Horror Icons Cross Stitch

I'm pretty excited that I can finally show this, I've been making it in secret over the last few weeks as a surprise for a friend of mine. I saw she liked the pattern on Etsy, and as a horror movie fan I thought it was too good not to make.

The piece is based on 6 iconic horror movie characters, with a quote from Candyman.

From L-R: Michael Myers (Halloween), Ghostface (Scream), Jigsaw (Saw), Freddy Kreuger (A Nightmare on Elm Street), Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs), and Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th Part III and onwards)

Some better detail shots of the characters (click to enlarge):

Even if you're not a horror fan you should check out PixelPower Design on Etsy, there is a huge range of pop culture themed cartoon style cross stitch patterns.

My Nail Art Obsession

As you might have seen in some previous posts, I have an ever growing love for nail polish and nail art. Rather than spamming this blog and my twitter feed with whatever I've decided to fancy up my fingers with, I've started a Tumblr exclusively for my nail obsession. Here's a few of my latest manis:

Top to bottom is Emily de Molly - Inevitable, OPI - Gargantuan Green Grape with freehand Ampersand nail art, and Alanna Renee- Reptar.

I'm currently doing an A to Z of nails (A is for Ampersand is above), picking whatever takes my fancy for the relevant letter. I'll be posting C later today, so head over and take a look! As well as my own nails you'll also find other nail art I like and am inspired by, visit me at The Procrastinating Polish if you want to check it out.

I'm so great at starting things...

I'm not so good at finishing projects. Starting a project is always so exciting: picturing the finished product in your head, gathering the required supplies, the first cut/stitch, seeing it grow before your eyes. Then I get halfway through and "oooh pretty things on Pinterest" or "oooh new nail polish" or "oooh Mad Men is back" (hey, I didn't name the blog "Look! A Distraction" for no reason) then before I know it, I've started something else.

Most of my cross stitch projects remain unframed or unfinished.
My amigurumi Kirby still doesn't have a face.
I've painted a whole bunch more beads that I haven't turned into jewellery yet.

Recently, I started two more projects:

This blanket I started while we were in Melbourne for Easter. I find keeping my hands busy helps my anxiety, so I packed some wool and a hook. I didn't end up getting it out on the flight, but it was so cold in Melbourne that I thought having this on my lap would help keep me warm.

It's currently about scarf width. I love how obnoxious the multi-coloured wool is - it's really overcast here today so olive green didn't really come out in the picture.

This bookshelf-style nail polish display shelf was born out of reluctance to spend too much money on something that wasn't exactly suited to my needs. There isn't a great deal of affordable storage available that will precisely fit nail polish bottles while still displaying them. 

I finished the building stage 3 weeks ago, and loaded it up with polishes to take a photo straight away. I still haven't painted it as I had planned to. From a distance it doesn't look so bad, but I'm no carpenter - there are some minor gaps and imperfections that will be hidden with a coat of paint.

I also need to make another one ... or maybe two.

Then there's my eternally time consuming Community cross stitch, which is still only a little over halfway done. Now that the weather is cooling down I'll be far less reluctant to have it across my lap constantly, so hopefully I can pick up the pace and get it finished before the show gets inevitably cancelled.

Here's to never finishing things!

Decorating with triangles

Last weekend, I had the stressful pleasure of throwing my own engagement party. My amazing partner of 5 year asked me to marry him on New Years Eve while we were holidaying in Port Douglas, so a celebration back home with our friends and family was absolutely necessary.

Given we had just spent all our money on a holiday we thought a party at home was the best option. Many hours were spent planning, preparing, cooking, cleaning, and for me - making decorations! Given my love of all things 3-sided, I decided to make some paper triangle garlands. 

I picked up some super discounted scrapbooking paper at Spotlight, and set about cutting them into dozens of strips of varying width, then folding and cutting hundreds of triangles with a trusty box cutter.












Then came my chance to test my sewing skills - feeding each triangle in one by one, trying to line them up as best I could - which was often challenging with the myriad different sizes and patterns. I don't think my beginners sewing skills really showed that badly in the end as I got plenty of compliments from my friends and family.

