I've entered yet another Craftster Challenge - Please vote!

I'm determined to win a cool Craftster t-shirt.  Plus, Elmer's is providing $50 worth of supplies as an additional prize!  So, if you'd like to help me, please help me out and go put in a vote for me here (http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=408007.0).  Who knows, if I won, I might just be using the supplies to make you something someday.  (nudge, nudge, wink, wink...)  Or, if there's enough interest, I could have another giveaway, this time for a paper hat...if I win.  ;)

I've copied and pasted the submission below:

 

For my paper challenge entry I give you an "upcycled" red riding hat made mostly of cereal box cardboard and tissue paper.



Even the decorations are mostly crepe and tissue paper, minus the couple of earring embellishments, the feathers and the veil (This veil is made from those net bags you get on produce at the grocery store.  I think these red ones are from Lychee at the Vietnamese Store.).



I made this cereal box cardboard hat as a pattern back when we were trying to work out the black leather version here.  But, I'd been wanting to go ahead and work it into a hat of it's own ever since.  It's just been sitting in my craft room in pieces for ages.  So, this challenge has motivated me to pick it up and put it together.



Being a paper challenge, I tried to use mostly paper.  This is why I covered the whole thing in wrinkled red tissue, which gives a nice leathery texture to the surface what you cover.  We have a LOT of red tissue from many a Christmas gift from the past.



I used a few other product to finish the hat, as well.  I painted over the tissue with red acrylic craft paint and then stained the red with a dark brown shoe polish from Kiwi.  I'm beginning to favor this stuff over acrylic paint as a stain.  It's a nice color, goes one easy and has a pleasant smell, too.



I must say, I was excited when I read Elmer's was sponsoring this challenge.  How fitting that I glue the whole thing together with my daughter's Elmer's school glue she brought back for the summer break.  I adore Elmer's white glue.  At our house, we use it for so many purposes.    (Thank you, Elmer's, for helping make us successful on so many projects throughout the years.)  This year we got the daughter the newer clear school glue.  I tried the clear glue to apply the tissue to the bare cereal box cardboard.  It worked great.  It's not really tacky and dries fairly slow, so the paper can be pushed around and doesn't stick too badly to your hands.



The flowers in back and cockade in the front were fun to make.  I experimented with different flower techniques I found online.  That's why none of the flowers are the same.  Most are made from crepe paper.  Though the carnations are the easiest/quickest of these flowers to make, I like how the far right one turned out, which is made from a thinner cardboard from a saltine cracker box.

So, whatcha think?  Do I have a chance?  :)  Thanks for looking! Now, go vote, please!  I really appreciate the effort!

Custom Flask Holsters

Check out the new flask holster:



The same camp mate from our GSC who supplied the color copies for the banners that I shared in the last post about Flipside, a regional burn in Texas, also decided to gift our camp members each their own hip flasks.  When he mentioned his plan to me, I thought it was a great idea.  Sounded fitting.  I mean, we're gonna need something to transport our personal supply of the multitude of yummy liquor concoctions around with us while off adventuring.  But, he almost nixed the idea when it was found to be too costly to have the flasks engraved or otherwise personalized for the camp.

I thought...hmmm...the Mod Podge transferring was so much fun. Let's try some flask holsters with some smaller images on the front!  Working with what I had on hand, a couple more color copies and a little help from the family we assembled 25 of these, which cost about $1 each in supplies to make.  After punching lots of hole; attaching a few strips of elastic band with a handful of rivets, staining with shoe polish; and sewing the backs on, we have these:






To wear it, the holster slides onto a belt through the slits on the back.  The flask slips in/out pretty easily when needed.  Though, when these were passed out at camp, I noticed that many of our camp mates have exceptionally wide belts that they ended up just sliding between the flask and leather backing of the holster.  One member even slipped her phone in front of the flask.  Cleverly inventive gypsies!

I went through a few different prototypes before I was satisfied.  My original design was all one piece folded around the bottom of the flask with lacing on the sides.   I'd also intended to use some scrap canvas instead of the leather as you can see the start of here:
 


But, the leather and elastic looked and functioned much better.  And, surprisingly, the image transferred much cleaner, too.  The transferred image seems to be staying on the leather quite well.  I made a sample and put it through some abuse with water and stretching.  It held up great.  But, we'll have to wait and see how well they hold up over time and heavy use. But, they seem like they'll do just fine.  Who knew transferring with Mod Podge actually worked really well on leather!  How cool! 

