Nimble Toad

Zelda Quilts 2.0

2010-03-16T18:56:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I know it's been a while since you've heard from us, I apologize!

I've been crazy busy being an adult with a full time job, imagine that. I don't know what these other slackers problems are :P

Anyway, I'm just popping in because I'm excited to announce that version 2 of the Zelda quilts have finally made an appearance in the shop! (Go here!)

Same design, but a bit different on the fabrics. I'm definitely a fan of the dark green under the Master Sword!

I decided to do six of them assembly line style, and while I think that overall it was more efficient, it's also a lot more tedious and I get bored faster. I'm not sure what I'll do next time.

Anyway, enjoy!

Valerie

Slouch hats galore

2010-02-26T15:22:00.000-08:00

Hello all!

Sorry I haven't been making posts lately. Now that my work is over (le sigh) I will have plenty of time to craft...as well as work more on homework. Blegh. Recently I discovered the joy of the slouchy hat. In my last semester as a college student. Typical, of course. I made up a pattern and have been going from there. I've made four slouch hats now. Three are striped and one is solid colored. Sadly, I don't have a picture of the first hat, which is gray and black. My other striped creations are purple and black and green and black. I decorated my green and black slouchy hat with a pin.I just finished my fourth slouchy hat today. It is black with a crocheted skull embellishing the sort-of brim. I really wanted it to look like Rhyme's hat from The World Ends With You.
I plan on making Beat's hat now for my fiance', just to figure everything else. Then maybe Rhyme and Beat's hats will appear in our etsy shop!

Bottle caps!

2010-02-09T19:29:00.000-08:00

Because I have so many bottle caps, I decided that I must do a craft with them. So I have been painting them with the intention of making magnets, but I am having difficulties with getting the magnets glued to the bottle caps.

Here is my work station, I spray painted the bottle caps white out on the porch.

Here is the finished product, some of them came out better than others. The goal is do to the five mana symbols from Magic: The Gathering. However, they have proven very difficult to paint. You can see that I did the Avatar symbols, a pokeball, a tri-force, the deathly hallows, and three of the five mana symbols.

Rainbow Scarf

2010-02-04T10:52:00.000-08:00

Recently my mom has been demanding I crochet things for her, because I have lots of free time. First I made her a purple beret, and now I made this:

Apologies

2010-01-25T08:23:00.000-08:00

I'm so sorry for the hiatus. Unfortunately, it's going to have to go a bit longer.

At the moment, I'm swamped with other responsibilities and I'm getting absolutely no crafting done. Additionally, we're discussing some administrative items amongst the group, so there may be some changes in the near future. My hope is that everything will calm down by next week and we can get back to crafting.

Thanks for your patience. Sorry about the radio silence. We'll be back late next week.

-Amanda

Mini Rat Cage

2010-01-05T11:42:00.000-08:00

The cage is miniature, not the rats. Yes, those exist.

So, I'm getting a new rat in about a month, and I needed a separate cage for her to live in for the first few weeks, before I start socializing her with my other two. There is a common method people use for making a spare cage (often referred to as a hospital tank, because it's also used when a rat is sick and needs to be separated from the colony.) It's also a great travel cage, because it's so light, has built-in handles, and it's spill-proof.

It's fairly simple. You start with a plastic bin. Cut out the top, and insert an appropriately-sized piece of chicken wire.

The chicken wire is kept in place with wire tied through holes I drilled in the top.

I drilled some small holes in the side for the water bottle. Two small holes for its wire hanger and one large one for the nozzle to go through. This part was a little trickier because the tub is made of a sturdier plastic than the lid, so there was a danger of it cracking. I did get one small crack, but it didn't go very far, so I'm not too concerned about it.

That's it! Now I have a spare cage for my new rat when she arrives in February. I'm very excited. I'll post pictures when I have the new rat and the cage is furnished.

More crafting news later in the week.

Bleach stenciling: it actually works!

2009-12-25T21:12:00.000-08:00

Sorry I have not posted for a few weeks. But today/tonight I have a special post!

Recently I discovered the joy of bleach stenciling and have finally figured out my own technique!

My brother is, as all unique individuals, extremely difficult when it comes to making him a present for Christmas. However! He has an obsession with Kurt Vonnegut. So I bring your attention toooooo:
And that's just the close up of the image! When I took the stencil off of the shirt and checked out the bleach, I was amazed. Simply amazed. The mustache, the glasses frames...it came out perfect!

My brother had mentioned yesterday during dinner that he really wanted a Kurt Vonnegut shirt. My fiance nudged me repeatedly under the table. He wore the shirt today. I am pleased. And want to make more stencils now.

Han Solo Belt: research & materials

2009-12-23T07:46:00.000-08:00

I finally borrowed someone's camera, and so it's here! The first Han Solo Belt entry, as promised!

As I think I mentioned before, Alex is helping me with this project. More than just a little, it's pretty much a joint project at this point.

The first step in the process was research. I stared at photos of Han Solo Belts for hours before I even called Alex up. He sat with me while I fast-forwarded through A New Hope, trying to get screenshots of Han facing away, so we could see the back of the belt. Yeah, it was pretty intense.

I finally found a few informative source photos that I decided to go with.

This is one of my favorites.

The strength of this photo is that you get to see the whole layout of the main belt section, and it's continuous. It's a replica, but I'm finding more and more that the replicas out there are very trustworthy. As it turns out, most crafters are as obsessed with accuracy as I am!

I also have some photos of the actual prop from the films:

I found these at the amazing Original Prop Blog, which is a phenomenal resource that I've barely begun to use yet. There's so much material to read, and I have so little time!

Okay so down to the materials. Alex had me drive way out to the leather-working shop where he gets all his supplies. It's called Russell Farms (it would appear they don't have a website). The hilarious thing about this place is that they're a farm. They process people's deer meat. They sell leather and leather-working supplies, but their usual clientele is hunters. Alex loves this place. But he is not their usual clientele. Observe:

You would be forgiven for thinking he only dresses this way SOME of the time. But you would also be wrong.

So, with the help of the very friendly lady who works there, we were able to buy the leather we need for the belt.

A strap for the main belt, a large piece of scrap leather for the holster, and some medium-brown leather dye.

Here is the scrap leather, with my foot for size reference.

There was some controversy as to whether the holster is one piece or two. If it's one continuous piece, this scrap leather - despite being the largest piece they had - wouldn't be big enough. But, Val brought a few photos of various replicas to my attention. Here's a good one:

(projecthro.com)

See the rivets across the top of the part where the blaster sits? It's a separate piece of leather. It's still large, though, so it's going to be a squeeze. I think we need to go back and get another piece of scrap for the pockets on the main belt, so that this large piece can be used entirely for the holster.

So, there you have it! Of course, all of my crafting is on hold over the holiday. I don't anticipate having anything new for you next week. I'll be far too busy this weekend catching up with family, and spending every spare moment getting my January applications together and ready to submit.

Everyone have a lovely holiday, and we'll be back late next week!

British Scarves

2009-12-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

Ok, so my thinly veiled hint earlier turned out to be a boldfaced lie. I need to find a decent camera and/or a person to take photos before I can do my Shman Shmolo Shmelt entry. Luckily, I have some other crafting news to hold you over until then!

I have two projects coming up that have 2 things in common: they're both scarves, and they're both about series' that were started in England. I guess the British just know what they're doing when it comes to sci fi/fantasy knitting projects.

I'm speaking, of course, about Harry Potter and Doctor Who.

Really my Harry Potter announcement is more of a quick note. I'm going to get the ol' crimson-and-yellow yarn out again and try to fill the shop with the ever popular Harry Potter scarves. What I would like to know from you is, what do you want to see? Which house colors do you prefer? Are there other knitted items you'd like to have in the house colors? Perhaps some Slytherin Socks?

I have to say, I absolutely love Gini's hats. I love that the colors are quieter than my scarves. It's like her hats are for the more reserved HP fan, whereas my scarves are more the shout-it-from-rooftops variety.

So, leave a comment on this entry and tell us what HP gear you'd like us to make for you!

In other iconic-scarves-inspired-by-British-fiction news, I recently happened upon a couple of wonderful websites dedicated to the accurate recreation of the Doctor Who scarf, worn by Tom Baker.

As it turns out, there are a few different versions of the scarf (essentially one for each season of the show when Tom Baker was on), and various patterns floating around the internet for each one. The lovely ladies at the websites I found have done some phenomenal research and provide resources for making your own Doctor Who scarf, including color matching for selecting good yarns, several patterns, and tutorials to help with the knitting techniques used in the patterns.

I'm going to keep digging, familiarize myself with the patterns, and then go on the epic search for yarn. I hope to make myself a Doctor Who scarf, so I can wear it to conventions and post it as a commissionable item in the Etsy shop. This is no small project, it should take some time. But It's exciting because knitting is a craft I'm already familiar with, so I feel I can tackle something of this scale with confidence.

Guys, this scarf is enormous. This is going to be awesome. I'll definitely keep you updated on the progress of this project.

In the meantime, check out those websites, and as long as I've got you commenting on this entry, vote on your favorite scarf. Which season do you like best? I haven't picked which one I'm going to knit yet.

In The Meantime

2009-12-16T06:59:00.000-08:00

Hi guys! I've got a few great entries lined up for you, but first I just wanted to call your attention to an amazing giveaway on one of my favorite blogs, Daddy Likey.

I mentioned Winona in an entry a while back, and I just want to re-iterate how awesome this woman is. She's hilarious, her blog is fantastically fun, informative and down-to-earth, and of course she's putting on this ridiculously awesome giveaway to promote her new book.

If you're a sneaky, clever reader, you'll realize that one of the ways to get an extra entry into the drawing is to blog about it. So yes, I am totally pimping out NT for a hot minute here. But I promise you, I have wonderful news later today pertaining to an exciting craft that may rhyme with Shman Shmolo Shmelt...

Stay tuned for that. But in the meantime, head over to Daddy Likey to check out the giveaway!

Bento Boxes

2009-12-14T11:41:00.000-08:00

I haven't had much time lately for official crafting, but I did take a minute this weekend to treat myself to a hobby I haven't indulged in in a while: making bento boxes.

Brandon was in town for the weekend, and I like to pack him a lunch for Monday at work when he's in town. I decided to throw together some traditional bento recipes, with a bit of a twist.

You may remember my spicy carrot salad recipe from back at my old craft blog (the imported entry is here.) It's one of my favorite bento staples. It's very salty and spicy, so it adds a bit of zing to a mostly-white-rice bento.

I was out of sesame seeds this time, so I didn't add any. But it was still yummy.

Then I tried a couple new things. Firstly, I have some homemade cole slaw in the house, which is new. Brandon showed me how to make it, it's way easier than I thought. In any case, I usually use yogurt as a creamy balance to all the salty soy sauce-based dressings I make. But I found this time that cole slaw works wonderfully!

Lastly, I wanted something with a bit of tang. Brandon doesn't like plain hard boiled eggs, so I knew I had to marinate them in something, so I used red wine vinegar. It gave the egg a lovely pink color, which contrasted beautifully with the yolk once the egg was cracked open. However, I don't think I marinated them long enough. Lessons for next time.

Here is the completed bento!

So, there's green peas for nutrition and color. And that's rice seasoning on the rice for flavor and color. And some chocolate gold coins for Channukah in the corner.

It turned out really well. I loved the balance of colors and flavors. I just need to do it again, fix my mistakes from this time, and make it PRETTY! I'll post a photo when I have a more professional version of this bento.

Back to crafting soon, I promise!

Jayne Cobb Hat

2009-12-13T18:29:00.000-08:00

I made this hat that looks like the one Jayne Cobb received from his mother in the show Firefly. It was for Kittie for her birthday last January, but I only just finished it today.

It is knit with Lion Brand Vanna's Choice yarn and size 10.5 needles.

Apologies

2009-12-13T11:11:00.001-08:00

Hey guys! I know it's been a while. It's been busy around here with the holidays and preparing for Gini to move in, and honestly I haven't gotten ANY crafting done for a while.

I just wanted to pop in and let you know that we're not dead, we will have new projects for you soon, and also, Happy Channukah!

Bundle up, it's cold out there! We'll be back in a bit with more geeky crafts. ^_^

Harry Potter hats

2009-12-06T19:21:00.000-08:00

Hello! I haven't been blogging or crafting for awhile, due to school. But I just made these cool beanies in Harry Potter house colours, and I'm itching to show them off.

Here is William modeling the Slytherin Hat:

And me looking smart in the Ravenclaw hat:

Here are the hats themselves:

Gryffindor and Hufflepuff coming soon!

Second scale skirt!

2009-12-06T08:11:00.000-08:00

So after seeing the first skirt I made another friend decided to commission one for herself.
I finished it a while ago, and finally gave it to her last night.

Back view:

A closeup:

A closeup of the choker:

The skirt is made from large aluminum-clad steel scales, with black steel for the trim. There were a few stylist changes, in order to differentiate it from the other skirt; smaller and more frequent petals, no belt, different metals, etc.
There are about 1500 scales total in the skirt. It's all held together with butted rings.
The choker was made from scales I had leftover when I finished the skirt, and was sort of a surprise gift. She had mentioned that she liked the idea of a scale choker, and it seemed appropriate.

