Jewlery Organizer Thing Tutorial

I have been doing a lot of such so now I am back to sewing. Last week I made this jewelry organizer. I needed an organizer for all my jewelry and accessories. At my old place I kept all my crap in the bathroom, but now I am keeping it in my room. I looked around for a jewelry organizer, but everything was too expensive. I looked at etsy.com and took my friends Alex's idea and came up with this. It is such a simple project and cost me around $9. I used extra fabric from the pencil skirt I made.

Time: A few hours

Items needed:

A wooden dowel

Ribbon

Nail

2 screws

Cup Hooks (3-6+)

Stain ( optional)

Fabric (1/4 of a yard) that you can poke holes in

A drill and saw(or a man with tools)

Step 1: Find space on a wall. Measure the wall to see how long and wide you want the organizer. This will determine the size of the fabric.

Step 2: I bought a 36 inch wooden dowel and sawed it in half evenly to make 2 18inch dowels.

Decide how many hooks you want at the bottom and drill that many holes in just 1 of the do wells. Drill a hole in each side of the other dowel.

Step 3: I decided to stain the dowels in a dark reddish color. Let dry.

Step 4: Take the hooks and screw them into the holes. Set aside.

Step 5: Take the fabric and hem all sides. Fold over the top of the fabric so that there would be enough room to put a dowel in. Pin and sew.

Step 6: You will now need to straps for the bottom. You could use ribbon or a tough synthetic straps. I used extra fabric from the fabric. Decide the desired width and length. Sew and then sew onto the bottom of the large piece of fabric and at the desired position. (Make sure they are long enough so dowel fits through with hooks)

Step 7: Take the dowel with the 2 holes at the end. Take your ribbon and screws and screw 1 side of the ribbon to one end and the other to the other end. Tie at top so that you have something to put over the nail.

Step 8: Put dowels through. Hammer in nail. Hang from nail!!!!!!! Yeah :)

Step 9: Poke holes for the earrings and start hanging all your lovely things.

I am thankful for...

I am thankful for my family that always puts up with my antics and mood swings and still supports me no matter what.

I am thankful for my friends who let me be myself, who laugh at my jokes even when there not funny, who listen when I have serious things to say and who are always willing to grab a drink.

I am thankful for my ex-boyfriend who is still my good friend.

I am thankful for foreign currency and women who take maternity leave.

In high school I made my family these Native American and Pilgrim paper hats to wear at dinner (not very PC) and I also made them write down what they were thankful for (12 years later I am still just as lame). My brother is 4 years older then me and he was in college at the time of this. He wrote I am thankful for:

• my video camera and my eminent fame in the entertainment industry
• credit cards
• paper hats
• family and friends
• life
• the luck I've had because it is about to run out
• college (drinks, girls and unadulterated fun)

On that note I hope whatever you are thankful for you have a great Thanksgiving!

Lazy River

(This one's my favorite)

I came across a postcard today that I bought in Guerneville when I was up there for the wedding in October. Every time I look at it, it makes me smile. Primal Vision Studio is a design center in Guerneville that creates "high performance creature costumes and effects, with an emphasis on naturalistic animals." The costumes are amazing. They are custom made and they take around 3 months to make. They teamed up with a local photographer Gregory Hayes to create these funny photographs. They are so silly. I think it is great that they are able combine their art of costume making and photography. Friends are always coming up with ideas of ways that I could make money on the side by selling things I could make. One friend thinks that I should somehow make custom costumes for people in the city. I think it is very do able because people here wear costumes year round, but I would need to come up with a way to market that service.

Here are two more I couldn't attach that are cute of a fox and a coyote roasting marshmallows on their camping trip and 2 coyotes sking.

http://www.primalvisions.com/galleries/Coyotes/#
http://www.primalvisions.com/galleries/Group%20Pictures/#

http://www.primalvisions.com/ http://www.gregoryhayes.com/

So many blogs so little time

I have found myself following more and more blogs. I follow my friends, fun, inspirational or entertaining ones, cooking ones, etc. There one just about for everything. I can spend hours reading them when I know I should be working on my own creative process. Tonight though I came across the Make Shift Project blog:

