Blog Archives
Inspiration: Spring/Summer ’12 Pastels
I’ve been looking for more current inspiration for the pieces I’ve been making – more current than “Hey, I like purple let’s make all purple stuff,” which has generally always been my MO. But now that I’m temporarily over purple, I’m looking around me, through magazines and online to figure out what people are going to be wearing in the coming months.
Let me just say that there are thousands of “trends,” so nothing seems to ever be like “the thing” until it suddenly goes viral and everyone is like “ZOMG I love whales I really need a whale t-shirt.”
SO, beyond my future fascination with whalephernalia, I looked online to net-a-porter to consolidate the upcoming trends that I might use as inspiration, starting first with PASTELS. A color zone that I am entirely uncomfortable with, possibly due to excessive overuse during my high school years. (Like, baby blue pleated skirt with a white t-shirt adorned with pale pink rosettes, with a lavender cardigan. Ew, right?)
Inspiration Image:
I looked at the other clothing images, but this one really was my favorite.
So pastel pink and minty blue, eh? Not my strong points, nor my stash contents at all. In fact, I have zero baby blue / minty green anywhere… except my nail polish bin. So.
Side note: after I started writing and crafting, I realized that actually, I do not own pink nail polish. I had to go buy some specifically for this project. Totally feminine, girl.
So.
I made these
I was thinking about making a full DIY of this, but at that point I was (once again) dizzy on nail polish fumes, and had forgotten to take “during” pictures. I think one can figure out the process, though:
- Cut four pieces of small chain – mine were about 4″ each.
- Paint the ends with your desired nail polish color (minty blue)
- While that is drying, paint the adjacent sections your second color (pink), leaving the center section unpainted.
- Paint, dry, paint, dry, paint, dry.
- In between coats, it is good to flex the chain around to keep the links from sticking to each other too badly. Though, this will happen regardless.
- Hang 2 chains per earring from around the center, staggering where the ends fall for a nice uneven fringe effect.
The pink nail polish I bought? Not good. Very translucent. Looked like nonfat milk when I put it on my fingernails. But I’m not willing to purchase any additional pink polish to try to accurately represent a Spring 12 fashion trend… so there you have it. A pair of super cool, customizeable color earrings for any fashion trend that may happen upon us in the upcoming years.
Challenge: Accepted
Hot Dang. Or should I say, cold dang. Just a few hours ago I went to lunch with my hubs and brocito, in my cropped pants and flats and denim jacket, and I was fine. Just now, I went out to get something from my car and my toes fell off. And now it’s snowing. Heya winter, I was hoping you’d be that one guest at the party that I manage to avoid making eye contact with for the whole time and then see a year later and be like “heeyyyyy, it’s been so long…”
Moving on.
I’ve been entertaining the idea of having a booth at a local craft fair to sell my jewelry (and other random things I’ve been making/hoarding). The idea itself is kind of terrifying – I remember the tedium of working at the hot dog booth for the Key Club in high school, and the residual emotion of hot dog burns may be jading me a little. AND I’d be there by myself, with the public. The kind who go see parades that celebrate either large gold nuggets or Mr. Johnny Appleseed (these are the two fairs in my own town). WOO DONKEY DERBY.
I will never take part.
It’s not only the public that scares me, but the commitment to actually making a large volume of work, and the not having a totally bobo booth. Especially the first – I mean, filling up a 10′ x 10′ booth when you are selling 2′ x 3′ photographs or hand-painted milking stools isn’t so daunting, but when the items you make each take up about 4 square inches of space, that is SO daunting.
So I’ve made myself a challenge. Which will not only help me create a volume of things, but also pare down the ENORMOUS stash of beads I’ve collected and/or hoarded over the years. Some of the things I pick up and think to myself “Jenny, WTF? This is a string of possible meteor rocks or just regular rocks. WHAT were you going to make with this?” (Answer: I have no idea).
The challenge is: pick an item in my hoard I’ve never used and never had a plan for, and make something wearable out of it. Bonus points if I use up all of the item.
I started on Friday with a $1 strand of teardrop beads that I don’t know why I bought, besides the dollarness. Normally when I’m picking out beads, I don’t buy multi-color packs, and I don’t do random assortments… making me wonder if I actually bought them at all or if they magically appeared in a bag on my desk. (It’s possible. My desk is a void of magic and mystery).
Challenge 1: Dominated.
You can almost smell the winning.
I’ll let you know how it unfolds when I finally decide to tackle the space rocks.
DIY: Cleaning Base Metal Jewelry
I’ve been a little jewelry making factory these last couple days. Well – jewelry making and internet-watching, to give you a sense of what I actually do. And I had an idea – an idea involving small chains and fringe and fantastic, that needed to happen RIGHT NOW (right then).
BUT.
When I reached for my small chains stash (base metal chains, purchased on a 50% day at Michael’s), I found them in a sorry state:
Symptoms of neglect. Watch out for this.
So I solved the problem with SCIENCE. Not that I could tell you exactly how the science works, but I CAN tell that it does work.
First things first. Fill up a microwaveable mug with a couple shakes of baking soda and some water, then microwave it until it’s hot (about the same temperature as you’d want your cup of coffee in the morning).
While it’s heating, line a small bowl with aluminum foil and plop your chain/jewelry in it.
You can also microwave your coffee at this time.
Next, carefully (so as not to spill the coffee in your other hand) pour the hot baking soda water over your chain in the foily bowl.
Look at that immediate reaction! Oh wait.
Now, you can just let this soak for a while and eventually the tarnish will science right off that chain. Or, if you’re like me (impatient), you can take 5-10 minutes and scrub the chain with some additional baking soda. I just dumped some more into the bowl and swished it around, and then ran the chain through my fingers to squeegee that tarnish right off.
At this point my dad wandered into the kitchen and offered to turn this into a battery using his electronic tester. I said "well... that's not really what I'm going for here."
If you encounter any especially grody spots on the chain, put some baking soda right on your fingers – it also acts as a mild abrasive.
Less science! More cleaning action!
And… tada! Cleaned up chain! Ready for some creative action.
Shut it. That was too easy.
Now my dad, who once dressed up as Mr. Wizard for funsies/Halloween, suggests that putting an insulator (like that piece of rubber you just have hanging around, or some paper towel or something) would make the process even better/faster, because of something about the metals reacting something something. This could work – I don’t know. My chain is pretty clean without any more science being added.
Notes:
- This can be done with finished jewelry as well. Just be sure that your stones, if any, aren’t too delicate or affected by chemicals and/or hot water. So no opals, pearls, or emeralds (ha!). I’m not sure about foil-backed rhinestones are anything attached to the jewelry with glue – it could melt the glue or loosen it somehow. Glass and crystal are great.
- I can’t vouch for ALL base metals here, and I’m thinking that if the plating has worn off and brass or copper is showing through, this could even make it worse. I might just scrub those with a baking soda paste and see if that helps.
- I’ll let you know about the additional science part. I have one more package of chain to clean.
