diy
Do it Yourself; Tips and ideas for DIY projects to give a gift that your significant other won't return.
Guess My Hobby
It’s not uncommon for my hobby to put me in some strange situations. When I get up from the couch, I’m often covered in tiny bits of paper that fall to the carpet like confetti and don’t always vacuum up as well I think they should. I guard sandwich bags full of interestingly-shaped barcodes, body parts of all shapes and sizes, and flowers like they are fine china. I have several bookshelves full of unread fashion magazines, musty 1920s art school catalogs, rolled Broadway show posters, and a sea of used books and calendars covering everything from outer space to classic cars to paranormal phenomena to high school biology to sheet music to Katy Perry to ballet fundamentals to erotic coloring books to mid-century modern furniture to prison photographs to fine art and everything in-between. I’ve gotten used to falling asleep on the couch in a sitting position instead of laying down because I often have a pile of papers next to me that I’m mining for gold. It’s not uncommon for me to try to sort things into piles that I’m collecting for an upcoming project: straws in the bag in the kitchen, butterfly wings in that box, used envelopes with patterned insides go on the shelf near the boxes of glitter. I wake up in the middle of the night and send myself incoherent emails of “great ideas” and how to execute them and then decipher the directions in the morning. Then they are added to folders with hundreds of similar ideas, just so my well of inspiration never runs dry. I find myself making copies of inappropriate images, sometimes body parts, at work so I can have access to the color copier and the ability to flip or enlarge an image. Then I check the copier several times to make sure I don’t leave any weird evidence that could come back to me. I often find myself googling the oddest specific things: “woman’s leg with fishnets facing left”, “profile of fish with open mouth”, “armpit of muscular man with arm up”. I’ve smoothed out and folded up used wrapping paper and put it into my pocket because I can’t wait to use my hexagon hole punch on it and add it to the background I’ve been working on. People regularly give me boxes full of old clothes, books, or jewelry that were destined for the Goodwill until I asked if I could have them. I’m used to cramps in my hand or the mark the scissors left on my thumb after spending hours cutting as perfect a circle as I can.
By Cory Potter5 years ago in Humans
Happiness is just a stitch away
When it comes to friendship, it is easy to see how love and happiness go hand in hand. If I were to say, “here’s a list of things that I love”, it could just as easily be a list of things that make me happy. That list is long, but here are some things that live on that list in close proximity:
By Lillis Taylor5 years ago in Humans
I Made It
Ever heard of the hero’s journey? It’s a term for the popular storyline or pattern that has been used in innumerable writings since human beings first felt the desire to preserve stories by the written word. It details the journey of an underdog into the person they are destined to become. There is a similar pattern or arc for a creative project. We can name it “the creative journey.” Like the stages of grief, some stages may meld together; you may double back to a certain stage. The transitions are fluid and changing, but in any creative project, you will touch upon them all in one moment or another. Whether large or small, every creative project has a journey, and this is mine.
By Kayla DeCoursey5 years ago in Humans
(Un)consciously Creating
The process of making paper can be very gentle, tactile, and soothing. It requires you to really feel the fibers of the materials you're working with, from tearing up sheets of compressed fiber into postage sized stamps, to beating up your pulp, and to hand-stirring the pool of pulp sitting in your vat. It requires you to form a relationship with your materials, so you can know when they’re ready to do what you want them to. After pressing sheets of pulp onto pellon, you have to give it all the time it needs to dry thoroughly. If you don’t, you risk destroying the sheets when you attempt to peel them off. However, if you patiently follow through the process of forming sheets, the possibilities are endless, depending on the tools you have available to you. A pair of scissors may seem like the most basic, ordinary crafting tool you can own. However, the act of cutting up your materials is more transformative than you may think! Once you cut up your paper into your desired shapes, you can collage, sew, glue, weave, and/or sculpt them together. You can create cutouts and layer materials together, or leave cutouts as they are. The possibilities are endless!
