DIY: Rorschach Prints

I've been thinking a lot lately about the clean graphic quality of Rorschach prints. That's not weird, right? I know the inkblot test has largely fallen out of fashion in the psychiatric community, which is probably for the best since they do seem a tad pseudoscientific. But Rorschach's original prints are really quite beautiful nonetheless. And our tendency to assign meaning to patterns in an attempt to make sense of random shapes (an example of Pareidolia) is really pretty cool. Window to the brain!

Oh yes, I almost forgot. This window to the brain business can be rather terrifying when all the prints you create look like monsters or vaguely pelvic-shaped monsters. Uh-oh. If that's what I'm seeing, I clearly have issues best not discussed here. No worries, putting your neuroses on display couldn't be simpler...

Golden corgi

Nicholas' birthday was towards the end of July and because he loves corgis so much, I decided to make a special topper for his birthday key lime pie. I didn't just stop at a corgi topper. I went ahead and made toppers out of the whole wild kingdom. Take a look and maybe you'll be inspired to make your own gilded toppers. If you are so inspired, I included an easy-to-follow tutorial.

Started with a corgi figure that I bought at Michael's

Etch-your-sketch cocktail glasses!

Nicholas loves to make cocktails, so for his birthday I decided to create some customized glasses for all of the delicious cocktails he makes.

Step 1--Ready the supplies. I bought all the glasses at Cost Plus World Market. I think everything was $3.99 a piece. The Armour Etch was leftover from a project Christine did years ago, but I did confirm that you can buy it at Michael's (with a coupon, it would run you about $6). You'll need contact paper (Target $5), a sponge brush, scissors, and gloves.

summer mists

It's Milo, the mist assistant!

All of my complaints about the unseasonably cool summer disappeared over the last couple of weeks when Spokane has made the sudden transition to hot weather. How quickly we forget, or at least I forget, once the temp jumps to 96 degrees. Ughhhhhhh. But while flipping through an old Martha Stewart magazine, as I am wont to do while eating my cereal in the mornings, I came across a simple summer pick-me-up: the all-natural mist. Part of my routine for keeping cool is to put water on every bit of exposed skin and just let it evaporate as nature intended. But this definitely seems a step above splashing over the kitchen sink. Plus, it's so simple and so instantly gratifying, I swear you'll mist the summer away. 

You'll need: an empty mini spray bottle or two. I picked mine up in the travel minis section of Target: 97 cents each. 

$1 Wreath

I've been meaning to get some kind of festive spring/summer wreath on the front door since the day I took down my Christmas wreath (mind you that wasn't in December, I took it down February-ish--stop judging). I had an extra wreath form leftover from Christmas. I bought mine at the Dollar Tree. They're wrapped straw, and they worked well for covering in tree branches at Christmas and covering in yarn for summer!

Step one: acquire a wreath.

I'm a knitter, so I always have leftover yarn sitting around. Most of this is acrylic yarn that I don't really use for many knitting projects. I grabbed a bunch of colors to pick from

The bad cat was sleeping, so I wasn't disturbed. The next part took about an hour to do.

All you have to do is start wrapping the wreath form with whatever color you want. I started with gray and wrapped until I was satisfied and then switched colors.

When you want to switch colors just cut the yarn and start wrapping the next color. I always overlapped by just a couple strands to secure the previous color and anchor down the new color. I didn't use any glue in the entire wreath.

I picked the colors as I went, and at the end, I tucked the final piece of yarn under a couple of wraps. 

It's a really easy wreath that could be customized for any holiday or birthday. Someone will probably do a red, white, and blue wreath, but I'm just not that festive. Another bonus is that the wreath is super light weight, so you don't have to worry about hanging it on any wall. This wreath would also look cute in a bedroom or living room.

 This wreath certainly livens up my front door and it only cost me $1. 

It also looks nice from the back which is perfect since my front door is a bunch of glass panes.

Head over the dollar tree and while you're there, grab some tissue paper which your cats will love. Throw some in a box and call it good.

They also have a really good deal on some seashells. I bought 4 or 5 containers of them, but I haven't figured out what to do with them yet.

intergalactic planetary

Here's where yesterday's space musing led me... Why, if it isn't a bleach-dyed black clutch! The beginnings were in two black bags found at JoAnn's. They were on clearance for $3.00 or $4.00. I just purchased them like three days ago. So, it's probably something you can still find in their store.

It just felt so right.

