With illustrations, not photographs or videos. A friend of mine asked how I made duct tape sheets to make my purses, and this is the same method E uses too for her wallets and purses. (need to get a pic of her current wallet. It's also a Kingdom Hearts thing)
( if you want instructions )

The zoo was a lot of fun. Every year, the newsletter says "Hot tea and popcorn" and every year, it's not hot tea. This year it was hot cider and hot chocolate. Mine wasn't stirred enough so the top was a watery chocolately flavored drink, and the bottom was pure sludge. My own fault. I gave E the chocolate sludge and she was happy.
There are a couple orphaned cubs there, and they are so cute, brown bears. You just want to take them home and snuggle them. Or maybe that's just me. I love the brown bears. My camera was having battery issues, and my fingers were having "it's too cold to take your gloves off" issues. I did get a couple pics of the kids and Mike, but I used point and shoot rather than fuss with settings while I was freezing, so we will have to see how they turned out.
We hit the animals we most wanted to see, then went to the gift shop, for the month of December, purchases at the gift shop are 20% off for passholders, and for Christmas For the Animals, the only people at the zoo are passholders, so they don't ask to see your card. W has been wanting a plushie from there for a while, so today I let him pick one out. He got a fox, and was insanely happy. E got a little gadgety thing with a bunch of lenses and stuff.
We brought fruit, rolls, and extra lean ground beef chubs for the animals. It was a lot of fun, but really too cold to stick around long, and a lot of work for me walking those trails since I woke up hurting from the cold.
Sicily's Pizza, a local pizza company has one buffet place, they only charge 9.99 per person, and the food is really ordinary, but it's fast, inexpensive, and the kids will always eat their veggies there since they have a really boring salad bar, and a fairly decent fruit selection. I like it because it's quick and easy and no clean up for me!
After we got home, I was simply wiped out. So I crashed, and slept hard for a 6 hour nap. *laughs* The kids and Mike watched movies.
----
Red Green and duct tape? Here, it's Red Green at the 3m duct tape factory in Canada. Red Green is a family favorite, and used to be E's favorite show in the world. And duct tape just is a happy thing. This video shows how it is made.

( my new duct tape purse )
And it took me about 4 hours to complete start to finish.

Did you know there's a double sided duct tape? They don't have it at the places I usually get duct tape, so I didn't know. Until today.
I drew out a couple designs for my new purse. I'm deciding between a Batman classic logo or a Captain Hammer logo. Ahh.. who am I kidding. I know which one I'll use.
If you need the tape appliqué drawings for either, let me know. They are both sized to print on a standard sheet of paper.

Some duct tape crafts E did
( click here to see )
I'm not going to embed this video, but it's from the 1999 Christmas in Vienna Three Tenors show.
The Three Tenors performing John Lennon'sHappy Xmas/War is Over. I'm not sure if it's the best cover of that song ever, or the second scariest from a fairly mainstream performer. (Celine Dion's cover is actually painful)

I don't know anything about Kingdom Hearts, 'k? Well.. I know a bit more than I used to. I know
sora means sky, and riku means land.kairi is short for kairiku, which means land and sea.. But I know that because a friend speaks Japanese and told me after she found out how much E liked it.
Anyway.. this is Roxas.
( and this is E's version of his bracelet/rings )
And pictures of my record cuffs after I drilled them. I did NOT mark my drill holes, and they came out a bit uneven. So I'm going to make a template for drilling and cutting next time, and write it up for Beadwork at BellaOnline.
( you spin me round like a record baby )
Yesterday, there were all sorts of things I wanted to do, but life being what it is, I waited all day for Dad to call so we could do one part of it. He never called. Then it was suddenly 5 pm and too late to do anything.
This post is going to be followed pretty quickly with another post with a couple vintage patterns.
Hmm.. I graphed out a straight cross stitch, no back stitches or half/quarter stitches pattern of the St. Trinian's crest from the most recent movie, and the lyric that goes
"We are the best, so screw the rest
We do as we damn well please
Until the end
St Trinian’s
Defenders of anarchy"
You can download that in PDF format here.

Well.. E wound up with something like 5 lbs of candy, which she made clear she intended to share with everyone in her family, she also got one packet of popcorn and a New Testament. No toothbrushes though!
( a bunch of pictures )
So it's over finally. But it was a lot of fun. My brother wasn't home when we hit his house, but we ran into him while E was trick or treating. W is TALLER then him now. I mean.. I probably knew it if I thought of it, but W is still a kid in my mind even if he's a young man really, and my brother is an adult.
As far as my hair goes, the beer made it very soft, and full of body, not quite as absolutely straight as usual. I wouldn't use it every time I "shampoo", but for special occasions, I think it's a winner.

