Oil Painting (canvas, oil paint, Sharpie pen)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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. :)