Living in a Horror Movie (and other stuffs)

I feel like all i've been doing is snapping quick pictars and sending them to blogger to be able to still qualify for blog365 cuz I've been so darn busy! And I don't even have a damn job!!!

Saturday I spent most of my day making Miller bottle cap jewelries. I made a few pendants, some earrings, bracelets and anklets. I plan on putting them on the etsy site in the next day or 2. (i really have to finish up my afghan that was supposed to be done a couple weeks ago...but my customer is cool and said as long as she has it before August 30th we're cool)

Here's a crappy cell phone pictar of a MGD earring



Sunday was the mytrivialive fund raiser for the Rainbow Connection (which is like the Make a Wish foundation but for Michigan kids only

(Rainbow Connection website)

They let me put up a table (last minute notice) to sell Miller inspired jewelries (*points to crappy earring pictar above*) and a portion of the proceeds went to the Rainbow Connection. I also brought a few resin bottle caps (made sure to weed out the non-miller ones) which actually sold very well...as keychains!!! So I'm gonna make sure I have a supply of ball chain and connectors for the next show we do (which should be the Dally in the Alley in Sept.)

My mom came up to hang with me and once trivia started we left and went to her house to watch the Lions v. Bengals football game. My sister and her hubby were in town for a few days for her 10 year reunion and visiting. That was fun! I miss her. I wish she lived closer. And I wish I could have spent more than just a few hours with her on her trip. She always packs so much in to do. It was cool tho. We chatted, Lions won, had some adult beverages. all was cool.

(While I was doing the fundraiser, hubby went to visit his parents. Apparently his dad isn't doing too well. He has Alzheimer's (which he's been diagnosed for 18 years! They just told hubby and his brothers a couple years ago. Which explains why he was deteriorating "so fast") and he's not eating or taking meds. And with hubby's mom being sick as she is it's taking a big toll on everyone)

OH! got the Rosary that banshee made for my mom for her bday! I can't wait to get the pictar of it from my sister (forgot my camera on Sunday) cuz it was spectacular! And my mother LOVED that it had a Padre Pio shield on it. (Padre Pio is her favorite) Altho she found it amusing and ironic that I got her a rosary for her bday. ^_^

When we left my mom's Sunday night we stopped at the Box for a quick adult beverage before heading home. While we were there, the power went out. Thankfully they have the emergency lighting, but when they went outside to check if they had power across the street the entire city was black. Standing on 6 mile as far as you could see both ways it was pitch black! Someone said before we left that it was a 10 mile square outage. The entire city of Redford was black as was a decent portion of Detroit.

Which wouldn't have been so bad but my mind started freaking out. Too many horror movies. I was just waiting for the zombies to start pounding on the doors.

We made it home, called DTE to report the outage and less than 2 hours later the power was back on (WHEW!) Funny thing: we had so many candles lit oin our house that people driving by were slowing down cuz they thought we had power lol.

I did get to finish "the Subtle Knife" while waiting for power to come back on. Loved it. Can't wait to get the 3rd book!

Monday was supposed to be trivia but it ended up cancelled when we got there. It turned out decent tho cuz I got to take pictars of da banshee's awesome jewelry and visited with one ill before she leaves for the east coast.

I did get to finish my bud light anklets for the order (which I needed to deliver Monday evening anyway) and I also made an adorable Corona bracelet



Which i also listed on etsy (has 5 views so far yay!)

Corona Bottle Cap Bracelet - upcycled

A friend and I are headed to hubby's new restaurant for dinner tonight. I'm excited! My mom and I went last week for her bday and the dinner was extraordinary!

(p.s. sorry I didn't get in touch with anyone to go to lunch yet ... anyone still interested? he works saturdays too)

So the rest of my week is boring: finishing the afghan tomorrow (was supposed to do it today but I got distracted), prepping bottle caps for resining, making coffee cup holders and tawashi, and watching movies as I do it all ^_^ And somewhere in there I have to clean the house and do laundry.

