hgflower

not so much crafty

2006-11-01T01:39:00.000-08:00

but I just had to share the BEST WEEKEND EVER in vegas story with everyone :) I went to vegas this past weekend and I was the luckiest I've ever been. Probably for the rest of my life. If you're going to vegas and don't mind shelling out 44 bucks for the new Price is Right Live show at Bally's, I totally suggest you go for it! Tom and I went for the hell of it, and we had tons of fun doing the practice questions with our little controllers. Once the game started, they called my name first!!! It was surreal, and since I was the first one down, I got to pick my podium (and of course I chose green!). Our host Roger Lodge (of Blind Date) came out and started the bidding on some flatware. I got to bid last and I listened to the crowd to bid a dollar, which ended up being closest to the actual price!! I ended up winning all of my prizes (I was the only one the entire game who won their entire showcase) and when I got to claim my prizes at the end, I took it all for cash value :) In the end I ended up winning over 800 from the Price is Right, and I even won an additional 250 from a nickle slot the next day! Usually when I come home from vegas, I'm either breaking even (if I'm lucky) or down about 100. soooooo.. yea.. I'll never be this lucky again.. although I will try my luck again this weekend when I go back to vegas with my family!

get your mc liners on!

2006-09-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

thanks to veganlunchbox for the link :)

more cd's!

2006-09-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

so i recently participated in the craftster magic yarn ball swap, and one of the items i sent in my yarn ball was a set of cd's in a handmade cd case :) i'm a little sad that i didn't take more pictures of everything that i sent but i was too excited to start wrapping it inside the ball for my own good!

so my partner has a love for pirates, johnny depp style, and i had a rolling stones cover that featured mr. depp that i was saving for a future craft! so i let inspiration guide me and this is the cd case that i came up with. pretty simple but i loved it!

inside with johnny

and my cd mixes that i'm addicted to making for swaps.. grey's anatomy and music from local california bands :) all i can say is that sharpies and clip art are my friends in the decorating of these covers!

i'm such a huge grey's nerd.. i already have my season 2 dvds (which aren't out in stores for another 2 days!!!) and i planned a season 2 veiwing party at my house to get everyone caught up in time for the season 3. i made postcards for ppl to save the date using the same picture as the grey's cd

in the mood for chinese food??

2006-08-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

so i wanted to add a small thing to toyshirt's package and he mentioned that he likes to order take out food whenever he relaxes. so i made a tiny take out box magnet :) not really that useful cause i put the magnet on the inside of the box since i can't find my hot glue gun anywhere, and this was the only way i knew for sure it would stay connected to the actual box.so here it is in all its glory!

and i know the "food" doesn't really look that appetizing

and for a size reference

and the cd cover that goes with my condom robot :)

more swap goodies!

2006-07-30T17:35:00.000-07:00

once again, i couldn't help myself and joined yet another craftster swap. this time was an exciting challenge though because i signed up for the boy-girl swap where we would be crafting for our partner of the opposite sex. i got toyshirts as my partner, so ian.. if you're post stalking and checking up on my blog look away now before you ruin your surprise!

i, in my usual craftster ways, asked MANY questions before figuring out what i wanted to make. one thing that i knew for sure i wanted to do was a travel knitting tin because ian has many quotes about boys and knitting in his signature. sooooo.. even though he said that i probably shouldn't do anything knit based for him, i couldn't help myself. mainly because i'm selfish and i really wanted to do this project. plus it gave me an excuse to buy a pack of fine tip sharpies :p

so here is the knitting tin in all its glory!
the front:

everything included inside the tin which includes two handmade cable needles (i forget the sizes), measuring tape, scissors, nail file, paper, pencil, stitch markers (shrinky dinks are my friend!), a VERY strong magnet, an extra safety pin to use as a stitch holder, a small crochet hook, stitch abbreviations, and handmade needle gauge :

a close up of the stitch markers and the needle gauge :

and how everything fits inside the tin :

my other project for ian is an ashtray that has the logo of his preferred tobacco (he rolls his own cigarettes). this came out a bit more novice than i had hoped for. it was my first time painting glass and i bought the ashtray from a goodwill store :

and finally, i made him a duct tape robot of love :)

but he's a special robot.. he's a condom dispenser!

haha, okay. that's it! i'm probably going to make a mixed cd to go along with all this swag. i'm hoping that he likes everything i made. maybe if i have the time i'll make a chinese take out magnet or something.. i hope he isn't let down by what he gets cause i asked so many damned questions and then i ended up making things that i think are fun :p

my first attempt at a magic wallet. and my dog :)

2006-07-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

i'll post my latest attempt at trying to sleep here. tomorrow i'm going to have lunch with a friend who i need to give some money to, and being the crafty gal that i am, i decided to try and make one of those "magic" wallets to give the money in. i bought all the fabric with the intention of recreating another wallet that i have, and i still have plenty of fabric left to try that out with at another time.

