Making bracelets

I started to make some bracelets to try and sell at a garage sale this week. I made a lot of them about two years ago, and was very successful in selling them. My mom took them to work and sold them to all of the nurses. They are easy to make, and the materials are affordable so I sold them for just 5 dollars a piece. Here is the one I made today.




They are just memory wire and glass beads!

Introduction: Metal and Leather

Alex here, signing in.
I have two principle crafts: chainmail, and clothing modification. By clothing modification, I specifically mean via the addition of studs, spikes, and other accouterments a la the 1970's punk scene.
Both of these crafts stemmed from the same basic passion: I really, really like heavy metal. There's nothing quite like the melodious meedley-meedly of a good guitar solo to set the soul at ease. About a year and a half ago, I was inspired with the notion of not only metal as music, but metal as a full blown visual aesthetic.
It began with a jacket; I wanted to get a biker style jacket and spike it out until it looked absolutely Beyond Thunderdome. But then I thought to myself, "hey, I need a good belt to go with this. " A belt made of chainmail. And so it began. And so it continued, until I looked like this.


The gloves have since been covered in chainmail as well.
Anyways, this goal of looking like a heavy metal album cover designed by He-Man villains has developed into an ever-expanding pursuit of craftsmanship. I've recently taken up leatherworking, and plan on learning metalworking and blacksmithy at some point in the coming months.
I've got a Deviantart gallery up here.
Most of what I've made has been recorded there in varying degrees of agreeable lighting.

Made these today:

Kittie: Crafting for Garage Sale

Hi, it's Kittie.

My grandparents (and everybody on my mom's side of the family) are having a garage sale next week. Mom thought it'd be a great idea if I tried to sell some of my "wares", so I've been working on simple hemp jewelry and stuff of that sort.


One kind of mp soap I've been working on are these soapsicles. Sweet pea and cucumber melon scented soaps that look like popsicles. I'm going to try to make one more batch of 8 to have enough (I gave one sweet pea scented soap to my mother-in-law).


I also have a sort-of job. I upcycle t-shirts and make them cooler looking or turn them into bags, then send them to a consignment shop in my hometown. The owner pays me a percentage of the profit. She has a couple of my shirts up on display, however she wants me to start making bags because they seem to sell better. I do have a few bags I've made so far, as well as one left at home for my dad to bring to the shop. I'm working on some more ideas in my mind. However, crafting without a steady income is hard.



In crafts for myself, I am decorating a pair of shoes Gini helped me get for less than 10 bones...and that are in my size. I have small feet. Watchmen is a favorite comic of mine. I'm always trying to find little boy batman shoes to wear, but every shoe out there is either spiderman or the incredible hulk. I gave up on that idea, deciding to focus on a more obscure comic for my feet.
One shoe down, one to go.

My big thing to work more on are my crochet hats. It's the start of summer. Nobody wants warm winter hats right now. But I like Portal a little too much. And besides, I need a variety of stuff to work on.

Amanda: what I've been crafting lately

I've been concerned that I don't have enough crafting going right now, with our etsy shop opening just around the corner. I went looking for inspiration, and I think I found a little bit... I just need some momentum.

I got some graph paper so I can plot out block print designs, and started messing around with a piece of beginner's soft linoleum:

I threw the calla lilies in there for fun. Those and my Harry Potter Gryffindor scarves are the two things I have at present that I know I will be posting in the etsy shop in July.

I decided to start with some popular nerd symbols, namely the weighted companion cube:


and the heroes unwound, single-helix symbol:

This beginner's linoleum is messy. It leaves a lot of little flaky bits when I'm working with it. I still can't decide which kind I like better. I'll just have to work with them both some more and see how it goes.

The other two small prints in the top picture are old projects. They were trial runs for a project for Val's wedding that we eventually abandoned. They're tiny Star Wars prints; the rebel alliance symbol and the galactic republic symbol:



These are all very rough prints. As you can tell, they haven't been inked yet. I need to do some test prints before I decide whether they're good enough to sell. My guess is that, at present, the only one good enough is the Heroes symbol.