So yea ... that's me in a nutshell. And I feel so much better that it's not just a pictar on the blogger.

xoxox

some bottlecappy things I've made

(click on each pic to make them bigger)

Some things I've made ... these are crappy cell pics sorry.

BudLight Anklet (got an order for 3 of them)





(close up of the bracelet)





Izze bracelet for da banshee (i made one for me with purkle beads)


Heineken bracelet with my new plastic star beads! I can't wait to take a better pictar




I also have another variation on the budlight one and 2 Miller beer ones. I made a Miller Lite and a Budweiser one but I forgot to take pictars of them before I gave the ML one to our trivia host and sold the Budweiser one to someone in the bar.

I'M ADDICTED!!!!!

My Marilyn WIP

It's not even close to a finished product. I still need to resin the images and I'm not happy with the length. I think I'm gonna remove one of the images and put a toggle clasp on the end ... something cool and retro looking if I can find it. the reason it's bigger than I would like is that I had no clasp to attach to it so I had to make it big enough to slip around my wrist.





I love it!!!

The afghan I'm gonna be working on

Click to see bigger

I'm so excited! It's done in an off-white and in panels you crochet together when you're done. I love that it's 3 different patterns so I'm not gonna get bored doing it.

I'm starting this next week sometime.

Today I'm concentrating on the star afghan and removing rings without slicing myself silly again. And painting bottlecaps and waiting for them to dry. I'm telling you, like Tom Petty said, The waiting is the hardest part.

xoxox

having way too much fun

I was removing rubber rings from bottlecaps until I sliced my thumb trying to remove a super hard one. (I'm gonna have to make a list of the ones easy to remove and the ones that suck and figure out how to work around the ones that suck so I don't slice my fingers again) FYI it's a billion times easier to boil caps in water, remove them one at a time with tongs, and use a sharp implement to remove the rings (altho I'm thinking tweezers might work but we don't have any in our house ... so I'm using the tiny knife on our wine tool) I was using the hot plate of the coffee maker originally, but that takes so long.

Anyway, I decided to look for and work on more graphics/pictars for bottlecaps. (thanks Gina!) I found some fabulous ones and I can't wait to get them posted! a couple Rose the Riveter, a few wonder woman (including the opening logo from the TV series) a couple cool cherry ones, a Gonzo symbol, Harley davidson, Mr. T, and a couple others i think. I printed them out and I'm waiting for them to completely dry.

I did get enough bottlecaps un-ringed to be able to paint a few so they can dry. Because I'm such a nit-picker, I'm painting the insides of each bottlecaps to match the outside. (i think I mentioned this before) Like Bud Light. The top is silver tinged and the inside is golden. (which happens to be the caps I was working on today) so after flattening and removing the rings, I set them up and spray painted the insides (of some of them) silver so that I can attach a silver coloured jump rings and silver coloured ball chain and then the cap can be reversible. Black would also work. I may do some of those tomorrow.

But the really fun part is finding and fixing the pictars so they fit and look decent (to me anyway) It is kinda time consuming (spent about 3 hours doing it today for about 10 pictars) but it's rewarding. and I love it!

I'm still working on my super secret bloggy project and I'm crocheting every nght. Working currently on that babyghan then some tawashi before I move onto the 2nd commissioned afghan (when I get the pattern...which hopefully will be in the next couple days)

oh! and I also got some books from the library yesterday. I can't seem to find my copy of House of Leaves (I know it's in my house somewhere...the damn pixies have hidden it on me I just know it) so I picked up "Even Cowgirls get the Blues" and "east of Eden" based on a tip from someone at the Box last week, the 2nd book after The Golden Compass and a book Kevin picked up called "The New Weird" which is like a collection of twisted sci fi and horror stories. He thought I might like it and I think I will.

Yea i feel like my brain is on overload. I'm trying to ration out my days so I have time to clean and bottlecap and crochet and pictar and blog and super secret blog and clean and of course eat and drink lots of water lol.

I'm sure you're sick of bottlecap stuffs

but I am pretty sure I finally figured out the secret!!!

remember this one?