Valerie: Zelda Quilt!

2009-12-02T10:57:00.000-08:00

Alright, big news (for me) today!

I've been working on this project since our NimbleToad business meeting a few weeks ago, and I learned a ton along the way. One of the things that we focused on was finding something geeky that we're passionate about and creating related merchandise.

So, this is my first geek-inspired project.

The Legend of Zelda was my first video game love, and nothing has ever quite come close. I watched my (much older) brothers play the original game when I was young, and Ocarina of Time was the first game that I ever beat on my own, and one of the only games that I've played through more than once. Since then I've played almost the entire series and it still never gets old.

The wheels started turning, and I looked over my huge bookmarked list of 'I'll try these eventually' projects and came across this one: Modern Organic Fabrics: 3-2-1 Throw. The design was simple enough that I thought it wouldn't be too hard to spice it up with applique.

I'm going to be brave and show you my rough Paint brainstorm:

I made the basic design and then spent a long time browsing Google and zeldawiki.org for items from the games to use, copying and pasting and changing the background colors. I originally thought that I would use items from Ocarina of Time, but I wanted to open up and use items that appeared in more games. Then I dug through my fabric stash to find out what colors and fabrics I actually had, and things changed just a little bit. I settled on three Triforce pieces, a heart container, a bottle, and the magic sword (from the original game, but it's a good representation of the Master Sword).

I drew the shapes by hand and then taught myself hand-applique to attach them to the blocks. I found hand-applique (using the needleturn method, good tutorial here and here) to be really relaxing, and I loved the near-invisible results.

So ... without further ado the finished result:

The back is a cheery yellow.

And the quilt is perfectly lap sized!

(Excuse the poor picture quality, it was dreary today!)

It took me probably 20 - 30 hours of work, but it should go much faster next time because I thought ahead and made stencils of the appliqued pieces, so I don't have to start from scratch n_n I'm so pleased with how it came out, and there are definitely many more in the future!

Edit: Now up for sale in the Etsy shop!

Personal News and a bit of Crafting

2009-11-24T08:31:00.000-08:00

Hello again! I'm sorry I didn't do the Wednesday update last week. I'm glad to see Alex had plenty of crafting news to make up for it. The explanation for my hectic week is pretty simple, Brandon got a job in Ann Arbor and we moved him into an apartment out there. Also, my brother Max passed the bar and I drove home to attend his court ceremony! Everyone is moving forward, it's an exciting time all around.

After Brandon moved out, I wasn't quite sure if he brought his camera with him or left it behind, and now I can't find it. So, this week's photos were taken with my cell phone. I apologize for the poor quality.

My next big project is Gini's graduation announcement cards. She asked for a big "W" for Western Michigan, and something to show that she's a biology major. She's into plants, botany is kind of her thing. So I chose vines.

This is the sketch I did on trace paper

Wow. These photos are worse than I thought. I need to find that camera. Sorry guys.

Here is the linoleum all inked up, ready to be carved.

I may change the placement and size of the leaves as I go, some of them are a bit off. But other than that, I just gotta chug away and get it done. I'm really happy with how it has turned out so far.

Another big project I've got going right now is cleaning out the spare bedroom in my apartment, because there is a possibility that after graduation next month, Gini might be moving in with me! It will be nice to have someone else around, now that Brandon is gone. It's pretty quiet around here.

The first step in cleaning the house was getting my vintage hats up on the wall, and out of the way. Every time I moved stuff, they were getting crushed. Plus I just love how they look on the wall all together.

Again, sorry for the photo quality.

After I get Gini's graduation announcements printed and my apartment cleaned, I can focus on the next big step for Nimble Toad, which is Marmalade Dog 15 here at WMU. We had a company meeting a while back, and we all agreed that this is a big milestone for us, so we're each trying to move our crafts and inventories more in the direction of cosplay and gaming genres.

My big decision on this front is how much I'm going to continue with block prints and knitting, and how much time I want to dedicate to learning other, more useful crafts. By more useful, I mean more relevant to - what else? - my favorite geeky genre, Star Wars. After giving a small pep talk to the group about finding a genre, a product, or a craft that they can do constantly and never tire of, I had an epiphany. That genre for me is Star Wars.

So I've decided to take a crack at prop replicas. My first project is Han Solo's belt. Alex is just lately getting into leather working, so he said he would help me with this project. We met for a while yesterday to look at source photos and come up with a game plan.

It's a surprisingly complex item, but essential to any Han Solo costume.

I think this is a great item to offer, because the rest of the costume (excluding the blaster, of course) is relatively easy to make yourself, but not everyone can just whip up a leather belt, and serious cosplayers will want to avoid pleather or other less realistic alternatives.

I really hope this project works out. It's opened up a whole new world for me in crafting. I'm very excited to dive into star wars props, and I'm definitely glad to have Alex by my side while I'm doing this. He is just as obsessed with accuracy and durability as I am, which I think are qualities any cosplayer can appreciate.

I'll be sure to take 'in-progress' photos once we have materials. This is a big project for me, and I definitely want to document the process.

That's all for this week! I'll take photos once I start printing Gini's graduation announcements.

Gloves, gloves, gloves!

2009-11-20T06:59:00.000-08:00

I've been on a glove-crafting spree lately.
To start with, I made two pairs of fingerless gloves, on slightly different designs:

Sorry about the weird image alignment.
Spiked fingerless gloves has a sort of timeless elegance, if you ask me. I got a bulk order of these gloves, so I've been playing around with different spike configurations (on the knuckles versus in between the knuckles). The gloves are available on etsy here and here.

I also made these, which were substantially more work:

I came into a set of cold weather motorcycle gloves, and I decided to modify each one on a slightly different design. I've nicknamed these "the Morningstars," due to the their resemblance to the sort of thing that would be bashing in the skulls of knights on a tenth century battlefield.
Pretty cool, right? Well, I felt that my own winter gloves were somewhat lacking in comparison by this point, so I made these:

I've had the idea of doing scales on the outside, chain on the inside for a while, and I think it came together quite nicely.
At some point, I plan on adding no small amount of spikes to the backs of the hands, and maybe trying to forge some steel talons to go over the fingertips. It'll be no small amount of ridiculous, I assure you.

Quick Note

2009-11-19T21:02:00.000-08:00

Hi! Yes, I know. Yesterday was Wednesday, and still no update. I'm sorry. This week is particularly hectic. I won't bore you with the details, but rest assured that I literally haven't been near my computer in over 48 hours.

I need to start working on sketches for Gini's graduation announcements, so I will post about that as soon as I have photos.

That is all! Bedtime!

cranking out the fun

2009-11-13T09:28:00.000-08:00

Life as a fifth year college student is no joke. I just found out that I will be able to graduate in the spring (and then start the wonderful search for grad schools catering to German linguistics in between working on my wedding and saving money for the future so I can eat). Therefore most of the stuff I have been working on craft-wise has been for people I know.

First off are these lovely hats. The one on the left and the one in the middle are patterns from Rheatheylia.com. I absolutely love this website. The creator's patterns are so creative! The hat on the right is my own pattern. I made these for my cousins just for the simple reason that I love them and they're pretty cool.

I pumped out this hat in the car on the way to Youmacon a ocuple weekends ago. I was going to be cosplaying as Noodle from the Gorillaz (I'm a big fan of the artist who created them). I was trying to make Noodle's outfit from their Dirty Harry video.

Gini and I had a crochet/knit exchange back in September with a few friends. I ended up with her name and made her a Shroomish hat. Shroomish is one of those adorable, unpopular pokemon. I have plans to someday crochet an amigurumi Shroomish, but that will probably take place after exams.

Recently I decided to give sushi scarves a try. Sushi scarves are scarves that, when rolled up, look like sushi rolls. I searched high and low on Etsy for a california roll sushi scarf, but couldn't find one. This scarf is the first of hopefully many to come. It's going to be a Christmas present for a friend of mine, so shhhhhhh ~_^

Expect more interesting tidbits in a couple weeks as I work more on Christmas presents/birthday presents for people!

Company Meeting

2009-11-11T18:44:00.000-08:00

Hello! I hope everyone is having a lovely Wednesday.

Today I have a few announcements. Unfortunately, this will be a text-heavy post, but I've asked the other members to do some photo-dump entries soon to make up for it. Alex and Kittie kindly volunteered.

Last week we had a meeting to discuss the company's future and to set some goals for the shop, and for our individual crafts. It was very successful, I think we set some exciting goals for Nimble Toad.

Firstly, I have a small announcement. Kelli is now a part-time member. She has a very hectic schedule at the moment, so this arrangement should be a much better fit. All this really means for you is that Kelli may not be as available for commission items, so be sure to leave lots of time and always message us ahead of time to find out when we are available to take commissions. This way there will be less pressure on Kelli, and she can craft on her own schedule.

So, the main purpose of our meeting - as I said - was to set goals. As we chatted about conventions, advertising, and merchandise, I put together a quick list.

I know, not a wonderful photo. Sorry.

First of all, know that this is by no means an exhaustive list. Secondly, notice how much blank space there is! That's room for more goals. ^_^

So, the first big company-wide goal is to have a booth at Marmalade Dog 2010, which is a small gaming convention here in Kalamazoo, at WMU. It's in late March.
Then, we hope to attend JFax and Youmacon, possibly the following year. We also discussed business cards, fliers, and advertising on other blogs.

These goals certainly set up a busy timetable for us, since we need to have a good inventory of geeky merchandise in order to attend these conventions. And of course, merchandise goals took up the rest of the conversation, as we each have goals for our individual portions of the shop. I won't bore you with the details right now, but you will definitely see more of this later.

The overall goal here is to change the shop's direction. At first we were just gaining our bearings, so we posted whatever crafts we had. But now we want to start focusing more heavily on cosplay and gaming-related items. Hopefully you'll notice the difference over the coming months!

Well, that's all for now. You've got some photo-dump entries to look forward to over the next few days!

Valerie: Facebook Halloween

2009-11-04T13:08:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

I'm going to interrupt our normal posts with a handmade Halloween costume, because I'm just that proud of it.

About two weeks before Halloween, Mike and I decided to head up to a Halloween party in Michigan. Frantic brainstorming for costumes began, and Mike popped out the idea, "Let's go as Facebook and Twitter!" Awesome. Unfortunately, I ended up having to work, so I could go to the party, but I still managed to whip together a Facebook costume for Mike in one night. I don't have "in process" pictures, but it should be pretty simple to follow along anyway.

For the front, I chose to use the Facebook icon logo. I used a 12"x12" square of blue felt for the back, and white felt for the front. I drew the "f" by hand on a piece of card stock, using a ruler to get my lines straight and referring constantly to the computer to make sure I got the dimensions right. Then I cut out my cardstock "f" and traced around it on the felt using my disappearing ink marker (seriously, the best tool ever). Cut out the "f", pinned it, and then veerrryyy carefully sewed the two pieces together. I have a big problem with sewing curves, so I went very slowly. Then I pinned the whole icon down and carefully sewed it to the shirt.

For the arms I just used a ever-useful Sharpie and carefully copied down the "Information" column from Mike's profile (sorry for the covered information), and the side column from the main page. I tried to pay close attention to the details to make it more realistic.

The blue band at the top of the front and back is spray paint. I just taped off the lines I wanted and covered the rest of the shirt with newspaper. I should have been a little more careful taping down the newspaper in the front, because some of the paint got through, but it's not too noticeable.

The white text and "News Feed" were done with puffy paint straight from the bottle. I tried to use only a small amount so it would be more 'flat paint' than puffy paint. The rest is more sharpie. I sent Mike off with keychain sharpies so people at the party could write their own status updates. Mike says everyone loved it, and the shirt came back covered, so I must have done something right!

Have a great week,

Valerie

Val's First Sale!

2009-11-02T21:49:00.000-08:00

This is Amanda. I'd like to send out a hearty congratulations to Val for selling her adorable winter cowl in the Etsy shop!

Congratulations, Val! Isn't that cowl so cute?

Metal pants

2009-10-29T11:27:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-21T11:59:00.001-07:00

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

2009-10-14T20:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-04T11:11:00.000-07:00

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.

Valerie: Compliment Necklaces

2009-09-30T16:02:00.000-07:00

Hello all! Here is your Wednesday post as promised, and trying out a new blog look. Check out the new Etsy Mini box :)

I've been keeping myself really busy with a variety of craft projects, but what I want to highlight today are a few deliciously simple but eye catching necklaces that I've made recently. I was going to post about them eventually, but I wore one when I went to a large art fair this weekend and had people stalking me to compliment me on it. I figured that had to be a sign!

The best thing about these necklaces is that they're are so many options for customization. I can do any color (or colors!) of ribbon or metal. So far I've only used plain silver, but there are plenty of ideas floating around in my head for colors and patterns.

