Hi all

Unsurprisingly most of my stuff has moved to Facebook. I might revamp this blog at some point. Until then, feel free to friend me over at www.facebook.com/Novena.

OK, so my manager's resigning to start a baking business. And so of course I get her for secret santa ($10). And I spend my cash on vodka to infuse - as always. But I actually got through her farewell parties without crafting anything, and felt guilty.

So during her farewell party, our Assoc.Director made a top 10 list of things to miss at work, one of which being our boss' 40 page handwritten faxes from Japan. (He's an un-tech, old-school University Professor so when he goes abroad we fax him his emails and he faxes us back 20-40 pages of really bad handwriting response. Yes, it's cumbersome, but he's a sweetheart and worth it.)

So I decided that she shouldn't be bereft of fax.
So here's the pendant, on top of the fax I made it out of.

Here's a close-up, you can sort of see his handwriting in the rose

Here's a really good shot of his handwriting:

You can kind of see it says "letters to Forbes"

We were recycling old stationary in the fax machine, so this got printed out on good quality bond paper, which made it perfect! I pained the handwritten portions with Lumiere, and just went for a darker acrylic wash on the backs.

The rose is from this tutorial I found on Craftster: http://craftershock.com/blog/2008/11/13/tutorial-paper-flower-table-setting/

The 'leaves' are just quilled spirals - I tried to make separate leaves and stick them on, but they got crumpled and gross, and I was strapped for time.

I made the bail out of some spare copper wire - the 'chain' is embroidery floss which I crimped into a bronze-colored clasp. Also - ran out of time.

Everything here is mod-podged to death, so it won't survive a bathtub, but should survive a rainstorm. It's pretty sturdy.

People say I should sell these. Dunno who wants a pendant with my boss' handwriting out of it, but I really do like how this turned out.

- Novena*

Just came back from the Hoop Path retreat (think hoop dancing with meditation), and this was my costume for the hoop ball:


I wanted something to match my blue and green hoop (brand new, for travelling on teeny puddlejumper planes, thanks a lot stupid AA) and so I contemplated a lot of things, and found I really missed my spider ball, which got lost ages ago, so I figured - why not do some spiders I can keep?

Here's the full effect:



No pictures of me hooping in the thing, as we had a power outage and for an hour had to make our own music by stomping on the bleachers - which was rather fun, especially after someone handed me a cowbell and someone else joined in with a saxophone.

Here are the Cooper Street girls - the chicks I was housing with at the time.

On the way to the ball, dressed as above, five of us were in the car. It was a fearsome storm and you practically couldn't see, there were no road lights, and the only light was the really BRIGHT lightning. And someone in the back seat goes "This is just like the start of a horror movie!" And we all freaked out a little because it *really* was. A little scary, but the fun kind of scary.

Did anyone ever see this bag?:


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Now, it didn't come out perfect at all, but it impressed a LOT of people, and my co worker was VERY happy with it, which is the important part in my opinion.



the lining:


Soo glad that bag turned out well, and sooo glad it is over. This took a week of late nights, three discarded bag ideas, and four unsuccessful paint jobs before I got to something that even looks like a manhole. My co worker is going to send me a pic from Tokyo - he loves it to pieces.

Not bad for what was supposed to be a gag gift.

Yes, yes, I know. I've been in the land of the lost, and most of that has been the result of a very dying computer. Some of it has been due to massive RSI issues, which put my hands out of commission for a good part of February, and ensured that I am not taking writing classes this semester.

Thankfully, my old computer will find new life as part of my Mom's computer, and my snazzy new laptop will help me update all my juicy crafting life. And my hands are at a manageable stage of dexterity once again, thanks to my fleece gauntlets, my wonderful chiropractor, and massive amounts of yoga and hooping.

In the meantime, since fashion counts as craft, and this exhibit will most certainly inspire *something*, I mention this exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy.
http://www.metmuseum.org/special/superheroes/index.asp

Being that I am attending the Hoop Path retreat in North Carolina at the end of June:
http://www.hooppath.com/ and that there will be a Hoopers Ball (and that personally hooping makes me feel like a superhero - probably because it's the only thing I've stuck with for this long!) I will probably use something from here for my Hoopers Ball outfit! Which of course I will post here.

