My costume is finished!

I’m Bjork when she wore that dead swan dress to the Oscars a few years ago. Now all I need is a baby to carry around with me and I’ll punch anyone who tries to take a picture of me.

I stumbled upon this Toy-A-Day blog when I google image searched Clockwork Orange due to someone claiming they wore top hats and I could have sworn they were bowler hats. Anyway… this blog publishes an downloadable paper toy a day in a high res pdf, much like the readymech ones I posted about here awhile back.

here’s some more nice fabric that i badly sewed into a shirt the other nite.

i salvaged it from an ill fitting dress. i wish i had more of it so i can try again :(

remember when i posted about being addicted to making these readymech paper dolls a while back? now they are back with a bunch of downloadable pdfs for making your own functional pinhole camera! pick em up picklehead, they look nice.

i bought another pack of weird socks in one of those mission dollar stores.

this one has a garbage truck on it and says DUMP. um, okay. and then there is this one
it is of a bikini wearing bear that is rock climbing i think. and it’s sporting my favorite look, no pants

i also picked up some cool fabric:

young was jealous of my dia de los muertos find and tried to guilt me into giving it to him cause he claimed that i “wasn’t going to do anything with it anyway.” bitch. to prove him wrong i spent about 7 hours today making an unflattering tanktop out of it.

man, my sewing is so fucked up. fits like wrapping paper. i really don’t know how to sew anything outside of pillow cases which might explain why it’s so boxy. oh well, at least i didn’t give him the satisfaction. and today wasn’t a complete waste, my drum teacher taught me how to play some fun missy elliot sounding shhh…

squaresville is kinda awesome. i’ve noticed im in a better mood these days and have more energy. last night i went to the knockout for bingo night with friends and the bartender gave me the gasface when i asked for cranberry juice. haha. our table was the winners circle, conceit one twice, mary once, rachel once and i won the blackout round so i got double prizes (plants) and 2 drink tix which i gave to conceit.

at the beginning of may i told myself i would wait till june to drink again, but now i don’t care either way. everyone was drunk last night except me and i still had fun. the last time i went to the knockout there was this awesome drunk dude wearing an ipod who was singing with crazy enthusiasm and doing all sorts of fist pumping and knee bending. here is a picture that ej took of him:

i wanted to imagine that he was listening to that peter cetera song from karate kid, the one about fighting for my/your honor. he seemed like someone from that era of inspirational teen movies to me.

anyway, i made more rings from railroad pins. seems like i’ve replaced my biggest vice with little compulsions such as ring making and nonstop green and white tea drinking. i also watched 5 harry potter movies in a week 1/2 span because young made me watch that last one in the theater and i remembered that i couldn’t follow it, so i started with the first and kept watching one after another.

san diegan, kansas cityan, wp, illinois central railroad, brooklyn locomotive works

this one i couldn’t mess with though

decided to mess up my railroad pin collection and turn them into rings

figured i’d get better use out of them

sorry i haven’t been updating as much as i used to. i used to blog from my old job during bored idle moments and hardly ever at home. not much of those opportunities now with my newish job, but at least i am content between the hours of 8 and 5 now thanks to good company (pun intended).

here’s more pics from the last couple of weeks. bay meadows, bingo night at the knockout and other neighborhood bars, roasted chicken and baseball on tv all day with pallies, handmade gifts from friends and me forced into making button rings after getting into a seinfeldian fight with another crafter on etsy, and me freaking out at a $4 gas sign before a long road trip. don’t worry about my mental health, i’m fully aware of my fickleness/neuroticisms.

young started working w/ felt again and me a letter a with a bunch of cutesy adornments.

i’ve asked him to make me a hammerhead shark biting a manta ray in felt form next but he rolled his eyes at that. i still dream.

i got into a fight with some paranoid imbalanced seller on etsy.com who accused me of not having a coupon code for a 10% discount when i really did. i got so mad that i canceled my order because she was so accusatory and passive aggresive bitchy with me and transparent passive-aggressive behavior make me nuts. so blah blah blah i told her off and said i’d rather give my money to a non-bitchy seller, etc. but then she put up a bunch of cool stuff on her store a few days later that i wanted badly, so i asked young to buy stuff for me so i didn’t have to eat crow under my gov name/shipping address. i felt so dirty, like i had an addiction to drugs except instead of drugs it was some cutesy diy crud that was quality and ridiculously underpriced. it was like that one seinfeld episode with the fruit bodega where they got banned and asked non-banned folk to buy bananas for them.

anyway, so i bought $50 worth of button rings and necklaces from her under young and then realized that shit is so easy to make once i stared at it. thanks to britex for introducing me to my new friend mr. fiskars diagonal cutter. this thing is amazing i can cut anything with this, weirds me out that i haven’t seen an infomercial for it cutting through cars and frying pans. i’m glad i realized i can make this stuff myself but i still am mad at her and asshurt that i gave her more money after she accused me of trying to bilk her out of 90 cents. i blame my moms’ excessive pride genes. she was a diva during the war.