Finally, the morning of the party I realised we needed some kind of gift and card area. I had a mini chest-style woven box in my bedroom, so I quickly cut up and lettered some decorative paper and strung it along some leftover lace ribbon to attach to the box. We cleared off a spare desk and found ourselves with a little gift table.

The party itself was fantastic, despite incessant rain all day which prevented some guests making it. The generosity of our friends and family was incredible. For now, I get to plan a wedding where I can celebrate all over again with all of them!

Community "Digital Estate Planning" WIP (Cont.)

(10 Apr 2013) Here's a quick shot of where I'm at - Troy is done, almost time to start on my absolute favourite - Britta! 

(19 Feb 2013) I've made some decent progress on this over the few months considering how much time I've spent away or otherwise occupied. I'm currently sitting at 48% completion! I aim to be halfway by the end of the week, which is a pretty achievable goal.

So we have one-and-a-half new characters since I last posted an update which is super exciting! 

Back to windows today, which is less exciting, but repetitive in a relaxing way. But first - it's getting a good iron today to get it back into a reasonable shape as the hoop is really taking its toll. 

Painted bead necklaces

Well it's been a while hey? It's been a busy few months of holidaying, adjusting to getting back to work, dealing with some illness and, of course, crafting.

I had a few ideas running around in my head about painted bead necklaces while I was on holidays (one inspired by this fantastic nail polish), so I ordered myself a batch and started experimenting.

I painted all my test beads with some cheap acrylic paint and covered with a spray on clear gloss. 

The blue and grey on the left was totally painted by hand, though I had the good sense to use masking tape on the half painted beads on the right. There are a lot of beaded necklaces around at the moment but most seem to just be strung on a chain or string so I decided to be a little different and make them into drop pendants. Of course eye and head pins are hard to come by at the length I needed so I had to make my own. I had a coil of jewellers wire but my poor little snips just didn't want to cut it! I improvised by making the eye pins out of some gardening wire stripped of the rubber coating.

The glitter was my own creation - a mixture of some superfine glitters - mostly blue with some green, silver, grey, gold and purple. I wanted it to have a bit of a celestial look and I'm really happy with the colour. So I now have two new pendants that I quite like but I'm still undecided on what I should hang them from. Any ideas?

Happy holidays!

Last year I had a totally handmade Xmas, and though I didn't commit as fully again this year I did try my hand at embroidery for the first time and made a pretty owl cushion for my sister. Luckily I picked up the stitches pretty quickly as I'd given myself a pretty tight schedule to get it finished. If you like the pattern, I bought it from this Etsy shop - there are heaps of other cute patterns there too.

I also got this awesome gift of sewing machine and a filled up sewing box. I'm so keen to start learning, but wont have time for a little while - I'm currently road tripping up the Queensland coast to spend New Years Eve in Port Douglas. I'm super excited to see the Great Barrier Reef for the first time!

Festival collage

I admit it - I probably spend thousands every year on music. Most of this goes towards gigs and festivals - one festival now costs in excess of $500 for the weekend - so it adds up pretty quickly. I've been hooked on live music for longer than I can remember - literally. My first concert was John Farnham when I was probably 3 years old and all I can remember about that night was that I was allowed to have a mint flavoured Drumstick icecream (still a favourite, 25 years later). I don't remember anything about the actual concert itself.

My first music festival was the 2000 Big Day Out, featuring my absolute-favourite-at-the-time band Blink 182. I've been collecting ticket stubs, wristbands and leftover drink tickets for over 12 years and have just had them sitting around in an envelope/small box/bigger box just waiting to be displayed in my ultimate dream  glass top coffee table, which I hope to be showing on this blog one day once I find the perfect table within my price range.

For now though, my festival tickets/wristbands/drink tickets are now framed and on display - yes, that 2000 Big Day Out ticket is in there! The rest of my tickets? Still in that box, waiting on a bigger frame/dream coffee table.

