TAD 2010-09 Meet MakeGyver

Brought a date to Make SF tonight and together we made MakeGyver (more video and pics on the Make site soon, I hope!):

It’s actually a Valentine’s Day card with a recorder and speaker inside. You can record up to 20 seconds on audio on the recorder and it includes a triggering device that turns the recorded audio on. I made a belt around another card inside that connects the legs and head to move them together and attached the speaker trigger to that so that when you pull on its legs, his head pops up and he says something! (If I’m lucky enough to have done it right, there’s video included with this post! Just in case, here’s another link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/karizmatic/4345048489/ )

from karizmatic’s posterous, thing-a-day

TAD 2010-06 Paper Hearts

Just went through my paper stash to see what I had in there and I found this Japanese food zine I picked up in a Japanese market a couple of years ago. I never did use it for the recipes (I mostly just look on the web for that), but I kept it to use the pictures and I just ripped a couple of those pics out and cut some hearts out – I thought it appropriate since I truly do heart food. I have a project in mind and tomorrow is an all day craft in my pajamas day (that is, if I don’t sneak out to the fabric store) so these images may have a repeat TAD display. anyway, meanwhile in raw form:

from karizmatic’s posterous, thing-a-day

TAD 2010-01 Imitation Preparation

Happy 2010!

As I develop my sewing skills, I've been learning how to analyze and (more particularly fun!) copy patterns of clothing (and other such items) that I like. Unfortunately, it isn't always possible by taking something apart (I'd otherwise have some angry people, myself included, at home wondering things like, "what happened to my hat?" and "will you be able to put it back together?". Questions that I can only insufficiently answer with, "I don't know").

So, to try and bridge that gap, I find a garment with a grid pattern on it (plaids or chekers or something with straight lines) that I can use to measure whole blocks on the grid. I measure where the curves and angles begin and end by calculating their distance to "grid" lines. I then transpose these measurements/points to paper and "connect the dots" to draw a pattern. Add .5" for seam allowance, mark the angled cuts and I'm ready to make a pattern.

I've been wanting to try making boxers for a while – that opening in the middle looked so tricky to me. So, I found a pair with a nice checked pattern on it (sorry – I'd get in trouble if I showed you pics of THAT) and voila! I've included a pic of the measurements if you want to have a go at it. Maybe tomorrow I can actually make a pair. Until then…

See the full gallery on posterous

from thing-a-day 2010, thing-a-day

Saturday Crafternoon (Another Great Weekend!)

This Saturday, I had the pleasure of hosting a bunch of awesome crafters for the first ever Saturday Crafternoon. This craft event was made possible by Adam and Kelly, some folks I had known about 5 minutes from a brief interaction at Barcamp; my OG craft buddy, Crystal with her daughter, Pape; Kat (who I met once at Crystal’s last birthday party), her son, Colin; a friend I hadn’t seen since high school, Ferrie with her daughter, Hailey; Ferrie’s friend and fellow crafter, Tina (who I also went to high school with, but we looked at each other with the same, should-I-be-embarrassed-not-to-know-you-? followed by but-that-was-a-long-time-ago face); and my mommy. Chain-mail making, Jewelry beading, scrapbooking, sewing, fabric cutting, knitting and organizing – oh, and ice cream! – left me mushy with an overstimulated brain. And while we all definitely earned our craft badges, I’d also like to hand out some adventure badges:

• Ferrie and I attended the same Junior High and High School and I really hadn’t seen her since then. So, it was a wonderful surprise to me that when she found me on Facebook a couple of days before the craft party, we quickly discovered that we both liked to craft. After a few email exchanges, I had invited her for the crafternoon and she’d accepted, noting that she’d be bringing another friend who likes to sew and, by the way, did I want any of the left over fabric they discard at work? (Of course, I said of course!) Even better than her showing up, she decided that she wanted to learn how to sew and managed to make and stuff a couple of pillows during the crafternoon (that’s her in the pic with one of her pillows). Congratulations, Ferrie!
• Similarly, I’d briefly met Adam and Kelly at Barcamp two weeks before. We probably exchanged no more than 5 sentences with each other, tweeted a few more and without hesitation they RSVP’d, were the first ones to arrive and were one of the last to leave. *** Extra props to Adam for being our token fella for the day. ***

Despite my habit of taking as few pictures as possible during my most memorable moments (probably because I am simply busy enjoying myself), I hear Kat took some (which I KNOW she is going to post – right, Kat?) so we might actually get to see our works in the making!

THANKS for the vibe and inspiration, crafternooners! AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN!

20090520 update: Kat posted about it in her blog, too!

