Free Wheeling

Oil Painting (canvas, oil paint, Sharpie pen)

2009-06-10T17:57:00.000-07:00

Smaller canvas paintings make a great personalized present. Smaller for multiple reasons. It's easier to make and it's less of a commitment for the gifted to hang if they feel the need.

Here is one I made for my sister for her birthday. "By Your Side"

No oil painting experience necessary.

I started with the background all orange and it had to sit for a week in my cold SF apt.

I didn't know this about oil paints they take forever to dry.

Once it was dry I added the blue corner and the red and yellow highlights.

Another week later I drew on the birds with a Sharpe pen. I am not a drawer so went for the simple silhouettes.

Window Seat Couch/Bed (wood, nails, futon, tape measure)

2009-05-06T16:38:00.000-07:00

For a while now we have been faking a couch in my living room. We had our futon mattress sitting on some old drawers with the back leaning against the wall. It looked OK,but was uncomfortable to sit on and the futon was constantly sliding off. After months of procrastination hubs and I got to work and built a couch that will serve our over night guests and our late night movie viewing needs.

First we brainstormed how we could salvage and repurpose the wood we already had, 2 sets of three horizontally attached drawers from my childhood bed. We decided to use one set of drawers as the front base and to cut up the other set in order to fit the new shape to the wall. Unfortunately we still had to purchase a few 1.5x4s to make the top support. We nailed them down on top of the drawers and the base was done.

To make the cushion we placed our old twin sized futon without the cover on the new platform and drew a line outlining the platform so we knew where to cut the futon for a custom fit. Next we cut/ripped the futon to be the right width. This was quite a wrestling match the futon stuffing is really thick, has many layers and falls apart so we were sneezing every 3 seconds and we were covered with cotton fiber dust.
Once we had the right width for the cushion we needed to make it the right length so we took old pillows and cut and folded to match width and depth and sewed it to the cut futon until we had a custom fit cushion. Wahoo!
All this taking roughly 5hrs. Beer break included. We still need to get some material to cover the couch but it's incredibly comfortable and works great as a guest bed.

Basic HTML (computer,internet)

2009-04-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of time on the interent as I am sure many people do, however I never have taken the time to understand how webpages work. I see the engineers typing what looks like an alien language in order to update computer programms.
So I took on the tedious project to teach myself basic HTML.
There are many online free tutorials that make this process less painful. i.e. www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp & www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/html/article.php3478131

I found it rewarding to understand how the information I rely on so much on a daily basis, comes to be. Once you work through some tutorials I believe one can make a crafty personal website and can have fun with it. I haven't gotten that far, but my hubby took it upon himself to learn and he built his own business website, www.blackshearmusic.com
Try it out and don't get frustrated it is pretty basic at first.

Easter Pics (hard boiled eggs, egg dye, mashmallow peep, camera, photoshop)

2009-04-13T18:54:00.000-07:00

My sister has been available to hangout with me lately during my pre-work hours. It's been a lot of fun and her love of Yoga is wearing off on me. Therefore in honor of the Easter season, my sister's love of Yoga and the recent Andy Warhol addition at the DeYoung museum we had some fun making these Photoshop pics.

First we dyed Easter eggs and I photographed them individually in front of a white wall. Then we took pictures in some yoga poses. My sister is way more advanced than me so I just stuck to a simple "lotus"(???) pose while she broke out in handstands, backbends and more.

We managed to save one of the Peeps we bought and photographed it in front of the white wall as well. ;)

After importing the photos and playing around with colors fills and cutting tools I wound up with these two goofy images. I recognize the rough cuts but it was a fun quick project.

Happy Easter!!!

Pimped Big Wheel (big wheel, sparkles, paint, streamers, helmet)

2009-04-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

Put down your peeps and head over to Target to purchase a big wheel. of your liking. There are just two days left for the paint to dry. The 9th annual Bring Your Own Big Wheel Race down Lombard St. is held on Easter Sunday. I actually have not done the race yet but my hubs and some friends partook and had a blast pimping their Big Wheels for the big day. I definately recomend a helmet and some knee and elbow pads because the event can get rough and really fast.

If the race isn't your thang...decorating a Big Wheel is still fun. Doll one up for a kid you know.

Cardio Kickboxing (crunch memebership,good sportsbra, sneakers)

2009-04-09T16:27:00.000-07:00

On Tues. and Thurs. mornings when I am feeling motivated and rested, I go to cardio kickboxing at Crunch fitness on Polk st. The class is a heart pumping, booty lifting, muffin top shrinking, workout that makes you look like you are wearing Lululemon pants while sporting your frumpiest. Bonus...it's fun, improves your rythm and cardio kickboxing is a great way to get out aggression.

Rainy Day Apt. Installation (blue & red paper, garbage bag, tape, camera)

2009-04-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

This was a fun project. I cut out an umbrella and rain drops out of old poster board and a garbage bag and taped it to the wall in my living room. Then whenever friends came by I would snap a photo of them posing in the rain. I got sick of having an umbrella up in my apt. once the sun came out so these are the only ones I got. :)

Embroidered Hats (blank hat, weaving thread, paper, 2 pins))

2009-04-07T09:11:00.001-07:00

I have made a ton of embroidered hats over the years, they make great personalized present. Here are a few that are still lying around the house.

Begin by designing a graphic keeping in mind who will be wearing the hat. Draw the graphic on a piece paper the same size to fit the hat. Next pin it on the hat wherever seems fit and start sewing over the design. The hole punctures made while sewing weakens the paper so it pops right off when sewing is complete. It's easy and takes only a few hours depending on the detail of the graphic.