"MakeShift is an art and research project that examines the relationships between 'making', 'clothing' and 'living'. The basic premise for the project is that for a period of one year starting on September 1st, 2009, I will only wear things that I have made myself. Initially this may seem like a reasonable task, but it will include all of my clothes, socks, shoes, underwear, coats, jackets, hats, bathing suits, accessories and anything else I might need to protect my body from the elements while trying to lead a fulfilling life. Beyond being a nail-hammering, speed-sewing, room-pacing, hair-raising, life-enriching personal challenge, I hope to gain some understanding of the limitations of clothing and how they affect the development of ideology. Ultimately, I would like to examine the role of clothing as a form of cultural production."
http://www.makeshiftproject.blogspot.com/

For once I can't really explain in words how I feel about this. I will just say that I find this very interesting...

A new home

My sewing machine got a new home this last week. It told me that it is excited to be in a new space, but is sad to leave it's old home where it made so many great projects. I assured it that it will be much happier in it's new space and that we will spend a lot more time together. I love my new sewing/craft work station. I have some ideas of projects I want to make and I will get down to business soon.

Crafternoon

On Sunday I headed over to Oakland for another installment of crafternoon. Our gracious hosts Alexandra and Andrew made biscuits and veggie gravy, pumpkin muffins, bacon, eggs, and yummy mimosa's which enticed me to drive over the broken bridge. I wasn't really feeling very crafty. I think I prefer to craft/sew alone or with a small group. It is hard for me to focus. I still like to go and be around creative people and socialize. So while they made really great bird ornaments I ended up leaving with a half stuffed bird, a half made necklace and a really sloppy pin cushion, but I had fun. I hope to host a crafternoon soon at my new place.

Willie wonktress

This year I decided to be Willie Wonktress, Willamenia Wonka, Willa Wonkarita, The candy woman, call me what you will I was a female version of Willie Wonka. I think it was the worst sewing job I have ever done., but all and all it turned out okay. Bert does a Haunted House for the kids in our neighborhood and I am the door person/crowd control. I estimated that we had 300 people go through and had a party afterwards. I would have to say most knew who I was.

I used the coffee date dress pattern for the dress part of the costume. I used a khaki fabric and a fruit print fabric like the lickable wallpaper in Willie Wonka. I used Vogue pattern # 8601 for the velvet purple jacket. I designed the hat with the lollipops, but Bert made it. He took a regular top hat, heightened it, cover it with fake sued and put holes in the top for the lollipops. I think it really topped off the outfit :) He also printed wonka stickers and put them on little candy bars so that I could pass out Wonka bars. I lastly used a pool cue stick as a cane. Really I was down to the wire with this one. Work has been really stressful and my hobbies have fallen to the wayside. I ended up hot glue gunning parts, safety pinning and using cardboard to expedite the process and get the desired look for the jacket. All and all it's just a costume and Halloween fun!

My costume was put into a costume slide show at burdastyle.com. You can vote for Willamenia Wonka at: http://www.burdastyle.com/albums/117/images?page=16&size=small

I'm a winner

Colette Patterns is a blog I have been following. She makes and sells really great patterns. A couple weeks ago she asked people to submit sewing stores to her. I entered a bunch of stores I thought would love to carry these patterns and she chose my name randomly and I got this in the mail last week. I got to pick 2 patterns and she included a lot of other sewing goodies. It is nice to win and get fun stuff! :) Check her out at http://www.colettepatterns.com/ She is going to come out with a winter pattern collection soon. I can't wait. :)

Day of Rest

November 1st, my 1st day of rest in awhile. Day of rest meaning doing laundry, paying bills, cleaning, watching spongebob, shaving, blogging (you know just getting stuff done that has been neglected).

Since the last time I blogged on Oct. 11th I have made a dress, I won a contest and I made a costume. First we will start with the dress. This is the dress I made for a wedding in Sonoma I went to last weekend. People seemed to like it and they thought it was very appropriate for the wedding we went to. It was a beautiful wedding that included bar tending clowns, belly dancing and fun times.

I used Vogue pattern 8184. I added a ribbon strap with a red ruffle to give it some spice. I also used ribbon on the waist area. I specifically bought a stretch sateen fabric so that the dress would be comfortable, but putting the ribbon on it made it tight and defeated the purpose of the stretch. Oh well. Lesson learned. I was still able to dance!