In the meantime, what have I been doing?
1. Modifying my travel hoop a whopping FOUR TIMES till I finally got the right balance of foamy cushion and relative lightness (Not to mention shiny hoop tape bling!)

2. Taking an embroidery class at Etsy Labs : http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5029420§ion_id=5408206
Which has inspired me to rescue my most beloved tshirt and create a jacket - instructions to follow.

3. Travel Hoop case out of a pair of old jeans - tutorial to be posted on Tribe once I get the directions clear enough.

4. Creating stock for my Etsy Store, and helping Mom start hers. My Etsy store is of course novenastar.etsy.com, but there is nothing there yet, so no point in looking there till after the summer.

5. Storyteller Tarot Deck: This is a tarot deck based on my unpublished original stories - so I can look at a card and never have to look up what it is supposed to mean, as I will just *know*. This will be major and minor arcana - no copping out, and if I ever clear the copyrights, I will be selling these. (If I don't, than I will be selling Oracle cards, that will be a little different, and no less amusing).

Well, that's all for me for now. Pictures of current projects forthcoming, as soon as I configure my laptop to accept my phone pictures. Bye all, and yes, I shall be posting a little more often. Just to prove I'm not dead *just* yet :)

Since I'm sort of proud of them, I thought I'd post my Samhain presents that I made for Aradia:



The bag is a Jareth bag - from the Labyrinth. The different color eyes are because Bowie has different color eyes. They are kinda huge, but they didn't look right any smaller. It was good that I had a 9 hour train ride to Buffalo, because I had half-finished this ages ago, and couldn't figure out how to get the face on! Yay for felt, HUGE needles, and fun fur yarn!

The scarf is a 13 scarf (I always name scarves and bags for the amount of stitches they start with - this scarf is loomed, so it's exactly 13 pegs across). It's double-knit on a Knifty Knitter long loom, the yellow one, cut since I used only 13 pegs, I think it's 8 inches across. No idea how long it is, cause Mom took a look at it and said "How long exactly do you think scarves get?" and my answer was "Till the end of this ball of yarn."

Its crazy looking yarn, and in my opinion looks like something cats puke up after they have been in your yarn basket, but it is THE SOFTEST thing you have ever felt.

I'm doing some beading this weekend, because my double-pearl ring snapped (grey/black and white blister pearls) so I need to find some tiger tail this weekend. I also have always wanted to do a seal ring (the egyptians do them, you roll the cylinder in wax and it makes a printed seal) so as long as I am making rings, I figured I would do one of those as well. We'll see how it goes.

Not that there aren't other neat drugs out there. And I'm not anti or pro drugs one way or another. I am however very pro-creativity.

There are so many people out there who swear they are uncreative and it makes me want to swat them upside the head. Because that's vastly untrue. It's like saying you can't shit. Of course you can, there's just some sort of blockage in there. Go eat some prunes and drink some warm water. You'll be fine. I'm afraid that I cannot create a site to be your creativity prune tea. Sadly, like the rest of us, everyone will have to unblock themselves.

This site is however a place for the results of my own unblocking - where the idea came from, where it went to, what worked, what failed miserably, and what ended up good enough to swap or sell. For the purposes of inspiring, or just sharing good ideas, or just seeing how crazy crafty things are born.

Since this is thankfully the tail end of the Holiday season - I offer up this thought.
The only way to earn your wings is to make them.


Etsy store forthcoming. In the meantime - consider doing something crafty with your leftover wrapping paper. Only the good stuff - feel free to throw the crap out. But Origami stars are easy (google or go here - http://www.geocities.com/mmukhopadhyay/creation/star.html) I've seen people resin them, or you can just take a large sewing needle and treat them like beads and thread them with embroidery floss. Cheap. Neat. Easy. My kind of craft.