Metal pants

One thing that's troubled me for a while is how I can take what I do to most of my clothing and apply it to a pair of pants. Jackets are easy to modify. So are gloves and boots. But pants? That's tricky.
But I found a way. I got a pair of side-laced leather jeans (which were pretty sweet to begin with), and put a swatch of chainmail under the laces. The result? This:
Initially, I just removed the laces and replaced them with the chainmail, but that made it look too much like a bright silver racing stripe. Not exactly what I'm going for. Putting the laces back in broke it up a little bit more, with a most pleasing result.
I haven't weighed the pants yet, but I estimate they're somewhere about 6-7 pounds.
I don't plan on putting a stock of these up on the store, since I have to buy the pants myself first. However, if anyone wants a pair, I'd be willing to do a commission.

Women I Admire

I want to go a bit off topic this week. I know I did a 'blog love' entry a while back, but it was so hastily thrown together, I don't think it really did them justice.

Every now and then, when I'm sitting back and daydreaming about all my various goals in life and current projects, I go to some of my favorite blogs and I whine at Brandon about how badly I want to be just like the women who write them. All of them! It would take a lot of energy, I don't know if anyone could be all these women at once, they all work so hard at what they do. And they're all so accomplished. In short, these are the blogs that make me drool!

Of course I have to start with the famous Megan Hunt of Princess Lasertron. She was one of the first bloggers I discovered back when Val had me browsing Weddingbee.com for wedding ideas. She makes these amazing, funky bouquets out of felt and vintage buttons. The cool selling point is that they're unique, but they're not 'weird,' so they won't freak out your grandma, but you can still have a wedding that's all you. What's amazing is that her style keeps evolving, she's really refining her product and expanding her brand. She's fantastically business-savvy, and has the same quirky style as I have. I'll admit, I've modeled more than a bit of the business side of Nimble Toad after Princess Lasertron's example.

Did I mention I'm in love with her wedding gown? She's releasing an original line next year. I'm SO excited.

But of course original crafts aren't my only love. You guys have seen a bit of my vintage fetish here on the blog. And one of my favorite Etsy vintage sellers is Solanah of Vixen Vintage. She LIVES the lifestyle. I mean, it's unbelievable, she absolutely surrounds herself in vintage wares. And she has the figure for it, too. Which comes in handy, I'm sure, because she's the model for her shop as well. Her photographs are so professional and polished, but very informative about the piece she's showing, and a little artsy and a little sexy as well. She really strikes the right balance. Solanah's photos embody exactly what I strive for with my product photos in our Etsy shop. And good lord she has a fantastic selection.

This is a little embarassing, but I also strive to get my hair to curl just like hers. We have very similar hair, and she does some truly fantastic things with hers.

Next up is Ki Nassauer of Junk Camp. She refers to herself as a 'junker,' and she's started a whole new trend, both in style and in crafting. She goes to flea markets, junk shows (I never knew there was such a thing!) and antique shows to find old throw-away junk that she can transform into new and wonderful things. Her mantra is "forget what it was, think what it could be!" and she has some truly inspired, creative and hilarious crafts. She's inspired me to shop cheap, and make it myself whenever possible, and it's because of her blog that I find myself looking at junk in a totally different way.

Of course there's always the wonderful Maki of JustBento! As you guys have seen before, I love bento boxes. It's a healthy way to eat, and a fun little way to be creative with my food. And of course, I love Japanese food! Maki shares recipes, special diet advice, bento gear and kyaraben decorating tricks on her blog. I got all my favorite bento recipes from JustBento.

Check out her adorable logo!

Aaah yes, Winona of Daddy Likey. Guys, this chick is hilarious. I'm serious, she absolutely kills me. I don't generally read fashion blogs, but Daddy Likey doesn't read like a fashion blog. Winona writes her blog like her readers are actually her closest friends, and she often treats them like they are. She's full of silly anecdotes from her life, sometimes totally unrelated to fashion - but always worth it. What's fantastic is that her brand of humor is really similar to mine. She's goofy, and knows how to play it up just right. I only hope I could be half as funny as her. I seriously want to hang out with her some day, she just sounds like an absolute blast.

And she has a book out!

Lastly, but definitely not least is my good friend Leslie from The Curious Adventures of Inkhat. Leslie is one of Val's best friends from college. She's a poet - no, seriously, she's studying poetry in grad school. And she's quite the wordsmith. Her blog follows her adventures in grad school, and it's full of wonderful, creative anecdotes and thoughts about her classes, her friends, and her pets, as well as products, movies and albums that she likes. Her writing is clever, inspired, poetic and entertaining. And she reads our blog, too!

I wasn't sure if she'd be embarassed, so I grabbed one of her famous wallpapers instead.

So, when I'm lazing around in front of my computer, I often pull up entries from these blogs and complain to Brandon about how I want to be just like all these women... all at the same time. Sounds exhausting. I'd be pretty darn cool, though.

What are some of your favorite blogs?

Hectic Week

They say you shouldn't spend too much time on your blog apologizing for not posting, but I still think that every once in a while, it's necessary. I'm really sorry, but I haven't done anything even remotely crafty this week. I'm very tied up in grad school applications. But soon I hope to get back to knitting and linoleum carving, so I can have lots of lovely crafts to share with you!

I do have one small bit of news. Since I posted my commission piece in the Etsy shop - the batch of 50 personalized cards - I got 2 internal orders. One from Gini and one from Kittie. Gini wants me to make invitation cards for her graduation party. And Kittie tells me that next year she will be needing thank-you cards for her wedding! So, while we still only have 2 sales on the Etsy shop itself, our members are making external sales as well.

Perhaps I'll ask Alex to give us an update on how his Ren Faire adventure went.