Well check out the new and improved version




the details are still a little fuzzy ... think I would prolly have better results if I use photo paper, but I didn't have any in the house and I wanted to experiment.

And now presenting the rest of the bunch:

this one I made to go with my beerings. It's kinda bleh but it's just for me




of course the red wings one you've already seen ... I'm still working out how to add a stanley cup to this one.




This one is NOT in a Stella Artois cap .... just plain old budweiser. I'm thinking ofmaking a bunch and giving them to my fellow dart league players on Thursday. (and i kinda got impatient with this one... you can see the white ring around the pictar where I didn't let the glue completely dry before moving onto step 2)




one of my faves. Altho she lost some detail. Again I think if I used photo paper I would have better results, but this one is just for me so I don't care. AND i kinda like the impressionistic quality of the fuzziness.




And this one is my absolute FAVORITE!!!! I can't wait to attach a jump ring and wear her!!



So you wanna know the secret?

CLEAR NAIL POLISH!!!!!

Yep ... that's right.

Apparently the modge podge reacted in a fuzzy way with a combo of the ink of my printer and the diamond glaze stuff i'm using (altho I'm thinking I may move onto real resin cuz I'm not sure the diamond glaze is getting hard enough for me ... course doesn't help that it's humid as all get out here)

So even tho I followed directions to the letter, I was still getting subpar results. Until I saw someone else who used rubber cement to glue the images down and then sealed them with clear nail polish before adding the resin. a lightbulb went on in my head and I decided to try it and BINGO!!!

All in all the process for each pendant takes about 3 days each. 1 day to flatten out the bottlecaps and remove the rubber ring and then glue in the image and then seal it with the nail polish. must let glue dry first which lately has been taking about an hour.(refer back to dartboard cap) next day when everything is dry you can punch the hole and attach the jump ring (or do it before you add the image, just as long as it's done before you add the resin). LaY on a flat surface and add a layer of resin/diamond glaze and then set it down and leave it the hell alone!!!! let that sucker dry for at least a day. If you want to add more resin (like to try and make it dome, which is hard as hell to do) add it after you've let it dry for at least 24 hours.

Since I'm not a very patient person the waiting is frigging hard. But it's so worth it!!!

one more bottlecappy thing

seriously....I am crocheting my azz off today, but I'm also taking small breaks to check things online and to do some more experimenting with the bottlecaps.

So I think i figured out the colour leaching situation. I actually think it was the modge podge combined with the resin. I'm conducting an experiment right now and results should be in tomorrow.

In the meantime, I found my jump rings and made a 2 stranded "adjustable" hemp cord necklace and VOILA!

(sorry for the craptastic cell phone pics. too lazy to break out the real camera cuz it would take away valuable crochet time)

so stupidly proud of myself

I figured out today how to print more than one copy of an image in the size I need for bottlecaps. YAY ME!!!

So I just printed up a whole bunch of red wings logos (lol) so that I can get cracking on practicing with them. I did it because
a. they're gonna win the cup tonight
and
b. they're red which is the colour that is currently driving me crazy.

so wish me tons of luck.

and if i can figure it out, I'm going to add little stanley cups to them as well. hehehe. cuz I'm cool like that.

(if nothing else I'm becoming a fabulous pictar manipulator in this endeavour)

xoxox

YAY! I got my yarn!!!

I had to break down and order yarn online for the afghan commission. it arrived today! I'm so excited! The color is actually alot prettier than I thought it would be. I can see why she picked it. So I'm gonna be very busy over the next week or so crocheting as much as I can.

I also have been working on those bottlecaps. I think I have stuff figured out. Through this process I have to say that my hubby has been amazing. He's reminded me that when I started crocheting it took alot of trial and error and much practice. I didn't just pick up a hook and yarn and become an expert all at once. I seem to have forgotten that part lol. All I know is how easy it is now.

