Duct Tape Dress Form
Posted by Leah on Sep 21, 2008
This is an actual dress form, custom made with duct tape to fit a friend of mine. We had a lot of fun making it! She found instructions online somewhere and enlisted me to help her out, since for obvious reasons it would be hard to make yourself one without help….
Duct Tape Dress Form
It involved an old T-shirt that she didn’t mind destroying, and LOTS of duct tape. I think it took us about an hour, and then she had to stuff it later on.
Holiday Weekend
Posted by Leah on Aug 29, 2008
It’s the Friday before a holiday weekend - Labor Day - here in the US, so have fun celebrating!
The first Cal home football game is also this weekend, which is kind of a big deal around here. Last year was a disappointing season for the Bears, but hopefully this year will be better.
I love listening to the games on the radio while I work on jewelry projects. I usually try to get together with friends who are going to the game for pre-game pizza and maybe a beer, then I go home and work while I listen to the game. It’s one of my favorite ways to spend a Saturday afternoon or evening.
This weekend I’ll hopefully start playing around with that composite mica I got so I can report back on how I like working with it. 
Project Runway
Posted by Leah on Aug 14, 2008
In case you’re one of the two people alive who doesn’t know about Project Runway, it’s a hugely entertaining reality show about fashion designers. I love it. Especially when the contestants have to do really bizarre challenges, like make outfits out of food, or design WWE costumes. A few actually make things that look great and make sense given the constraints of the challenge, and the rest generally make ridiculous looks that the judges rip apart for our entertainment.
Fans of the show might enjoy reading Project Rungay, a blog by a couple of really funny gay men who critique all the outfits. It makes me laugh every time I read it.
However, I have to disagree with a point made in this post about Blayne. He’s 23 and he’s never heard of Sgt. Pepper…and they say that’s okay because the music came out two decades before he was born. Well, I’m 29, which isn’t THAT much older than 23, and I grew up listening to the Beatles. Did something change in the six years after I was born, and suddenly parents stopped liking the music they grew up listening to? I just don’t see how it’s possible not to be familiar with Beatles music, even if you aren’t a fan of oldies. I’m not particularly a fan of Elvis, but I’m familiar with his music, you know? Every karaoke bar I’ve ever been to is full of Beatles and Elvis songs, and lots of young people attempt to sing them….
Anyway - my opinions about music and pop culture aside - Project Runway is a really fun show, and it’s inspiring to me, as a designer, to watch what people come up with, and how well (or not) they execute their ideas. I think it would be really fun to get a bunch of independent jewelry designers together and do little Project Runway-inspired challenges, with prizes. Not that I have time to organize it right now, but it’s on my to-do list for someday….
Scrapbooking is more popular than golf
Posted by Leah on Aug 4, 2008
Anyone reading listen to Craftypod? It’s a podcast (you can search for it in I-tunes if you want to listen) about crafts.
Overheard in a recent episode: “Scrapbooking is more popular than golf.”
Just thought I’d share, it made me laugh. I’m not really into golf or scrapbooking, but I thought it was a fun comparison. And, as was pointed out on the show, if you take pictures and use them to preserve a memory, you are doing a kind of scrapbooking. So in that sense, anyone who blogs is doing a kind of digital scrapbook…
Another idea for motivation
Posted by Leah on Feb 18, 2008
I learned this week that one way to get even less done than when tired out from pregnancy is to catch a cold on top of it. Yuck! I’m starting to feel better and catch up on housework, but it was a rough week. I haven’t felt creative at all - the only things I’ve “made” this week are tea and soup.
Today I started getting some energy back, and was looking at photos on flickr.com and came up with an idea for quick inspiration. Browse some of the groups on flickr. If you aren’t familiar with flickr, it’s a photo site where members can store and share their images, and there are groups where people contribute photos of just about anything. I found groups of photos of Death Valley, flowers, extreme macro photography, crafts, etc. There is even a group for pictures of fog and rain - something I’m very familiar with, living near San Francisco.
It was pretty cloudy this morning, so I grabbed my camera and took this picture:
I’m still getting used to my new camera, so this kind of mini creative activity is perfect - it only takes a few seconds to snap an image or two, and it gets me thinking creatively again. I plan on browsing more flickr groups to get ideas of things to photograph, just for fun, and to build a collection of images that I can use for jewelry inspiration.
Cute new shopping blog
Posted by Leah on Jan 29, 2008
I just discovered a cute new blog with ideas for online shopping: chocolate canary. The blog has only been live for a couple weeks, but it looks like it’s going to be a good one. She’s already having a giveaway, but you have to enter before Feb. 1st to win.
Thing-a-day
Posted by Leah on Jan 17, 2008
This looks like a fun project - I’m tempted to participate, but with a baby due sometime during the month of February, I expect I will be a little bit distracted.
Win a gift basket full of handmade goodness
Posted by Leah on Dec 7, 2007
A group I’m a member of on etsy.com, the Designing Swanky Moms, is having a scavenger hunt. The prize is an amazing gift basket filled with lots of handmade gift-worthy items. Check out the details here. The contest ends on the 9th, so only two days left!
Crocheted Purse and a WIP
Posted by Leah on Jun 29, 2007
I know it isn’t jewelry, but I made this cute crocheted purse while following along with the learn to crochet lessons at Crafty Daisies. There was a link to a purse pattern in lesson #4, which I altered slightly, mostly by making it bigger and winging it on the ruffle part since I didn’t write it down (but ruffles are easy enough to crochet without a pattern).
And since this is supposed to be a jewelry blog, here’s a picture of my latest in-progress resin piece, using the top of an altoid tin as a bezel:
Crochet Carnival
Posted by Leah on Jun 18, 2007
The latest edition of the Crochet Carnival is up!
If you aren’t familiar with blog carnivals, they are fun collections of blog articles related to a given topic - in this case, crochet. My bobble cuff is included along with a bunch of articles that I definitely plan on reading as soon as I’m done posting this.
Check out the blog carnival homepage to find carnivals on topics that interest you - a couple I like are Carnival of the Creators and Make it from Scratch.
