I made a thing!

During my lunch break at work today, I was given my very first crochet lesson. My coworker brought in the ball of neon green yarn that she used for the brain slug and said it was mine to practice on; she even gave me a crochet hook to use!

It took me a while to figure out how to grip everything, and my stitches are still uneven, but I only had fifteen minutes of training and practice! I didn't try anything exotic - I started with a chain. Then I added a chain to my chain, and made a strip, or something. I don't know the fancy lingo, but I made a green thing today that did not exist before I made it!

I wanted Horton to model it for the picture, but he refused. He wanted to play with the dangly ends instead. What is it with cats and string??

I will be taking a few more quick lunchtime lessons and learning how to make a round thing. And maybe a square thing. Hooray for making things!

New acquisitions

Last week, I did not have these two things. I think that my life is more complete this week.

The little green guy is a crocheted version of a Brain Slug from Futurama. When I learned that my new coworker is a very adept knitter and crocheter, I showed her this pattern and asked if maybe she could teach me how to crochet sometime, maybe over some lunch breaks, so I could make one. I've had the page bookmarked for months, and if I could ever learn how, I was thinking of using a crocheted brain slug as a Halloween costume, or sporting one in lieu of a fez on formal night on the next nerd cruise. My coworker printed out the pattern, mumbled something about likely trouble finding the right green, then left for the weekend.

I arrived at the lab on Monday and my boss warned me that my office had "an infestation", and I should be careful going in there. His tone suggested that it wasn't anything that required a can of Raid, but I couldn't think what in the world he was getting at... until I saw my new green friend sitting beside my computer monitor! I wasn't expecting her to make me one! Now, more than ever, I need to learn to crochet. Just imagine the possibilities!

And now, the book. The massive tome (8 pounds!!) comes with a long and convoluted story involving Barnes and Noble, their horrible computer system, and a delay of over a month in getting to me, but I'll spare you most of it. Essentially, they put it on a sale so good that it wiped out their inventory much more quickly than they expected, but their computer let people keep buying it anyway. I got emails telling me it was delayed, and then I called for more information and the computer had cancelled my order for me and not told me about it! It was worth fighting for, though, because I got this baby for $15, thanks to a friend on one of my message boards who gave us a heads-up about the sale. It's currently on sale at Amazon.com for $94.50, with its original price set at $150. I wanted it the second it was released two years ago, but couldn't justify the cost, so I am giddy about finally having my hands on it!

It's 1200 pages worth of Simpsons episodes broken down into trivia, quotes, pictures, summaries, and character profiles. I'm a huge Simpsons fan, to an almost-embarrassing degree. I don't have the seasons on DVD yet, but someday I'll splurge and buy a huge boxed set. This book will tide me over until then, I suspect, because it's going to take a while to explore. I remember getting Bart Simpson's Guide to Life* when I was a teenager, and finding more funny bits in it each time I paged through it, and I hope this book brings me the same giggles. 

*I just read the whole Wikipedia article, and that book came out in 1993, almost twenty years ago. Oh. my. GOD. I am old. And the Simpsons is awesome to have lasted so long!

Playing with glass

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Thing a Day 2012, tiny envelopes

I love the excuse to hang out and make stuff. I think if I didn't have a job and laundry to worry about, I'd waste a ton of time on crafty things, because it's fun and the results are usually worth it. And if they're not, they're at least something to learn from for the next time.

Thanks to the popular time-sucking website, Pinterest, I have a whole pile of crafts I want to try, and one of them was making tiny gift-card envelopes out of pretty paper. This one did not necessitate a trip to Michael's, because I have some wrapping paper and scrapbook paper, and plenty of glue, making this a very cheap activity!

While I was able to find free envelope templates online, my printer refused to print, so I was stuck making my own by tracing a gift card and trying to copy the template off my computer screen. Here's my result:

I traced it onto cardboard to make it easier to use, and then I cut my shape out of a page of pretty scrapbook paper, folded it up, and stuck it together after swiping a glue stick across the essential parts.

I tested it with a gift card, and it's a little tight - I can get the card in, but can barely get it back out, so the recipient will need to rip the envelope. That's fine with me, since it's not meant to be a keepsake or anything, but I'll probably remake my template and give it a little more space before I try making any more. I don't want people to have to wrestle with their presents!

Thing a Day 2012, Valentine's Day Card

Last year, I made a Valentine's Day card for my 96-year-old grandmother as one of my Thing-A-Day crafts. She's now my 97-year-old grandmother, and still loves getting cards, so I did it again.

It's a plain card from Michael's, with some cutouts from scrapbook paper. Inside, I glued a fuzzy purple heart and stamped "love you". I'm planning on writing her a long letter to go with this card, and I'll also send her my origami sea creatures, because I think she'd get a kick out of them. I'll have to send this card to my mom, who will bring it to Grandmaman, because she's in a hospital room these days and doesn't really have a mailing address. It's complicated, but it'll get there.

Thing a Day 2012, Origami things

I'm getting a slow start compared to some of my online friends who are really talented artists, but my first things for Thing-A-Day 2012 are some origami sea creatures.

I remember, back in Grade 5, having to make hundreds of paper cranes to decorate the stage for our Christmas pageant, because our theme was "peace" and we'd just read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes in English class. I got so good at it I could make them with my eyes closed, and every now and then when I come across a square of paper, I start folding it into a crane. Sadly, cranes are all I know how to make.

Luckily for me, there are hundreds of websites with detailed origami diagrams - some even have videos - and with their help I was able to make some things that are definitely not cranes. I don't know these new folds by heart yet, but they were both pretty easy.

Thing-A-Day 2012

Just one more sleep until February gets here (barring a nap, of course), which means it's time to register for Thing-A-Day 2012! It's a fun way to push yourself into creativity mode by creating one thing every day for the month of February. Anything counts: crafts, recipes, painting, poetry, photography, even some good doodles on a Post-it note. All you have to do is spend a few minutes each day creating something new, and share it with the other participants (or not, but seeing everyone's creations is so much fun). The goal is to create a little time for yourself every day where you can be creative and use your imagination and make something interesting.

I'm going to try very hard to do as many days as possible, but I'm going to be forgiving of myself if I get too busy. The idea is for the creations to be little things, not days-long artistic endeavors, but I don't want to spend a bunch of money at Michael's so I can make crafty crap just for the sake of making crafty crap, and then have to find a place for it or throw it out. This challenge isn't supposed to be stressful, so if it becomes a burden, I will let it go.

I will share my Things on my blog, so stay tuned...