retro crafty memo pad

here is a pictorial tute on the craft project i submitted for The Crafter Culture Handbook. it is a memo pad made from Jiffy baking product boxes. any boxes with fun graphics would be suitable. maybe even covering thin cardboard with japanese candy wrappers.... that's an interesting idea actually... i am posting this because i don't think the instructional photos are going to be included in the book (i haven't received my copy just yet). i see this as a supplement, if needed.

okay, so here is a quick run down of supplies/tools and such.

you will need: interesting box, paper cut to size (a smidge smaller than the covers, and as much as your stapler can handle going through), stapler, glue, decorative papers and other embellishments of your choice.

the how-to:

the box....
only a serving suggestion mind you.

cut away sides and bottom flaps (discards shown to the right), leaving front and back of box along with the attached top flaps (see left).

again, what to save.

this is the part i have a hard time explaining. with front and back covers facing each other insert pages in between top flaps (which have been folded inward). staple in place.

disguise boring inside of covers and flaps by gluing down decorative paper cut to size. for me, i feel you just can't get anymore decorative than black! shown in this image i used pinking shears on the edges of the pages.

the finished product.
at this point adding embellishments could be an option. glitter is always nice.

and there you have it...

show and tell once again...

These two little cuties are vintage Asian chalkware bobbleheads with magnets on their lips so they appear to be kissing. i used to go through absurd phases where i needed certain items, and i was quite obsessed with getting a set of these guys. purchased on ebay, can't remember for how much. i collect vintage Asian stuff so... more to come, much more. a whole china cabinet full along with an entire dining room...like i said, i was obsessed.

here is a frontal view. awwwwww sooo cute! note the "Let's Kiss" motto on the bottom. just darling.

show and tell

a new series on mhicty...show and tell! some of my favorite objects along with a brief story if there is one worth saying. don't want to bore anyone with dull narratives.

here we have one of my favorite little belongings...The Brain offering a little heart with his ever present scowl. my mom gave it to me v-tine's day 1997. i kinda have a thing for The Brain....he's just a little darling with his need for world domination and all.

Weirdness and Oddities

tagged by Saucy for six weird things about me...only 6? ha!

1. i like to smell my son's feet to check their stinky rating. pickle feet, love it.

2. i have a dried wishbone collection. i figure i have better odds of getting my wish if i have a collection of them to break.

3. i would rather have a glass door knob from an old house than a diamond.

4. i wish i could get away with wearing aprons as clothing, or other more costumey kinda things...like, what's wrong with wearing tiny top hats or black plastic bugs on barettes when it's not halloween?

5. i like to dance seductively to Pulp when i am alone in the studio at school. mmmm....jarvis....mmmmm.

6. speaking of music... i like to listen to songs on repeat... the same song...for weeks. right now it's Radio Blast by the tiles.

Round #3!!!

Round 3 will be open for sign ups starting on monday Feb 5th and not a moment sooner! go check out the deets ! I won't be playing hostess this round, sadly....school, school,school. i will be keeping my eye on the going on's though. Good luck!

Savory Salmon Slime

Swapatorium leftovers:

Hello dear readers!

I have for you this month a dish from the Weight Watchers Recipe card set circa 1974. The recipe is from the Convenience Fish section (that term only brings to mind this: eww!) called Salmon and Savory Vegetables. I was intrigued by the image on the card and felt the need to recreate it. The bright yellow hue intermingled with the pale pink is not something you see everyday on your dinner plate, at least you hope not. I have never eaten canned salmon before and have been trying my best to steer clear of it. I must say, you folks owe me big time. Canned salmon is some nasty, gross stuff; the backbone is included along with a grey/green slimy funk (I'm guessing it was the skin) within the can. It's just icky, icky, icky.



Here are my results. Very unappetizing if I do say so myself.

I took two bites of this. The first because you have to start somewhere and the second to confirm that the first was as nasty as I thought it to be. If you are into canned salmon then by all means, try this recipe. I think it's some kind of vile and cruel punishment.

