Aubrey Longley-Cook of Spool Spectrum created this embroidered animation. Probably one of the coolest craft projects I’ve seen in a long time.

[via Feeling Stitchy]

Yay! I’ve been very crafty lately and I finally had some time to take pics. They are not finished yet, of course. I still need to add the bails and chains to these pendants.

These are clay pendants with images decoupaged on top. I sanded the edges to round the corners and I used resin to seal the images so they are nice and shiny and water resistant:

The white clay is the best stuff ever. Its Fimo clay with glitter already mixed in. It’s very forgiving. I’ve only ever used Sculpey and honestly, I like the Fimo better. It seems to sand nicely too compared to Sculpey and I think I will use it from now on. The red and pink clay is also Fimo with glitter.

Then I also made some straight resin pendants with candy, glitter, and alphabet beads. I know, its way over done these days, but I love them:

I still need to sand the edges of the resin pieces.

I have TONS more pendants. Like at least 100 or more. I did a lot of wood pendants with retro images, etc. too. Can’t wait to finally add chains to all of them and take photos. I hate the fact that there are only 24 hours in one day.

( http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=303559 )

I am the queen of procrastination, but not because I am lazy. I just do too much. My husband thinks I should be cloned. I voted for hiring robots. Anyway, I bought this book a looooooooooooooong time ago:

and I never did anything with it other than decorate my new bookshelf. Its the greatest little book containing patterns for making your own stuffed animals. My 3 year old daughter found it 2 weeks ago when she was making a mess and begged me to make her something out of it. She picked an animal named “Pinkie”. Well, after 2 weeks of me feeling horrible for not making it, I decided to go ahead and do it last night when my husband stole my computer to catch up on episodes of Lost.

Pinkie is sewn completely by hand out of the wrong kind of felt. But thats okay, I really don’t think she has a long life expectancy anyway. I plan to make more…. someday. With the right kind of materials.

About a year and a half ago, I wrote about SmartFlix, a site where you can rent craft dvd’s. I have rented many dvds from them, mostly pertaining to polymer clay and glass fusing. Yesterday, I came across a similar site, but first let me tell you how it is I end up on the damn internet for hours. Yes, I am going to Tarantino this blog post.

See, I subscribe to Craftster’s forum where I receive an email when someone adds something to certain sections. I subscribe to the jewelry and purse sections. Anyway, someone posted a cute resin necklace. She was asked where she purchased her molds, to which she replied “Little Windows“. I of course immediately clicked on the link because I have a little problem with that sort of thing.

Little Windows sells resin, molds, etc. I’m sure they will get a lot of my money at some point. After looking at their molds, I decided to, once again, Google “resin molds” to see if anything new came up. Resin molds are usually the same everywhere you buy them. Since resin jewelry has become more popular, I thought that perhaps manufacturers had started making new molds.

One of the search results was for a DVD by Sherri Haab called Resin Jewelry. If you have done your resin research, you know that Sherri Haab is a GOD! Anyway, I really wanted the DVD, but as seen at the above link, it costs $22.95. Not too bad when I have money, but right now…. it ain’t gonna happen. So I Googled my heart out to see if I could find it cheaper somewhere else.

Its my lucky day because I found a site similar to SmartFlix that I have never heard of called Artworkshops.tv. So its a double bonus because I can rent my dvd for $9.95 AND I now know about another great site for crafty stuff. The anti-bonus is that I will be spending more money on more craftiness and I’ll be more broke and more crazy and more sleepy.

The above scenario took more than an hour. I end up clicking here and clicking there. And just to show you how completely insane I am… its 4 in the morning while I am doing all this. 4 in the morning, as in…. I have not gone to bed yet.

Back:

I’m sure I will be inundating you with journals in the upcoming months. I have a ton of ideas.

x-posted at craftster

I haven’t been very crafty lately, so I finally sat down long enough to produce a handmade journal.

I really love books and have wanted to make them for a while. I finally bought a binding system, although I would love to explore more traditional methods of bookbinding (I have some instruction books on the way). I can tell though that most of my books will use this kind of binding because I don’t have a lot of time on my hands for sewing pages together, etc.

I used chipboard, scrapbooking paper, and my xyron sticker machine for the covers and then I laminated them. The inside has a few pages here and there from a vintage children’s book. I added a white label on that first page with the stripes in order to put your name or the title, etc. and then I broke out some of my buttons and jewelry-making supplies to embellish the cover:

Inside front cover and first page:



Random pages inside:



This is the inside of the back cover:



Back:





It measures 4 x 6, but this was just a test and I’d rather make them bigger from now on.

Changes I’ll make next next time include not laminating the covers and making sure the binding wire is centered (notice it doesn’t start at the very top but ends at the very bottom? yes, I am picky.) Also, I cut the inside pages down to size by hand and it was so time consuming. I’ll probably buy paper pre-cut next time.

x-posted at craftster

I don’t know why I never thought to look on YouTube for resin videos before. There are several of them and I really liked this one for the basics on mixing:

Plus, I learned a little trick from this nice lady, which is to use cooking spray to clean your cups so you can re-use them!