Happy Birthday, Yvonne (Delayed Broadcast)

Are these images too small? It was out friend, Yvonne’s birthday last week and I wanted to make her something. I spent a couple of weeks mulling it over and could not think of anything I would make that she might want to use! (Sorry, Yvonne!) So, I woke up the morning of her party, really still wanting to make something and still drawing a blank. I was also feeling bad because about a year ago, she started planning for this birthday and wanted to invite a couple of friends to celebrate it with her in Hawaii. Being the slacker I can sometimes be, I never really committed to coming along.
So, she did end up making plans to go but she ended up having a birthday bash instead, courtesy of Holland and Kristen (hubby and sis). It was awesome – we had some very yummy food and in a nutshell it was a party of meat and cupcakes. We ate, we laughed, we ate, warmed ourselves by the firepit while the sun was still out, ate some more, played scattergories, and then ate some more. Did I mention we ate a lot of food?
Well, I decided to make her an island-themed birthday card. I’m particularly excited about how the “happy”, “birthday” and “YVONNE” came out because it was 6 in the morning, i had not had my coffee and i did not pencil it in before i cut out those shapes – Yes, I did it FREEHAND! (is it obvious that I’m proud of it?) I’m in fact so excited about it that I’m posting a bigger one below so you can have a closer look. (I guess I should have taken individual pictures of the shapes, too, but it’s what I’ve got so there – incidentally, as I’m writing this, I’m realizing that the coffee i had today appears to be kicking in).

Bonus: The only picture I took at Yvonne’s party is of McKay and Pieter. Just two dudes. Hanging out.

(27) A cheesy greeting card

I put together some origami just to have a TAD for Friday. I am, however, very curious about 28 and must give it its own post…

Morigami

Wow – February is a very busy month! So far this week, I’ve made…
(22) a card with my koala.
(23) OUT (yah! sorry, no pictures)
(24) origami butterflies – i need more samples, but i want a few for some cards for someone’s birthday this weekend…

I am also still trying to figure out how to stay disciplined with TAD during the week – feedback welcome 🙂

Post Slacker

Slacking on the posting… Here’s what the dog’s been doing to my homework:
(18) Organized kitchen cupboard to make room for 8 bottles of Imahan Goma Dare.
I’m a bit shabu-shabu obsessed at the moment and building the perfect shabu night at home has been thwarted by finding a comparable goma sauce. When we finally figured it out, we went back to the store from where we first bought it, only to find out that the store had closed down and reopened as a new store that happens NOT to carry this particular brand.
We, then, drove to nearby stores and discovered that the market that previously occupied said store in previous paragraph was the only one carrying this particular brand of sauce because they used a different distributor and this was a special import (or something to that effect). But not to worry – we can find this store elsewhere on the west side of town…
So, off we went, West of Downtown LA (very lala land for us on a normal driving day, but we were committed to finding this sauce). We went to another 3 stores and finally found said store!!! (You’d think this saga was over,but this was only Sunday and I’m writing about Wednesday).
We walked over to the sauce aisle and rejoiced when we found the shelf label for the Imahan Goma Dare!!! Looking just a centimeter above that label, we found the back of the shelf with no bottles of sauce in between! PANIC! We asked the manager who told us to come back on Wednesday when their fresh new shipment of sauce would be waiting for us there.
Fast forward to Wednesday – we drove to yet another one of these said stores (okay, it was Mitsuwa) and purchased 8 bottles to ensure a sturdy supply in case of attack. I know the final day wasn’t much (buying and stocking the shelf), but it was a DAY 18, several days in the making.
(19) Shabu with friends (of course we had shabu-shabu). I only really prepped the veggies, but I did make dessert. This is strawberry parfait: layers of Vanilla Yogurt, Crushed graham crackers, whipped cream and fresh chopped strawberries, layered in quantities catered to each guest’s choice. (Note: I tried a new yogurt because it was on sale and found that, athough still good, it was not as tart/tangy as the Mountain High brand that I usually use and didn’t offer the same kind of contrast to the rest of the flavors).
(20) SLACKER! I took a nap that ended up being a fall-asleep-on-the-couch-and-somehow-find-myself-on-the-bed-at-3-in-the-morning-with-all-of-my-clothes-still-on kinda nap, so I really did in on
(21) 2 things for my cousin’s baby shower. A nursing pillow and a Ox-themed card for the Year of the Ox.

(17) imakoala

‘been feeling clingy and avoiding my personal projects to sit on the couch next to mckay. sometimes i’m just like that for a while. compared to the rest of me, i have long fingers and limbs, so i actually physically cling. mckay calls me a koala. today, i needed to find a TAD i could do on the couch to stay clung.
head: origami paper
body: MARUKAI ad paper