By Rania Abdalla5 years ago in Humans
Craft Therapy
The first time I used scissors to do a craft project I was 4 and I cut off my ponytail. I stuck my head out of the 2nd floor window and cut off one of my 2 side ponytails. Since then I have been crafting as a form of therapy (a de-stress method) for the next 50 years. I learned about hand-cut paper flowers from a super sweet creator Vee = Vanessa Cruz from San Antonio. She has a very successful paper flower business and a large following in her home state of Texas as well as all of the social media outlets. I didn’t follow her because of what she was making but because of her slogan which I have since borrowed. She always says Community over Competition. While she does make her living with her craft business; it's more important that she positively influence another human than get a few dollars from them. This is why I craft, not for myself necessarily but to share that with others. In my real life, I am a corporate trainer so I have it in me to share my knowledge with others.
By Felicia Fandrey5 years ago in Humans
From the Love of Scissors
Once upon a time there was a small little girl around the age of four whose name was Riley. Riley was always trying to break the rules and get into everything she shouldn’t. It was around Christmas time and all Riley wanted was a pair of scissors. Naturally being four, Riley was not allowed to have scissors but this one Christmas her Aunty came up to her and handed her this strange looking box.
By Riley Jane5 years ago in Humans
The Good Scissors
“Not those ones!” she shouted from across the small room. My little kid hands had reached towards the shiniest pair of scissors hanging on the wall. Little did I know, these were my grandma’s “good” scissors—only to be used for fabric, not for paper and glue-filled activities like the decoupage monstrosity I was working on. It was around Easter time, and I was decorating old coffee tins with bunny cut-outs and a pile of home-brewed Mod Podge. As the crafty kid of the family, my grandma had tasked me with creating Easter baskets to give her neighbors and friends springtime gifts.
By Briley L Lewis5 years ago in Humans
The Bunny Dresser
Whether I’m starting a sewing, woodworking, crafting or painting project, I always begin by sketching out some concept art in my journal. Scrapbooking and storyboarding helps me gather my thoughts and ideas before they escape forever from my head. Pinterest is good and all, but nothing beats marking your ideas onto something tangible, something that can be manipulated – cut, shaped, beat up and pasted. I often flip back to old pages of my journal and it sparks so much more joy than looking through old “pins” – seeing the visualizations of my past thoughts helps inspire new ones. The only way to control my racing thoughts sometimes is to get them on paper and have them run a marathon across the pages. I love seeing the marks from my pencil smudge across the paper. Seeing text on a screen does nothing for my creative mind – I need the tactile feedback of a physical medium. The sound of scissors going cleanly through paper or fabric is music to my ears. Sometimes I start off a project with the intent of painting something and I end up at my sewing machine. Sometimes I start with a small idea and it expands and grows into a huge piece. Jumping from medium to medium and project to project is my exercise.
By Kayla Carrier5 years ago in Humans
Patchwork Girl
As a twenty-three year old who grew up loving dinosaurs and rolling around in the mud, quilting would perhaps be the farthest thing from your mind as an activity that I adore. Quilting was one of those things that I used to think only “old people” and “old timey people” did because they were bored out of their minds and trapped within the societal and gender roles assigned to them. Or, I used to think that it was too “girly” to do something like that, as it was mainly old women that I saw still doing it, and since I was a self-proclaimed tomboy, it didn’t fit my “style.” It certainly wasn’t something that I thought had any place among the iPhones and television screens of the twenty-first century. I didn’t show any particular affection for fabrics as a child (I was more of a pencil and paper sort of kid), nor was there any particular familial or generational connection to the practice. It was one of those impactful accidents, where something you figured you’d try once grows into a passion project that continues to this day.
By Robin Laurinec5 years ago in Humans
The 'wonder' of going back to basics and handmade....
I describe it as working to the bone, hand sewing often comes with scratches and pin pricks but the effort is worth it. Two things of anything you make that’s handmade are never the same. There’s always something that slightly different about it. I make collections of brooches, stylised embroidery hoops and sewn pictures as part of my work but I do other things as well. All my crafts require cutting, stitching, and a lot more time than sewing on a machine.
By Ruvini De Alwis5 years ago in Humans
