Covered in Glitter and Screaming

The original plan was to go as a dragonfly, but the thing about dragonfly wings is that they stick out perpendicular to the body. This is not practical for moving around a small apartment or a crowded city, so they needed to be able to move.  And then the wings took so much time that I just couldn't pull together anything else for a dragonfly (I also couldn't decide how to handle the eyes). So I pulled a white dress out of my closet (from my  Bast  costume), made a quick zip tie crown, and called it a fairy queen. The moving wings required a TON of trial and error. This was the first concept test. Gears may have been a more solid construction if they had worked, but it didn't end up being practical. It went from gears to pulleys, then there were changes in the placement and pulling mechanisms, then figuring out how to keep the wings from hitting each other, then testing which direction to pull (around the waist or over the shoulder), then how to divide the wings so each h...

My illustration pen pal loaned me another Griffin and Sabine book, and I returned it with a handmade card. This one plays around with the format, and features an octopus holding a message in a bottle. Process video: I ended up making several of these, but I think I want to go back and adjust the design a bit. I love the look of the suckers being cut from the front piece of paper to reveal the back, but the finer details are hard for the Cricut to handle without tearing. This card also doesn't fit into a standard envelope. The plan is to make at least one alternate version of this concept that is easy to replicate, to be added to my (brand new!) Etsy store , which currently features kokeshi doll cards .

I was commissioned to make two stencils (2 feet wide and 4 feet wide) and to hand paint a 2' wooden sign. Design I ended up combining characteristics from three different versions of the fraternity crest design to make the client's ideal version, and then I converted it to a single color graphic with added support bars for when it was cut out of the final material. Reference images from https://oppf.org/ , theshieldmaker , and wallpaperuse.com Stencils There was significant research and experimentation with different ways to physically produce the stencil. Maker spaces did not offer a work space large enough to produce the stencil at either of the final sizes (2 feet in diameter or 4 feet in diameter) and generally focused on laser cutting, which is a bad idea for most types of plastic. Ultimately I opted to produce it at home with my Cricut. Materials testing: this is not the right kind of plastic N OTE TO CRICUT USERS: 1mm plastic is too thick and acrylic thicker than a trans...

I made two waterfall cards with very different visual flavors. Both are adaptations from one of these tutorials from Mixed Up Craft , but with different proportions so I needed a few prototypes to get all the math right. The first one was for a sakura-themed baby shower. Nearly everything on my friend's registry was already spoken for other than a gift card, so to give that a more personal presentation I made the waterfall card. Here's the final! If you want to see my trial and error, here's the process: The second one was the original goal, but harder to implement because of the dimensions of the cards. This is, however, the more clever card because it was given to a magician, and there's a classic card flourish called a waterfall. So this is a waterfall card made of a waterfall of cards! Final product (minus the outer shell): Prototype plus final:

My holiday cards for 2021 were inspired by Japanese kokeshi dolls , modified from the version I made for a pen pal earlier in the year. SO excited to finally have an excuse to use some of this gorgeous handmade Japanese paper! I'd had my eye on that green pattern since the first time I laid eyes on it. Bonus, I also found good holiday colors (for Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year's) and a pattern appropriate for the Year of the Tiger. The process is pretty straightforward: sketch what the final should look like (or, in this case, lift from a previous project to modify) trace into vector shapes in design software, resize to fit into regular-postage envelope (black rectangle). The lines are instructions for the Cricut – the gold lines are to be drawn with a gold marker, the magenta lines are for cutting a slot for the obi (waist sash) to slide through, and the vertical cyan lines are score lines for folding. I make 50-60 cards every year, I want to make sure they're as consi...

Mystery gifts are my way of thanking some of the donors to a fundraiser I did some years ago. I ask for a theme, and then I make a thing in as much secrecy as I can manage and send it to them. This gift's theme is Kitty Glitter, for someone who loves her tabby cat, her garden, cherry blossoms, and things that are pink and sparkly. Here's the short version of how it was made (30 seconds): And here's a more complete version (4 minutes): Lessons learned, materials used Okay craft nerds, this part is for you. During the trial and error phase of figuring out what the base mask should be made of, I tried revisiting the pattern I made for my Bast mask. I didn't love that overall mask shape to begin with, but thought I might be able to improve upon it. I was mistaken . I couldn't even get it to look like the original, I'm not sure how that happened. I also tried using Crayola Model Magic on a wig head because it's pretty light, but I'm not a sculptor and it jus...