Strawberry Frenzy - Wristcuffs and Sock Toppers

Aaaand here's part two of my strawberry frenzy! And at this point, it really is a frenzy, what with ACEN looming, piles of schoolwork, unfinished cosplays/goody bags... T_T

As mentioned before, the awesome lady I'm modeling in the fashion show for asked me to bring some strawberry-related accessories to go with the outfit. I made this set of wristcuffs and sock toppers with felt stuffed strawberries. Unfortunately, this is really short notice, and apparently Vogue Fabrics has fantaaaastic fabric selection but really rather... meager... lace selections. I realize this lace is "bad lace" (I'm going to be itching like crazy) but it was the best I could do (it had to be a beige, not white) in the time and resources that I have T_T I think they'll be fine from onstage though... Yay 20-feet rule!

Anyways, onto the pictures! I was in such a rush I didn't take any progress pics... oh well :-P

The wristcuffs! I decided to just have a single strawberry directly attached, so that it's not too busy/overwhelming for wrists:




And the sock toppers! These have cute dangles, since my legs are big enough for them to not look ridiculously overpowering :-P




Aaaand I finally managed to finish my complete Miwako cosplay (although, I'm waiting on shoes to hopefully get here in time), but Amulet Spade's shirt seems like it's not going to get redone anytime soon. At least I'm (hopefully) getting new boots that I will spraypaint brown, so that I'll have correct boots this time around.

Strawberry Frenzy - Jewelry Set

I'll be attending Anime Central 2010 this year (it's coming up soon!) and I'm walking in the fashion show. The designer I'm working with has me wearing a Country Lolita outfit with a strawberry motif. While she is providing the dress, a matching purse, and a necklace, I was asked to provide some other accessories of my own.

So I decided to start off by making a ring and some earrings to go with the outfit!

I've been experimenting with making plastic jewelry from Shrinky Dinks, and while I've had varying levels of success, I figured they would be the way to go for making some simple plastic strawberry pieces. It took a couple of tries to figure out which colors to use (because they get darker when the shrink plastic is cured) as well as how much to scale up the final size that I wanted (because it's not exactly 3X like the instructions say it is).

Here's the final setup, with one cured piece and two pre-cured pieces:


I used Sharpie permanent markers to draw and color the pieces first. Then I cured them in a toaster oven, and drew on the seeds afterwards using a black Sharpie. The holes in the earrings were punched before curing, using just a single-hole puncher.

I then added some wire and earring findings (wire was to make the strawberries face the right way), and glued a ring base onto the back of the unpunched strawberry.


TADAA!!

The backs are a bit rough, because the plastic got stuck to the paper I had it on in the oven, which had some lines. Those lines unfortunately transferred onto the plastic. And Shrinky Dinks sometimes end up curling up on themselves while they're curing, and while usually they unroll eventually, the Sharpie sort of melted off a little onto the backs, so there's random patches of red and green on the backs of a couple of the pieces. But nobody's looking at the backs anyways, especially not while I'm up on the stage.

So all in all, I'm quite pleased!

Next in line is a set of wristcuffs and sock toppers with felt strawberry dangles!

(And of course, I need to somehow find time to finish my cosplay(s)...)

Deco Pearl Headphones

So, inspired by Violet LeBeaux's deco activities, specifically this tutorial, I decided to celebrate my completion of all my final projects by decorating my own headphones.

I started out with an old set of over-the-ear headphones I've had for a couple years now.  They're Panasonics, and the sound is still nice, but since I carry them around in my backpack, they're a little bit beat up ^.^;;  I had some really pretty resin roses that I got from Etsy, so I decided to incorporate them along with some old "pearl" beads I had laying around.

And the result:


Now, in person, you can still see the original ring of blue that I put the pink pearls over, so if I did this again, I would paint that part silver to match the rest, or pink or something NOT NEON BLUE. But overall, I'm pretty pleased with how it worked!

I put the rose on first, so I could center it, and then put the ring of pink pearls around it (on top of the original neon blue ring). And then I filled in the space between the rose and the pink with small white pearls. I'm actually glad it didn't come out looking like a gloopy mess (yay for clear-drying epoxy ^.^;;) because it was a mess trying to dip each tiny pearl in glue and then get it onto the headphone. I finally decided to just put the glue on the headphone, wait for it to get tacky, and then pour the pearls on top and maneuver them into position. That worked much better ^.^;;

So yes... DECO SUCCESS!! Now I kind of want to do this to everything I own, but I used up all my pink pearls on this >.< Time to buy more!

Harmonies FTW!!!