These are the two I made for myself:

Aaanndd ... Since summer has made a rapid departure, here's the festive autumn one that I made for the shop! It will be up a bit later tonight.

I'll have a few more pictures up when I post the necklace in the Etsy shop.

Have a great day!

Valerie

First Sale!

2009-09-25T21:41:00.001-07:00

This is Amanda. I'm very excited to announce our first Etsy sale!

A few hours ago, one of the Harry Potter Gryffendor scarves sold! I can't help but hope it was for someone's Halloween costume.

I'm so pumped! We really need to get our business cards ready, so we have something to put in with our future orders.

The Materials I Use

2009-09-23T09:37:00.001-07:00

Amanda Here. I would like to start off by making a small announcement. I have finally decided that Wednesdays will be our blog update day. You can now expect a new entry every week, every Wednesday! This is something I really should have done a long time ago. I'm sorry it took us so long to get our act together.

This doesn't mean we will ONLY update once a week. There will be occasional bonus posts, but you can expect one post every Wednesday at the very least.

We're currently in the middle of a big push to get the shop cleaned up and full of new merchandise. Our next big project is designing our business cards. After we all have a nice stash of business cards ready, we're going to be tackling advertising in a big, new way. I'm very excited for it. So, hopefully you'll be seeing lots of little changes around here, and things should start running more smoothly! Starting with weekly blog updates.

Since I don't have any big projects going at the moment, I thought I'd take this week to give you a sort of walking tour of some of the materials I use on a regular basis. First is a new product that I'm very excited about: Padding Compound.

Padding compound is painted on the top of a stack of paper, then allowed to dry. It turns into the rubbery top of the notepad. It's strong and durable, but the individual pages can tear away easily. It can also be used for bookbinding. You just paint it on the spine of the signatures, then apply a piece of cheese cloth between the layers for extra strength.

I have only just recently started using Padding Compound, so I can't provide any product reviews yet. Lithco seemed to be a common brand when I was shopping around. So far, I'm still getting my bearings. I'll let you know how things are going when I've had some more experience with it.

Something I've been using for a number of years, however, are my Speedball linoleum cutters.

I actually have two. The one pictured has 'safety blades' that curl back in on themselves to prevent injury. The other set (which are MIA at the moment) are straight. It's easier on your wrists, but there is a potential for accidents to happen.

Speedball is sort of the standard brand for linoleum-related crafts. I buy my cutters, ink, ink rollers and linoleum from them. I've been keeping my eye on other fancy tools sold by Speedball. The issue is that most of the tools that aid in the printing process are large compared to the size of prints I make. My prints are mainly small and decorative, so I do all my printing by hand. It's easier to handle the prints that way, and it leaves less margin for error.

And then there's knitting! My grandmother gave up knitting a few years ago, because her artheritis was really starting to bother her. She sent me up to her craft room with a plastic bag, and I came back with a whole mess of knitting needles:

Some of them are from Indonesia, some from Canada, and some I bought myself here in Michigan. So, that needle sizer is a necessity, not a luxury.

The collection is sort of haphazard. My grandma didn't keep them very organized. But they do the trick. I just have to make sure and compulsively size my needles before starting any new project. It is nice to have variety, though. I certainly thank my grandma for my ability to knit diverse patterns, without running back to the craft store constantly!

That's all I've got for this week. You can look forward to a post from Val next Wednesday!

Store Items from Valerie

2009-09-16T16:02:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

I finally kicked my butt in gear and got a few items up in the Etsy shop!

I listed the cowl that I showed in an earlier post and I finally posted some of my needlebooks.

I made my first needlebook about a year ago and it has been the most useful thing I've ever made. I finally had a place to keep all of my needles for cross-stitch, embroidery, sewing, and knitting. It's big enough and made out of a bright enough material that it's hard to misplace, yet small enough to go anywhere easily. I've since made a few for friends and family, and I'm really excited to be able to sell them. Hopefully people find them as useful as I do.

I made these fairly simple with bright patterned fabric, but I have all kinds of ideas for fun embroidered ones. I think I'll debut the first of my next style of needlebooks for Halloween. I have a fun idea that I'm really excited about!

- Valerie

Shop Item: Personalized Note Cards

2009-09-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

Amanda here. I'm really excited about posting my first paper craft item in the Etsy shop. I decided to take a previous craft I did for Val's wedding and post it as a commission item. I'm especially excited to have used some of the best photos I've taken for this blog.

Remember this?

You can view the Etsy posting by clicking here.

I'm excited to be getting back into paper crafts. I hope to continue to post more of them in the future. Next on my list: personalized notepads!

Catching Up: Personal Projects

2009-09-15T10:21:00.001-07:00

Amanda, here. And I'm armed and ready with my official excuse for being so scarce around the ol' blog here. I've been crazy busy with personal projects lately. Luckily, I took lots of pictures so I could share with you guys.

Firstly, I had a chili sauce party a few weeks ago. I had a bunch of friends over and we spent the day making two big batches of homemade chili sauce. Here are the highlights:

It was like tomato-mania in my kitchen for a while. We had approximately 60 tomatoes and 20 onions. It was wild.

First, we had to blanch them (heat them up, then cool them down really fast)...

then peel them and chop them up...

then we strained them, and finally we threw them in the pot with the onions, vinegar and sugar.

I'm not sure how, but we never ended up getting any photos of the pots full of chili sauce. How disappointing. But I did get photos of the canning process:

You have to sterilize the jars before you fill them.

... and if you forget to bring a canning funnel, filling them can be kind of messy.

We ended up with a lot of jars. It was fantastic.

My other project was the new rat cage! Brandon assisted me as we built a new, improved rat complex based on Kelli's own design. I didn't get many 'in-progress' photos of this project, as it basically sat on our living room floor for 2 weeks and we would work on it whenever we got time. But I can show you a bit of it:

Brandon drew up a blueprint because, unlike me, he understands that carpentry requires planning.

We bought a bunch of 2x2s and I spent two mornings staining them all. Two coats, for extra water-proofing. Or, in the case of a rat cage, urine-proofing.

Brandon assembled the frame, then I took the chicken wire, cut it, bent it to fit, and tacked it in place. The finished product is amazing. The litter boxes slide underneath for easy cleaning.

They love to climb around and play in their new cage.

I also decided to put their food in the top hammock, to encourage them to climb. Otherwise they would just hang out on the bottom.

So now you know what I've been up to lately. And I'm sorry again for the hiatus. But I should have lots of projects to show you soon. Stay tuned!

Catching Up: Crafting Projects

2009-09-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

Amanda here. I'm sorry it's been so long. I should warn you before I go on a blogging hiatus. Things have been crazy around here, and I haven't had much time for crafting. But I do have a few projects to show you.

Firstly, I finally posted my lovely fall cowl. I finally got some new photos of it. I wanted to show the colors just right.

It's so cozy and warm, and I love the colors. I'll be sad to give it away.

So, that's for sale in the shop right now!

And I finally got started on my notepad project. I finished my first notepad, which is a gift for my dad for his birthday. Here it is, all wrapped and ready for him to open:

I really hope he likes it.

I printed his initials on every page, then pasted them together at the top with padding compound. I need some more practice with the padding compound, but I have some scrap pieces of paper, so I'll make myself some spare notepads and try to refine my technique. I may adjust a few details about these notepads before I put them up on Etsy. Also, I need more block prints! If you have an idea for a design you'd like to see on a notepad, please leave a comment on this entry and I will certainly give it a try! I'm hoping these notepads become a common item in the shop.

Next up, I finally started working on a block print for our business cards. I just took the Nimble Toad logo and shrunk it down, and traced it. Here's what I have so far:

It's a bit messy at the moment. I plan to clean it up before I start carving.

And with that, hopefully we'll have business card designs soon. I haven't yet decided how I want to go about making those. I'll probably be enlisting help from other Nimble Toad members on this one.

That's it for the crafting update. Stay tuned for my recent personal projects. Perhaps that will shed some light on why I haven't been around lately.

Scale mail petal skirt!

2009-09-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

I just got back from the renaissance faire this weekend, and I have a few photos of a scale mail petal skirt that I've been working on for the past 2-3 months.
Though I originally intended it to be a miniskirt, it ended up being pretty close to knee length.

As you can see, one of the scales came undone during the course of our adventures at the renaissance faire. The skirt ended up being a bit on the tight side, which was forcing links apart and causing such problems. I'm going to take it apart and expand it by a few scales in order to correct this. I also plan on extending the brass section along the bottom to make it more pronounced, just once I acquire some more brass scales.
The belt was originally intended to hold the skirt, but I found that a drawstring actually accomplished this much more effectively, and now the belt plays a principally decorative role.
Here's a shot from the back:

Altogether, there are about 1400 scales and 3400 rings in the skirt. The belt is an additionally 770 rings of jeweler's brass. The buckle came from Amazon. The total weight of the skirt is 11.4 pounds.
The skirt made quite a stir at the faire; my companion was dragged off at one point to have her picture taken by an official photographer, and I got a couple people who were interested in potentially commissioning one of their own from me. I'm thinking it'll end up being about 250-300 USD, depending on the size of the commissioner and how fancy of materials they want to use.

~Alex, the Metal Artisan

Final Logo Design

2009-09-03T08:32:00.001-07:00

I got the final version of the Nimble Toad logo and banner from Melissa a while back, but life has been so hectic lately, I didn't get around to opening the file until today. You've already seen the banner, now it's time to unveil the Logo. I am very excited to present to you the Nimble Toad official logo:

There he is! In all his nimbe-toed glory.

I'm so excited about this logo. It's perfect. It's simple and clean, but still playful and fun. And it has a solid, recognizable silhouette so I can make block prints of it, or we could stitch it into our products, or make Nimble Toad tote bags! I've got a million ideas for this little guy.

But none of them would be possible without the lovely Miss Melissa VanVaerenbergh, who designed him. I want you to hop on over and check out her blog right now, she is a wonderfully talented illustrator and graphic designer. Thank you Melissa, for your hard work on this beautiful design.

I'm so pumped to get started designing our business cards!

Custom belts!

2009-08-31T14:03:00.000-07:00

I recently made this belt as a commission for a member of a forum I'm part of. It's 43" long, and features Baphomet encircled by tiny skulls on the buckle.
He had these words to say upon receiving it:
"The belt is here. The belt fits well. The belt is now controlling me. Seriously, the second I cinched the belt closed, I felt the eerie dark power emanate down my crotch into my nether regions, imbuing my junk with a mystical ability to totally kick ass. IT. IS. FUCKING. METAL."

Not bad, eh?

~Alex, The Metal Artisan

Knitting, Block Prints and Notepads

2009-08-20T10:18:00.000-07:00

Amanda here. I'm sorry it's been so long. Things are crazy around here. Brandon and I are still trying to get settled in the new apartment, I'm getting used to my new job and working 5 and 6 days a week, and I'm also rebuilding the rat cage. Of course this is all on top of rewriting my resume and researching grad schools. So I haven't had much time for crafting.

But I do have a few new projects to show you. Starting with a piece of merchandise I hope to post in the etsy shop very soon. I wanted to learn a new knitting technique, so I tried circular knitting. I had never done it before, and it turns out it's quite simple. In many ways, it's actually simpler than regular knitting.

I found a small ball of yarn that I had been saving for a special project. It's got that great knobbly texture, and check out the lovely fall colors:

Turquoise, crimson, tan, light purple and brown.

It's pinched off at the side, and tied down with some lace that I cut into a little flower.

I was thinking it would be cool to use the same pattern for a shawl or wrap, with a different closure.

So, I'm going to try to get some better pictures, then that cowl will be on sale in our etsy shop!

Next up, I made a couple of green obi-style belts. This one is for Val, so I may have her model it for pictures for the etsy shop, because it doesn't fit me.

This is the same yarn I used for the bracelets that are now on sale in our etsy shop. I just love the color.

This belt is WAY too small on me, but it should look awesome on Val. I also made one in my size that I plan to sell. As soon as it's finished I can photograph it and post it on etsy.

I have a ton more of this yarn left, so if you want to order a belt, please send me a message, either on etsy or by email!

Lastly, I'm very excited to post the beginning stages of my Dad's birthday present. It's a new project for me, I just got the materials in the mail last week. I'm making him a personalized notepad. Here is one of the pages:

I'm really proud of how this linoleum print came out.

Of course, cutting the block print is the hard part. But now that I've finished that, I just need to cut all the pages to size, print them, then paint on the padding compound. This is my new material. It's used for book binding, and I've never used it before. I'm very excited to start.

Despite the fact that cutting the pages should be the easy part, I've been running into problems with the type of paper I chose, as well as the paper cutter at the local Kinko's. So, I might change my strategy. But once I've worked out the problems with the paper, it should be done in no time.

The exciting announcement here is that, once I have my process down, I am going to be making lots of these little notepads and putting them in the etsy shop. They're totally customizable, so think of a print you would want on your notepad, and send me a message! I can't wait to start carving all kinds of block prints and making all these little notepads. It's a really great way to get my block prints out there and advertise what I can do. Hopefully soon I will be able to make some bigger paper products as well, but for now I'm starting small.