So, the necklace is in the mail now, and I didn't cry. I will have to make myself something in those colors soon.

E got a belated b-day gift from R, a box of 12 rolls of duct tape. She kindly offered to share with her brother, and he took 3 rolls (she offered him 6). The last few days have been filled with the sounds of duct tape.

I splurged on some coffee from Brainscan's Etsy shop, which was right up there with getting pads from honeybeehill and majortom_thecat for things I wanted to do when I could. Those are going to happen soonish too. Brainscan is the author of Stolen Sharpie Revolution. If you have any interest in ever putting together your own zine, you need that book, you can get it at Microcosm Publishing or from Small World Buttons. I *really* wanted one of the Stolen Sharpie Revolution sharpies, but I knew it was a silly thing to get just because I was so totally impressed with the amount of information in that book.I did order some of her zines, including the one she did about IUDs, a set of pirate flag buttons for E (which just thrilled her. I think I'm raising a pirate. One of the the things she made out of duct tape was an eye patch), and a couple buttons for myself. Yep. I splurged, and spoilt myself.

My hat.. well.. it failed. Even a simple lace pattern involving just k2tog and yos is beyond me still. Somehow.. with 72 stitches to start, after 6 rows of the pattern, I had 16 sts on one needle, 17 on one, and 18 on the other 2. So I'm starting over with just a really simple hat. Wish me luck?

While I was working on more printables, (I'm to cards now! Yay!) E was making nice things out of duct tape and the box from her dinner last night. She had Winnie the Pooh cheddar filled ravioli because she thinks my spaghetti sauce is gross (all those vegetables and meat, she thinks spaghetti sauce should be just a plain smooth red sauce).
( come see what she made )
She seems to be having much more fun then me today. :) But we are henna-ing later.

So... I walked into my room, and E was sitting on my bed with the remnants of probably a saltines box, and her duct tape sword on the bed, and a top hat in her hands. I watched her pull up a piece of tape from the sword.
"Why are you taking apart your sword?"
"How else am I going to make this top hat?"
I asked if I should pick her up some more tape when I go to the store. She said "That would be great!" and we talked a bit about the armature of the sword, which, despite having several layers of cardboard from packages, is a bit floppy. I grabbed one of Mike's wire coat hangers from drycleaning and started bending it and started to say "Have you thought about reinforcing with coat hanger wire?" She beat me to it. "THAT would work!"

The top hat is made from cardboard from some sort of packaging, like I said, I think saltines (we get big boxes), the crown of it was wrapped in red paper from our reclaimed giftwrap stash. And duct tape. And you know something?

I think it's incredibly neat my daughter can look at stuff most people think is trash, and make things.

E got in trouble last night for helping herself to a roll of duct tape. She knows she's supposed to ask about using my craft supplies, but frequently gets so caught up in the moment, she doesn't. She used *most* of it.
When I said "Well, what should we do about it?" She replied "You can stop buying so much duct tape."

Yeah. No. Not an answer.
But I guess I should be grateful, I mean, she's 12, it could really be so much worse. Of course, last week she tried to borrow one of my leather jackets, and I said "NO NO NO. And besides, it needs to be cleaned." She said "oh.. okay." and I said "Nice try though" (she had put it on and was heading out the door wearing it) and she said "I know."

The tape was for making paper nunchaku (what is the correct way to use that word? A set? A pair? Or is just nunchaku enough?), and I'm not sure I have enough left, however, it occurs to me, I could crochet a pair with fun foam to stiffen and fill it. It also occurs to me that even hypothetically designing crocheted nunchaku brings me to whole new levels of crafty geekdom. Time to just go ahead and bead myself a bracelet that says "Shop Smart, Shop S-mart".

How to make Angel Wings gave me a probably impossible idea. Wouldn't it be NEAT to make a pair of magpie wings and dress all in white and black with *tons* of sparkly jewelry next year for Halloween?
Maybe a tiara. Ahh.. to be a magpie diva in sequins, beads and big pretty wings.

Well.. time to go check my tape supply, hopefully I've got a roll stashed away of black duct tape.