So while ironing out the bottlecaps is a little frustrating for me, he has all the faith in the world that I can figure things out. I feel like a failure right now and I feel like I'm wasting "product" but hubby isn't worried. He says it a small investment that will eventually pay off. And if I enjoy doing it that is the most important part. And he is so right.

I do have plans to chronicle my trial and error in this thing tho cuz all the sites I've come across talking about this stuff make it sound so easy. And I am sure it will be once I figure out the formula. But right now it's not so easy.

So I'm taking a break from bottlecaps for today and doing a little crocheting after i make something to eat and do a little house cleaning (gotta replace the belt on the vacuum ... been a couple days and the carpet is NASTY!!)

xoxox

Adventures in bottlecaps

(as usual lately click the pictars for bigger versions)

I think I've figured out what I'm doing wrong. Essentially I need to be more patient. Which is not one of my better qualities. That's okay tho. Perhaps this is just what I need.

So according to all the websites you need to take a rubber hammer and flatten the bottlecaps to begin with. Well, we don't have a rubber hammer (well hubby insists we do but I've yet to find it) so Itried a couple of things and eventually discovered that taking pliers and "folding" the edges works well. I tried it 2 different way and I prefer the 2nd

way #1 (the one I don't like)


way #2 (much better imho)


The first 2 i did last night ended up completely screwy. I didn't remove the rubber ring in the caps and I didn't flatten out the cap properly. Nor did i seal them well enough with the modge podge. so the colours all ran and essentially they need to be thrown out, but I won't do that cuz I want reference of what NOT to do lol

This one was a pictar from a magazine I just wanted to play with.



you can see the raised part from the rubber ring still being in there. and the colors completely faded from the vibrant pinks it was in the magazine. you can also see a couple bubbles that formed ... prolly from me moving it all around instead of setting it someplace, covering it to keep it safe from dust, and leaving it the hell alone.

This one is even worse.



I didn't fill either of them with alot of resin stuff cuz I didn't want to "waste" it. You can see how I screwed with the diamond glaze while it was drying. And again the raised ring from the rubber ring i didn't remove.




So I did a little websurfing and found out how to remove the rubber rings (a couple different ways, but the way I found that I liked was to heat the caps on your coffee warming plate for about 20 seconds and the rubber will pry right off using a butterknife or tweezers)

I used the pliers to "flatten" the caps and sealed the pictars with modge podge and tried again.

unfortunately I didn't seal them enough ... or let them dry enough ... i'm not sure which ... cuz the colours bled again.



which kinda makes it look ethereal and cool ... kinda ... but I'd rather the vibrant colours it was printed with.

(and as a funny I put the pictar of the virgin on a tecate bottlecap hehehe)



I thought I had the colour problem licked but my 2 english D attempts came out funky too ... and one of them has bubbles ... again prolly from me jostling it around peeking at it when I should have just covered it and let it sit.








So today I printed out another virgin on photo paper (to see if it makes a difference from regular paper) and another english D on regular paper. I'm modge podging them both about 3 times per side (letting each layer dry inbetween) putting them inside the caps and modge podging them once more. Letting them dry overnight and tomorrow I'll put in the diamond glaze. And let them sit without moving them around. And we'll see if this makes any difference.

Once I figure this all out I am making my own damn how to guide cuz I couldn't find any information all in one place for this stuff. It shouldn't be this hard dammit.

My bottlecaps

(as usual lately, click for bigger pics)

So far we got

Busch:




Budweiser:




Bud Select:




Redbridge:




Labatt Blue:




Landshark:





Also thinking of going to a local "brew your own beer" store to see if they have plain bottle caps in stock (I've found them online already, so if I can't find them then it's all good) I'm just thinking that parents might not want to buy their kid my "Hannah Montana pendant" if it's on the back of a Budweiser cap.

We're also gonna start splurging once a week on "good" beer so that I can get more awesome bottle caps for my future bottlecap art. Cuz not only am I gonnado inside the cap art, but i'm thinking I can make magnets and stuff as well.

So those of you who drink awesome things that are capped .... please save me your caps and I will love you forever!!!!!

xoxoxo