Did I even mention how much I love harmonies? And how I enjoy being masochistic... by learning harmonies by ear? ^.^

Aaaanyways, AKB48's "Sakura no Shiori" was pure delight for me, because of... AWESOME HARMONIES!!! I first heard it by walking past K-Snow's room, and thought that they'd for some reason suddenly gotten into Japanese children's choirs. I adore choral music, and this song definitely has that sort of sound to it. Not to mention wonderfully intricate (well, for pop music anyways) harmonies!!

And of course, I just had to learn them... I spent two days picking out harmonies and finally arrived at my own 4-part choral arrangement of this song (for SSAA choir). I think I captured most of the original harmonies, and there might be a couple that I randomly made up XD In any case, I feel like it was reasonably successful :-P

So here's a beta version of me singing all 4 parts (which splits occasionally into 5-6 parts) :-P

Sakura no Shiori

Okay, so for some reason my alto parts are synchronizing weirdly such that they sometimes create horrible beats, but I don't think it's *too* noticeable in when mixed with the other parts ^.^

So yeah... hope you enjoy it!!

My Sweet Tooth

I participated in a Secret Santa exchange recently, in which my giftee requested sweets jewelry. Since my travel plans didn't allow for me to order something online, and they don't exactly sell sweets jewelry around here, I decided I would just make my own with polymer clay!

I was especially stoked because I'd recently bought a new crockpot for the express purpose of baking polymer clay things and hadn't actually used it yet. So yay! Sweets jewelry + christening of my polyclay crockpot = _>

First, we have a "Cake Slice Ring" (yeah... I'm a creative namer....):


A top view for the details:


And what it looks like on my (ugly) hand:


Next up, the "Triple Scoop Ice Cream Bowl Ring":


Top details:


Worn:


I sort of wish I'd had a glass marble of the right size available when I was making this one. I had to freehand the shape of the bowl, so it's not as perfect as my OCD self would have liked.

Thirdly, "Chocolate Cupcake Ring":


Top view... not very exciting for this one:


Worn (it was kind of tall for my taste, but definitely smaller than most cupcake rings I see for sale...):


And lastly, my "masterpiece". By which I mean a 2-piece set :-P

"Chocolate Ribbon Set":


Top view of the ring, just for the heck of it:


Back of the barrette:


The ring worn:


Phew, so many pictures!

Overall, I was quite pleased, despite how long it took me. And my little crockpot worked perfectly as a baking oven! Just pop it on the low setting, stick a thermometer in there to monitor the temperature, and it's ready to go in about an hour :-P Yeah... so it takes awhile to heat up, but then again, it takes me awhile to actually make anything, so it worked out well.

<3

Winter Knitting 09/10 – Scarf Frenzy! - Update

Now that my present for my Loli mentor has safely arrived in her hands, here's what she got!!

2 scarves, both in the weird sky blue/mint/lavender mixed color of Red Heart Baby Clouds:


This one is a standard rectangular scarf, with fringe on the ends.


This one is in the same style as the ruffle scarves in my previous post.

Additionally, I made her a little broach with dangly felt strawberries (because strawberries are one of her favorite motifs!). Unfortunately, I apparently managed to delete them from my camera before actually downloading them to my computer T_T *le sigh* The only picture I have is one she took when she opened my package... so it doesn't properly illustrate the danglyness of the strawberries... But at least it's something XD



Anyways, I'm glad she got the package safely, and that she likes it!

Upcoming project: Double-knit mittens!! I've actually started them, what, nearing 10 times now, and messed up every time and had to unravel everything. Let's just say converting a cable twist pattern to double-knitting is kind of hard. I've defaulted back to just a flat mitten, and I'll just knit a bow or something separately to sew to it for embellishment <3

Koha - I [still] LOVE YOU!!!!

Byebye Koha... I wish you didn't have to graduate, but I hope you have fun being a model, or whatever other crazy (or non-crazy, but that's unimaginable with you) things you go on to do... T_T

To commemorate her graduation, K-Snow and I ventured out to iHop for some Papancakes and Hapi☆Hapi Sundaes (perhaps with very! berry! strawberry! on top) followed by a Koha song title photo scavenger hunts of sorts, combined with a grocery shopping stop.

Our first stop was the iHop itself, where we admired the very Kirari to Fuyu street and window decorations.



Followed by an extremely large meal of Papancakes. Their eggnog pancakes were delicious, and K-Snow appeared to enjoy their Pupumpkin Papancakes muchly (along with... an entire tilapia dinner... O_O).


We finished off the meal with a Hapi☆Hapi Sunday (I mean, sundae) with strawberry compote on top!