( E's purse )
Y- as promised, links to hats I've made.
Fun colorful hats, I love making these, I play with texture and colors on them.
Pink Heart Flap Heart
Mel's Blue Hat (star flaps)
Cabled Hat
Plain black which makes it very hard to see the cables, but it's cabled. This is the hat I wear when it's very cold, since it's alpaca and silk.
Very basic beanie with spike stitches
Kitty Hat white
Witch Hat! Awful picture. Sorry!
Frog Hat
Hello Kitty
Sun and Rainbow set E's favorite. She loves the reaction this set gets.
Ribbed hat and Hello Kitty hat on my kids. The ribbed hat was a design I came up with because.. it's really hard to crochet for boys!
Hmm.. seems like there was also a black kitty hat, but I can't find that one. The 2 hats my son is wearing were made of wool, and the black cabled one, as mentioned, is silk/alpaca (too expensive. I'm not sure I'm doing that again!), the rest are all worsted weight cotton.

I hope you are all having a lovely holiday if you celebrate it.
Working on- Shawl and cross stitch still. Very slowly. I duct taped my lighter last night because I got bored with it. :)

Just realized, like just this second because I was looking for it, I don't think I ever posted the bat earrings I made myself here. I guess I figured, I showed them to R, and that was enough.
( bat earrings )

My daughter is happily using up the last of two partial rolls I had of black duct tape (scotch brand of course) and making her favorite Barbie into a duct tape witch. I'll get pictures later.

Beadwork at Bellaonline has been updated.

From my post on Craftster when I made it..
"Super easy to make.

Measure your wrist, add an inch for the overlap where the velcro dots are, then add two inches, cut a piece of duct tape that long. Fold over one inch on both ends. Cut a picture from a comic book or magazine or print out something nifty to fit, and put it on the sticky side between the folded over ends.
Put clear packing tape or clear duct tape over that.

Use two sets of Velco sticky dots, and the rough side to the soft side so you have them in matched pairs. Peel of the backing from the rough side and position them on the upside (graphic side) of your bracelet, then pull the backing off the soft side, and wrap the bracelet around to place them on the other side. (perfectly placed to match up now!)

Okay.. very easy. But I'm going to go through my messed up comics and make more. The picture on this one was from the 25¢ promo copy of Red Sonja. I bought a few of them to cut up for stuff.

There's a technique people use sometimes for ATC backgrounds, they cut a window out of a piece of cardstock the size of the ATC and position it around until they find the section they want and then use a craft knife to cut it out, so once you know the measurement for center piece you can make a template to cut out your pictures."

So yeah.. easiest thing in the world. Anyway.. to get to the point (you knew there was one somewhere in this right?)
There is a promo issue of the Battlestar Galactica comic out. It's a quarter and has a *great* panel for bracelets.
Cylony goodness
Isn't that great?? So I'm going to have a cylon bracelet too. Happiness is 25¢ comics.
-Shala

( from one of those mini legal pads that's only about 3.5 inches wide )

-Shala

Mike gets odd gifts from vendors trying to sell things, usually they aren't much, and we give them to my dad or whatever. Of course my favorite was Seattle's Best. They gave him a BUNCH of stuff. Including coffee.

Anyway, one of them he pulled out earlier that I hadn't seen yet was a memo pad holder. Simple thing, pretty cheap actually, I don't recall which company and wouldn't say anyway. Convenient yes. But CHEAP. Plastic over cardboard. I can do plastic over cardboard!!!
I have TAPE!

It's got slots for business cards, and a little loop of elastic to hold a pen, no snap/hook and loop tape closure like most of my notebooks have now, and I've done a refillable holder or two already, which I thought I posted here. I didn't.
( looky here )
The one Mike had was vertically oriented and had one of those little "scratch" pads in it. Dirt cheap it is. The paper reminds me of that *awful* stuff my high school typing class had.
I asked him if he would use one if I made him one, he said yes, but he can't promise he won't lose it, heck, I KNOW that. He's as good at losing things as I am.
EDIT: 4 that are perfect, 4 more that are just a bit small but have great magnification, 4 more large, weak magnification, but nifty, and 8 double convex lenses that make things smaller. I forget the name of that sort of lense, but THOSE I can use for suncatchers/pendants.

Also!!! GOT the box from Edmunds Scientific. I ordered the Bag of Lenses for myself. Gotta say.. very happy with them, even compared to Science and Surplus. The thing I LIKE about Science and Surplus is when they have them, you get all one kind, but sometimes a small size. I got some from ES that are only going to be good for gluing stuff on and turning into necklaces that way, but the magnifying ones!! They are larger and thinner, and 5 of them have a truly decent amount of magnification. (I haven't checked all of them yet) So even if I only count the 5 I *know* are completely usable for what I use them for
( clicky here to see )
they only cost 2 dollars each. (the bag was 10) AND they are glass. I've priced magnifying lenses. I do so frequently, and usually that cheap they are plastic. Plus I'd have to break the frames to make them usable for necklaces.
OH I'm happy.
-Shala
PS.. another edit.. I'll happily traded one beaded magnifier pendant for a Bag of Prisms, a Bag of Magnets, and a Bag of Optical Components. I know.. they don't have the prisms in stock. Darnit it all.
Click here. Colors and chain length would of course be of your choosing.