What a disappointment I must be to people who end up here because they thought this was a crafting blog. What is this blog? Who the hell does this lying bitch think she is?


1. I love crafts. I sew, I make jewelry, I make buttons, I play with polymer clay, I play with resin, I decoupage, I paint, I need help.

2. This started out as a personal blog to keep in contact with friends and family. I chose the name CraftZombie because I have a bad habit of staying awake until the sun comes up. I lose track of time while crafting. This happens almost every single night. I could have named this blog CraftyNightOwlBitchWontGoToSleep. (By the way, I’ll sleep when I’m dead.)

3. I intended on making it more crafty, but still personal.

4. I intended to do crafty video tutorials on all kinds of topics.

5. I’m just too damn busy and I hate it. I never reached my blog goals.

So, in a pathetic effort to be crafty and helpful, I am going to give some resin advice.

I use http://www.statcounter.com to see what search terms people use to get to this blog. One recent Google.au search was for “how to avoid bubbles in easycast resin”. Here we go….

You can’t avoid bubbles in Easy Cast resin, or any other resin for that matter. It is a natural occurrence that happens during the mixing phase. You cannot get around it. But you CAN get rid of most of the bubbles, sometimes even all of them if it is your lucky day. How? Warm air. If you are broke, you will use method #1. If you have a few bucks, you will use method #2. Do not attempt method #3, it sucks.

1. blow air through a straw
2. use a heat gun (embossing gun)
3. use a blowdryer

Don’t attempt to use a blowdryer. I learned this lesson long ago when I first began my resin journey. Blowdryers BLOW air. You will splatter resin everywhere. I only mentioned it because I thought you might try to be sneaky after you read this, thinking “I already have a blowdryer. I don’t wanna buy a heat gun. I’ll just use my blowdryer.” If you use your blowdryer, I will knock on your door and slap you in the face. I will. And if you are a seasoned resin artist and you leave me a comment about how you use your blowdryer, I will also slap you in the face.

Blowing air with a straw is not as effective as the heat gun. The heat gun zaps them in a snap. It’s almost magical to watch. Most of the time you can get all of the bubbles. Sometimes there will be one stray bubble that shows up out of nowhere during your curing process and you just have no choice but to embrace it or throw the finished piece in the trash. You end up convincing yourself that it gives your piece “character”. But deep down, you really hate that fucking bubble.

How close do you hold the heat gun to the resin? You can actually get it pretty close. Just start off a little far away and slowly get closer. You start seeing bubbles popping. The closer you get, the more bubbles pop. But you don’t want to leave the heat gun on the resin for a long time because too much heat can cause problems. So can cold resin.

How much is this freakin’ heat gun thing? The cheapest ones I’ve seen retail for $19.99. I got mine for 40% off with a coupon. That was cheap enough for me, but maybe not for some. Steal a straw and start blowin’.

Oh, and don’t be afraid of resin. I remember how afraid I was the first time I unscrewed the caps, like I was a mad scientist and my kitchen was going to explode. Resin is your friend. Just follow its rules and it will treat you kindly. You can blow up your kitchen with something else.

Any questions?

P.S. Yes, blowdryer is not one word, its two.

Update 6/10/2010: Found a great tutorial for resin crafts here

6 months ago, I posted some Bamboo Tile Pendants I made with vintage children’s book images:





The traffic to my site because of those has been overwhelming. With the traffic comes “How do I do….” questions, the biggest being “How the heck do you make the little wire thingy on the top?!?!”

So I made a little tutorial and tried the best I could to explain. I am getting a video camera soon and would love to make video tuts for all sorts of things. The camera I have now would be no good for that sort of thing. Feel free to ask me any questions and please bear with my pathetic little “illustrations”.



















See a close-up of this to get a better idea:

So my sister-in-law’s birthday was three months ago. Yes, THREE MONTHS AGO, which is when I started this purse. But then one thing came up after another and I didn’t get to finish it until yesterday. I am giving it to her tomorrow, in birthday wrapping, not xmas wrapping, because I got her something else for xmas. I feel like a tool, but hopefully she’ll love the purse and she’ll forgive me!

I did the rainbow and hearts by hand with felt:





The circle thingy is a little contraption I made to hold the Deery Lou mirror I made her with my button machine. I also made her another mirror so she can swap them out.





This is a crappy picture of the inside because my camera was being weird, but its lined with red fabric that has tiny white hearts on it. The closure is a long strip of velcro and there is a pocket for a pen, etc. I don’t really prefer velcro, but I totally forgot about the closure til the last minute and ended up having to do it by hand. I’d prefer a nice zipper or snap next time.





Then I made her a coin purse with comic book fabric, which is lined with the same fabric as the purse.








Also, at the last minute, I made her this pendant:





I’m just glad I finally finished it. I am also making her a little monster plushie as we speak and hopefully it will come out like I plan (my projects rarely do!).





x-posted at craftster