I really need to learn to take my time carving these, especially when I'm using beginner's linoleum. It's so easy to mess up a perfectly good block. But the practice is good for me, even if I end up discarding these. I'll show you when I have some prints to share.

I also have some knitting news. Brandon (my boyfriend) and I went garage sale shopping the other day, and I got some really fantastic yarn at an estate sale. We also got some cookie sheets and Brandon got some small mixing bowls. But I'm really excited about this yarn:



It's a really standard gauge, I got about 4 or 5 skeins of it... and just check out that color!


Green is my favorite color, and this one is so rich. There are a million things I could do with this yarn. And I have so much of it! Any suggestions?

I have one big project that I would really like to have a prototype of before July, but with Val's wedding coming up, I don't think I'll have it done before then. Maybe I'll work on it during July. It's a treat for D&D fans... Here's your first hint: Think of a campaign you did that was truly epic. You had a great character, and you want something to remember it by. If all goes well, I'll have the perfect product for that occasion in a few weeks' time.

Amanda: Just a catch-up

Hey, Amanda here!
I just want to catch up and talk about what you can expect coming up soon from all us Nimble Toads.

Firstly, Gini brought up an interesting point: since there are seven of us, you can expect a good mix of blogging styles, subject matter and frequency of posts. Some of us might post about whatever's going on in our lives (crafting-related or not), and some of us might keep it professional. If you prefer one blogger over the others, we've made it easier for you to weed out their posts by tagging the entries with our names. So, if you want to see only posts from me, click the "Amanda" tag at the bottom of this entry. Same deal with everyone else.

Let's see what you can expect from Nimble Toad coming soon:
-So, I know that Kelli and Alex are busy people right now, but I'm gonna try to convince them to do intro posts at some point.
-It sounds like Gini would like to share her gardening projects with you.
-Val and I are both super busy next week what with her wedding and all, but I would like to do a round-up entry of all my linoleum projects to date, as well as a brief entry on knitting projects you can expect to see soon and some old ones I'm going to post in the shop.
-I'm sure Val's wedding photos and maybe some from the bachelorette party will find their way on here *somehow* and I'm sure Val has some personal projects from the wedding she'll want to share as well.
-Will is a busy guy right now - he's taking a bunch of summer classes, but he's ALWAYS got something going craft-wise. Maybe when things slow down with him, he'll share some of it with us.
-Same deal with Kittie. That girl is a crafting MACHINE. I'll try to coax her to take some photos for us.


Have a great week!

Gini: Knitting

So the first thing you need to know about me is that I am craft ADD. I constantly jump from one project to another, and rarely finish anything. You may have noticed that yesterday I posted about chain mail, and today's title involves knitting. And in fact, I've been doing mostly crocheting for the past 6 months, with some intermittent sewing. None of these crafts is my forte, in fact I consider myself to be mediocre at all of them, at best. My roommate crochets much better than I do, my boyfriend is extremely meticulous when it comes to sewing and chain mail, and excels at both. And knitting, well, lately I find knitting to be tedious and boring.

But why is today's blog post about knitting then, you ask, if a week ago I would have claimed to have given it up for good? Well, because I went home to my mom's house today (Wyoming, MI), to find my aunt had purchased this at a garage sale for 3 dollars, and gifted it to me, as my grandmother had no interest in it. (see photo below)

Contents of box:

1 "Learn to Knit" booklet, copyright 1968
1 "Sweaters for Women" pattern book, copyright 1982
2 pair size 7 knitting needles, 1 still in package
1 pair size 5 knitting needles, still in package
1 pair size 3 knitting needles, still in package
1 size 5 29 in. circular needle
3 unidentified double pointed needle, 2 plastic, 1 aluminum
1 pack of two yarn needles
1 saftey pin
1 stitch holder
2 different unidentified skeins of yellow yarn and
7 skeins and 1 ball of Carron 'Dazzle Aire' color 2672 Pebble

I can't tell how old the yarn is, probably at least 10 years. The person seemed to have an affinity for odd size numbered needles. I couldn't resist my self, so I started knitting this scarf. which I will probably never finish. What I really should do is finish the Jayne Cobb hat I was making my roommate for her birthday that was in January.