( my very talented daughter )
-Shala

I have both of the Oreo Twins on my friends list! I'm the luckiest girl in the whole wide world!

I'm contemplating a Valentine's layout. Still going to be pink. Sorry. That's going to happen.It must be pink. What I'm deciding is should it be blinkie and sparkly? Can I be that awful?

So you know about me, and Kim and the duct tape notebooks, what I didn't realize was that 2 of the men in my family love them. Mike uses legal pads and blank books for work, comp books won't work for him or he'd be into it.

Emily makes her own, with handles, and sometimes tassels.

William "borrowed" one of my notebooks, here's the funny thing, my personal journals all have my angel on them. I've decided to make him one, I need to figure out the art still, and my *dad* loves the minis. He needs to carry something to keep logs on, and I gave him an untaped mini comp book from my supplies, and he saw the ones I made for Kim and said "That's handy. Does the duct tape help them hold up better?" So I'm also going to make him some too. What I'm thinking is for dad's, instead of the usual hook and loop tape closures I use, I should use elastic, that way he can slip a pencil into it if he needs to, and can keep reciepts and such in it. Possible a pocket. Art for dad's will be easy. Pick up a Stewie postcard from Hot Topic, or download Stewie art from the net. He *loves* The Family Guy. Early this summer I bought him a Stewie mint tin he buys lifesavers or mints for and refills. Art for William's is a bit more difficult. He and Emily both prefer my work to anyone elses for things I make them.

Emily... well.. she's making birthday lists already. (her birthday is in July), and one of the things on her list is a lunchbox. We have *several* lunchboxes in the house. I buy a new one every year, and use them as purses sometimes. Nope. None of those will do. She wants me to MAKE her one. In fabric. My darling daughter must be unique. What I'm thinking of is teaching her a few more embroidery techniques, and how to do chicken scratch. Chicken scratch is a type of crossstitch/needle point done over gingham, and letting her design the base fabric.
Currently avoiding work with: another doily. I figured it out. It's the math of them. It entrances me figuring out how to make it work and stay round. Still don't use doilies. I *think* I may have figured out how to do a pentacle doily which would be a nifty gift for a few people I know. I'll play with it after I finish this piece. I accidently spilled coffee on the white one I made a few months ago that I was planning to send to Naet, so I guess I'll coffee dye it and find someone who wants a faintly beige doily.

-Shala

Okay.. I admit, I haven't finished my halter top yet. I got bored with it, and it's very nearly done.

But on the subject of "Why didn't I think of that"
Book sock for an address book. Okay, I don't use address books. I'm bad that way, but you know those little duct tape notebooks Kim goes through a lot of? I've got a stack of mini comp books waiting to be decorated and I can't find my hook and loop tape tabs I use to keep them closed. I was thinking of diving into my stretch lace stash and probably will for a couple, but I can whip up a sock for one in nothing flat. Crochet of course.

Oh I *do* like this idea.

Craftster rocks my docs. Which I'm not wearing today. I'm wearing my black and pink converse chucks.

As I've mentioned before, I've got stacks of torn comics. I can't stand to throw them out, but some of them are torn past being able to read. Usually I try to make sure the comics get into boxes, but when they don't, they get stepped on, or the cats run across them or whatever and they get mangled. Plus whenever there is a 25¢ or 75¢ preview comic I get several copies to cut up.
A lot of these have images I can use for duct tape stuff like duct tape bracelets, purses, and mini comp notebooks, and my offer is still open for anyone in the purse swap who wants me to turn some into stickers with my handy dandy xyron, but there will still be unusable pages. I think I'm going to use those for lucky stars.
Emily is a catalog/magazine junkie. She likes the shiny pages for origami, paper airplanes, for cutting out to make her own wish books, and for cutting out images to glue to ANYTHING. She's so totally my daughter that way.
The pages from old phone books are also ideal for a lot paper folding things because they are so thin they work wonderfully for making smaller models with.

Earlier I was looking at a snowflake Emily made and thought to myself that half of a snowflake would be pretty to make a crown out of. So she and I will be playing with that later.