The best part was that our camp members seemed very please with their gifts.  And that made me a "happy camper".  :)    Next up, I should be posting about making your own inexpensive goggles out of stuff from around the house.  Should be interesting to the DIY steampunk'er in some of us, I hope.

DIY Low Cost Banners

We just attended our second regional burn event, called Flipside, over this past Memorial Day weekend. (These regional events were created after the original Burning Man event in Black Rock City, Nevada.)  With around 2500 people, it was lots of fun even in the almost unbearable Texas heat.  You may be asking, "What is a burn event?".  If so, I'll get to that later in this post.  I have a feeling it's going to be a long explanation.  :)  But, the main point right now is that we got to camp again for three nights in our "Yurtle" with our themed camp, "Gypsy Steam Circus".

In planning for the event, I wanted to make some signage for our camp that we were sorta lacking at Myschievia, our 1st burn back in Oct.  Voila!  This is what I came up with:





I'll explain how I made them in a moment.  Now, for explaining what a "burn" is for those not "in the know".  Being so many things to so many people, it's difficult to define. But it's partly about "radical self reliance", artistic expression and being a part of a unique temporary community.  I think it's best described as a temporary escape from and letting go of the "real" worlds daily stresses to live ever so briefly in the moment.  Probably the toughest concept for most attendees to get their heads around is that at these events you are not allowed to sell/barter ANYTHING.  The only thing you may purchase there is ice.  You have to bring enough supplies to survive for what could be up to 6 days.  And, if you bring it in, you have to take it back out with you, including trash (well, minus what you deposit in the port-o-potties).  No commercialism or capitalism from the outside world is allowed.  Everything is on a volunteer basis.  Even safety and maintenance people are volunteers.  They refer to what is created as a "gift economy".  Everyone chips in their part to help out.  And, everyone seems to have something unique and wonderful to offer whether it be food, drink, clothing, art or entertainment.  These smaller regional burns may not have the population or number of art installations of the big one (at 20,000+ attendees), but it was still amazing.  What we think makes it so special is all the many themed camps that gift out their own specialties to attendees.  Some of our favorites were the dance floors, arts/craft stations, breakfast and probably best of all hair washings.  There was even homemade popsicles in odd flavors such as Bloody Mary (with stuffed olives), Pickle Juice, and Cantaloupe.   Honestly, with all the camps serving food and drink to try, we brought way too much for ourselves and our camp!


Our own camp's main contribution was to serve some of our members' specialty homemade alcoholic beverages such as "Gypsy Potion", Mead, "Johny Jump Up", "Apple pie" and Skittles Rum among other mixed drinks from our two bars.  We all took turns manning the bars just as the sun started to go down each night.  Before the event, some of our camp member got together and made the pair of terrific portable bars that were painted with circusy red/white stripes. We also had scheduled events throughout the weekend such as a steampunk gadget workshop, glam station with costume trunk free to all, and and an impromptu iced water gun shootout.  I was blown away by all the individual talents each of our more than 25 members brought to our camp.  We even had an abundance of fire spinners/eaters, belly dancers, jugglers, hoopers, drummers...really...you name it.

With a group this large, we needed a presence.  We looked into having banners printed, but it was pretty costly.  We had planned for a few banners at about 2x3 ft for our bar area, which would have cost us well more than $50 a banner.  Yikes!  My brain got to working and I figured we could make them a LOT cheaper.



I decided to use old bed sheets for our banners.  I found a few for a $1 a set at the thrift store.  I ripped to size, hemmed, and primed them with latex interior paint.   My original idea was to just paint the designs by hand, but that was going to be way too time consuming.  So, I opted for a different  quicker solution.