If you are interested in seeing some other things that I have knit in the past, check out my deviant art page here.

That's all for now,

Gini

Oh, hey boss-lady Amanda, can I post about gardening? That is almost a craft.

Gini and Will: Maille 4 Saille

Hello! Gini and Will here. We're doing a joint posts because Will is busy with homework and exams. We each do several kinds of crafts, but today's post is about chainmaille!

This is what Gini is working on today:


It is going to be a bracelet to match these earrings:

We make several kinds of earrings including these:
Will made the ones on the left, Gini made the ones with dice.

We make all of our own rings from stainless steel wire, and we colour some of the rings with a blowtorch.

In addition to jewelry we have made other cool things like Will's yen keychains:
Which he made with 5 and 50 yen pieces from Japan.
We also both make dice bags:

This like this and more we will be selling in the future Etsy shop.

Maybe later Gini will post about knitting/crocheting, or Will will post about sewing.
That's all for today!

Val: Cake Topper Success!

So, since my wedding is in just two weeks, there have been tons of DIY craft projects flying around my house (in the case of tissue flowers, quite literally). I just found my camera, and got batteries and the computer cord for it so I'll hopefully be posting about several more of these in the coming weeks.

For today though, our cake toppers!

I started with a lump of Paperclay, which is made mainly out of volcanic ash and so dries fairly lightweight. 8oz was enough to make both toppers, which ended up about 6 and 7 inches tall.
This was the first time I'd worked with Paperclay. It was slightly more frustrating to make minor adjustments than clay from my past ceramics class, but not too bad overall. I found that the key was to keep it wet enough.


(thank you, Thing)

I didn't have my camera so I don't have "in the making" shots. Instead, I'll get straight to the good stuff! A warning, we are giant nerds.

Ta da!



I worked on Jedi Mike first, since his basic shape was a lot easier. There weren't any major problems putting him together, but it is really difficult to get a dowel into a lump of clay straight without ruining the form. It actually sticks up a tiny bit on the side of his neck, but only I'd notice
.

Mugshots!

Making Jedi Val was a lot harder, since I'm a lot more curvy. I tried to break it down into basic shapes and then piece them back together. I was really glad no one was looking over my shoulder while I was shaping her though, she looked pretty awful for a while. Hips are really hard to get even! She took about twice as long to do as Jedi Mike. I also put her on her dowel earlier in the process than Jedi Mike, which had benefits and drawbacks. The benefit was that she was a lot easier to hold and shape, the drawback was that she kept sliding down and trying to take off her own head. Kind of sad, but she ended up with a "scar" in the same place on her neck where mine is, which I found endlessly amusing.




One of the great things about Paperclay is that it dries hard in 24 hours, and after that is easily sandable. This helped me get rid of a hunchback on Jedi Val (whoops!). I used a 220 grit sand paper because it was what I had lying around, and it wasn't too harsh.

I'm hoping we'll get pro pictures of these at the wedding, so I can share better pictures eventually.

This is something I can do again, but very likely won't for a while. It was a good 8-10 hours of work, all told.

Tell me what you think!

Getting to knooow yooouu....

Amanda, here!

I suppose you have plenty of information about me from the posts I imported from my old blog, so I'll make this brief and give other people a chance to talk.

I just graduated from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. My bachelor's degree is in Psychology with a minor in Biology. My personal focus was on Neuroscience, however the Psychology department at WMU is very heavily focused in Behaviorism, so I received rigorous training in that, as well.

My crafting history is brief. In high school, my friend Wendy wanted a Harry Potter scarf for Christmas, so I bought some yarn and asked my grandma to show me how to knit. I picked it up very quickly and started knitting big bunches of Harry Potter scarves and selling them to my friends. I will have a couple in our Etsy store when it opens in July, so keep an eye out for that!

While I love knitting, and I'm very fast at it, I don't know how to do much more than the basics - and I definitely can't make clothing yet. Mainly just scarves and blankets. But I'm learning more every day, so we'll see what I come up with!

A few years ago I took an art course where we learned some valuable techniques, among them were linoleum block print carving, book binding, and charcoal. This makes up the majority of the things you'll see from me through Nimble Toad - I plan on making mainly books and customized prints. So, if you're looking for paper goods, I'm the one to talk to.