Ancient History

Brandon and I went to visit my family a few weekends ago, and while at my mom's house, I picked up some of my old linoleum block prints. I thought I'd share them with you.

I first learned to carve linoleum about 2 1/2 years ago, in an art class in college. The final assignment for the class was to make a book (I hope to get more seriously into bookbinding as Nimble Toad grows) and fill it with some of our favorite techniques from the class. The book had to be cohesive somehow, not just a random collection of drawings. So, I decided to tell a story with pictures. The book included four block prints.

I tried to use the background texture to punctuate the actual picture.

The book tells the story of a girl falling asleep in class and dreaming about various things, including ninjas and Jedis.

This is one of my favorite charcoal drawings.

I used the theme of writing words related to the dream being illustrated across the page. It fulfilled the requirement of demonstrating my pen-and-ink skills. I know, it's kind of a cop-out to just write with the pen instead of draw, but I really disliked pen-and-ink.

Hilariously enough, I posed for a photo so I had something to go off of when doing that charcoal drawing:

Yes, I own Jedi robes.

Here are some of the block prints on the page:

Here she is, after waking up with a start at the end of class. She's a bit embarrassed.

The really exciting thing about finding these old prints was being reminded that there is a third type of linoleum! I've been struggling with beginners linoleum, which is too soft and too flexible, but can be cut into small pieces (which is great for the kind of work I do) and regular linoleum which has the right firmness, but is mounted on a wooden backing, which makes it impossible to cut (except with a band saw, which I do not want to bother with).

Check out the backing on the linoleum from my art class:

It's woven!

This is perfect! It's firm and sturdy, but it can still be cut down into smaller pieces. I need to find out where I can buy this. Does anybody have any advice for me? I'm going to send my old art professor an email right away. ^_^

Have a good week. Happy crafting.

Valerie: Portable Sewing Case

Hey everyone!

I'm really excited about my big project for this week. There were several ideas floating around in my head that all came together at once. Let's see if I can make my thought stream understandable.

Before I get into the actual project, a few bits of background info:

For a while I've been carrying around a box with all of my sewing tools in it, but was bulky, inefficient, and definitely not cute.

For the wedding this past summer, we used about 3o yards of blue and green fabric to make tablerunners. Most of the fabric is clean and usable, so now I have a huge pile of fabric to find a way to reuse. I was planning to use it up in a quilt, but all of the pieces for the quilt barely made a dent in the stash.

Ok, with these two things in mind, I set out to make a cute, efficient, and portable sewing case. I have a pile of inspiring fabrics that I've been dying to dive in to, but since this project involved more precision sewing than I'd done before, I decided to use wedding fabric.

The case came together pretty well, and I had efficient and portable down, but because the fabric was plain, it wasn't scoring very high on the cute front.

See?


Around the time that I was getting frustrated with this project from many small mishaps along the way, a friend set up a group on Facebook to encourage creativity by challenging members to incorporate a weekly theme into their work. To kick things off, this week's theme was "Me."

In a flash of inspiration one night, I realized that I could get two birds with one stone by incorporating the theme into sprucing up my sewing case. I browsed through my folder of embroidery designs and found one that fit me perfectly:


I am a craft butterfly. I can't keep my mind on one project for too long and I'm constantly flitting between three or four different ones, always trying new things.

I traced the butterfly using Artists Graphite Transfer Paper followed up with my ever-useful Mark-B-Gone pen. I picked white for the main wings to tie in to the rest of the sewing case and to make sure that it stood out against the blue fabric. Then I just picked colors that made me happy and made a plan using MS Paint. I embroidered the butterfly onto a separate piece of the blue fabric, layered it with a white piece, and attached it like a patch so that I could later easily remove it and move it elsewhere if I wanted to. It took me about 8-9 hours to complete and is probably one of the more intricate things that I've embroidered.

Attached to the back of the sewing case, it makes me happy every time I use it.

Here it is all tied up and ready to go:


The sewing case that I made for myself definitely isn't perfect, but I learned a lot and changed the way I did a few things when I made this second one using some of my delicious fabric stash. I love the retro-inspired teal and brown circles on the main fabric, and how the stripes tie in perfectly.



The rounded corners really did me in for the butterfly case, so I changed to square corners and it was much easier. I like the look a lot better. I also made a mini needle book to fit into one of the pockets! It can serve as a pincushion as well. I'm planning to get this case up in the Etsy shop within the next day or so. Look for more fun sewing cases to come!

- Valerie

The Balancing Act

Hi, Kittie here!

I know it's been a while. I have had to figure out the fun balancing act between classes, work, planning a wedding, and crafting. Since most of the people I want to make presents for have birthdays in October, November, and December the crochet hooks/sewing machine have come forth once more! Sadly I can't find my cable to my camera, otherwise I'd put up some of the stuff I've been working on.

I do have a couple of things to add to the etsy shop once I can upload my camera. First is a lovely crocheted miniature top hat. The prototype can be seen below. Gini bought a pretty bodice and decided to have an emergency costume party. I dressed up as a doll. The hat was such a hit that I made another!

Another thing I am thinking about adding is an outrageously awesome fabric scraps scarf I just made today. It is black flannel on the bottom and a whole bunch of fabric scraps for the top. Gini calls it a quilted scarf. Good title?



I'll try to put things up soon on both Etsy and here as soon as I can upload my pictures!

The EGL top hat is up on Etsy!

Here are some projects I have been working on...



This bag is for my mother for her birthday. I was lucky to find both a GVSU shirt and a WMU shirt at the thrift store. I thought it was fitting for her to have a bag that represents both my brother (who goes to GVSU) and me (WMU).








I made this rainbow hat. The pattern is here. I love the use of different crochet stitches. I recently made another hat with this pattern, but in cream colored yarn for a coworker.