Now, I've transferred images with nail polish remover before.  I may have mentioned this in many previous posts including the spellbook here. But, I kept seeing posts on other craft sites and blogs about using Mod Podge or gel medium, that stuff for decoupage. My original thought was just to transfer my b/w laser copies to the sheet to be painted in with color.  But, low and behold, I found out one of our camp mates works for a copy center!  Ho ho!  I had access to cheap color copies!  Yay!  I sent them files that were tiled to fit on 11x17-sized paper that I could tape together before transferring.  The important part, that I almost forgot, was that I needed the image to be a mirror of the original to be legible when I was done.

So, after I primed the sheets and trimmed/taped my backward tiled image together, I glued it to the primed banner face down.  Now you're probably thinking, "What?!  You just screwed up you banner, man! You glued it face down?!".  Or, maybe not.  Anyway, this IS what you're supposed do.  Once it dried, we got to work dampening the paper and rubbing it off gently so that only the image was left on the banner.  Pretty cool, huh?!  Yeah, I thought so.  Plus, another camp mate was also a graphic designer and came up with another banner design, which we also transferred:



They were really fun and kinda stress-relieving to make.  :)  It took a few attempts to get all the paper off.  And, some of the image did come off with it giving it a very old and weathered look.  Though, after a few banners, we realized that rubbing with the grain of the paper helped to get it off cleaner while removing less image.  When finished, I sealed the image with more Mod Podge and then a coat of waterbase indoor/outdoor polyurethane varnish.  Here's a cost break down:

One twin bedsheet $.50
One Gallon Indoor Latex Paint (clearance) $9
Paint Brush/Roller (on hand)
Tape (on hand)
22 11x17 color copies (gifted) but would be about $11
8 oz. Mod Podge Gloss (with coupon) $3
8 oz. Waterbase Polyurethane Varnish (clearance) $4
12 1" Grommets  (dollar store, not shown in the pics $1
TOTAL COST for two 2x3 ft and one sign 1.5x4.5 ft = about $30

WAY cheaper than the printed banners, right?!  And, I've probably got enough left over to make a few more, which I was going to make until all the costuming and another project stole my attention and time.  I'll tell you more about that in my next post, shortly.

DIY "Upcycled" Costume Medals

This past week I've been working on some more medals for my Major General Steampunk Character (cuz you can never have too many, right?).  I've shared a few back when I posted about them on my jacket here. Just had to revisit these.  It's too much fun rummaging through my junk jewelry stash for this.  Here are some of my favorites so far:



These are pretty simple to put together.  The funnest part is finding the faux medals in the form of old necklace pendants, earrings, keychains and other odd junk.   The ribbon portion is made with 1 1/2" wide scraps of grosgrain ribbon (mostly from old hatbands and dress ties my daughter discards).  I colored a few ribbons (like the 2nd one in the bottom row) with permanent marker just to give them a bit of variety. To attach the medals to the ribbon, I made my jump rings from scrap wire or salvaged them old jewelry.  A marker barrel works well for wrapping the jump rings on.   



And now for the backs, which I'm most proud of.  The photo just above is a comparison of the back of an old marching band medal I purchased at the flea market  (left) and my homemade version (right).  So professional looking, right?  ;)  I took care to make my ribbons sturdier like these band medals. I'll tell you why...



Another pic of the backs.  Originally, I was just going to just glue the ribbon down over the pin backs, but I prefer to avoid using glue whenever I can.  I've seen some medals on Etsy.com and other site where they just hot glued the pin backs on.  From my own experience, I KNOW that won't hold up long.  So, I'll share the secret with you, in case you want to make some.



I used the leftover aluminum from the bottle used on my monocle here to secure the ribbon to the pin backs, but any thin copper, brass, tin metal scraps could work.  The bottle is a really thick aluminum (not the type used in the ordinary beverage cans).  To tell you how thick it is, I have to use pliers to bend a sharp corner on it.

• I cut 2 pieces of the aluminum just short (8th of an inch) of the width of the ribbon.  One is about 7/16th" long and the other 3/4".  
• I used a vise to bend the edges on the 3/4" piece into a bracket, "]", shape so that the length is now at 1/2".  
• Then, I punched holes in the smaller piece with a nail punch and inserted the pin back into it. 
• To attach the ribbon, I wrap the edges of the ribbon over the wider piece of aluminum.  The smaller piece sorta snaps or slides into the wider one with the ribbon trapped under it.  
• I use some pliers to smash the edges of the wider piece down over the smaller one til it's nice and tight. 