Here's another picture with my thumb as a size reference:

But I can make the notepads any size. Just tell me what you're looking for and I can come up with something unique, just for you!

I can also make books, I just don't have any examples to post right now. The limiting factor right now is time. It's frustrating being so busy, when I have so many projects I want to work on.

I really hope my dad likes his birthday present. That block print is probably one of my best ones yet.

Well, back to work. Happy crafting, everyone!

Logo Announcement!

2009-08-13T09:12:00.001-07:00

Amanda here.

Sorry I've been so absent. I've been busy moving and starting my new job. I'm glad to see the rest of the team is picking up the slack for me while I'm gone. There are a bunch of new blog posts, and the Etsy shop is filling up fast! There is lots of exciting crafting going on around here, and I have exciting news to commemorate it!

The last missing piece we've been waiting on to make Nimble Toad a legitimate company is its logo. We commissioned illustrator and dear friend Melissa VanVaerenbergh of Two For Joy Studios to design our logo and site banner. She sent me an almost-final-draft yesterday and as you can see, it is at the top of the blog as well as the Etsy shop! When she's all done polishing it and fiddling with details, I'll post the final version. But I just couldn't wait that long.

As you can see, I've also been fiddling with the site layout. I'm afraid this isn't my forte, so I will probably ask the other members to give it a try until we find something we like. So, expect a lot of change around here for a while.

And while you're at it, check out the shop! There's new merchandise every day. In case I haven't linked it enough, here it is again.

Happy crafting. ^_^

Polymer clay fun

2009-08-12T12:53:00.001-07:00

Hey all!

I discovered today/last night the fun of playing with polymer clay and old bottle caps! I love playing with polymer clay, but adding the bottle caps (of which my roommates and I have dozens) was the icing on the cake.

Seven new pendants! Or key chains, if you will. I'm taking the drifloon one to put on my key chain. And just put up two of the pokeballs. The third is sitting in Gini's computer waiting for her to come home from work.

Besides poly clay, I'm going to start up again with the crocheting in earnest. I've decided to tackle Dawn's hat from Pokemon diamond/pearl/platinum and need to do another hobo phoenix hat from the fourth Phoenix Wright game. I made one a couple summers ago for my at the time boyfriend (now fiance).

Time to go yarn hunting!

A mighty work!

2009-08-09T21:25:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I produced what I consider to be my journeyman project: A chainmail shirt. I had been working on it for about eight months, but the vast majority of the work was done between January and April. Altogether, I'd estimate it at about 40-50 man hours of labor.
The end result is naught but one thing: beauty.

This photo has a bit more glare than I'd like, but it gives a decent front overview of the shirt.

This back shot highlights what I consider to be the Pièce de résistance of the shirt: the scale mail shoulders. Each contains about two hundred scales, and is fastened to the shirt all along the edges to prevent them from flopping around.

Both the side laces and the belt serve the same dual function: firstly, they tighten the shirt around the body so as that less of the weight rests of the shoulders. Given the weight of chainmail, it makes for a tremendous difference in comfort depending on whether the belt is fasthened and the laces are tightened or not.
Secondly, it makes the shirt look more interesting and be something other than endless expanses of gray steel. My main inspiration for these additions were old-school motorycle jackets, and their plethora of fasteners and tighteners to keep wind out. I figured it should work for keeping weight off as well; and I was correct.

Well I couldn't very well not take a picture like this, could I?

After all that hard work, there's nothing quite like a refreshing bowl of cornflakes.

Val: Experimental Knitting and more!

2009-08-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

Alright, so. Life has been a bit crazy lately, what with the wedding and moving and all. But, we're finally settled in, and still unemployed, so there's been an explosion of crafting.

First, before we moved, Mike and I spent a few days with Amanda and did some shopping. We found this great, huge, old desk for $20 at a university surplus sale!

Getting it the hour and a half back home with us was an interesting challenge, but Amanda generously loaned us the back of her pretend SUV and drove the hour and a half to drop it off at our house.

It obviously needs some work, but it's turning into a fun project for us. We're currently in the stripping/sanding stage, and we discovered a beautiful reddish wood underneath the gobs of light finish. More details as the project progresses.

Next up, I've been playing around with knitting. I'm really, really new to it - this is only my second project - but I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. I wanted to play around with knitting and purling, so I was planning on making a scarf using stockinette stitch (knit one row, purl one row). Well ... only a third of the way through it, I was getting a bit tired of the project and I realized that I wouldn't have enough yarn to make a proper scarf, so instead I turned it into the Etsy favorite: a cowl!

So, here's the process. I totally made this up as I went along, so no guarantees that I found the easiest way to do it.

The would-be scarf:

I had a lot of fun when I started knitting with this yarn because I had no idea how it was going to knit up. Once I decided to make my piece into a cowl, I knit a few more rows to make sure it would be large enough to go around my neck with a bit of overlap. When it seemed long enough, I cast off from my needles and sewed the extra yarn into the ends of the scarf. Just a warning, since it's stockinette stitch, the edges naturally curl a lot.

The cowl would have tried to suffocate me if I'd worked with it as is, not to mention being unruly from the curl, so I folded it in half (wrong side in) and bound the edges together essentially making a tube. I was lucky that my yarn made a striped pattern, because I was able to match up the lines and make sure that I was sewing evenly. When I was done with the side, I also bound one of the ends.

All bound up and ready for buttons:

I apologize for the slightly blurry photos, it wasn't until the next picture that I realized my camera has a manual focus that makes shots like these so much easier!

I had no idea how to make button holes, and I had a tiny inkling that I needed to have knit them into the piece itself, so I decided to use loops to secure my buttons instead. I braided three strands of the yarn together and eyeballed how long they needed to be to hook around my buttons (which I hadn't attached yet). I pulled the braid around a stitch and made sure both ends were tightly knotted. As an afterthought, I used normal sewing thread and sewed the knots together so they wouldn't pull back through the knitting.

To attach the buttons, I just threaded one short length of yarn through the button and the knitting and tied it tightly on the inside.

A note: While you're working on the loops and buttons, one hand needs to be inside the tube, so it can get a little awkward at times, but it isn't too bad. For the most part, I worked with my tube inside out so I could get to the knots easier.

Turn your work right-side out and you're done!

The next step is to put your cowl away somewhere safe and enjoy the rest of the summer!

Let me know if you have any questions!

Next up: A long sleeved t-shirt refashion.

Gini: Hats, Hats, Hats

2009-08-02T20:30:00.000-07:00

I love making hats. They are my favourite thing to knit/crochet. I crocheted two hats this week, here they are:
This one I call my Rockin' Rainbow Hat. It is made of years of saved up Sugar n' Cream scraps, so it is 100% cotton. Great for summer! I can't decide if I want to sell it or keep it. It came out a bit larger than I planned. What do you think?

This hat is made out some some Lion Brand Vana's Choice that my mom picked up on clearance for a dollar at Wal-Mart. I plan on finding some funky/cheap ribbon to weave in the holes. It should be pretty rockin' itself when it is done.

And last but not least, here is a sneak preview of what Will has been working on for the shop:

New/old crafts from Kittie

2009-07-31T12:56:00.001-07:00

Hi, Kittie here with some new stuff I've made over the past few weeks. Last week I was out visiting the in-laws-to-be and my family. So no crafting was done then. However, here are some new things I made, including a little experiment done today!

First off is this lovely duo. I wanted to make a case of some sort for my dad for his birthday. He likes Doctor Who and recently bought a Smart car and named it TARDIS. The spelling of Police Box is sloppily done, partially because it is so aggravating to do against crocheted yarn. My cell phone can fit in it, but I think dad's fancy shmancy camera can fit as well.

Next off are two commissions from my fiancé. He wanted me to make him a cool shirt and a backpack with drawstrings for him to use as a carry on when coming to visit me.

Last but not least, today I decided it'd be fun to try and make a pair of pants out of a shirt. Not regular pangs, just simple comfy pants. Yoga pants or whatever. It was pretty simple, just cutting off the sleeves and treating the material like a regular pants pattern. If I make another pair, I might put back pockets on it just for fun.

Announcements from Amanda's personal life

2009-07-29T10:30:00.001-07:00

I've got a few announcements for you guys, starting with one big one:

I'M AN AUNT! My stepsister had a beautiful baby girl last Sunday! She's adorable and has a TON of deep brown hair. I can't wait to see her. I live three hours away, so I haven't had a chance to come see her yet. All I get are photos, for now.

Ok, now for the small stuff: I got a job! Moreover, it's the job I wanted! I've been trying to get a job at the local hospital for a long time.

This won't be the first time I've worked there. I did my Psychology Practicum there a year ago. It was a really fun and enlightening experience, I learned a lot, and I found out that I love working in a hospital setting. And - as you saw in the above picture - I got to wear scrubs, check it out:

I was so excited to wear scrubs. I got to carry a clipboard, too!

I even went out and bought a long-sleeve dark blue top to wear under my scrubs, so I could look like Elliot Reid from Scrubs.

Or, you know. A huge nerd. Whichever.

But this time around, I'll be working in the Food Services department, delivering trays to patients in their rooms. And I think it would be a little unsettling to have your food delivered by someone wearing scrubs. So instead, I get to wear this classy ensemble:

Ta-da! Has a bit of a stewardess look to it, don't you think?

I know, I know. The uniform is dorky. But it's okay, because it's an important job and I'm really excited to start.

So, the other bit of 'small stuff' personal news is related: Since I have a job, and can stay in Kalamazoo, Brandon and I have decided to move in together! We're moving into an apartment next week. Once we're all moved in, I'll post some pictures for you guys. ^_^

That's all for now! I've got some great crafting updates coming soon. I just have to find time to take photos. My house is full of boxes, it's a mess...

Personal Bios

2009-07-27T09:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, Here's something a little more substantial than my curly hair to keep you amused while we're away. I went to the Etsy shop and FINALLY added our personal bios in the shop announcement!

Check it out and let us know what you think. Sitting back and reading the bios, I'm really impressed with the diversity of talent in our group. I hope these little paragraphs help people to feel inspired to commission us for a variety of personalized items!

Things sure are getting exciting around here...

Apologies from Amanda

2009-07-27T08:52:00.001-07:00

I know one of the top ten rules of having a good blog is 'don't spend all your time apologizing for not posting often enough,' but this time I feel it's necessary.

Everyone at Nimble Toad is unbelievably busy lately, and not just with the Etsy shop launch, but with our personal lives as well. You see, most year-long leases in college towns end on August 1st, so we're all packing and cleaning and getting ready to move. And we're all either starting new jobs, new classes or new lives! It's a busy time for all of us.

But don't fret! We're still crafting up a storm, it's just taking longer than expected to get everything posted in the shop. Keep checking back, we're adding items as they come.

I personally have a lot to tell you about, so I'm going to put my blog to-do list here. That way, I'll remember to do it and you know what to expect to see soon:

1. I never did post pictures from Val's wedding, did I? I'll dig some up and tell you all about it.
2. I got a new job, and I'm moving into a new apartment. I have a tiny bit of news on that front, but more on that later!
3. Garage sale hunting. Boy, have I been busy. I think garage sale hunting is my new favorite hobby. I've got some photos for you.
4. A couple of knitting projects I'm very proud of. I need to take photos, and maybe you can expect to see some of them in the shop soon... I hope I'm getting you excited.

Alright, that's enough teasing. I have to go pack (I'm moving at the end of the week! Ack!), but I'll be back next week with more news.

Oh, and yes. I am, in fact, sorry for the lack of updates. Here, have a picture of my curly hair to keep you amused until I get back:

Curling irons are such an amazing invention.

See you next week! Check out Gini's jewelry in the shop!

Gini's Etsy Items

2009-07-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

I just posted two new items in the Etsy shop! Go check it out here.

Etsy Launch!

2009-07-18T13:28:00.000-07:00

The Etsy shop is up! We're still working on making it pretty, and filling it with awesome merchandise for you guys, but it is up and running!

Just go to Etsy.com and search "NimbleToad" or click here!

I'm still working on posting items and fine-tuning purchasing and shipping details. And, of course, we still haven't commissioned a logo yet, so we don't have a banner. So, keep checking back for updates as the shop continues getting better and better.

Are you guys pumped? I'm super pumped!

Amanda's Been a Busy Bee!

2009-07-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

Amanda, here. I've got a LOT of catching up to do! I've been very busy the past while. Aside from setting up the legal and financial side of Nimble Toad, I've had many other adventures the past couple weeks that I'd love to share with you! This will definitely be a photo-heavy post. My favorite kind.

First off, Brandon and I tried a new cooking experiment this weekend. We had four people to cook dinner for, some random odds and ends around the house, and we'd been watching the food network a lot lately. So we decided to try something new.

We sauteed some chicken in bacon fat, with the bacon still in the pan, then once they were mostly cooked, we added onions:

Then Brandon put some pineapple slices in the oven to give them a nice, grilled look:

This part was Brandon's idea, and they turned out great!