You can buy blank hats online or I bought a bunch at Walgreens. I recommend trying the fit of the hat before you purchase. The ones at Walgreens seem to fit both men and women really well.

Rug (6 throw rugs, weaving thread)

2009-04-03T20:18:00.000-07:00

Ward off the Monday blues by patching together a new rug It is an inexpensive way to really change the look of a room. I have needed a new rug in my living room for a while and a few months ago I ran across a post on Apartment Therapy suggesting sewing multiple mini throw rugs together. Here it is. I'm not 100% sold on the final product but it definitely looks way better than it did before.

Bride & Groom Cake Toppers (stockings cotton black,white,red, and lace baterial, cardboard thread pipecleaners, blue top pins)

2009-04-02T20:24:00.001-07:00

My wedding. When my mom said she would make my wedding cake (best carrot cake ever) I told her I would take care of the cake toppers. Searching for inspiration I discovered the brilliant, Ann Wood. I fell in love with her sweetheart cake toppers. Unfortunately, her fine craftsmanship wasn't within my budget, (although her price is very appropriate if not generous.) I consider myself a crafty person, but these little guys really tested my abilities. The result, two kind of cute kind of awkward birds highly representative of the bride and groom. However,the craftsmanship is pretty shady. Not very easy stitching and visible glue smudges I don't know how Anne does it. I listed the materials I used, but I have no clue how I ended up with the final product envision a wrestling match with me and a stocking. They were really fun with cake and added a personal touch. As cute and conservative as our little bird representatives looked we didn't act as charming and proceeded to smash the cake into eachothers faces. :)

Side Table (glass scraps, cement, recycled table base)

2009-04-02T19:41:00.001-07:00

Mustache Tryouts (camera, photoshop, fcp)

2009-04-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

A simple mustache can turn a cutie, into a man who looks like he drives a van with tinted windows. The photo left concerned me. I am in fact part Eskimo part Italian. What if I had a mustache? Yes, I spent a solid 30min of my life testing this out. Yikes! At least electrolosis is now an option.

Clock Canvas (oilpaint, weaving thread, sharpie, clock kit, pink t-shirt)

2009-04-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I try to get to much done before my work day begins. This project was a result of that. Notice the uneven white lines and the green smudges. I did not wait for the green paint to dry before removing the tape. The tape was suppose to create a dramatic paint to canvas edge, oops! To distract from this error and make the canvas more interesting I cut a hole in it and added clock kit. I sometimes enjoy seeing the production process in a finished project.

Bird Canvas (waterbased paint, weaving thread, sharpie, wrapping straw)

2009-04-02T13:36:00.000-07:00

I love to make canvas paintings and prints, but I am not great at drawing. Solution... add simple patterns with varying materials to make a simple drawing more interesting. I painted the base for this in one pre-work day and sewed about one or two rows of stitching a day so it took me a little more than a week of pre-work days. The process for this is slow because the tough canvas makes seewing hard on the fingers.

Bed (plywood, 2x4s, futon frame, paint)

2009-04-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

I thought making a bed was going to be really difficult. I started by drawing half the design of the headboard on a bunch of grocery bags taped together and folded in half. Then I cut out the design unfolded it and traced it onto a piece of plywood. A cheap little handheld jigsaw made cutting out the curvy design easy. I did it in my small SF kitchen while resting the wood on two bar stools. I used the same method for the base of the bed. The structure of the bed is an old futon that I slept on in college. Hubs and I just raised & decorated it.

Bar (24oz beer cans, Reclaimed wood, Round top thumb tacks)

2009-04-02T13:25:00.000-07:00

We refer to our house as the "Dumpster Dive" classy I know, but the name comes from the fact that this bar is 100% recycled, literally our of the "dumpster." The wood was part of a broken down set in Fort Mason. The bar definately took more than one pre-work day. Over 100 24 oz beers needed to be consumed in order to cover the whole bar. Luckily there were many enthusiastic volunteers that got things moving. Hubs would be past out on the couch when I got home from work. 2 empty "tall boy"cans besides him very proud of his contribution when he woke. Eventually we got all the cans needed and I cut the bottoms and tops off turned them inside out and tacted them to the wood.

Entertainment Center (Fence Posts & Nails)

2009-04-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

The entertainment center entailed detailed cutting to fit the speakers perfectly so I brought in the Hubs. Still made of only nails fence wood and 2x4s. The project was complete within a few hours. We stained the wood to match the rest of the set, but I took photos before hand because this is my favorite of the three fence pieces. :)

Bistro Table (Fence Post, Reclaimed Torrazzo, Nails)

2009-04-02T13:17:00.000-07:00

Cut, nailed, sanded and stained in 3 hours.

Coffee Table (Reclaimed Torrazzo, Fence post, Nails, 2x4)

2009-04-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

The coffee table was a tough fit. The Torrazzo is really heavy and not a perfect square like I was hoping. This table is actually the second attempt. The first one was a really beautiful piece with lots of brighter color glass. I thought the table was looking beautiful. However when I returned home for work I found the torrazzo on the ground shattered into many pieces. Nails did not hold up. This one is held together with screws.There is a piece of plywood underneath the Torrazzo screwed to the fence wood. Because the base was already standing we just forced the new piece of torrazzo into the old frame with a lot of brute force. The hubs and a hammer were crucial. :)