After managing to drag our beached whale selves out of the restaurant, we decided to stop by Whole Foods for some more scavenger hunting and grocery shopping. On the way there, we saw a little shop where you can Tan Tan Ta(a)n! if you so choose.

Can you find all three Tan-s?

We also spotted a Rainbow Pink with an additional Tan for good measure.


Outside of the Whole Foods, we noticed that they seem to have a special going on EVERYDAY PRECIOUS DAY!!!


Inside the store, we were immediately met with very! berry! strawberry!

Yes, with all those exclamation marks... this giant pile was literally right inside the door...

Whole Foods was a treasure trove for Koha titles (as well as delicious delicious food that we were both too full to be really interested in...).

You can never go wrong with an appetizer of Himawari seeds


followed by a main course of Spaghetti.


And of course, everything will be great because Whole Foods is dedicated to providing you with SUGAO-flavor all day, everyday:


In addition to edibles, Whole Foods is dedicated to making you feel beautiful with their crazy organic bath salts.... So much so that they felt compelled to stick a Koi Sign in their salt bucket...


Having acquired a stockpile of food, we left the store and headed for a brief stopover in Chinatown, where we found a certain dimsum chef being extremely Happy


And who knew Milky Way condoned gambling?!

(It was better than getting in trouble for looking suspicious while trying to take pictures of the stars on police and fire department buildings/vehicles... >_>)

And now, back to the train station to head on home! What a long day! But oh no, we have to wait for the train :( In the meantime, we spotted some Futari wa NS

Apparently the Chicago L-map makers were big fans!

Oh, and they even managed to incorporate Sansan GOGO into the transportation system!!

(Bus route 330 on 55th Street)

Once home, we took some quick snaps of my Kirari-inspired outfit (Kirari + Lolita = Kiralita?)


Hey look, my skirt's even got some Mizuiro Melody on it! (At least, the melody part...)


OMG Koha's climbing out of our living room wall!!!


PHEW... what an exciting day! See how much we love you, Koha?! Please keep on doing crazy awesome things, even now that you've graduated!!!

Wa~ MERRY PIN X'mas!

Winter Knitting 09/10 - Scarf Frenzy!

Given the fantastically frightful winds here in Chicago, I've been on a scarf hunt lately. But I figured, rather than buying simple scarves that I could make myself, why not go ahead and make them? So here's four scarves, two of which are for myself, and two of which are for my lovely Lolita mentor.

I've been trying to incorporate more pastels into my winter wardrobe, so I made two long ruffly scarves for myself in pink and baby blue:



Of course the two scarves for my Loli mentor are going to be presents, so I won't post them here until after she's gotten them ^.^

All of the scarves were made with one skein of Red Heart Baby Clouds yarn. The pink skein was 2 ounces larger than the blue skein, so the scarf came out super long, but I love it!

Hope you enjoy!

Winter Knitting 08/09 – Part 2.2: Hat Lined with Fleece!

Well... It's really not winter 08/09 anymore... In fact, it's already pretty much winter 09/10, but life got in the way of actually lining that hat. However, in order to make it truly functional for my boyfriend, I have finally finished putting in a fleece lining for it!

(See part one here).

Not only does the lining make the hat longer by about 1 inch, it also makes it that much warmer now that there are two layers between his skull and the elements.

Onto the one picture I remembered to take before he carted it off to Boston with him!


So, the tiny ribbed portion of the original hat got eaten in the seams, but overall the hat is definitely longer, and now double-layered. Apparently I miscalculated and the hat was a bit tight and the seam for the bottom band fell right on the ears, but my boyfriend says the hat's now loosened up from wearing, and it's all good now, so yay!!

So there ya go!!

<3

Winter Knitting 08/09 – Part 2: Herringbone Scarf Done!

I finally finished that scarf!! (And yes, I know it's not winter anymore).  I actually finished sometime in March, but didn't have time to write up a post about it.  I had just enough yarn left afterwards to knit a matching hat.  However, the hat's just the tiniest bit shorter than I think it really should be for a normal-sized adult head.  And it's only single-layered, so I have doubts about it's warmth-keeping properties.  I'm thinking I'll get some matching charcoal fleece and make a lining for it (as well as make it just a bit longer for better ear coverage ^o^)

But pictures!!
[caption id="attachment_93" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="The whole scarf"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_91" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Edge detail (moss stitch border, herringbone main body)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_92" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Matching hat! It has some ribbing at the very edge, the rest is just straight stockinette stitch)"][/caption]

So yeah, the hat may or may not reappear again with fleece lining ^.^ I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out, considering both the scarf and the hat were done without a pattern (the hat was very much improvised :-P)