They go together practically in seconds.



So, all in all, these were made with all "upcycled" parts.  Didn't have to purchase anything.  LOVE projects like that. Don't you?  These would be great to make if you belong to a steampunk airship or other group that wants to identify themselves.  Medals can be made of just about anything you can imagine.  I plan to make some more until I either run out of aluminum or jewelry parts.  I also plan to make a sash to wear some of these on for the Steampunk Invasion at Scarborough Ren Faire the last weekend of April.  Though, I'm sure many of these medals will have to stay home.  :)

I still plan to post more about the progress on the "bustle bar" here in the near future.  Just have to get some good pics.  I'll try to get some while at Scarby.  So, stay tuned for more costuming posts.

Releasing Some More "Bottled" Up Creativity

Just got back from a haunting weekend trip to Jefferson, Texas where we attending the Steampunk Paranormal hybrid convention called "Nightmare Machine" organized by the Steampunk Illumination Society. Before we left for this exhausting weekend, I managed to make a few new things for my outfit. One was this monocle made from an aluminum bottle of an energy drink (Venom).



I polished off the paint with some steel wool and cut down the bottle, which is really thick. Much thicker than your ordinary can.



I cut out the opening in the cap and used some brown plastic from a root beer bottle for the lens. I cut the lense so that it stays in when you screw the lid on the bottle. So, you could change out the lenses to match an outfit, I suppose.



Then, I added the leather strap with a can tab buckle.



I used a short piece of aluminum wire on the buck and the ring to the side of the buckle that hold the strap down. These work really well.



The leather was all scraps from my man's leather hat making. He wastes a LOT. I'm going to have to get after him for that. But, I can't complain too much, cuz I always seem to find uses for it. :)



Pretty fast and easy project. I wore it briefly while we were at the event. I must confess, I'm not used to wearing things over my eyes. I don't even like sunglasses on my face. And, this piece really messes with your depth perception. But, darn it! I looked good. hehe :D



Although it was a bit warm in Jefferson, we managed to have a good time invading the town for the weekend. The locals were very friendly, gracious, and exceptionally curious. We got to answer many questions about what we were up to. BTW, although there are many nice B&Bs in and around Jefferson, we decided we wanted to camp and brought our yurt out to the local RV Park. It was more than we hoped for. The site that "Diamond Don", the RV park owner picked for us was beautiful. We had a nice view of the river. And, Don was really great. He made sure we weren't wanting for anything during our stay. Great hospitality.



I also managed to make some more tabistry for the trip. I made a top hat for the silent auction with a pair of "beer goggles" I discuss more on my tabistry blog (tabistry.blogspot.com). Hope you've enjoyed taking a looksee. I'll be back again after I've rested.

Pinstriped Suit Revamped

This past weekend we decided to attend a ragtime ball with live music at the Son's of Herman Hall in Dallas. (Sorry some of the pics are so blurry. I used the timer.)



His outfit was a wee more work than mine. But, I figure he can rewear the parts for steampunk events, too.



I got the idea to remake an old pinstriped wool suit into some "plus fours" with matching vest and newsboy cap. It worked pretty well! Somehow I got the knickerbockers a bit short for my liking, but they turned out okay. Next time I must remember to "measure twice, cut once". The vest was made from the suit jacket. I used an existing vest as a pattern for this one, aligning it over the existing rather large suit pockets the best I could. I used the existing plastic buttons, that I eventually want to replace with metal ones. The jacket lining also included two pockets for a total of 5 pockets on this vest! Can't have too many pockets, can you? I mean how else is he going to hold all my stuff?! LOL!

From what I had left of the suit jacket and pant legs, I made him a matching newsboy cap. I did some poking around online for a free newsboy pattern. I took inspiration from a couple tutorials here and here. These were a bit big and full, I think. I changed it up to a six panel crown. It took a few mockups to get something I was happy with. I could still pick at it, but it was pretty easy to put together.



