Dalekmania

I really love Daleks. They crack me up. How can you not love a glidey, oddly shaped thing with a plunger and an eggbeater for a gun? To top it all off, they have light shows going on on their heads when they talk (which is in a hilarious monotone.) They're awesome.

My love for those kerazy Daleks has brought these things into creation so far:
First off, I painted a pair of knock off Vans slip ons



I have also started knitting a small army of knitted Daleks using a pattern from EXTERMIKNIT!

So far I have Dalek Fay (named after hurricane Fay, which I spent most of my time knitting by candlelight in)

In progress:


Finished and being modeled by my very attractive bookshelf:


I'm also almost finished with Rhi's Dalek, which I am knitting her for Christmas. I'm going to paint a box like the TARDIS and wrap it up and stick it in another box to be mailed. It will be awesome.



I'm still brainstorming on more crafty Dalek projects. I think I'll be a Dalek next year for Halloween.

In other news, I ordered up some tasty Noro Kureyon in colorway #170 and some Knitpicks Andean Silk in Pitch to make my best friend Jessica the Fake Isle hat for Erikmas (Our Phantom of the Opera based religion. We're dorks.) I'm still waiting on the Andean silk, but I can't wait to start this hat. It's too warm here in Florida for me to have an excuse for knitting myself a hat, so at least I get to have a bit of fun making someone else one. I've always wanted to knit with Noro, too.

New room

I moved into my new room a few days ago! I love it. It's not 100% done yet. I'm missing a nightstand, curtains, and some posters I ordered, but I'm excited to finally move out of my old room. I did all the work myself! Just like a big kid!

Hokay... Here's the view from the doorway


Turning left, you see my desk (which I am going to replace since this one is probably going to collapse at any moment, but I haven't gotten around to it yet)


Closeups of my bulletin board and posters above my desk




Heh.

Hayy Spaced rasterbation! (sounds dirty but it's not. I promise.) I love Simon Pegg.

Further over, we have my lovely bed. I was originally planning on a raspberry duvet cover (because the theme was supposed to be black, white, and raspberry) but I couldn't find any sheets, comforters, fabric, or duvet covers in the color I wanted. It drove me nuts so I just ended up with a black one. This way, I can just change out my sheets when I want a color change.
Here's the view from where the bed is

That solid black patch next to my door is chalkboard paint. I haven't gotten the chalk yet, but I'm really looking forward to scribbling on my walls


Doctor Who rasterbations on my closet! The enormous David Tennant still scares the life out of me in the dark. It looks like someone is sitting up against my closet!


My awesome enormous closet contents



Lewis and Clark are extremely annoyed that they have to be woken up for silly things like a photo.



Here's the view from my window

I can actually go out onto the roof out there and walk around. It's really awesome! I brought a chair and watched fireworks out there on the 4th of July.

Graffiti that shows up only at certain angles or when the windows fog up

It says 'BAD WOLF' because I am a dork.


And that's my new room! w00t!

I actually finished something!

So. More than a year after starting, the Ravenclaw Sesame is DONE! Hellz yes. I got really frustrated while seaming the sleeves into the armholes last summer and packed it away to be forgotten about at the bottom of the knitting bag. A couple weeks ago I finally decided I'd suck it up and finish the darn thing. Too bad I'm like 8 months late for all of last summer's Potter craziness. I would have enjoyed including this in my nerd outfit that I wore to the Deathly Hallows release.

There are a bunch of mistakes and little things I don't like about this sweater, but I finished it. I'll try not to gripe too much. Overall, I think it's pretty darn fabulous.



Pattern: Magknits Sesame

Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Navy and Oxford Grey


Ravenclaw pride, yo.

DinoXcore- Jumping on the dino hoodie bandwagon!

I've been meaning to Dino-fy a hoodie like this for months, but I've been a bit hesitant. I didn't want to mutilate a perfectly good hoodie beyond repair!
I ended up using my red one, which anyone who knows me in real life has probably seen at least a dozen times. It has definitely seen a good amount of wear in its time...






I used splotchy dyed fabric. The other side looks completely different. (Oh, the thrills I'll have wearing this!)






Here's the obligatory 'ZOMG! I'MA DINOSAUR LOLZ!' shot:

Is this thing still on?

Yeeeah... Sorry for not posting anything since last summer, but I moved into a new house and the creative mojo has been lacking ever since.



Check out my latest feat of dorkiness!
The Mighty Boosh shoes, or Booshy shoes as I've been calling them.
The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy show. Look it up on Wikipedia if you're curious. It's absolutely amazing and one of my favorite shows.

Anyway... As I was looking at my collection of Converse last week, I noticed the purple pair with dots on them that I wasn't particularly fond of. (They're also a half size small and smoosh my toes if I wear them for too long.)




I decided that they could use a trip through my warped imagination.
They came out looking like this:















Awesome, y/y???

They also glow in the dark, but you'll just have to take my word on that. Apparently taking pictures in the dark doesn't really work. Heh.

All hail the self-timer

My best friend and I went to the Family Values Tour when it came to Orlando last weekend. We had an awesome time and got to see tons of awesome bands perform. By the time we got out to check out the merchandise table, a lot of the bands had come to collect their stuff. I was quite disappointed that I wasn't able to blow $30 on an overpriced Atreyu t-shirt. Atreyu is one of my favorite bands. They rock the hizzle. So what's a cheap, crafty girl to do? Bleach stencil her own shirt, of course!
So here is the result of a $3 black Hanes boys t-shirt, a bottle of bleachy water, a stencil from the stencilry, and a little patience:

With bleach being so touch and go, I think it's a pretty cool result. I'm not crazy about the weird pumpkiny color the bleach unearthed, but for $3, I'll take it.