Then we put the whole thing over brown long grain rice and added okonomi sauce:

Super yummy. ^_^

So, that was our little cooking experiment this weekend. And you know it's a success when I'm eating pineapple, because I don't usually like pineapple.

Next up... Let's see... I'm working on making my own pin cushion. I took a scrap of fabric and some cotton balls and I'm just finishing sewing it up:

I have just one little bit of sewing left and it will be done.

For some reason, I felt compelled to make my own instead of buying one. It just seems like such a simple thing; it's just a tiny pillow, right? And it doesn't even have to be pretty. Something tells me i'm missing some super important detail and I'll be eating my words soon. But at least I got to pick a pretty fabric:

I think it will do the trick.

Once I'm done with the pin cushion, I can start the third bracelet in that series I showed you last week.

Okay now for the fun part. This weekend, I went on a garage sale adventure with my roommates and my boyfriend. My roommates are moving into an apartment together and need kitchen stuff, so we drove all over looking for garage sales, and we found a TON of them. I got a few choice pieces.

I can't explain why, but I love vintage luggage. I've been looking for an old suitcase for a long time. I want to rip out the lining and put in some funky, bright fabric on the inside. Well, I found a suitcase that's funky enough on its own, it definitely does not need my help:

How cool is that? check out that color! Screaming bright orange. Perfect for me. ^_^

It was marked for $8, but I was able to talk him down to $6. I'm so thrifty.

It's in great shape: not very worn, and the inside is clean.

Now I just need a vintage train case that I can re-line the inside with funky fabric. I want to use it for my sewing supplies. Then I'll be happy. Vintage luggage, who knew?

So, I also got some great crafting supplies. I found this old mirror for 75cents. I'm going to repaint the frame, and sell it:

Someone did an awful job of painting it, so I wanna do something funky (that's my go-to craft adjective, can you tell?)

I want to accentuate the little details, like do a bunch of different colors.

What color scheme do you think I should go with?

So, then I also got some crafting materials. I got this lacey cloth (it was someone's blinds, I got 4 panels for 4 bucks) at a garage sale near my house:

Dunno what I'm gonna do with it yet, but I figure it's always useful to keep collecting bits of cloth and thread and yarn, etc... especially when they're super cheap!

Then I got this at the thrift store... It's a bit of a mystery:

It's a brighter orange than it looks here. Kinda like the suitcase.

What is it? It's too thin to be embroidery floss, but it's on the wrong kind of spindle to be thread. I'm gonna use it as thread. Anyway, it was really cheap.

Okay so, I had one last project I wanted to show you. I've been having some problems with litter training the rats lately, so I decided to eliminate the top shelf of their cage and replace it with some tubes for them to crawl through. My goal here was to reduce the number of corners they could 'go' in. They like to go on the top shelf, so of course that was the first thing to go. But they love the new tubes! Let me show you:

Here is a side view of the cage. New litter tray is on the bottom-left, and the new tubes are on the top-right.

The two ends feed them to their two favorite spots:

This end takes them to the level with the nesting box.

This end feeds them almost right into the hammock.

I was really worried they wouldn't use it, but I was walking by the cage and I saw this:

I was much relieved. ^_^

Alright, that's it for now. See, I told you I'd been busy!

Shout Out

2009-07-10T19:34:00.001-07:00

I do this once in a while.

I'm curious who reads this! I don't know who our readers are, so leave a comment here! Leave us a shout out!

Here's the question:

What types of products are you looking forward to seeing most in our Etsy shop when it opens next week?

Etsy Teaser

2009-07-10T18:44:00.000-07:00

Amanda, here. So, I want to apologize for not having the Etsy shop up yet. We're close, I promise!

I went online and got us a tax number, then Gini and I went to the County Clerk's office and got us registered with the State of Michigan. THEN Gini and I went to the bank and got us a Small Business Checking Account. Now we're just waiting for the cards to come in the mail so we can open up the Etsy shop. I'll admit, it's all pretty exciting. We are now officially a proper company, registered with the state and everything!

So, we've already started photographing a bunch of items we have ready to go as soon as the shop is open, so I hope you're getting excited!

Here's a little teaser to get you excited about the shop opening up, as well as the new Harry Potter film coming out next week!

Two of these scarves will be available in the shop when it opens next week!

Much love, see you soon!

More Bracelets!

2009-07-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

I just made a bracelet. I'm very excited about it. I got the pattern from Princess Lasertron's website, except I used knitting instead of ruffled felt. I'll take nicer pictures and post it on the Etsy shop once it's open, but I just couldn't wait to share it with you!

I took pictures of it sitting on my Indiana Jones hat because I was pressed for time. That leather strap isn't part of the bracelet.

I got the yarn from an estate sale for really cheap. I have a lot of it, and it's a fantastic color.

The purple one on the end is for the closure.

The buttons are all cloth: my mom has been collecting buttons and she gives me all the cloth ones because she doesn't like them. So, they're all vintage and used, which I really like.

Sorry for the fuzzy picture. I was rushing due to overexcitement. ^_^

I need to work on the green stitching on top of the ribbon. My next one will hopefully be a little cleaner. And the buttons should end up being different on every bracelet.

I have 2 more knitted up already in this color, and a bunch more of this ribbon. I want to keep making them in various colors, which should be fun.

What do you think?

Etsy: In Progress

2009-07-01T06:22:00.000-07:00

Hello, all! Amanda here. Last weekend was Val's wedding, so Val is off on her honeymoon and I am still recovering from the mayhem.

As you know, today is the first of July. And of course, I've been too busy to set up the Etsy shop. So, that is my task for today. Hopefully I'll be back with good news by this evening. But my goal is to have it ready by this weekend at the latest.

I'll be back with the URL for our Etsy shop when it is completed. ^_^

(And coming soon: wedding photos!)

Making bracelets

2009-06-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-06-18T12:42:00.001-07:00

Made these today:

Kittie: Crafting for Garage Sale

2009-06-18T12:18:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-18T10:43:00.001-07:00

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

2009-06-17T11:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-15T20:30:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-14T19:56:00.001-07:00

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!

2009-06-12T19:38:00.000-07:00

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....

2009-06-08T06:58:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-06-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-07T16:16:00.001-07:00

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)

2009-06-07T15:14:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-06T17:25:00.003-07:00

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)

2009-06-01T09:34:00.000-07:00

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!

Blog love (Amanda's old blog)

2009-05-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

I almost forgot! I wanted to tell you about this hilarious blog I discovered a few weeks ago. It's about fashion, but she talks about a lot of other stuff. She's insanely funny - I've been reading her archives and laughing out loud constantly (my roommates are about ready to kill me, no joke).

Anyway, her name is Winona and her blog is called Daddy Likey, and I kinda want to marry her. She's a lot like me: chatty, opinionated, loves loud/funky accessories, overuses hyperbole and nags her boyfriend and the other men in her life about girly things like fashion. Seriously, she needs to be my new best friend (ironically [or not-so-ironically], that's something she would say).

While we're at it, here's a list of the other blogs I frequent. I highly recommend them all!

The tag line for Cake Wrecks really explains it all: "when professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong." People send in photos of cakes they ordered that turned out terribly for one reason or another, and Jen makes fun of them. And damn, is she funny.

Then there's the ever-lovely Princess Lasertron whom I have gushed about enough already, but in case you're (as Daddy Likey would say) new to this blog and/or have amnesia, I'll remind you: She makes hand embroidered felt-and-button bouquets.

I just discovered Solanah over at Vixen Vintage a few weeks ago. I'm in love with her etsy shop, I'm constantly checking it to see if she has new stuff. She wears and sells all vintage clothing, jewelry and makeup. She looks fantastic and classic, and her shop has a wonderful selection.

I check The Fug Girls' blog intermittantly. I discovered them through Daddy Likey. It's good for a laugh when you're bored - they make fun of celebrities' poor fashion sense. And while I love making fun of celebrities and looking at godawful fashion, it's just not a daily-checker for me. It's one of those blogs that's best when you save it up and read a bunch of entries at once. I feel they're funnier that way.

And of course, the ever-helpful JustBento is my favorite food blog. Maki posts useful Japanese cooking tips as well as recipes and general information about Bento equipment, style, philosophy, health information, budget-friendly bentos, vegetarian-bentos... you name it, she's got it. She's fantastic. This is definitely a daily-check blog for me. I still haven't finished reading the archives. I'm savoring them. At least that's what I tell myself.

So that's my blog love for today. Back to knitting...

I'm REALLY sorry (Amanda's old blog)

2009-05-25T13:27:00.000-07:00

It's been almost 2 weeks. I'm a horrible blogger, I'm sorry. These are those moments when I remind myself that I have like, 5 readers, and I talk to you all regularly anyway. So it's cool.

I have been crafting, but I don't currently have photos. I just wanted to check in and give you a little update on what I've been up to lately. My roommates are getting married on Saturday, so like 90% of the stuff I'm doing this week is related to their wedding. Which tells you how totally not-busy I am lately, because I have like 2 responsibilities for their wedding.

So, my latest crafts. Well, I handed off the button bouquet to Val. She's making felt flowers to go with. I'm working on the forwards-H print for their thank-you cards. I made one mistake, but I'm planning on incorporating it into the design. I hope it turns out well. I've really learned on this print that I need to go more slowly. I really rush my block prints - they're more time consuming than I give them credit for.

I'm also knitting a baby blanket for my stepsister Carly. She's having a baby shower the first weekend of June, so I've been knitting up a storm - blankets take surprisingly long (I don't know why I expect all crafts to be quick).
My other stepsister, Beth, got married last week. I brought Brandon and we had a lot of fun. He met my entire stepfamily and a lot of close family friends, which was great and sort of hilarious (one of my dad's childhood buddies threatened Brandon no less than 3 times: "You be good to her or you'll have me to answer to." It was pretty much the funniest thing ever). There are photos on the photographer's website.

I'm also doing a lot of cooking this week. I made a huge pot of cabbage soup yesterday. That should last us most of the week. I'm also making cookies for the dessert table at my roommates wedding, which means I'm baking a batch of cookies pretty much every day this week. It's really hard to make enough - not because weddings are big, but because Eric (the groom) keeps eating the cookie dough. I'm about ready to kill him. I think I should make some banana muffins to fend him off.

My other roommate Hal has been getting into bread baking lately. I think he has taken pictures of some of his projects - I'll see if I can get him to lend me the photos. So far everything he's baked has turned out wonderfully. No word yet on whether he has solar hands, though.

Again, sorry for the radio silence. I'll try to be more diligent from here on out. And hopefully I'll get some photos at the wedding this weekend!

A rookie mistake (Amanda's old blog)

2009-05-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

Hello! Sorry it's been so long. Life has been too hectic for crafting. But I did start a knitting project today. I hope to have photos of that later.

I'm just checking in really quickly and uploading some photos for Val to check out.

You know that "H" block print I was doing for her thank-you notes? Well, I made that same rookie mistake I keep making. Yeah, I carved it backwards. You see, when you do a block print, the image should be backwards in the linoleum so it prints frontwards. But it looks so pretty frontwards, I keep carving it that way. I REALLY need to work on that.

But I decided to do a test print anyway, just in case this style isn't what Val wants. So I have some photos. If Val likes them, I will re-carve it (properly) and re-print it. And then I can be done with that hard linoleum block I hate so much. I'm using the soft stuff from now on.

Here are the three prints I did:

Yeah. I know. Backwards H. It's a bit disorienting.

So, there are a few areas I want to touch up. Namely the curve at the bottom - it's not smooth enough, it looks more like an ink droplet. Also the right side (which SHOULD be the left side) is too thick. I could still fix that on this one, actually. And that bottom rectangular part didn't turn out as uniform as I would have liked.

I really think I can fix all these things on a second try. I'm really proud of this print - except for the backwards part, of course.

Ta-ta fa na!

Picnic! (Amanda's old blog)

2009-05-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update. I did some work today on the "H" block print for Val's thank-you cards, but I haven't done a test print yet, so I don't have any photos to share.

Brandon and I went on a picnic last night. It was very romantic. I decided to pack a picnic bento. I made a batch of onigiri and some carrot salad, and Brandon made a noodle concoction that turned out marvelous. Here's the setup:

At the top is some salad with salami and a slightly vinegar-y soy-sauce based dressing.
Bottom left are 2 onigiri held in place with raw green beans.
The green bento has 2 more onigiri set on top of my favorite spicy-soy carrot salad, with more raw green beans. Then some vanilla yogurt with pieces of banana.
The open spot was designated for Brandon's noodle dish.

He boiled the noodles (duh), then sauteed them with orange marmalade and a touch of soy sauce. They turned out great. I added unsalted sunflower seeds because I add them to everything in my bentos. Theye make everything so pretty, with so little effort!