Triangle Necklaces

I love triangles! For my first attempt at some wooden jewellery I thought I'd play it safe and stick to the basics and triangles are about as basic as it gets when it comes to shapes. Circles are near impossible. Squares have to be too perfect. Triangles, however - take any three sided shape and it will still look awesome (according to me anyway).

I made two different styles, the first was a three triangle dual colour double sided piece. The two colours are reversed in layout on the back.

The next was a bigger solitary triangle and some more experimentation. The border of this is coated with flocking powder, so it has a textured suede like finish. It really added something extra, though in hindsight white was not the best colour to team with tiny clingy black fibres. Lesson learned!

Starting simple means you can really go crazy with colour/size/texture combinations, and I had so much fun making these that I will probably end up with one to match everything I own!

Fabric covered boxes

Yesterday was the start of summer storms - yay! Not only did the heat finally break a little, I had every excuse to stay indoors and be productive. I had intended to start with cleaning but... cleaning?? Blerg. Instead I went with cooking and creating.

I had already planned on making some delicious Corn & Black Bean Quesadillas for dinner, so I made up a massive batch of black beans. Well worth the time to buy dried beans and re-hydrate them yourself - the 500g tub I got is going to end up making around 2kg. I also made this super tasty Roast Zucchini Salsa which I recommend everyone make - so incredibly delicious.


Then I painted my nails in this incredible neon green - China Glaze 'I'm With the Lifeguard'. Not the best coverage - two coats and slightly patchy - but still a pretty amazing colour.




Lately I've been obsessing over people's organised homes on Pinterest. I look around at my bomb site and shudder... why can't everything have a place (and be put in it)? I have so much scrap fabric around the place, and empty tissue/shoe boxes seemed like a perfect fit for under my bathroom shelf - so I put the two together, added some ribbon, and voila!

The fabric is glued to the boxed with modge podge, and the ribbon was my first opportunity to use my glue gun - so much fun! While they aren't the most incredible looking things in the world, for their purpose I think they turned out great. Here they are in their new home:

There goes October

All quiet on the blog front lately huh? Seems I've been busy, though looking at what I've done  craft-wise in the last 6 weeks it really doesn't seem like much!

I think my problem is my growing nail polish addiction - wet nails are not really conducive to getting things done. This morning 6 new Essie polishes arrived at my door, I scored them for $7 a pop! Bargain!

I did complete one new project in October - revamp of an old unloved corkboard with a splash of paint and bonus features.

It is now our 'life organisation board', with a menu, mini whiteboard shopping list, calendar, and regular old corkboard space for bills and other reminders.

The headers were done with paint on foam stamps and the menu/calendar sheets are ink stamps (I think I developed a thing for stamping after making this bag), the calendar weeks are mounted on magnetic strips and can move at my will.

I'm planning on making up for my October laziness though - Lincraft were having 30% off storewide this weekend so I stocked up on some DMC floss and picked up some flocking powder and a glue gun. All of that only cost me $40! I just need to find a reason to try out that glue gun...

I haven't used flocking powder before, but I hear it's used for scrapbooking and creating a velvety texture on surfaces. My interest purely stems from this post on xojane - textured nails! If I hadn't just done a new design this morning I would be getting straight into it, but I'll just have to be patient.






Aaaand finally, an update on my Community cross stitch - Jeff Winger complete! Finishing another character has totally renewed my enthusiasm for this piece (not to mention a recent rewatch of Season 3) so I'm hoping to show you all Annie Edison soon. Until then, here's the current progress:

Crafty Sunday

Jewelry hanger + Stamped tote

I love Spring! Sunshine, colour everywhere, cool (not cold) mornings and beautiful warm days. After taking my dog for a walk to make the most of the morning sun I hopped on the net for some quick inspiration and came up with these two colourful and handy items. I was so motivated to get stuck into making I was at the shops for supplies before they had even opened. 

This jewelry hanger I've had in my head for a while but have been waiting for the right time to put together. I seem to have lengths of balsa wood in every corner of my house - every time I think I've used the last, another turns up. Today my absolute last piece was turned into a bright necklace/jewelry hanger. The shapes are hand cut Fimo clay shapes glued to some flat head nails.