sometimes when i am suffering at the gym i ask myself why i am doing this. i think most people want to get in shape or drop a few pounds so they can wear swimwear in public without shame or look good in a cocktail dress or something. me, i realized i am exercising so i can fit into my robot blouse again which i put together 4 years ago.

i think sometimes sentimentality is my only motivation for making a concerted effort. sometimes. i know i can just pull the buttons off and put em on a new shirt, but i am too lazy to thread a needle. not too lazy i guess to feel the burn. no secret really, i’m a fickle one.

my drum lessons lately have been really constructive. i look forward to them every week, although there has been a few hiatuses recently with my teacher going to SXSW and just gigging a lot in general. lately our lessons have just been both of us on drum sets at the same time playing the same rhythm with him doing some fancy variation or drum fill intermittently and giving me a measure of time to mimic the exact thing. it’s very loose, i’m not always perfect but i am appreciating this kind of method because most of the drummers i admire show dexterity and can improvise off the pulse. i think it helps me learn creatively and intuitively instead of focusing too much on numbers and technical details. anyway, this weekend i upgraded to a better paiste high-hat and went into guitar center and got a used sabian crash and that made a world of difference. i love the way my drum kit sounds now and i spent most of sunday afternoon playing to the first sabbath album which probably made the neighboring restaurant hate me. i don’t care, i’ve heard them blast trance music really loud when i was trying to get some sleep one time. oh going into guitar center bummed me out a little though because there were 10 year olds being badasses on the drums and not only was it intimidating, but i felt at my age i was past the learning curve. i need more variety in my arsenal to son these brats. just kidding, i love kids that rock and that one jack black movie with the kids and the rock. dude my nephew shreds on Proud Mary, makes me a proud auntie. (Queue Whitney Houston) I believe the children are the future…

finally got around to making that Slap Shot fan-art T i said i would a month or 2 back. it’s a little messed up since i used iron-on transfer but i’m gonna make a better one in the near future and hopefully find a tomboy nerd who can appreciate a hilarious & subversive dudestravagent violent hockey flick from the 70s, give it to her and make her day. excuse the mediocre pic, young took it.

hi, i’m taking a break in the desert. here’s a belated birthday gift i made for my favorite mexican

today i saw the video for Sensual Seduction and i laughed and i laughed.

serg asked me how to decoupage furniture the other day and i didn’t know. this morning i did a search on flickr and came across this table

now i have to know. i think vintage maps would look nice.

damn. i had a really bad day yesterday. my dentist visit was painful and my face hurts today. and i’m trying to forget how about my weak insurance coverage and the $$$ i dropped.

anyway, i want to do this to my bike:

but i want a pink and brown color scheme. i bought a cannondale off my boss for $50 a few months ago but the frame is burgundy which is probably my least favorite color. i’m surprised that dude only used 25 ft of tape and it took him 15 hours total. my stomach hurts.

i know you might have seen this 2 years ago, but wow.

i can’t even comprehend how anyone could mix two cassettes together but he has audio clips of some mixes he’s made on this. here is the guy’s site

i’m addicted to these readymech things. you print them out, cut and fold them.
i put 2 together last night and printed 2 more.

i don’t think i can stop

i was going through my comics the other day and i stumbled upon this ridiculous drawing of an octopus driving a car in disguise (by dan james, ghostshrimp press). it was so absurd and hilarious to me that i decided i wanted to put it on a shirt (my only blank tee).

unfortunately, i got some ink near the collar and made the amateur move of trying to wipe it off with water which made the blob bigger and uglier. i also should have done more thatn one pass cause it’s too light in some areas. i guess i’ll try again when i find another blank tee.

put together a simple collage along the same lines as these for a belated birthday gift

oops i forgot to mention that i finally learned how to screenprint.

here’s me and caso’s first attempt at doing that:

and here is a picture where i try to see if i can make myself cry on purpose

like actors do

The SF Craft Mafia is having a trunk show this Saturday with a mess of vendors selling DIY handmade goods. It should be awesome. They are offering free craft workshops and the first 50 people that attend will get a goodie bag.

click the image for the list of vendors

i think i am running out of stuff to blog about. here is a collage i sent to my friend porous a few weeks ago.
i made the doors flap open to reveal this happy bejeweled bikini guy:

doors closed

doors open

check out porous’ www.owltooth.com site. he’s got this rad diorama he made on there called

“The Great Coke Machine in the Sky”

he’s showing some new stuff this friday Nov 17 @ parklife so come out if you like his stuff