Then there's always the 'extra stuff:'

I use Kashi bars instead of granola for crumbling into my yogurt. It's my favorite bento trick: it stays crunchy, and you can just throw them in your backpack separately instead of wasting a container. They are more expensive, however. But they are also flavorful. I like the honey-oat ones.
I packed the other half of the banana in a ziplock. There's our napkin and silverware. The tiny blue container has fresh nori to wrap around the onigiri. It was SO MUCH BETTER with fresh, crunchy nori. I can't believe I ever packed the nori on the onigiri itself. Soggy, fishy and gross. Although it's great for making little faces when I'm packing a kyaraben.
Then that bottom container has a piece of bean bread from Kim's oriental shop down on Westnedge. If your'e asking why there's only half a piece, you obviously don't know me very well.

I packed two water bottles and some V8 for beverages. Everything was super yummy.

I wore my black shawl and put my hair semi-up. I was very comfy.

It was lovely and romantic. We went to East campus and sat behind East Hall. You can see the whole city from there. We sat until it got dark out, then the city looked lovely with all their lights on. It was a lot of fun. We were both stuffed by the end.

That's it for now. Just thought I would share my latest bento project. More crafts coming soon!

SUCH a busy weekend... (Amanda's old blog)

2009-05-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

But before I dive into my weekend update, some photos from graduation day!

My mom and brother and grandparents came over early for breakfast. I bought bagels and other breakfast food the day before. It was a good way to start the day.

We were all a bit sleepy, but I swear we were having fun!

I curled my hair, it turned out great, especially with the cap on!

I love that necklace.

Here's one of my closest friends, Todd. I sat with him at the ceremony, it made it a lot more fun.

It was rather windy.

Here's my brother Max!

My mom tells me I need to learn to stand properly when wearing heels. I see what she means now. Feet together, one slightly forward, throw your weight back on the back one. Got it.

And my lovely grandparents.

It was a long day, but I'm glad I walked. It helps give a definite end, and mark the occasion.

And as soon as I was done with school, it was time for crafting!
This weekend was Val's bridal shower. I made some cute bingo cards. This was one of the paper crafts I was telling you about last week:

The guests filled in the squares with gifts they thought she might receive, and played as she opened them.
I snipped the corners a la BSG (Battlestar Galactica) and Val noticed! That made me happy.

I also finished up that necklace for her. This is a picture of me modeling it at an early stage. After this was taken, we adjusted the length of a couple of the strands - the big orange button hung in the middle, instead of at the bottom. It was really the focal point of the necklace.

Not a very good picture of me - and obviously my Star of David necklace isn't part of it.
I really have to give all the credit to my mom, she did all the real work on that necklace. Val got a lot of compliments on it at the shower. We're going to fix it up again and probably give it back to val, as much as it pains me (I'm in LOVE with that big orange button!)

It was a crazy weekend, I was crafting during all my free time this weekend (which I didn't have much of). My mom's couch was sort of craft-central:

In case you can't read the labels, on the far left is the purse I bought to match my bridesmaid dress, the notepad on the couch where I should be is a stack of bingo cards I was coloring, the laptop is turned to a bridesmaid blog with etiquette advice (how to interact with the bride's family at the shower), the pile of red buttons is the necklace I made to go with Val's dress for the shower, the tin tray next to it has extra buttons, the little white vases are the centerpieces for the shower (also Val's clue last week) and the notepad on the wicker basket is my to-do list for the weekend.

It was pretty crazy. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures from the shower yet, but hopefully I will be receiving them soon. I'll tell you more about it when I have some photos to share.

My last project I'm working on lately is a block print for Val's wedding (can you sense a theme?), it's an "H" to go on their thank-you cards. I've only just started carving:

The block I'm using is too large, and it has a wood backing, so I'm only using half of it.
It's such an intricate design, I'm so afraid to get started, so I was lazy and just did all the background first, which I usually do last.

I love making that woodgrain-like texture in the background flow with the design. It really makes the design breath. Unfortunately, this is yet another print where they don't want the background texture to appear, so I had to carve deep to eliminate it. But I still like to make flow-y lines, even if it's just for me.
I know it's technically not a paper craft, but it involves paper. Or will eventually, when I finish it.

Hopefully soon I'll have updates about that block print- it's probably the most difficult design I've done yet. We'll see how it goes.

For now, I'm going to go play with the rats (I missed them so much this weekend!) and get to bed. I'm exhausted. And the rats are bored:

Mom! Please play with us!

Goodnight. ^_^

Busy weekend and upcoming crafty week (Amanda's old blog)

2009-04-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

My graduation weekend was busy busy busy! But I don't have any photos back from my parents yet, so I'm gonna go ahead and save that for another entry. I do have one photo, however. And that is of the lovely roses my mom brought me:

When I was in high school, I composed a string duet, then we played it at an orchestra concert at school. My mom bought me some of the most lovely salmon-colored roses. Ever since it has been her goal to find a similar color. These are really really close. And anyway, they're lovely in their own right.

Alright. So. What crafts am I up to this week? A lot. Most of them have to do with Val's wedding or bridal shower. Today I'm going to show you the button crafts. I'm reserving paper crafts for later in the week.

Firstly I want to show you a project I've been working on for a while. A few months ago, Val and I were talking about bouquet options, and we decided it might be fun if we make a button bouquet (a la Princess Lasertron) for the rehearsal. Shortly thereafter, my mom started collecting buttons en masse, and she set aside a baggy full of green and blue buttons for Val's bouquet (green and blue are Val's wedding colors). Well, I've been working on it for a while - it still needs to be cleaned up a bit, and I still might add a few more flowers, but here are some photos of what I have so far:

Most of them are pretty quirky looking

There are a lot lower down on the stems, as well. Sort of like leaves.

Trying to show you as many as I can at once. Not really working that well. That one on the left with four layers is my absolute favorite.

Everyone who sees the bouquet is immediately drawn to this rose button. Unfortunately, it flops over. I need to fix that somehow.

It's a fun little project. We still don't know if Val is going to make white felt flowers to put them in with, or if I'll just buy some white fresh flowers and arrange them that way. We'll see. We've got a month to figure it out, and it's sort of a tiny detail... since it's just for the rehearsal. It's mostly a fun project to keep me busy.

I have another button craft that's a bit more urgent. Val has her outfit for the bridal shower this weekend all worked out, but she's missing a necklace. She said she needs a bright red necklace with big, chunky beads. I suggested buttons instead. So I went to the antique shop and bought some! This weekend I'll grab some more from my mom's stash and mix them in. Val found a Martha Stewart pattern for button necklaces, I'm going to use it as a reference.

I went to the craft store and got some red thread on clearance. I'll double or triple it up for the necklace so it's strong. I forgot to check the website before I left for the store, and now I see that there is such a thing as 'beading string.' I'll look into it. In the meantime, I have some very pretty red thread that I got super cheap! The antique shop was having a sale, too. I'm such a good little shopper!

Everything all lined up.

Some of the buttons have some very cool patterns. I'm pretty excited for how this necklace will turn out.

So, those are my button crafts this week. I'm also working on a block print for Val, but I didn't get any pictures of it today. I'll take some pictures when it's farther along and do a paper crafts entry. Unfortunately, since some of my crafts have to do with Val's bridal shower, and Val reads this blog, I kind of have to wait until next week to show them to you.

But for now, I'll tease Val a bit by posting a teaser photo:

Ooooh, what could it be? Curiosity!

See you in a few days with a graduation update. I hope you're having a lovely week!

A Quick Project (Amanda's old blog)

2009-04-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

I had a long day on campus today - I had my hardest exam at 8AM (genetics!) and then my neuro exam in the afternoon, which had enough content to count as 2 exams on its own. I spent the time in between on campus, studying.

So, this evening I had a bit of a studying break. My last exam is on Thursday at 8AM. So I did some cleaning, trimmed the rats' claws, and took a much-needed nap. And I also did one quick craft!

I don't remember where I got the idea. I just remember that at my mom's graduation, people decorated the tops of their caps with their initials so their parents could find them, or they put something pertaining to their area of study. So I thought it would be fun to put a brain on my cap. I decided a white-out pen was probably the best material.

It took probably less than an hour to do. I just jumped online, did a google image search for 'brain' and found the least complicated image (no shadows or labels). I used some trace paper and a soft pencil to transfer the image onto my graduation cap, and then went over it with the white-out pen and VOILA!

Now my parents will be able to find me in the crowd!

Obviously, there will be a tassel over it, but it still looks pretty cool, even with the tassel.

Just a few more days, and then I'll have a bachelor's degree! After that, I've got a long to-do list for this blog. Lots of crafts coming up. I'm really excited to share them with you guys. I hope you're pumped!

Back to studying so I can rock the socks off my last ever final exam in undergrad!

Hair Trial (Amanda's old blog)

2009-04-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

Ok so I lied. It turns out that blogging is a really nice way to take a break from studying. So is playing with my hair, apparently.

I've been working on growing my hair out for a while now. I try to do this about once a year, and I usually give up after a certain point and get it cut again. But this time I had a good reason: weddings. I'm going to three weddings this summer, and they're all weddings that I feel pretty close to. One is my stepsister, so obviously that's a big deal. Another is my roommates - so I've been around for a fair bit of the planning process for that. And the last one is my best friend, and I'm the maid of honor. So I want to look nice for all of them. Which means a couple of things, mainly I've been trying to work out, and like I said, I've been growing out my hair.

But there's a problem. I haven't had long hair since I was a kid. And I was a bit of a tomboy growing up. So I don't really know anything about doing hair. So, it's time to experiment.

Now that my hair is reaching shoulder length, I'm noticing it has a bit of a curl to it. So I thought it would be fun to experiment with a curling iron. I kept putting off buying one for myself - for fear that it wouldn't work out. Then, it turned out that my roommate Stacy has one! Enter, the hair trial:

Brandon looked up an instructional video online explaining how to use curling irons. It turns out, if you want the curls to stay for more than five minutes, you have to use hair gel and hairspray. I have neither of those things. So this was a temporary trial.

Before pictures:

So, this is my hair after I slept on it. To be honest, this isn't really a bad hair day. I would consider this 'viable.'

From the side. See how it has some natural curl to it?

And then silly faces started. It's inevitable.

The funniest part of all did not end up on camera, unfortunately. The online tutorial said to section my hair and use clips to hold the sections in place. Well... I don't own hair clips. So we went to the kitchen and used chip clips. We have a ton of them, so it worked nicely. But looked HILARIOUS. Sorry we didn't get any pictures.

But we did get action shots of the actual curling, thanks to Brandon and his wonderful photography skills. My new nickname for him is my 'blogtographer.'

Action shot!

Check out those luxurious curls.

I really have to give some credit to Stacy. She came in halfway through and showed me what I was doing wrong. It helped a LOT.

This is a really good picture of me. Even if the majority of it is bathroom wall.

A view of the back. I had a hard time with the back, it turned out pretty flat. I'm gonna have to work on that.

I really like this picture of me. I might use it for my Facebook profile.

Ok, the finished product:

For some reason, the left side of my head has curlier hair than the right side. Even in the before photos.

The back was sort of a failure. I definitely need to work on that.

So this was more or less a success. My hair looks much better this way than if I just blowdry it and brush it. The nice part was, Even when I brushed the curls out, it still had body and a bit of wave to it.

So I think I'm going to do this for my graduation next week. I went to the drug store when I dropped Brandon off at work and got some gel and hairspray. I'm pretty pumped about it!

Okay, back to studying. This was just a quick break.

Overview of this week (Amanda's old blog)

2009-04-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

It's been crazy, guys. Absolutely crazy.

Next week is finals. So, this week I was getting in all my last papers and presentations and assignments. It's all over now - all that's left is studying for finals. Just one more week. I can make it... I hope.

But schoolwork isn't what made this week crazy. I'll spare you the details and just give you the list in bullet-point form:
-I got a flat tire, wasted about an hour trying to change it myself before realizing the car jack we were using was too short, and had to call AAA.
-My computer crashed in the middle of writing a paper. Good thing I'm a compulsive saver.
-My rat Kashyyyk had an issue with his eye and I had to take him to the vet. He has a prescription now - it's actually quite adorable.
-I busted my back somehow. Don't ask me how, I have no idea. But I've been sitting on my roommate's heating pad for about two days now, and it's still bothering me.

On top of it all, I've been having strangely insatiable ice cream cravings all week. Brandon and I have gone out for ice cream three times this week. That's excessive. I think it's stress. I'm cutting myself off. I mean, I might just go on ice cream probation for about a month. Three times in a week is too much. The worst part? It's a SPECIFIC craving, for an ice cream shop all the way out on Gull road. So it's been a time consuming endeavor every time. I get like this during finals, though. I give into cravings more easily.

Anyway, that was this week. No crafting, whatsoever. And definitely none next week. But! It's my last finals week of undergrad, ever. A week from tomorrow, I will be accepting my degree. Get pumped, people. This is the good stuff.

I promise I'll be back after next week! And hopefully my back will be fixed.

A short break (Amanda's old blog)

2009-04-15T06:07:00.000-07:00

I'm coming up on finals week. It's definitely crunch time, and it's my last finals week in undergrad ever! After next week, I will have a Bachelor's degree. I'm pretty pumped for it.