*** Recipe ***

i'm over at the swapatorium today.

spiffed up scrub #4

another addition into the new work apparel line that i am spiffing up for my best friend Kat. prefab fushia scrub with brown tonal leopard print accents that i added for pockets and tattoo chest coverage.

autographs anyone?

things are starting to look up for me and it's about damn time. I AM IN A BOOK!!!!The Crafter Culture Handbook. i was asked a number of months back if i would be interested in submitting a craft project. i turned the idea around in my head for about .9 seconds and said hell yeah!

The publishers are sending me a copy soon and i am sooo excited! it's my 7.5 minutes of fame! the other 7.5 should be going down near the end of next month. i'll let you know more once i see myself on it's glossy page, but until then i don't what to jinx it anymore than i may have already.

you can pre-order a copy for yourself by following the link above. damn, i am in a book that is sold on amazon.com! i'm giddy!

spiffed up scrubs

i must forewarn that these photos are of poor quality but hopefully the idea will still be apparent.

the only crafting i have been doing as of late is out of necessity. Dixie Doll Kat's work has decided to have everyone wear scrubs. Since she has a tattoo ( seen here) on her upper chest that they don't take kindly to i altered her tops as seen below...



(we like this one because the fabric print is of tattoos! yeah, that's right... sticking it to the man!)


The low down:
i added pockets on a couple of them or did pocket detailing along with making a little covering for her tattoo. i think it's a nice alternative to buying prefab expensive patterned tops. the plain colors are cheaper and Kat got to pick out what fabrics she wanted for the spiffing. Also doing just alternations didn't take as long as it would to have made the entire top.

i have 2 more tops to go which i'll put up in this post when done.

thank you eviedee for the kind comment you left, it came at a time i needed it.

new year fortune

i am sort of a superstitious person. On new year's i like to open a fortune cookie and make that my overall fortune for the year. i have a little bag of fortune cookies someone bought special for me and i only use them on special occasions. Here is the fortune i got:

Your energy is at a peak. Channel it into creative activities.

woo hoo for me!

more gifties!!!

the gifts just keep coming! here are the lovely things my sweet heather and mike (aka the baron) gave me for christmas:


a full color Knox gelatin recipe booklet (loads of unpleasant looking foods in molded forms!!) , Santa Claus!!! (squeal!) on dvd and a large spider web stamp. it's wonderful to have friends that get me and know what i like.

i also got this sweet dress that heather thought would make a great apron. i have to say i agree.


close up of the print:


in christmas clearance news, i got 2 of these cute robot kid aprons at old navy for 3 bucks for pumkinbutt and myself. I have plans of us making up an army of cookie 'bots some day soon whilst wearing them.



i am so overwhelmed and busy folks... i'm going to try my best to not let the "house" here get too dusty. sorry for all the waaaay late christmas posting, but that's just the way it's going to be. if you don't like it you can leave me a rude comment with your email as your name calling me a poser for my lateness (huh?) and then delete it, and then not be bright enough to realize that the comment still gets sent to my email reguardless....and reminding once again that you leave your email as your name....wow.

just for you

a forgotten holiday jingle... They Might Be Giants - Santa's Beard :

christmas gifties! stuff i made...

here are some of the christmas gifts i made for the fam and friends:

2006 edition pumpkinbutt ornaments:



an altered purse for my mom. i bought the black gingham purse at target and added a pocket to it of her hollywood heart throb, trace adkins, using iron on trasfer paper. i also made her a matching headband.

below are simple cardstock magnets i made for my mom as well. they are copies from stickers made by blue Q. i got the idea to do these from my friend heather, as she made me some for christmas last year.

As i have mentioned before i am currently in school finishing up my bachelor's degree in fine art (which is why "the house" here is a bit dusty) . my emphasis is in ceramic sculpture. i decide to make some pieces for the fam this year, even if they didn't really get it. they are platters but also function as wall art as well. it's hard to tell in the pictures but they have curved middle/edges and two oppesite sides wrap under to become the legs/wall attachment point.




