Molly of The Purl Bee made this cute “aquarium” bulletin board, which would be great for a child’s room.*
Something a bit darker would also be a great gift for an older child or adult. Instead of starfish and seaweed, you could populate your “aquarium” with sharks, piranha, and electric eels. Or, instead of an aquarium, choose a darker-colored board and make a graveyard with little felt tombstones, skulls, and fluttering bats. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, a set of magnets that can be arranged into a skeleton (skull, ribcage, pelvis, armbones, etc.) would be a great project.
Felt is fairly easy to work with because the edges don’t ravel. You can cut small, intricate shapes without having to worry about finishing raw edges or turning tight corners. Keep an eye for a theme that appeals to you, then search for patterns (or even clip art) that you can print and use as a cutting guide. Add a bit of simple embroidery (Molly’s tutorial is a great guide to embellishing the shapes) and you can turn out nice-looking felt objects without too much effort.
You can also decorate the magnetic board itself using paint or thin contact paper cut into various shapes. A flock of magnetic bats flitting out of a gothic-looking window would be much more fun to hang dental appointments and reminders to call the plumber than a boring old corkboard.
*With the important caveat that the child is old enough to know not to swallow magnets. Strong magnets can cause internal injury if swallowed.
The instructions are a bit on the minimal side (for instance, the crafter mentions glazing the petals but doesn’t specify with what), but they’re a great jumping-off point for something similar. The little clay skulls look like they’d be pretty easy to model, but if you’re completely hopeless with sculpting you could use novelty buttons or some other lightweight plastic skull. You’d probably want to choose a skull shape that’s reasonably flat and roundish rather than oval, to better mimic the central disk of the flower.
Paint, seal, glue a circle of petals to the back, and you’ve got a flower with a cute little skull peering out at you. These would be great on a barrette or worn as a brooch. If you’re so inclined, you could also make little teensy ones and affix them to the heads of thumbtacks to make some extremely arresting pushpins.
Here’s a silly little project from CraftBits: A pen with a voodoo doll topper.
It’s really nothing more than a pen with a twig crosspiece wrapped in twine. The tutorial calls for minimal decorations such as bits of cloth and beads, but there’s no reason you couldn’t get much more elaborate with your embellishments (keeping in mind that you don’t want the top of the pen to be so heavy that it’s impossible to write with). This Squiddoo lens has a nice overview of making and decorating a similar twig-and-twine doll, and this site goes into a little more detail about the symbolism of various pin colors.
These would be fun party favors or other giveaways, since they’re fast and cheap to assemble and are certainly unique.
The Bloggess, who routinely makes me laugh until I snort in a highly unladylike manner, recently talked about a red dress that she coveted.
I want, just once, to wear a bright red, strapless ball gown with no apologies. I want to be shocking, and vivid and wear a dress as intensely amazing as the person I so want to be. And the more I thought about it the more I realized how often we deny ourselves that red dress and all the other capricious, ridiculous, overindulgent and silly things that we desperately want but never let ourselves have because they are simply “not sensible”. Things like flying lessons, and ballet shoes, and breaking into spontaneous song, and building a train set, and crawling onto the roof just to see the stars better. Things like cartwheels and learning how to box and painting encouraging words on your body to remind yourself that you’re worth it.
And I am worth it.
And last week…?
…I got my red dress.
The whole post is worth a read, not only for the sentiment but also for more shots of the dress (modeled in a graveyard, which is a nice touch). It’s a custom-made job by Etsy seller rubypearl, and although it’s expensive (as custom ballgowns sort of tend to be), it’s certainly striking. It’d be a fantastic gown for an alternative wedding, or just a very special party.
The seller also has a blog, I Will Stab You in the Face, which includes a few photos of her past work. She seems to specialize in hand-embroidered detailing, and she turns out some lovely stuff.
Matt Mets used paper cutouts on both the inside and outside of a lampshade to create a cute “monster after dark” effect.
This kind of fun with silhouettes is ripe for all kinds of customization: A crescent moon with bats that appear at night, a castle haunted by a nocturnal ghost, and lots of other now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t options. A reverse effect might also be possible, where an innocuous-looking doorway could have spooky eyes glowing from within. (The only caveat might be that the cutouts for the eyes may still be visible when the light is off.)
You could do something a little more permanent using stickers or even paint, but I kind of like the idea of temporary paper cutouts that can be changed as the whim suits you.
Posted in Whatever|Comments Off on “Illusion” Lampshades
Scary Shadow Shower Curtain – Shower curtains with trompe l’oeil images are old hat, but this one is nicely unsettling.
Foot Tattoos – A roundup from Oddee. I love the one with the amputated toe.
Octopus Chandeliers – Gorgeous tentacly things by Adam Wallacavage. The “Medusa” (#5 in the photoset) is extremely cool. Pity there aren’t any spider-themed ones.
Nancy Minsky, the author of Denim Revolution, did a tutorial for making a Venetian carnival mask out of a scrap of denim.
I’m not entirely sold on using denim as the base material (nor of using the suggested faux-fur mask lining; I think the fur would get in your eyes), but the general method is a great jumping-off point for creating a mask of your own design. The pattern is easy, and the tutorial gives some good tips for planning the arrangement of decorations. I also like the ribbon-encased back band, which looks much nicer than naked elastic.
Two or three of these done in different styles would be a pretty wall decoration. If you aren’t planning to wear them, you could also use stiff cardboard instead of fabric and simply glue the embellishments in place.
Improv Everywhere was recently invited to cause a scene at the New York Public Library, and since the NYPL figures heavily in the opening of Ghostbusters, they decided to do an homage.
More photos and “mission” description on the IE site.
Posted in Funny Peculiar|Comments Off on Well, Who Are You Gonna Call?
Molly of The Purl Bee made this cute “aquarium” bulletin board, which would be great for a child’s room.*
Here’s a cute idea from the Cut Out and Keep forum: 
Here’s a silly little project from CraftBits: A pen with a 
The Bloggess, who routinely makes me laugh until I snort in a highly unladylike manner, recently 
Nancy Minsky, the author of