Craft Night at the Bat Cave!

View from the apartment this afternoon

Gorgeous day outside! Mid 50s, sunny all day, a bit breezy, but hey, that's what you get when you live by the coast. Bear woke up with a nasty hangover this morning as would be expected when one finishes half of a handle in a night by oneself. I was sick with a gawddawful migraine last night (completely different, chaotic story) and slept for what felt like eons! (more like 15 hours? yeah, actually I checked it; 15 hours is, in fact, equivalent to 3 eons! woooow!).

but i digress

So we just kicked it for most of the day. I cleaned the apartment (always therapeutic. ALWAYS!) and did some laundry. Put together a grocery list (probably for tomorrow, since Bear oddly loves going grocery shopping with me), enjoyed some clean refreshing winter air with the windows open and decided to get crafty!

I own a ton of necklaces and earrings (thanks to shopping sprees, if you recall, at cheap sales at Forever 21. Again, I shudder to hear those words escape from my lips...). I may not wear them as often as I would like, but at least they're there when the craving hits or appropriate outfit calls!

Beginning canvas piece

Tonight, at the Bat Cave (the nickname our apartment has so appropriately earned), I'm getting crazy with some crafts....as the guffawwing of our downstairs neighbor fills the air. (He must be watching the Game Show Channel again.)

I started out my first craft - a earring/bracelet holder - with a large 12"x12" Artist's Canvas: "medium texture cotton duck", for all you arteeests out there - and wrapped some simple ribbon twice around a pair of diagonal corners. To give it a painter's tape sort of look. (it didn't turn out perfect, but i didn't want it to, so that's just fine with me...you'll see).

My favorite color I own ("own", because lord knows there are more colors out there in this world that will steal my heart one day) is Cerulean. You must know that my favorite color in the world is yellow and most gentle shades of it. For heaven's sake, I want my wedding dress one day to be a beautiful egg shell color. Screw white, that's boring! Anyway, I painted the whole canvas a....sloppy solid cerulean. Didn't really matter to me if the whole canvas was the same stroke, or even if there were streaks of white showing. It's hard to see in the picture...simply because it's dark, but you get the gist. Of course, made sure to get around those ribbons, so the effect worked!

Ingredients: paints, brushes, glitter, twine, puff paint, scissors

Cerulean canvas with cornered ribbons

So we'll let that mess dry up and work on craft #2 - a necklace holder. Be thirsty for this piece, 'cause you'll need to down a (preferably large) can of something. I chose Peace Tea: Sweet Tea, my most favorite tea in the world! Yummy and still very healthy for as much as I found myself gulping! :)

Sawed the top off of it, straight across, about an inch down from the top rim of the can. This is a frustrating step, so be patient with yourself. It'll look pretty botched once the top is freed, so (if you're right handed, like me) trim  counterclockwise, and as if you were looking inside the can. Next, I trimmed solid 1 inch wide strips at various heights toward (what is the bottom, but will be referred to as the top, since it is here that I tie the hanging string!) the top. Had about 9 strips total. At each top of the strip I bent it very tightly, then bent it back down to make it look like a spider leg, staircase, accordion; whatever you want. At the end of each strip, just because I wanted it to look formal, I bent a teeny part down to round out the tip rather than have a sharp end exposed.

Best. Tea. Ever! 

Now comes the difficulte part (to wordly explain, that is). I took some fabric twine (this, or thin ribbon is cool) and weaved between and around and over all the strips, distributing evenly and liberally plenty of twine, strengthening the strips as they would be holding soon some heavy necklaces. Wrapped the last wind around the top, and tied a knot around the weave of twine. Snipped a 2-foot piece of twine, knotted one end around the weave again, centered, and the other end, looped to hang from a hook in the ceiling! Annnnnnd DONE!

Hooray!

Top cut off. ~1 inch down from the rim

Strip 1, down. Must make more strips!

Bendy strips. Holds....let's see....at least 2 necklaces

~9 strips. Completed product, all bendy and whatnot

Close up of my "rounded tip" idea

Threading begins!

Expect an imperfect-looking creation

Tethered necklace creature

Now, it's back to the earring holder, since it's all dry! The next bit happens quickly since my paint will dry quickly and I've got some quick steps to make. I blot some silver clouds on the pretty blue, which contrasts swimingly! With the wet silver paint acting like glue, I dusted some glitter along the bottom of the clouds to give it a "there's always a silver lining" vibe to it. Added some black puff paint doodles to give it character. Tossed the ribbons and nailed 2 staples on each side to hold some loose bracelets! Annnnnnnd DONE!

Hooray!

(Note: I completely understand that the earring holder looks just like a fancy pants painting, but just jab some pointed earring through it all, and viola! An earring holder!)

Dusted clouds with some "silver lining"

Glittery details!

Finished product! Wheeeeeeee!

Get crafty, my friends! Get crafty!













(PS: i'm so so soooooooo sorry my pictures are as chaotically displaced as they are. If this blogging pictures thing doesn't work for me, I'm doomed..... Will practice this, dear friends!)