So for a while now I have had a pretty little bowl filled with knitted wool balls sitting on my coffee table. I always mean well and yearn to finish the project for which they were intended, but that day never seems to come, and it never will. As time went by the project was upgraded to full-on felted wool balls, and boy are my fingertips sore.

Both frames have a little touch of color--it's not as aggressive as color blocking, but since I plan on

hanging them in the bedroom I figured I'd go neutral to sing me to sleep.

The final project, I'm in love!

Both frames were originally just plain gold frames from a thrift store, no glass and no backing. Which was

fine for me, and I do like gold, but for this project I decided to go cream with some light grey accents.

As I just mentioned, glass wasn't necessary, but for the backing I made a card board insert and
painted it a matching neutral tone, with a little bit of a kick.

Instead of using the knitted wool balls, I decided to take the yarn and felt the balls.
I used an undyed fisherman's wool so it felts nicely.

I rolled it in a loose ball, neatly so I could save the texture, and tightened it up with my coarse felting needle. 

It was much faster than knitting and gave me a cleaner finished product.

After the hot glue gun was all warmed up from gluing the backing to the frame,

I was ready to arrange my felted spheres.

Typically, I would have filled the entire frame space with balls, but since I added the accent color

 on the backing I wanted it to show through.

The finished project. <satisfied sigh>

For the second frame I decided to mix it up again. I felted a couple small balls and a little woolen ornament.

I used the entire frame space on this one, something about how they all fit together really sits well with me.

This one reminds me of holly, but not in a Christmas-y sort of way.

Even though I didn't use my original knitted balls, I feel very accomplished to have finally gotten this

 project out of my head space. Here's to Sunday projects gone right!!

One was pink and the other gold.

I decided I was done with these gold "hecho in mexico" frames I'd purchased at estate sales over the years. They needed something new and fresh done to them, so I thought....spray paint. I have 2 different frames like this, but one is a little bit more ornate. They both worked out well. I also printed new pictures from last fall's vacation to Iceland/Copenhagen/Stockholm.

 The before shots.

One was pink, the other a blue/gray. 

 Best to do this part outside.

 Spray the shit out of the frame.

This is the first frame I did. After it was all dry (about 30 minutes), I brought it inside.

You'll notice that this frame has a natural border on the inside. This is made up of some weird canvas material. I thought it was the perfect place to put an accent color. I dug out my acrylic paints, and decided to mix white and orange and paint the border a light orange. Fact: It took a long time to paint the orange stripe and it was tedious!

I'll be honest, at first, I didn't love it, but it really has grown on me.
It adds a bright pop to the room and definitely updates the frame.

The colors seem to compliment the nice scene of one of the many harbor streets we saw in Copenhagen.

friendship necklace

Remember when you were 10 and you and your sisters would wrap embroidery floss around a little chunk of hair at the base of your neck? Yeah, me too!!!! This necklace reminded me of that. In full disclosure, I was with Christine and our mom at Target a few weeks back when we came across this necklace. Christine and I immediately decided it was ridiculous to pay for this when we could easily make it (Hello, we're Girl Scouts!)...

St. Valentine's diorama

I wanted to make sisters Monika and Christine Valentines dioramas for February the 14th. I wasn't exactly sure what scene to display, but after I found some cute little polar bears (picked up last time I was visiting Monika in Burbank), I knew that a lovely little arctic scene-in-a-box would be just the ticket...

Merry Potter

I recently discovered this amazing $0.98 store down the street from my house. It's great! I have already purchased a gold sequin headband, miniature dinosaur skeletons, tape, glue sticks, and now these great terracotta pots!
The most amazing thing about this store is its legitimacy, these pots were actually $0.98 each.

While I love these pots, I wanted them to be more jovial--you know how some pots are more jovial than others.

I decided to just paint a little colored rim around the top to set it off.

Using a cream acrylic paint I put down a base coat so the colors would show up brighter.

I had to narrow my colors down because I only had five pots; I went with cream, peachy pink, red, blue, and yellow.

Olive watched my back when I was painting so no other dogs (Lucca) would run into my work area. Thanks, Olive.

These pots certainly do cheer me up when I see them. What lovely new homes for some of my growing succulents!

I always have plants waiting for more room.

I added some other smaller succulents to each pot to fancy them up a bit.

All-in-all, an inexpensive project and one that brightens my mornings.

Happy in their new homes.

The lesson here is don't be afraid of the dollar store, it often does have amazing things. Sometimes they are really only one dollar. If you do go there, see what type of miniature animal toys they have, you can always make your topiary a miniature menagerie.