The Tote Bags of Awesomeness and other projects

So, today I rounded up pics of lots of random little projects I've done over the past six months that I've never posted about. (Believe it or not, there's a lot of them...)

I helped Madelyn and her friend Aidan make these little critter puppets back in March. They came in a kit, so I don't get many creativity points, but they were fun!

 Cute little Aidan moved away to Iowa right after this. We miss you, buddy!

Next was my exploding super glue project! I opened up a new tube of the liquid stuff and it exploded (we're a mile high in elevation, so everything explodes when you open it). Anyway, it got all over EVERYTHING and I spent the next half hour trying to un-stick my hand from the counter, my fingers (which were sticking to each other and the tube and anything I came remotely close to). It was sort of comical. And painful. That glue is no joke! "Bonds instantly." Now there's some actual truth in advertising.

Eventually I did manage to finish what I'd set out to do, which was to make these pins into magnets.

They are quotes from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I got them last Christmas from here and they are super awesome. Gotta love Sokka. And Aang. And the Noodle Firelord.

Next is a little plain jacket that I embellished with a flower applique for my niece Ava.

 

I printed off an image of an appliqued flower and made my own with five layers of fabric. After I ironed each layer to the next (bonding it together with Wonder Under), I sewed around the perimeter of all the layers, which looks like rubbish close up. Well, it turns out that it's hard to sew in tiny little curves! When it's dim and past midnight and there's a bulky button in the middle! Oh well. It's still pretty cute.

I've been freezer paper stenciling stuff here and there. I made these dragon shirts for my little friends Beckham and Ravi for their birthdays back in February and May. (It's the Chinese Year of the Dragon, remember?)

 

And I made another Air Force shirt for my nephew Nathan:

My mom has always liked this t-shirt of mine that I got at American Eagle five years ago. (She plays the acoustic guitar.) So I stuck the shirt on my scanner, printed it out and shrunk the image a little, then traced it onto freezer paper for a tote bag. For some reason, all my original photos of it are gone, but I had taken some with my cell phone:

 

 It was a tricky design, with lots of overlapping elements and different colors. I went with black, white and metallic silver and pewter.

 I think it turned out swimmingly! Mom loved it.

And then my sister Megan (a fellow Whovian) and I got together to make some Doctor Who stuff!!! :D

Here's the design I picked. Minimalist 10th Doctor.

Meg's been up at dance camp at the University of Utah for the past month. Nobody understands what her shirt's all about, but that's okay because WE DO! Yay! Her fellow dancers probably think she's a BBC loving weirdo.

If they even know what that is.

The Doctor wore 3-D glasses at the end of season 2 in "Doomsday" (which is a life ruining episode, btw) to see background radiation from the Void, which surrounds people who have crossed between parallel universes.

 

I also made a tote bag with the design. If you've seen me during the last month, I've been hauling it around every day as my purse. I've caught myself grinning at it a few times.

I had to buy a shirt to iron on this Dance Magic logo for Madelyn last summer for when she was on their 24th of July parade float. But she has since stopped dancing with them and I wanted to do something else with the shirt.

Cue this design inspiration from a shirt that used to be sold at Hot Topic:

So I put the TARDIS where the little dancer used to be, and painted over the words with white. Then I drew and painted in the rainbow vortex (it's not really like that in the show but who cares, it's awesome).

 

 She loves it! And I guarantee she'll be the only second grader in Cedar City with a Doctor Who shirt. Ha! Well, she has watched all six seasons with us and is a big fan. I'm feeling pretty good about myself as a parent now.

When Megan was here, she picked out this other design (quotes from the 10th Doctor) to put on tote bags, but she didn't have time to work on it much. She got me started on tracing and cutting out the TARDIS shapes. But I was so intimidated by the lettering that after I painted the backgrounds, they sat on my counter for the next four weeks.

 Finally, one night as I was watching a European travel show, I saw all these amazing paintings in a cathedral and told myself that if someone from the 1600s could paint some crazy detailed stuff on the ceiling, then I could paint a couple of tote bags. True story. So I traced the words one day and then last Sunday I cut them out with an X-Acto knife while we were watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and it took me the entire movie to finish cutting.

Then, a couple days later, I mixed up all the custom paint colors, broke out some new paintbrushes and hunkered down to paint.

I put the stencil over the first TARDIS and used a pencil to trace all the lettering onto the surface, then ironed the stencil onto the second one so I could paint over it. I had to hand paint inside the pencil lines on the other one. Fun times!!

 

I think it took me four hours of painting to finish them. Phew!

 

I'm glad I stuck with it though, cuz they're a friggin' masterpiece.

I sent Meg's to her up in SLC (she's still there--been gone five weeks) and a bunch of candy in a care package as a surprise. She said she squealed when she saw it. Ahh. Nerd love!

Meg saw this (reference to season one of Doctor Who) at a Trax stop up in SLC. It was gone after a few days, but it was geektastic while it lasted. I want to high five whoever put it there.

Okay. I shall try to curb my DW enthusiasm for the time being. Maybe I'll talk about Harry Potter next. Ha.