In any case, I certainly do not have time for crafting right now. So I'm apologizing ahead of time. There probably won't be any posts until after next week. My graduation day is the 25th. So, after that weekend, I will be back in the crafting groove!

Here's a little nostalgia to tide you over. This is me a little over a year ago, when I had short hair:

... Rolling around on the carpet, laughing. At what? Not sure.

I'll see you in two weeks.

An emotionally charged day (Amanda's old blog)

2009-04-13T11:56:00.000-07:00

So, Giselle came back. Right when we started to be proactive about finding her, she just trots right back up to the porch.

Eric and Hal were standing on the driveway, talking, when they heard a mewing across the street. Giselle just kinda came back home. We have no idea where she was. Stacy and I promptly drove to the pet store and got her a tag.

Sooooo that's over. How strange... Why would a cat just go on a 3-day vacation?

Giselle is Missing (Amanda's old blog)

2009-04-13T08:25:00.000-07:00

Remember that photo I posted a while ago of my roommate's cat, Giselle? Well, I let her out around 11AM on Friday, and she hasn't come back. Stacy and I spent the morning driving to animal shelters and filling out missing pet forms. I'm going to give Stacy the photo. Maybe she'll make up posters.

It's really sad. I've never had pets before. It's such a strange feeling, wondering where Giselle is and if she's okay. When we went to the shelter and walked through the cat room to look for her, I started to cry. It was a little embarrassing. It's a really sad place; the animals are in tiny cages. Some of them have injuries. I've never seen anything like it.

Anyway, if you live in the Kalamazoo area, will you please keep an eye out for her? She's all grey and has green eyes. She has a bright green collar with a bell, but it's a breakaway collar, so it may not be there anymore. I'll post the photo one more time.

She's very friendly, and very VERY talkative. Say her name a few times and she should start answering. She also answers to Kitty- that's my fault, I just started calling her Kitty when Stacy first brought her home.

*sigh* it makes me so sad. I hope she comes home soon.

Passover (Amanda's old blog)

2009-04-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

I have lived in Kalamazoo for four years now. Most schools - especially universities - do not have breaks for Jewish holidays. This is true for Western, which means that for the past three years, I've been away from my family on Passover. This is usually a difficult time of year for me. Passover is my very favorite holiday, and it's really important to me to be with my family and celebrate.

But this year we did things a little differently. I decided to hold my own seder at my house in Kalamazoo and invite all my friends. Everyone was really excited - everyone brought a dish and we had a lovely seder. And of course, I want to share it all with you!

I've never cooked a big meal before, so there was a lot of coordinating and planning ahead of time. I emailed back and forth with my mom for weeks, getting recipes and instructions and compiling my grocery list. Last weekend, I did the grocery shopping and as much of the cooking as I could get done ahead of time.

Then I cleaned the house on Wednesday, attended my lab section a day early so I could have Thursday off, and I spent the whole day Thursday cooking, cleaning and getting ready. I got out my beautiful Menorah-pattern table runner and matzo cover that my aunt made for me for my Bat Mitzvah. I borrowed my brother's cup of Elijah (thank you, Max!) and my mom's haggudahs (thank you, mom!). The table looked lovely:

I got that plate at Pier 1 years ago. It makes a lovely seder plate - look how well it goes with the table runner!
I love Stacy's tiny purple wine glasses. I'm very jealous.

Check out the table runner:

It's so hard to find Jewish-themed prints that aren't tacky. My aunt has such a good eye, I'll really cherish that table runner forever. I was so excited to finally use it, it's the first time!

Most people sat on the couches - you're supposed to relax on Passover, so it worked out nicely! So I just stacked the plates and let people get food cafeteria-style from the kitchen.

Plates and silverware, ready to go. And my cloth "napkins." Look how clean that couch is! I've never seen it look so good!

You don't even WANT to know what it looks like the rest of the time.
You can probably just barely tell, but that red bit behind it is another couch. We have stadium-style seating in our house, the couch behind is on a big wooden platform. It's pretty much the best living room setup I've ever seen. And it's GREAT for throwing parties! ^_^

And I got out all my favorite serving dishes. If you didn't know this about me yet, I'm a huge Fiestaware enthusiast. I also have many other non-fiesta dishes that I absolutely love. So, having people over gives me a chance to use some of my nicer serving platters that spend most of their time packed away.

That green disk pitcher is the crowning glory of my Fiesta collection. I LOVE having an opportunity to use it. And the little black bowl with the geometric designs inside. Everything was lovely.

So, I got the turkey in the oven that morning, made stuffing, heated up the soup, boiled some carrots.... And then people started arriving!

I didn't get any photos of the seder itself, I took 2 breaks while we were eating to get photos of everyone sitting around the room. And they ALL turned out fuzzy! I was in such a rush to get back to the party, I didn't even hold the camera still. Well, I suppose it's the mark of a good party, right?

On the right is my good friend Josh, who was the only other Jewish person there. Next to him is Todd and Todd's beau Rogan.
Can you see the seder plate? Shank bone and everything!

Todd and Rogan again. I love Rogan's quirky fashion sense. The bow tie! The horn-rimmed glasses! So fifties. I love it.

Val and Mike drove out all the way from East Lansing. You can barely make out Eric through the glare.

Om nom nom! I'm totally digging on Mike's hat. It's kind of hard to see here. Shaky camera hand. I should've put Brandon in charge of pictures.

Eric was a huge help. The timing of the meal and the seder were perfect - because he helped me serve people and manage the food. I couldn't have done it without him. What a great friend.

Stacy looking lovely!

I told people it was casual, but Stacy loves an excuse to dress up. I wish you could see the whole dress, it's adorable. I'm so jealous. She got it in Japan!

Apparently Hal didn't want it on record that he attended. Or something. He was on his laptop during the whole seder. Silly man. ^_^

Gini and Will sat on the loveseat in the corner. Gini wasn't feeling too well, so I gave her EXTRA matzo ball soup. She's trying to go vegetarian, but she ate the soup because she knows chicken soup made by a Jewish woman is a miracle cure. ^_^

I'm not really sure what's going on here. Someone off to the right must have said something awfully strange.

We played musical chairs a lot - people kept changing seats. Here, brandon is getting some boxed wine.

We had 3 kinds of wine: Manischewitz because I thought everyone should try it at least once - most people ended up liking it! I also bought a bottle of Mogen David, and I wanted a white wine. This seemed like a good opportunity to try boxed wine. I've never tried it before, and it's supposed to be a good way of keeping the wine. Most people won't switch over, though, because boxed wine has a reputation for being bad. Anyway, we had one box of white and 3 bottles of red.

And then, there was the aftermath:

All in all, not that bad. We were really responsible and put everything straight in the dishwasher right away. All that's left are wine glasses and serving platters.

See? Mostly wine glasses. No biggie.

OH! And I almost forgot! We didn't get ANY pictures of it ,which I'm very upset about because it was gorgeous, but I ordered a flourless chocolate cake from Waterstreet, a wonderful coffee shop in Kalamazoo. They have their own kitchen and they make delicious foods using local ingredients. They have lots of gluten-free options, which means their cakes are Kosher-for-Passover! Todd and Rogan picked it up. It was gorgeous. It was so fudgy and delicious, everyone enjoyed it.

While we ate dessert, Eric thought it would be fun if we watched the Passover episode of Rugrats. We were all laughing and reminiscing about old cartoons. And scarfing down cake - there was none left!

It was a fantastic evening. Honestly, the best Passover ever. I'm so happy to know that my friends take an interest in my religion and heritage - plus, most of them are history geeks or religion geeks, so they all really enjoyed the seder for intrinsic reasons. We sang Diaynu, we did the ten plagues, we dipped parsley in salt water. They were all fascinated by every tradition and they all read from the haggudah. It was so much fun. I feel so loved - truly, this is the way to spend Passover, surrounded by your best friends.

Chag Sameach! Next year in Jerusalem!

And I hope you all have a lovely Easter this weekend, as well. ^_^

Actual Crafts? On a craft blog? (Amanda's old blog)

2009-04-06T19:04:00.000-07:00

My dad commented today that this so-called craft blog has sort of degraded into a rat blog. And he's right. Things have been hectic lately, and I haven't had much time for crafting. But I managed to fit in a small project today, despite the fact that this week is pretty jam-packed for me. I think it's a definite example of 'if you want something done, give it to a busy man.'

My roommates Stacy and Eric are getting married in a couple months, so Stacy has got her plate full with lots of wedding projects and planning. Yesterday, she was looking at designs for their guestbook. She found a graphic of a calla lilly that she really liked. She showed it to me and asked if I could do a block print of it for her! We also discussed the possibility of me actually making their guestbook for her, which would be really fun.

I happened to have some linoleum lying around, so i took one of my smaller pieces, cut it in two and made 2 prints. The first print was a bit too heavy, also it was facing the wrong way. I still like it. I think I can clean it up and make it a bit more delicate. The stamen in the flower turned out beautifully.

This is what it looks like when it prints.

And here's the actual linoleum block after I inked it up.

I love the woody texture in the background of block prints. But stacy didn't want that, so I had to carve it deep so all that would print is the flower.

The second try was aimed at getting it facing the right direction, and also making it dantier and more detailed.

This is the print - sorry for the strange angle. Lighting in my living room was not very good today.

And here's the block print. This one is so pretty, I really like how it turned out.

I'm pretty impressed with myself. The second try turned out really nicely. I was very patient with it - I knew Stacy wanted something delicate, so I had to be careful. She didn't end up liking the second print because of the little spiral at the base of the flower. She also changed her plans for the guest book later today, but I was glad to have the inspiration. She gave me a design, specific instructions, and incentive to be very delicate with my work. Now I have 2 new prints for my etsy shop when it opens in July! I'm very excited about this.

I'm thinking my next few block print designs will be:
-A dagger or sword (or both)
-the Heroes symbol
-Some Star Wars symbols, like the rebel alliance and the galactic republic symbol.

I'm glad I finally have crafts to share with you! Sorry dad, about all the rat updates. They're just so cute. ^_^

Time for a hilarity break. (Amanda's old blog)

2009-04-03T17:32:00.000-07:00

I have only just barely seen my rats' tongues before today. They are tiny. They are adorable. They like gravy.

Behold:

I could not stop giggling.

Oh I posted too early. I managed to get Kashyyyk in on the action, as well:

Hilarious.

Oh, about the cat (Amanda's old blog)

2009-04-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

That photo I posted a while back was of my roommate's cat, Giselle, trying to figure out what to do with my rats in their running ball. I was worried she would chase them around the house - at least that way they would get some exercise. No such luck. She just stared at me confusedly.

See?

Silly cat.

Rat Stuff! (Amanda's old blog)

2009-04-02T16:51:00.000-07:00

Finally! I cleaned out the rat cage and took photos. The rats weren't too happy with me. I put them in their running ball while I cleaned the cage, and they kept running it up to me and bumping me in the side.

So, I made their cage more or less from scratch.

Here's the whole cage. Their water bottle is hanging off the side on the right. There are 2 access panels, one at the front and one on the top. The running wheel is on the right at the middle, the hammock is at the top left. Their food bowl is at the bottom left, their litter box is at the top right. Their nesting box is hard to see here, it's on the left in the middle.

You can see the levels a bit more clearly here. There are some cardboard toys on the bottom right. A paper towel tube and a macaroni and cheese box. The wad of paper towel hanging on the bottom left is a 'ratty pinata.' The tube leading from the bottom shelf to the second shelf is 3-inch PVC pipe.

I used the panels from an old collapsible shelving unit for the sides. It was Brandon's idea to connect them using zip-ties. The only problems were the corners, which had big escape-able holes. So I took some heavy wire and covered them.

Not all the corners are quite this tidy. I plan to fix up the messy corners some time.

The floors are linoleum tiles cut to fit

Isn't he a cutie? See the rope in the background? it's a doggie rope - they crawl up it to get from level 3 to 4.

Here they are hanging out in the hammock and nesting box:

Their nesting box is just an old tissue box. I change them periodically, when it gets too messy or too chewed up.

The hammock is SUPER ghetto, it's just a washcloth hung up by oversized paper clips:

I change it every couple weeks. It gets pretty messy. I have a couple that I cycle through. They LOVE the hammock. It's where they spend most of their time.

When I want to play with them outside their cage, I put up the 'play pen.' It's made from some cardboard boxes I cut apart and taped back together in a line - one of the boxes is from the espresso machine Brandon got me for Channukah!

On the right side is the 'box game' as I call it. It's just a cardboard box filled with crinkled papers and tissues, with different treats hidden amongst the mess. There are 2 exit holes for them to crawl out. When I close the top, it's nice and dark. They really like it. I got the idea here. Unfortunately, the play pen is too short. They can jump to the top if they try hard enough. So I need to make a taller one some time soon.

They normally like the box game, but I think they were overwhelmed by all the commotion today. They immediately tried to jump out, even before I could close it!

Another really cheap toy is the little hideaway box.

