models being made to do things they must have hated themselves for later.

This is the kind of thing, though, that you'd never regret:



The best part is the tiny Karl Lagerfeld in the top corner, casting his come hither look toward the hairlion.

Ten Things I Love Sunday: Valentine's Day Edition

Portraits of Tina Fey made entirely out of Nerds candy:



Away We Go:



Bachelor Girl's Parisian papercrafted Valentine's Day cupcakes:



Colorful shapes made from overlapping buttons:



This video:



And this one:



And this one:



Knitted Hearts:



Stackable Cats:



And The Vagina Monologues, which is probably in production somewhere in your area around this time of year in order to raise money to stop violence against women:

Silhouette Dreams

Archiver's finally has a blog. Which I learned about from their Twitter feed. Seriously, who gets Twitter before they get a blog?

Also from their Twitter feed is this great chart comparing and contrasting various die-cutting systems, which basically just demonstrates why the Silhouette SD is the best, and why Katie and I fantasize about owning one so much that we're willing to sit through live webcasts and excruciating live-chats with hundreds of rabid scrapbookers just for a tiny chance at winning one.

Paper Fortune Cookies

How cute are these?!



Visit the Screen Prints Blog for the super easy instructions and a video tutorial.

The (Lego) House that James (May) Built

A couple of weeks ago, Dan and I started watching the English TV series Toy Stories, in which James May recruits members of the British public to help him achieve lofty goals with tiny toys. Each show is sort of like an hour-long documentary tribute to a featured toy, woven into a story about a giant project that seems ill-fated until it inevitably comes together at the last minute, turning out to be absolutely brilliant and enchanting.

As much as I loved his full-sized model airplane and the world's longest electric racecar track, my favorite episode was devoted to the construction of the world's first full-sized house made entirely out of Lego bricks:

My Robot Valentine

I'm usually not much of a card-maker, but I was inspired by this adorable robot paper


and this song


to make this Valentine for Dan:

(Yes, I realize I either need a new scanner or some Photoshop skills to make this look more presentable. Screw you, Pop Dots and the unsightly shadows you create.)

Luckily, he isn't checking this blog for updates (at least I don't think he is), so the surprise won't be ruined.