Bleach stencils FTW.

Up and running again!

My hard drive went boom about a month ago. It was tragic.
I'm up and running on a brand new computer, thanks to my brother who built me a new one. Sometimes, albeit really rarely, he can pretty cool.

But just because my computer died doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything crafty! Oh, no no no... On the contrary, I've been working on quite a lot.

I'm in the midst of painting and redecorating my room! It is totally made of awesome! I'm doing something different on each wall. I have an oddly shaped room with lots of walls, so I have plenty of surfaces to inflict my painty madness on. As you might imagine, it's quite 'busy'looking! But I guess you could say it's a reflection on what goes on inside my head.

I woke up today itching to paint some jeans with my new fabric paint! No more mixing in that stupid fabric medium that obviously didn't work too well. These can't be washed for 72 hours, so we'll see how they turn out. Anyway, here are the back pockets that I painted-




Yes! Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pants! Not to toot my own horn or anything, but they certainly contain gargantuan amounts of win and awesome. :D


I know I say this every time, but I'm not sure if they're done yet. As you might have noticed, they're conspicuously lacking in the number 42.

And just for kicks, this is what happens when you try to take a picture of your own butt...

What can I say? Sometimes common sense just goes right over my head.

The Sucky Seamstress

I'm trying my hand at sewing my own hoodie using gnacissej's hoodie tutorial because a.) I'm bored b.) one can never have too many hoodies and c.) the tutorial just pwns!
I'm acutally really surprised at how well it's going so far! I'd say less than 10 cursewords have been uttered! (It's no secret around here that the sewing machine aren't the best of friends.)
If it keeps up this well, I'll have a wearable article of clothing on my first try! How awesome is that!?


I'm still knitting the neverending buttonbands on my Ravenclaw cardi and the search for buttons is still on. Boo. The button hunt is more challenging than actually knitting hte sweater!
And because I'm a nutty Harry Potter addict, I'm drawing Luna Lovegood. (as played by Evanna Lynch) As you can see, it's still in the beginning stages. I've only got the eyes done.
Crappy picture for j00-

FAIL >_<

*insert mumbled string of vulgarities and groans here*
I only washed them once for heaven's sake! I even washed them inside out!
I don't get it. It's only the white paint that chipped. I'm pretty sure I used the same amount of fabric medium in the mix as I did with all of the other colors.
It's all very disappointing. I spent all that time on those pants and now they look like crap. Nyah. I really liked them too.

It makes me very nervous about even entertaining the thought of washing my brand spankin' new Nightmare Before Christmas pants. (wrinkles ahoy!)

Because you know that wonderfully spectacular moon is mostly white paint.

Crap.
I guess I'll be looking into using rubberized fabric paint from now on.




I'd also like to report that I have successfully picked up 140 stitches on one of the button bands on Ravenclaw Sesame without chucking my knitting needles out the window and/or dying.

As I get closer and closer to finishing this sexy beast, I'm starting to look for some suitable buttons. Do you know how hard it is to find 38mm dark colored wood buttons? Srsly. It's absolutely ridiculous! I could probably do a Google search for a flaming pile of monkey poop and get more results.

Cheap + Crafty= YAY!

Heck yeah!
I wandered out to my dad's woodshop on Sunday and decided to make these hairsticks. (or instruments of death, as my dad has dubbed them) I've seen lots of pretty ones on online stores, but my cheapass self couldn't stand the thought of forking over 30 bucks when I could probably figure out how to make them on my own for free using my dad's wood scraps.

It was pretty fun! I got to learn how to use the sanding machine and only sanded off skin on ONE of my knuckles! Go me.
The one on the left is some variety of mahogany and the one on the right is oak. I stained the oak one and coated them both in amber tinged captain's varnish. I've been sanding them with fine grit sandpaper and doing coats of varnish all week. Varnishing them without them falling over or getting fingerprints all over them is pretty much impossible. These sticks have been the source of many a frustrated grumble, but I'm still pretty happy with them. Those cheapie plastic ones that you buy at the Winn-Dixie just don't cut the mustard!




I've also put a little more work into the Homestar Runner pants. They now have...

a somewhat sloppy looking TROGDOR the Burninator-


And Marshie-





The Ravenclaw Sesame is still in the works. I've got it all seamed up and it is waiting for button bands. Dreading picking up all of those stitches!

ZOMG Painting!

I've been doing some painting over the past few weeks. It started with the whelping box. My mom asked me to paint a design on it and it's been a work in progress for almost 4 weeks now. I think it's almost done (see how big the puppies are getting? They're 3 weeks old now! How the time flies...)


Then I was really bored over the weekend and got the brilliant idea to mess around with a pair of old jeans I have.
They're not the most flattering pair and they also have a hole in the knee, but their paintjob was just what they needed to make me love them again!
I decided to paint characters from Homestarrunner.com completely on a whim. I LOVE that site! All of the cartoons are so funny and strangely addicting.
First I did The Cheat:


Then the next day I got around to doing Homestar:



Here's the placement on those (sorry about the toe shot. Ew!):


I did The King of Town today:




Here's his placement:


I love them! The Cheat cracked a little bit when I wore them yesterday, so I'm going to have to be extra careful with them. Hopefully it won't happen after I heat set everything.
These are kind of a work in progress. I'm having so much fun with them I want to paint until I don't have any room left!
I sense it becoming another addiction :D