so this wallet is mostly hand sewn.. which i'm not used to doing so my fingers are incredibly sore at the moment.

as you can see, i tried to make it with the outside pockets for various cards.. and the first layer is a bit crooked

plain back. i got too frustrated trying to make another 2 card pockets.

the magic in action!!

and finally, to show the thickness of the wallet:

if you clicked to see my dog, sorry i didn't put her picture up first. this is my old doxie (12 yrs) enjoying an old pillow for a bed. i made an envelope type pillow case for it so that we can wash it easily from random fabric i had bought to make some pj's out of. but of course, i didn't buy enough :(

ok! thanks for looking :) when craftster comes back up i will be cross posting this!

some stash busting

2006-03-07T18:35:00.000-08:00

was done this week for my "what you listen to while crafting" cd swap :)

for my first partner, i made her a mix of songs based on genre's she liked, along with some ska since i think everyone would enjoy ska if they listened to it more :p besides, her fiance apparently likes it, and i had alot of fun listening to this mix!

for the small craft, i made her wrist warmers off of the irish hiking scarf pattern : found here http://wineandneedles.blogspot.com/2004/12/wrist-warmer-pattern.html
i used cream and sugar cotton yarn, i bought this on an impulse cause i liked the colors, then i never used it. :sigh:
i really like how the cover came out though, i found an image i liked of a rude boy, and i used my sharpies to trace the image onto the cover :) and i had an extra rbf sticker lying around which will now go to her fiance, cause really.. who doesn't love rbf?! (btw, i just scored tickets to their dvd taping show in fullerton on 3/23! they're playing 2 full sets for the recording!! how psyched am i!?)

for my second partner, i've really become addicted to grey's anatomy. like, seriously addicted, as in, i have to show this awesome show to everyone i know, and i LOVE the music they use.. so i've been making tons of playlists with just these songs. thank goodness my second partner expressed an interest in this show cause that's what she's getting :) my 3rd official grey's anatomy playlist (see.. i told you i was addicted.. i've made 3 cd's!!) i love that my printer is cooperating enough with me to allow me to print up the picture for the cd cover, cause lord knows i'm not talented enough to do something too creative with this cover..

i know it's random to do sushi knitting to go along with this cd.. i should've done something more grey's related. but i wanted to knit some more from my stash, plus this girl does enjoy sushi :) PLUS i've always wanted to knit sushi!! to make it seem not so plain and useless, i glued magnets to the backs of these babies.. although i probably should've used my glue gun (it ran away somewhere :( sob!) so i used gorilla snot (glue) and it doesn't seem to be too sturdy, so i hope she's gentle with her new magnet set. since i wanted to make sure these magnets didn't move around too much during the shipping, i made a small flat magnet for them to rest on (the front i made another tissue paper picture.. supposed to be under the sea with little fish blobbies.. but they look kinda retarded) then i boxed the whole set in a bandage box. yea, not that pretty, but it gets the job done, plus this way i can package everything right now.. otherwise i'll never get it done.
so it's off to the post office tomorrow after school to ship these swap packages out :) yay me!

the tin is finished!

2006-02-15T16:09:00.000-08:00

here are my final pictures :) i'm kinda sad to be parting with my tin, but it's too late now.. in the mail as we speak!

anyhoo, i figured out the best way was to write everything i wanted with a sharpie onto more white tissue paper, then add it to the outside and it would just blend in with everything. this way i wouldn't have to worry about fudging up the tin with my crappy writting. i printed up a couple different fonts/sizes of the word "imagine" since my own handwriting wasn't cutting it. then i was able to trace the image, and i think it came out pretty good! although the picture is a bit blurry.. you get the idea

it looked a bit bare and boring just white with black writing, so i added some fresh leaves to the top, cause.. i like green and white together.. that's my whole color scheme in my room! and yea, i like simple images too, i thought it went well :)

the bottom of the tin ( i didn't bother taking a side shot for the other quotes; one says "there's no heaven" the other "no hell below us") so that you could see what i meant about writing the quotes on the bottom half around the tin. you might also notice that i added more paper to the inside of the tin to fill in the empty spaces in the back. looks much more fleshed out :)

and finally, i wanted to use alot of white to make it seem like the quote was on a cloud, but then that got to be a bit too much work. i like my blue sky and mountain too much to cover it up with a cloud!

and that's it! i picked some flowers from my mom's garden and used the leave for the lid, and the flowers are inside to scent the entire tin. hopefully it's still a good scent when it arrives! i wanna say they're a type of jasmine flower, but either way. i love the smell :)

my only regret with this tin is that i free-handed the bottom and it didn't look that great.. basically said what the tin was for/when it was created and my name on it; my group of four trees in the right hand corner, you can see the string too much between the trees.. should've had it going under the bushy part instead of over..; and the very back, ugly protruding butt part of the tin that props the lid up. le sigh.. i have to figure out a better way to do that next time. anyways, enjoy!