I call it that because the rats always need a safe hideaway when they're playing and exploring on the floor. They need somewhere they can feel safe.

That's everything I have photos of for now. I forgot to get pictures of the closures on the doors. It's not too exciting, I just wound some wire around the edge of the panel, then bent the other end so I could clip it into the mesh on the other side.

I hope you enjoyed this entry! The rats are having fun running around inside my hoodie. ^_^

This week (Amanda's old blog)

2009-04-01T08:23:00.000-07:00

I was going to do the rat cage post yesterday, but I was feeling icky. I had a big allergy attack in the morning and it stayed with me all day. I ended up getting to bed early. But that post is next on my list. I may do it today or tomorrow. We shall see!

For now, a teaser photo:

Take a wild guess what she wants!

I was just catching up on some of my favorite blogs, and I noticed that April is frugal bento month on justbento.com. Maki posted a couple of excel spreadsheets people can use to track their savings as they make their lunches instead of buying them. I downloaded the couples one to try and encourage Brandon to pack his lunches as well. The nice thing is that Maki set it up such that I can track my own progress separately from Brandon, but still encourage him to use it as well.

I put today's entry into the excel sheet - it's only the first of the month and I'm already down! I was still feeling icky this morning, so I slept in a bit, leaving me no time to make breakfast. I made a miscalculation in my schedule and thought I would be on campus all day - so I ran to the bagel shop and bought a bagel sandwich for breakfast. I don't regret it, I love starting my day with a bagel. But it is $8 gone (I also buy a muffin for later - the bagel shop here has the most delicious muffins), so it's something to think about.

I will be on campus all day tomorrow, which means I need to pack a bento tonight! And then tomorrow I can get my $8 back on my little spreadsheet (my storebought lunches and breakfasts cost about the same - the Jimmy John's sandwich I like comes to about $8. I know it's steep, but I love the avocado spread!) So, that's my latest project.

Big Announcement!
I have one other thing to tell you! It occurred to me the other day that I have completely failed to mention the biggest crafting project I've got going right now. What a huge oversight!

I recently got a group of my craftiest friends together and proposed that we combine our efforts and start a costuming company! We had a meeting, ironed out the details, and decided we would start by opening an Etsy.com shop! Our deadline is July. We all need to have some items ready for the inventory, and we need a name, a logo and business cards. Then, on July 1st, we will apply to Etsy.com, create our profiles, pay the fee and we'll be open for business (hopefully). If I recall correctly, there are about seven of us. Here's what we do:

-Val is my best friend, I've known her since 3rd grade. She's been dabbling lately in embroidery, knitting, and the like.
-Kelli is a good friend of mine from high school. She's the one who gave me my pet rats! She sews - she's extremely talanted. She already has an Ebay.com shop where she sells cloaks and robes. (I don't remember her username off the top of my head. I'll let you know when I talk to her next.)
-Will is one of my college buddies. He started doing chainmaille a few years ago. He makes lovely chainmaille jewelry, and accessories.
-Gini is Will's girlfriend. She dabbles in a number of things, I've seen some of her knitting, she's really good.
-Kittie is Gini's roommate. She crochet's with the best of them, and she writes her own patterns!
-Alex is a childhood friend of Brandon's. Lately he discovered chainmaille, but his style is notably different from Will's. He like spikes and leather and other manly things - haha!
-And then there's me! I dabble in knitting, though I need a good excuse to get better. But mainly, for the company, I plan to make books and linoleum block prints. More on that later.

So there you have it! When we have a name and logo, I'll let you know. And I will definitely be making an announcement when our Etsy shop opens in July. You'll likely be hearing more and more from me about books and paper and block prints between now and then, as I have a lot of work to do to get ready for the shop to open up.

That's all for now. Rat entry coming soon, I promise!

More Weekend (Amanda's old blog)

2009-03-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I went to my stepsister's bridal shower this morning. It was lovely - pink and tulle and mimosas oh my! Unfortunately, I left my camera in the car, because I'm a dunce. I shall now recite the three steps to having plenty of photos for my blog:

1. Own a decent camera (check!)
2. Keep the battery charged (working on it: probably going to buy a new one soon.)
3. Keep the camera on you.

Right. Next time I go to a super crafty, fun, blogworthy event, I vow to charge my camera and not leave it in the car. ... ... Ok, I vow to TRY.

So, my roommate Stacy is talking about centerpieces for her wedding. She's been going back and forth for a while - the most recent (and most promising) idea is lilacs. Apparently her aunt has 3 lilac bushes by her house - one white, one light purple and one deep purple. And purple happens to be Stacy's favorite color, and one of her wedding colors, AND they'll be in bloom during the month of her wedding! So we're talking about what she can do with lilacs, mason jars, and possibly LED lights. Fun stuff.

So, I think my next entry will be about my pet rats. I told you before that I built their cage and toys. And I did it all on the cheap! So I'll show you all that stuff when I have pictures. For now, let me introduce you to the rats themselves! I gave them a bath today because they were starting to get stinky.

The black one is the girl, her name is Myelin. The grey one is the boy, his name is Kashyyyk. No, that is not a typo.

I always put an egg carton in the bath for them to float around on. They hang onto it for dear life - they hate the water. But don't they look so cute all wet?

Alright. I have to go revise my paper and get to bed. It's been a long weekend.

Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference (Amanda's old blog)

2009-03-29T07:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was eventful! I went to a psychology undergraduate research conference in a tiny town just south of Jackson that I've never heard of before. It was a lot of fun, I got to see some interesting research from other people at various Michigan colleges. And I got to present my research, which was fun. I was there with a few other people from Dr. Baker's lab, including Elyse - another undergrad and a friend of mine.

Tada! I'm on the right, on the left is Elyse. We are proudly displaying our research.

It was a lot of fun. There was a talk on developmental evolutionary psychology. Good stuff.

Then I came home and spent the evening hanging out with my mom. I recently inspired my mom to start collecting buttons more seriously - for crafting purposes. She has amassed a really large collection in a very short time.

Both those cardboard boxes are FULL!

She and I are brainstorming ways to use them. I want to get big mason jars and sort them by color, material or size. Or all three. Right now she's just keeping them based on how she ordered them. There are a million crafts we could do with these. It's fun, and inspiring!

So she showed me some new ones she got recently. These are all glass buttons.

Look at the colors! The patterns! The detail!

There's a lot of blue because my mom likes blue. Anyway, I just thought I'd share - my mom has a really good eye and is willing to spend the time looking for good materials.

That's all for now, I gotta run! It's a busy weekend. ^_^

Well, whaddoya know? (Amanda's old blog)

2009-03-26T19:14:00.000-07:00

I said I would show you guys when I cooked up some dumplings. Well, guess what Brandon and I decided to have for dinner? You betchya!
We made pretty much the yummiest homemade Japanese meal I've had to date. As Brandon would say, "That sounds like a challenge!"

Anywho, we made up some of those spicy carrots I was telling you about. So I documented that, as well. First, you gotta chop the carrots matchstick style.

There's my baby, hard at work!

Then you have to toast some sesame seeds, and sautee the carrots in sesame oil along with the seeds.

I'M SO PUMPED FOR CARROTS! Those are the dumplings to my right. I'll get to those in a minute.

Then I made the sauce. My recipe is an abbreviated version of the one on JustBento, just because I used what I had in the house. It worked out nicely, though. My verison is spicy. My roommate Stacy makes a sweet version, using sugar instead of hot pepper paste. Personally, I think brown sugar goes better with soy sauce than white sugar, but that would admittedly have a totally different flavor.

I just mix in some hot pepper paste with my soy sauce and VOILA!

After the carrots have cooked for a while, I add the sauce.

OH MY GOSH it is SO nice to have a camera that works.

MMM brown and delicious. So, I just toss them in that for a while, then I drain the sauce - but don't get rid of it! It makes a great spicy salad dressing.

Ok so lets talk about the REAL stars of the show - the dumplings! These dumplings were handmade by Brandon and I. The wrappers are made from homemade dough - REALLY simple, just flour and water. The filling is ground beef (I substitute beef for pork because I don't really eat pork), green onions, soy sauce and sesame oil. I store them in the freezer in copious amounts of flour to keep them separate.

I put them in ziplock bags and make sure they lay flat when I first put them in, so they don't clump together. Once they're frozen, though, you can move them however. They're solid as rocks after that.

Then I boil about an inch of water and put them in.

You HAVE to keep them moving, they stick really easily, and once they stick they start to tear.

My roommate Eric added soy sauce to the water when he cooked them. They were golden brown on the outside and super yummy. But I like to keep my soy sauce to a minimum, so I don't do that (I'm being a total hippocrit here and you'll find out why in a second).

When they're done boiling, I just put them in a bowl by themselves becuase they tend to bring starchy water with them, which can gunk up your rice. Here's our dinner:

White rice with spicy carrot sesame salad, Beef dumplings and homemade iced green tea. All of this was made from scratch, can you believe it? I'm so proud of myself!

So, I'm a hippocrit because I said I wasn't going to make dipping sauce for the dumplings, since there's soy sauce on the carrots as well, but the carrots were so spicy and they stained the rice so I couldn't cool off my mouth that way. So I went ahead and made some dipping sauce for the dumplings. I want you to know that this amount of soy sauce in one meal is NOT normal for me. I keep my salt intake to a minimum. I rarely add salt to anything, and I'm very careful about soy sauce. But tonight was a special treat. So here's my recipe for the dipping sauce: equal parts soy sauce and sesame oil, then just a dash of red wine vinegar.

It was such a yummy dinner - totally japanese, completely homemade and really yummy. Lots of comfort food. Definitely too much soy sauce for my taste, but It was definitely a treat to indulge a little.

Now I'm going to sit back and finish my lovely iced tea. Two blog posts in one day, I'm exhausted!
Oh wait... Now I have to do dishes.........

Finally (Amanda's old blog)

2009-03-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

I got my camera fixed! My wonderful boyfriend Brandon fixed it. Lookit the cutie!

Yowzah. Well, anyway. Let me show you what I've been up to! I think this is going to be a food entry, because that's what I have the most available photos of at the moment.

So, a while back I made some ADORABLE onigiri. For those of you who don't know, onigiri are Japanese rice balls. Sometimes they have filling, sometimes they're just seasoned on the outside with a light flavoring. The Onigiri FAQ on Justbento.com has a lot of great information.
So, when I make mine, I use a bit of an unconventional filling. I sautee chicken, carrot and onion in soy sauce with a bit of brown sugar and just a dash of lemon juice. When it's all cooked, I put it through the food processor so it's chopped fine and I can spoon it into the center of the onigiri while I'm making them.

I make them by hand, because I'm hard core like that. You have to keep your hands wet with salt water, otherwise the rice will stick. These are the traditionally-shaped ones, and some egg-shaped ones:

The black-looking stuff on the outside is nori. It's toasted seaweed. I have a bad habit of adding mine after I make them instead of waiting until I'm going to eat them... so the nori gets soggy. It's way better when it's crisp. But they look so cute with their little nori wrappers! Onigiri are so delicious. They're a comfort food - a really basic staple in Japan, and they're surprisingly filling! 3 of these puppies is plenty for a meal.

They also make great bento box foods. I didn't put any in this one, but this was one of my favorite recent bento boxes:

Let's see if I can remember everything that's in it. On the bottom left we have a spicy soy sauce carrot salad. I just sautee the carrots in sesame oil and soy sauce with a bit of hot pepper paste melted in (got the recipe off of Justbento!), they're sitting on a bed of lettuce, though you can't see. They're surrounded by raw green beans, cut to fit. Bottom right has vanilla yogurt with frozen raspberries and blackberries. It's covered in saran wrap so it doesn't spill. Top has sticky Japanese rice with wavy-cut red peppers, sesame seeds, and a hardboiled egg molded into a flower and cut width-wise. The little fishy has plain soy sauce - I didn't end up using it. The carrots were plenty flavorful enough.

Here's the whole setup. I apologize for blurry pix.
I have my lid with my favorite chopsticks taped to it, and a Kashi granola bar that I crumbled over the yogurt. That was a very, very good lunch. Extremely filling, and super healthy! I love my bento boxes.

Ok so this one isn't terribly exciting, but I made homemade iced tea! I was at the drug store and I saw some Arizona Iced tea, which is a big weakpoint for me. It's full of sugar and high fructose corn syrup but it's SO YUMMY. Brandon talked me out of it, and when we got home, I set out to make my own. I put it in these lovely oversized mason jars and chilled it in the fridge. So heavenly:

So, I just took about 4 or 5 green tea bags and 1 lemon tea bag, and boiled them in a pot on the stove. I added some white sugar, palm sugar and honey. Not much, really. Just a bit of each. It was perfect.

Alright, that's a lot for now. I'll try to remember to get some photos if I fry up any of those potstickers. I really wish I'd had a working camera when we were making them - the setup I use to make them is sort of elaborate. They're a big project.

I'm pretty proud of myself for cooking more, eating at home more, and just eating healthier overall. I think food is a great project - it's good to be in control of what you put in your body.

Ta ta fa na!