the two below are smaller sushi platters:




i am really happy with the way they turned out and am now going to use this idea for a series of wall hangings for my final show. I think they lend themselves toward a fossil/relic look so i am going to work with that. i'm not sure if it was clear or not but the images on the platters are of women's bras. All of my work has to do with personal space and thoughts/emotions. I use a number of tangible items as metaphors for this, one being female undergarments. I choose bras for the fact that they are very personal being close to the skin and the fact that they are revealing but not entirely, like my pieces are. I am also into the idea of layers. Personal thoughts are often hidden under many layers as personal garments are. i generally portray this concept of layers through my work visually by having the surface treatment appear old and stripped down. hopefully this little explanation helps get across some of what i am going for.

christmas gifties! what i got...

it's a bit late, but here are some of the things i got for christmas:

my mom got me a lot of neat stuff as she always does. Here are a couple of things. This chapstick by blue Q called Boss Lady(above). The packaging is so cute!
And! she got me a little black tree (below)! I had to decorate it up fast-like for a picture. Pez would be a really cool idea for decorating a tree actually.
my mom also got me lots of smell purty products, an autograghed copy of Martha Stewart's housekeeping tips book, a velveteen grey jacket and handed down her manual pentax slr camera to me.
I got a couple of vintage cookbooks that belonged to a great grandmother i never had the chance to meet along with an inscription from my great aunt inside them.


I bought this myself. a print of the Krispy Kreme building recently demolished in my town that i have been ranting about so much lately.

Cine Mexicano

mary ann sent me these tarjeta postal precioso... which, if i recall my high school espanol, means beautiful post card ( can't remember how to do plurals, help me out peoples!) they are of vintage horror/thriller type films and are very suitable for framing!






i believe they came from this set : cine mexicano postcards. i really like these mary ann, thank you. i kinda have a thing for vintage mexican stuff like this. (as you may recant...these)


i am hoping to put up posts on christmas loot given and received soon, but all has not been doled out. i have a case of the holiday blahs and bah humbugs still lingering, along with a cruddy cold so bear with me please.

memo: my regular email (whistlebait(at) cox(dot) net) has done broke down. i think someone tried to shove a package in it (hope it wasn't anything perishable!) and it's wedged it's self in there fairly well and i don't know how to fix things like that. so my point is that if you have sent me an email in the last 3-4 days i haven't been able to get it and may never be able to. i am going to be using this one in the meantime: myhouseiscuterthanyours(at)yahoo(dot)com.

Jingles

holiday greetings kind readers! For your viewing and listening pleasure i offer you my favorite songs of the season.

everclear - i will be hating you for christmas . this is my all time favorite, i listen to this song when it's not christmas. i designed the above ornament last year based after lyrics. (hopefully the song will just start playing when you click the link, but if not, you will need to scroll down to the music player and select it)

the Ramones - "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)".


The Pretenders - 2000 Miles


Chris Isaak - Washington Square


MST3K - Patrick Swayze Christmas


Enjoy! now back to egg nog (spiked of course) and the fruit cakes (i don't mean the ones with the candied fruits).

i'm dreaming of a black christmas

i just discovered the coolest thing ever! black christmas trees!
i can't imagine a more perfect thing. i have never been a fan of green trees, artificial or real. Here's a slightly amusing story about me that relates to that. When i first moved out on my own it was near christmas. i bought this small cheap artificial green tree to put up in my apartment. I wanted a silver tree real bad... so you know what i did? yeah, i spray painted that thing silver. I don't recommend it, not at all. It looked like a crappy green tree with silver spray paint splotches...so are you slightly amused? i have since then acquired a number of white trees and aluminum ones and now... i need a black one. i NEED it....

this town sucks

You see this?

Well it now looks like this:

When I posted a few days ago about the remodeling of the krispy kreme, I didn't except that they were tearing the whole damn place down. I just got back from digging around in the rubble and deflecting bums. It's prolly not such a great idea for a 105 lb gal to be out at midnight balancing on broken timbers and glass shards alone but I did scored some lovely bricks as mementos for myself and a couple friends. These glossy red bricks were one of my favorite features of the building.

The strange thing is that the wreckage still smells like "HOT DOUGHNUTS NOW".....

Rorschach Kitmass Trees

Pumpkinbutt and i came up with a interesting holiday craft...Rorschach Tree Art!

Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist , was the creator of the infamous inkblot test used for psychoanalysis. He believed that a subject's response to an ambiguous and meaningless stimulus (inkblots) could provide insight into one's thought processes; detecting such conditions as thought disorders, mood and anxiety disorders, personality disorders, and psychopathy.

yes....psychopathy and the holidays...they are familiar bedfellows are they not?

"What might this be?" was the question that Rorschach coined as an introduction to a patient viewing his inkblot cards.

Here are a few renderings along with my pondering the question "What might they be?" in terms of the holiday season:

Plate I

This might be bubbles and fireworks....but it ends in a puddle of disappointment.

Interpretation: Yearns for mistletoe and several cocktails, but from past experience views that combination as generally having an undesirable and regrettable next day outcome.

Plate II

This might be an angry bearded face donning a pointed hat and doing quite a bit of scoffing.

Interpretation: Suffers from the fear of being on santa's naughty list.

Plate III

I believe this might be santa.. laying flat on his back with mittened arms out stretched, after being hit by a car, and left for dead.

Interpretation: Possible outcome of future events if i don't find these under my tree this year...


However, on the surface, these trees can be given as cutesty art, perfect for sending to fam this year in lieu of commercially made cards.....They don't have to understand why they are overwhelmed with their own personal demons when viewing these trees...Psychopathy and the holidays, my friends...Let's embrace it.


The How-To:

*cut out trees or other symmetrical holiday icons of your liking from construction paper.

*apply glue mindlessly

*fold paper in half. squish. open.

*apply shake 'ems (glitter)

*review the images and come to terms with your inner mind's workings.

My Astro Olive Tree is on Charles Phoenix's
Astro Weenie Tree DIY club blog:

check it!

Astro Holiday Anguish Alleviation Hors d'oeuvre Tree

It's the Holidays again and people are starting to have that need to throw get-togethers, parties and other such forms of beguilements. Some of these parties are quite enjoyable, meaning they involve an open bar. But then there are some that are dreaded and you know attending will be like having the very life sucked out of your ever loving soul. The likelihood of being invited to a party or two of this type is just inevitable. To help ease some of the discomfort of those awkward moments when you have to be civil to your ex and his need to bring his trashy skank ass new girlfriend (who invited them anyway?!), I present to you a show-stopping, attention getting, ice breaker (yeah, it does all that!) appetizer center piece to lighten up the need for antidepressants and cure the misery. It works like this:

You: "Oh, Steve...Hi, I see you brought a ' friend' "

Steve: "Yeah, that's Jenni. We met in a chat room for girls that like to dot the i's in their names with hearts but are sadden by the fact keyboards don't have that function. It is a real tragedy to her."

You: "Ah ha.. nice...Wow, well she sure seems quite friendly..."

Steve: "Why do say it like that?"

You: "Well, because she has been making out with the DJ for the past five minutes...(this is that awkward moment I spoke of)..... Hey! Have you seen this marvelous Astro Olive Hors d'oeuvre Tree I made?"

***The Astro Olive Tree***

I based the idea after Charles Phoenix's most amazing Astro Weenie Tree (that's him and his tree below). I opted for green olives, pepperoni and cubes of Muenster cheese instead..... No weenies. I'm a bit surprised at myself for missing an opportunity to use weiners again but I gotta mix it up a bit, ya know?

Charles Phoenix

Doesn't he look like a fun guy?

He got his idea from this vintage slide. Pretty funny!
By the looks of things, that tree is the life of the party.

But wait! There's more! An added bonus of merriment! If you make an Astro Weenie Tree you can submit a photo and accompaning story to Mr. Phoenix's blog for show and tell!

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The How-To:

For a visual guide watch Charles Phoenix's video. And it is true, the jars of toothpicks make wonderful percussion instruments.

The basic idea is to cover a styrofoam cone in aluminum foil, "glue" the base of the tree down to a plate with peanut butter (I used honey and it worked well) and just stick a bunch of food on toothpicks in to it.

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Forward my calls...

I'm over at the Swapatorium today! Hurry, before the hors d'oeuvres are all gone! And Thanks Barb for cluing me in on Charles Phoenix!