For my outfit, I kept it pretty simple. I just put together a 20's flapper-style inspired outfit with some pieces I had around. The dress was one I think I once wore to a wedding banquet years ago. The length was a bit short for the time period, so I added a black skirt under it. The arm warmers were cut from tights and the head band is just a piece of lace trim with an elastic hair band sewn to it. I poked the ostrich feather into a barrette in back, which kept it from moving around when we danced. And, of course, I rolled my stocking down as any daring flapper would do.



It was an enjoyable night that was well worth the effort. And, boy are my tootsies sore from dancing! Later!

A trip to Charlie's Chocolate Factory...

...and more secondhand clothing reworked into costume pieces.



Way back at the beginning of February, we attended a Willy Wonka themed Burlesque show with a live performance by none other than our local favorites, Marquis of Vaudeville. The event was called "Gadgets and Gobstoppers" And , yes, I'm pretty late in posting about this. Had a scrumdiddlyumptious time, though!

For the event, I wanted to dress my sweety in some new duds inspired by what Wonka might wear. We found a bright red jacket secondhand and some matching scraps of red velvet in my craft stash. I dyed them with purple dye to make it burgundy. Then, I added some cuffs and striped trim. We had a bit of velvet left to make a matching hatband for one of his leather top hat that he made. The cane was another bargain from our flea market. I knew he needed it when we saw it. So unique for a cane. Though, we did have to shorten it a few inches. Must have belonged to one tall dude, cuz' my man ain't short at 6+ feet tall!



I also refitted a huge striped vest for him using another better fitting vest as a guide. It was an XXL to start. And, I changed out the buttons with some red enameled brass ones I got off of another suit jacket. (This pic was stolen from a friends album on facebook who got a shot of the vest while we were all dancing.)



My outfit was selected from parts I've worn before with a few new accessories I've picked up. Only real crafty thing was that I added a metal embellishment to the hat he made me that I posted about before here. The feather was just poked in there and can be replaced to match whatever I wear. The corset/bodice is my tabistry one from awhile back posted here.

I'm having fun aging photos in Photoshop. Must thank The Graphics Fairy for the vintage photo frames. Such useful imagery over there. I have another costume set to post about from this past weekend. So don't go anywhere!

Piecing a Costume Together from Secondhand Finds

Had a wonderful time at Clockwork Con this past weekend in Austin. Met many great steampunk'rs and saw some amazing gadgets. Also got to show off the awesome hat and a new dispenser belt for my "bustle bar", aka "rum bum" that my sweetie made for me. I think I'm going to have to look into why he's being so nice these days. ;)



For this post, I want to share the progression of my first attempt at a Steampunk costume. You may remember it debut in this post. This particular outfit has gone through the most drastic transformations of any of my pieces. And, it's been doubling as a Victorian ladies day dress and (if you've seen my post about the medals here) a unique military uniform for what I'm now calling a Major General character. I like the later character especially because there seems to be an overabundance of airship captains and sky pirate about. I can now say I outrank the captains and can commandeer their ships for my own purposes. Muwahaha! :D



This outfit actually started as two knee length (80-90's style?) professional dresses (neither of which were my size to begin with) that I had originally bought for the buttons when I needed them for a pair of arm warmers Crafterella knitted for me here. :) I liked the colors and print of the dresses so much that I decided to use them in a costume. And, I surprisingly did very little to alter this costume, really.



I thought it would be nice to make a short jacket that wouldn't cover up all the detail of the corset. If you have an existing shirt, dress or jacket, it is pretty simple to convert it to this style. I cut the smaller of the two dresses into the jacket just below my bra in back. I used bias tape to finish off around the bottom edge.

I liked how the upper portion of this dress was much more fitted at this small size. Modern clothes tend to be a bit baggy and untailored in fit. It did make the sleeves short, but I have noticed that there are many pics of Victorian ladies wearing their sleeves at 3/4 length like this. I like this due to keeping them out of the way of gadgets like my NERF dart bracer.

I opted to leave the shoulder pads in to make it more square at the shoulders. The epaulette on the shoulder was made from the black velvet sleeve cuff of the other dress. I had planned to add them to both shoulders, but thought it looked more interesting with just the one. I just ripped out the shoulder seam wide enough to add it in and sewed it back together.