The inspiration for the tote came via JustB - so many great DIY fabric prints! I purchased a bunch of plain totes online forever ago and had this last one stashed away among my piles of handbags. I love triangles and chevron patterns so tried for something based around that idea in primary colours. I'm pretty happy with the outcome and am already thinking of the possibilities for more stamped fabric printing.

Welcome, Pierce Hawthorne!

Community Digital Estate Planning cross stitch returns! Finally, a character! 

My progress up to today:

• 12909 stitches done
• 44691 remain
• 22.41% complete
• 1 character done!

Jake the Dog

Adventure time! Come on grab your friends!

Mid week public holiday crafternoon+bonus Thursday off meant I got stuck into another amigurumi - Jake the Dog from the awesome TV show Adventure Time. (Click that link. You won't regret it)

This is my first attempt at amigurumi with no set pattern, so he's pretty basic but I'm really happy with how he turned out.

Triforce mani

I can't believe I hadn't thought of this before now, I've be trying to think of an easy(ish) geometric style mani all week. Once the idea of a triforce mani came to me there was no stopping me. Who doesn't want their nails to scream 'Attention! I am a massive dork!'?
I had considered doing a nude base to speed things up but I'm glad I changed my mind - the blue looks amazing as the base colour.

Embellished cushion

A quick update with a cushion I've embellished for my Nanna`s 80th birthday. A sample of ripple with some leftover yarn, some flowers and some quick cover buttons. Hope she likes it!

Community WIP

See my new WIP post!

Update (1 Dec 12): It's been a while since I've updated (again), but I'm making some good progress. Two characters complete so far, 22,000 odd stitches done! 

Update (1 Oct 12): Terrible news everyone! The computer my pattern was on died last week, so I've been slowed down somewhat. Hoping it can be repaired next week as I (stupidly) don't have a backup. I have been able to make some progress working on the repetitive bits like the horrible, horrible carpet, which breaks my brain if I work on it for too long.

So, fingers crossed for me please that I get my pattern back soon. I swear to make a backup if I get it back!

Update (9 Aug 12): Moving the stitching down the left hand side of the study room window - taking the fast track to start on Pierce. Only just over 1100 stitches til I can start on my first character! Sounds like a lot, right? Well so far I've completed approximately 10500 stitches... that's now 18% complete!

For reference, what I have left to do!

Update (23 Jul 12): Finally on to the study room window, 14% complete! Moving a bit slower than I'd like - hoping to get to 20% by the end of the month.

Quick update on my Community 'Digital Estate Planning' stitch :D The wall of the Greendale study room is ever so slowly expanding, almost time to move on and start on the window. Doing the characters seems so far away at the moment!
Currently at just over 5% completion.

Granny square 1 Up blanket

Let's be honest - loads of these have been made before. They are all over the internet. Still, I wanted one of my own! This was an on/off project that I started a few months ago and finished last week.
288 squares in total, made from cheap acrylic yarn, approximately 75cms wide - perfect for keeping my feet warm on the couch!

Soko's winter coat

Boooo winter! The cold has been a bit much for my poor little puppy, so I made her a cute little coat.
The pattern was just made it up as I went along, increasing from half double around the neck to treble at the back, with some random detail thrown in. The thick blue stripe was done as a separate piece and wraps around the belly and buttons up at the side.

Isn't she adorable?

Community 'Digital Estate Planning' Cross Stitch

(see my current progress here)

As soon as I saw the first screen cap of the pixelated study group from Community online several weeks ago, my first thought was I have to stitch this!

A couple of days after the episode aired I picked through some hi res screen caps, and created my ultimate Community cross stitch. I cheated a little and manually added Pierce in - I really wanted the Greendale Seven all together in the study room.

In total, 57600 stitches. My last major project of under 40000 stitches took me 9 months - here's hoping this doesn't take as long! An up to date progress shot is coming soon, meanwhile here's a .gif of my progress as of about a week ago.