not knitting related

2006-02-15T10:39:00.000-08:00

but definitely craft related :)
i'll eventually get pictures of my finished skirt being worn, but for now i'm excited to present my in progress altoid tin reconstruction!!
this is for the altoid tin swap on craftster (of course) and my theme is relaxation. my partner likes to meditate in forest'y type evnironments, and she enjoys music from the beatles, particularly "imagine". so here is my creation!
materials used:
tissue paper
regular paper
paint
mod podge
glitter
it's a tiny forest that she can take wherever so she can relax and meditate, and i'm going to write quotes from "imagine" onto the tin. i don't have pictures of the outside, but it's just completely covered in white tissue paper, and i plan to write on the top "imagine" and then on the bottom half of the tin going around (if that makes sense) "imagine there's no heaven. it's easy if you try. no hell below us.
then on the inside i want to put "above us only sky" ontop of the mountain/sky scene

this is an inside view so that you can have a better view of my pond

and to better show my pop-up action :)

i couldn't figure out a better way to make the lid only partially open so that it's propped up.. so there's an ugly growth of tissue paper on the back that looks bad.. so hopefully she never looks at my tin's butt that often. it will make her sad :(

tadaa!!!

2006-01-22T17:43:00.000-08:00

as promised, it's picture time!!

this is my beautiful skirt in it's unblocked glory, hanging out on my bedroom floor :)

here's the top that i'm considering wearing with my new skirt. haha, it figures that last month i bought sooooo many different tops to go with my yarn, and then i decide that this top goes best (and i had it all the time...) on the bright side, this means that i'll get more money for yarn when i return all the tops that i did buy

close up of the top with said skirt. colors go well, don't you think? i like it.. i think. i'm too lazy to go shopping for anything else though

and here it is.. blocking. i'm hoping that i do this right. it's making me quite sad though that this yarn smells like wet dog while soggy.. i think i should've added some woolite or scented something to the water. at least i know for next time :)

will update as soon as skirt is done blocking! i can't wait to try this on after it's blocked to see what the difference is!

i'm done!!!!

2006-01-22T11:02:00.000-08:00

i finally finished!!! well, not completely. i still need to weave in the ends, and block it. but i'm not doing the belt/loops because well.. i have a giant ass that will hold up this skirt without the need of a belt! plus, all the tops i like wearing would be covering that part anyways, so who needs it?
will post pictures eventually :)

so now i'm trying to figure out what else i'd like to knit next. i'm still contemplating the olympics, and i have 5 skeins of coal and 1 of asparagus from knitpicks that i bought on a whim. maybe another skirt? but this time with my own design?? (all black on the ruffle, plain body. green just above ruffle in a celtic band? too... ugly???) or maybe make cheeseylove from knitty but without sleeves since i don't have enough yarn.. or should i just cave in and order more?! but i don't have a job... and i'm going to vegas... and i like to eat in vegas......... hrmmm.. maybe i need to get a job again :( i hate not having money go into my bank account. it's depressing really. i think i just need to work up a bigger cash bubble next time.

:sigh: where was i? oh yea! excitment at ending my skirt :) i think i should dub it the grey's anatomy skirt rather than lauren since that's what i was watching like 99% of the time i was knitting it (even up to about 130am last night) i LOVE this show! i'm very excited that tonight is sunday so i can have my GA fix!! how lame am i? haha, but i can't decide who derek should end up with.. or if he's just a giant ass who deserves no one. but it's hard to hate an ass as gorgeous as patrick dempsey!

ok. i'm cutting myself off before i blab onto another topic. will be back later with pictures :)

lauren

2006-01-17T00:43:00.000-08:00

so i'm part of the lauren knitalong on craftster (pattern found at knittingfog.net) and my goal is to finish this skirt by feb 1 since i plan on wearing it on my trip to vegas (feb 3-6; coldplay, avenue q)
i cast on jan 2, and here are my progress photos:

and as of yesterday, i'm currently out of yarn (awaiting my next order from knitpicks as we speak) and i'm about 32 cm's in.

welcome!!

2006-01-17T00:17:00.000-08:00

to my very first blog :) hopefully i keep up with this blog, at least better than i keep up with my live journal. i'll confess though, since this is going to be my intended knitting blog, i probably will keep up with it!
haha, i really am like a 75 yr old retired woman.. living in a 23 yr old asian woman's body. my life really isn't that interesting, but i am extremely addicted to craftster, and almost all crafts.

soooooo... to get things started, here are all the past items that i've knitted (that i have pictures of)