The second matching dress, which was much too large was made over into an over-skirt to hide my drink dispensing "bustle bar" that I discuss here. (It's gone through some changes as well that I'll have to share another day, including the belt I mentioned above.) I really like how the style of the front of the skirt turned out. I may have to revisit this idea for another outfit at another time.

Putting the neck of the dress at my waist, it hung pretty well over the tanks without much alteration. Just some adjustment of the hem and removing the darts and waist ties. I sewed the ties to the collar so I could tie the skirt on in front under my corset.I used the leftover scrap fabric from the first dress to add a gathered draping front panel using the existing button holes down the front of the dress as a button up design element on the sides (I had to add matching button holes to the opposite side.)

I turned the sleeves to the inside of the dress and sewed the ends shut making really long pockets on my sides that I hide with another ruffly black bustle skirt (made from the skirt of yet another 2 piece outfit) that ties over the over-skirt to and adds fluff. Being super deep pockets, they've come in really handy for holding sodas and other odds and ends.



BTW, not wanting to waste, I made this easy capelet from the shirt of the 2-piece black set by ripping out the seam from the sleeves down the sides. Then, with a little trimming, sewed the sleeves open to the sides. Trimmed the whole bottom edge even and added some trim.



The black under-skirt with the silver stripes started life as three knee length skirts that I reconstructed into one longer fuller skirt. Originally made for my belly-dancing outfits, I thought it looked rather nice with the shiny silver in the corset.



I guess the point of detailing all of this construction is to make a point. Many costumers just design an outfit, buy/draw up patterns and make it from scratch. But, you can make a decent costume out of things you may have or can find around, and it doesn't take a lot of sewing experience. Actually one great benefit is deconstructing garments to see how they were put together. I really enjoy re-purposing discarded and out-of-date things, too. This outfit could, I'm sure, be made (and perhaps better) from scratch. But, I get much more reward using existing items. Nothing in this entire outfit was purchased new (save my under garments and tanks under the skirt) . All the buttons, cord, fabric, leather, metal were reused and what I purchased totaled less than some people would pay for just one simple shirt. And, another great part is that I may just have enough printed fabric left for a nice bow in the back or on my hat.

Thanks for taking a look. I'll have to get some pics of the new drink dispensing belt for the bustle bar. My man really outdid himself on the belt. With many SP gadgets only being props, lots of folk were very surprised to hear that this one was completely functional. :)

Little Black Riding Cap

What'cha think of my new riding hat?! My man finally made me one of his cool leather hats! I super LOVE how it turned out!! The shape is perfect!



You'll have to excuse me while I catch my breath. Whew! Just returned from a brisk horse ride and photo shoot in the spooky woods... NOT!



We took these pics right in our yard. Looks convincing, though, right? I can just see me sitting up in the saddle as we stroll down a eerie windy path with owls hooting. One of the few times when there's a benefit to living in the sticks. :)



We made this hat, a tankard cover (for mom) and a top hat (for him) all out a piece of black leather we got at the local flea market when we bought a couple felt cowboy hats. All for under $20!! We may just have enough for yet another small hat, too! That hatband was a chain belt we recently found secondhand. I had just enough left to make a matching choker necklace (not pictured). I will be posting about the other hats very soon.



I was playing around with my makeup and photoshop for this quick shoot. Was going for a dark mysterious ghostly pale look. I think looking just plain lost in the woods is what I might've ended up with. ;) I really hate editing photos on the laptop. The monitor messes with my eyes. Didn't notice how overexposed the faces were until I got them over to a different monitor. I looked much different on the other. Grumble, grumble...



Anyway, love the hat, and it's been fun working on it together. I got to help design my hat. He doesn't know it yet, but I had the forethought to draw up the pattern in Adobe Illustrator while it was flat so that he can make me and my friends more in every color. Hee hee! I also have cardboard prototype half assembled that I may go ahead and finish out. I'm less inclined to now that this one is wearable. :)



Did I mention, of course, this one's not quite finished, yet. Never is. I'm still tinkering with the embellishing. I had planned on adding a large silver ornament to the front and back and some feather on the middle front. I'd also thought about coloring the contrasting raw edges so they don't stand out so much. But, I'm worried about overdoing it or screwing it up. Any thoughts?

Until next post, hope your new year is an improvement upon the last!