I love the look and feel of block prints. They've got texture. They pop off the page without dominating the document they're printed on. They interact with the paper, too - you can't just print on computer paper. The paper a block print is printed on has to have character of its own. And I love the crackled look you get when you go light on the ink - it looks as though the paper has history, has a story to tell. It's a time-consuming craft, but I love it.


There are a million new crafts I'd like to learn - watching Val do her embroidery is really inspiring, it's a simple way to personalize something, or really punch up a pattern. I would also like to learn to sew. I want to start small, though - mainly accessories like purses and wallets. The difference for me is that I feel comfortable with linoleum and yarn - I can make anything someone commissions, there isn't really a limit. But with sewing, unless I find some fabric that really inspires me, or a technique that looks interesting... I feel like, at the moment, it's just not going to happen. But who knows? Maybe you'll be seeing a lot more from me in the future!

Introduction #2: Val's Turn!

Hello, it's my turn!

I'm Valerie (often Val because people are laaazy). I'm currently living in Lansing, but who knows if that will be true in a month. I'm getting married in 3 weeks (ahh!) and everything is up in the air.

Crafting is currently my escape. I can turn on music, start stitching, and just forget about all of the things I should be doing. I've always had a crafter on the inside, but she's not always expressed herself well, often with half-finished projects that wouldn't make sense to anyone else. I could succeed in art classes, but without guidance I was pretty hopeless. It wasn't really until I discovered cross-stitch a year ago that I really started to harness my craftiness. Since graduation from college, I've played with cross-stitch, knitting, embroidery, clay, jewelry, hand-sewing, weaving, stamping, a tiny bit of felting, and painting miniatures.

My main skill is currently embroidery. I've found that it is guided enough that my inner crafter doesn't go nuts, but I can still express myself creatively. The different stitches come pretty naturally to me, and I enjoy losing myself in projects. I'm currently working on five (yes 5!) onsies for my nephew, on top of several other projects. I'm definitely working against the clock!

In the future I'd love to get back in to clay. I really enjoyed my ceramics classes in the past, and it's so much fun to shape a lump into something beautiful with your hands. Unfortunately, clay can be pretty costly, so we'll have to see. I also try anything that I come across that seems doable, so who knows what you'll see from me!

As soon as I get my room clean and find my camera, I'll be able to get pictures of all of the things I've been working on lately. I'm itching to share!

- Val

Introduction of sorts

Hi, I'm Kittie. Stealing an entry from Amanda. Mwahaha.

I live in a quaint little college town known lately for its apartment fires. I'm a super senior, screwed over by the study abroad office after living and studying in Germany for 13 months. Major: Deutsch. Minor: Nihongo. Dream career in life: translating literature and comics, or adding subtitles to foreign films. Anything that involves me being surrounded by books.

Crafting runs in my family. Well, my dad's side of the family. I crochet, sew, play with clay, macrame it up, and [not lately] draw. I feel strongest crocheting and doing basic macrame, although polymer clay will most likely join the ranks. Sewing is more of a hobby right now.


Most of the stuff that I make can be tied to video games, anime/manga, or other geekdoms. I have a penchant for crocheting octopi and other fishy critters.

My fiance and I have started dabbling in soap making. We've started with simple melt and pour soaps for now, but plan to move onto cold process soaps (made with lye) eventually. Eventually being when we finally get married and live together and he lets me strew my crafty projects all over the place. I've started working on t-shirt surgeries and am trying to perfect that technique.

Crafting I'd one day like to try: resin, glass, making really awesome soaps, and taking over the world

Slow Start

Amanda here. I am working on importing all the entries from my old craft blog, so a bunch of new content should be popping up on this site very shortly (edit: It worked! See the entries below! All kinds of new stuff to read!) Then, I hope to get everyone to do some intro posts - just a quick post about ourselves, what we do, which crafts we hope to pursue in this humble little company of ours, and of course... our nerdy interests.

So that's what's coming up, check back soon!

Val's Thank-you cards (Amanda's old blog)

I finally finished the "H" block print! So, I drove up to Lansing and hung out with Val for a day. We went to Staples and she bought some cardstock. I cut the sheets in half, then used my (Martha Stewart) bone folder and folded them into little cards. Then it came time to start printing them!

I was in Farmington staying at my mom's place this weekend because it was my stepsister's baby shower on Saturday. I gave her the baby blanket I knit (which I forgot to get a final photo of, sorry!) and she liked it. So, I knew I was going to have some time on Friday night while I was staying with my mom, so I brought the block print and my printing gear, and set up shop in her living room (as usual).





We used her clothes-drying rack to hang them overnight to dry.

Some of them were a bit off center, or too crackly or too heavy. I'm printing way more than they need so I can toss the rejects.


I'm back in Kzoo and I decided to do another batch today.


The printing part is the easy part of the process, carving the prints takes much, much longer. To print them you just have to roll the ink out on a smooth surface(That paper is laminated, it's all I have at the moment. I'm just using it up until I can get something better.), then once you have a nice, even coat on the roller, you roll it onto the block itself:



Then, center the paper carefully and press down:



It takes a little bit of time and rubbing around, feeling to make sure you've hit every portion of the pattern. But the results are great! Cue the super artsy blog photo!


Yay for thank-you cards!



I'm pretty excited about this project. While Val isn't a customer, this is my first large project - and my first real project for someone else. It turns out it's really easy to print a large number of prints, and it means less ink goes to waste, since you have to use enough to roll it out - no matter whether you're printing 50 or just one.

Test Post

This is Amanda, I'm setting up the blog for Nimble Toad. I'm just putting up a quick test post while I find my way around and set everything up. We'll start with real posts very soon, so check back!

Noodles on the Brain (Amanda's old blog)

I recently decided that I need to commit myself to a personal quest to make ramen noodles. Like, real ramen. In real soup. With vegetables and meat and delicious broth from scratch.

Oh, and did I mention that I want to make the noodles from scratch? Yeah, it's a crazy project. It should take me a long time to get it right, but getting there is half the fun, right?

So, for my first attempt, I got the noodle recipe off the internet. I will likely look for varying recipes and tweak it as I go. It calls for flour, salt, eggs and water. It's really, really basic - however, getting the noodles right takes real skill.

Alright, so I mixed the dough, let it sit in a damp paper towel for half an hour, then I rolled it out.

That's Stacy and Eric's beautiful new cutting board. They got so many nice things at their bridal showers - I'm going to be so spoiled by the time I move out of this house.

Then, you have to fold the dough over a few times (with LOTS of flour in between so it doesn't stick) before you cut it.



Sometimes it's hard to choose which pictures to use - Brandon does such a wonderful job.



That knife is another totally nice kitchen utensil that I will miss when I move out. It is so sharp, it cuts through everything like butter. It's pretty much the only reason I was able to get the noodles as thin as I did, and they were still a bit too thick.


It was really hard to keep the water at a rolling boil without it boiling over, so I had to keep turning it down and back up, which was one of the major flaws of this project.


So, we had some beef broth in the freezer leftover from my last pot of cabbage soup (Hal made bread bowls - I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures). We heated up the broth and added some onions and lettuce.

Brandon had the brilliant idea of adding a touch of sesame oil to the soup.



Okay, so the broth was thin and the noodles.... they were doughy. Frankly, I'm labeling this a failed attempt. They were pretty bad. Here are the things I think went wrong:
-I didn't knead the dough NEARLY enough
-I didn't let it sit long enough
-I didn't slice the noodles thin enough
-I couldn't keep the water at a rolling boil

So now I know what to look out for for next time. Hey, it's a start, right? And since they started out terrible, they can only get better!


One other project before I leave you:


Knitting! It's been a while since I've picked up a pair of knitting needles, but this project has been going pretty quickly. It's a baby blanket for my stepsister - she's having a baby shower this weekend. I'll take a picture when it's done so you guys can see.


I've got all kinds of news about my crafting company, but I'm going to hold off for a while, until I have more to show you. Lets just say, get ready to change the URL for this blog on your bookmark menu!