ALPHABET BLOG CHALLENGE: O is for ORGANISING!

Following on from my new year blog about sorting my craft room, today's post is about organisation ideas!

I cannot afford specially made mass produced highly priced accessories for storage, so I prefer to upcycle and make my own storage solutions.

1. Upcycled Food Tin adhesive holder

I have lots of tubes and bottles of all sorts of types of glue. When they are in drawers they leak, when they are on shelves they fall. To solve this, I washed out empty baked bean tins, dried them, and covered them with old gift paper, glued the paper on, then glued on some twine and some other decorative things. I then glued all the cans together to make a connected storage piece.

It sits neatly on a shelf, looks cool and crafty, and holds all my glue!!

Cost to make: around $1 for the whole thing as i reused old gift wrap, and used emptied bean tins.

2. Upcycled jars to hold buttons, spools of cotton, bobbins

I have a heap of buttons, different colours, different sizes, masses of cotton spools, and heaps of sewing machine bobbins. Keeping them organised and in one easy to use area was getting difficult!

I washed and dried old jam jars/ olive jars ...peeling off the labels. Painted the lids in cheerful colours, printed out old style labels and glued them to the jars.

After sorting buttons in colour, and size, i placed them in the glass jars, the cotton spools also were placed in jars, as were the bobbins. They all sit on the shelf near my sewing machine, they are decorative and useful!

Cost to make: maybe $2 for ten, (used tiny amount of paint, labels, glue)

 

What are your organisation ideas?? Please comment and share links or ideas !!

 

https://www.facebook.com/Goth.n.Gorgeous

ALPHABET BLOG CHALLENGE: N. New Year: spring cleaning my craft room for an organised 2013

New year is nearly here!

My new year will start with an organised, clean, tidy, sorted craft room!

My craft room is a small bedroom at the back of our tiny house. I am very creative .. well insanely imaginative and messy would be more accurate... and end up designing and crafting all over the house, which drives my husband insane!

In order to get my craft back in my craft room, and organised so i can happily create in the room, i have spent the last two days sorting, dumping, cleaning, building IKEA shelves, and generally getting the cluttered mess under control! My craftroom is also my study, so as well as all my sewing, fabric, beads, and painting supplies, it also has my computer, printer, and desk!

You will see by my before photo that my room was disgusting!!!

After filling up the bins with rubbish, and decluttering, and suffering many bruised fingers from building the shelves, the room started looking tidier, and oh my there is a floor!!! havent seen the floor for a long time!

I

The IKEA shelves look great, and my craft supplies are all organised ready for me to make so many wonderful things!

There is even room for my aquarium! My husband bought me the large fish tank and stand for one of our anniversaries, and i really want to set the tank up with fish again, so im very pleased that my newly organised room has area to set the aquarium up!

Im so pleased with my organised craft room, and i have noticed that a fellow crafter Crypt Creations, has also completed a spring cleaning of their craft area too, have a look at their blog post here!

It takes a while to declutter a messy craft room, but it is well worth it!

............................................................................................................... Please visit me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat handcrafted gothic goodies at bargain prices. see me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat ...Please visit me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat handcrafted gothic goodies at bargain prices. see me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat





 

https://www.facebook.com/Goth.n.Gorgeous

ALPHABET BLOG CHALLENGE: M. Many manicures!

I tend to wear black... Most of the time, ... in fact most of my clothes are black....however my hair and my nails tend to be colourful and at times even creative!

Today i am writing about different nail polishes, colours, styles, and my own franken polishes that i have created for myself to use.

If you wish to read an amazingly informative blog about nail polish and manicures, please visit, More Nail Polish, the lady who creates that blog is very clever, and she reviews heaps of different nail products!

Ok, back to my colourful nails!

FRANKEN POLISH GREEN GLITTER

Wanting a greenish blue glittery polish but not being able to locate the exact pigment i was after i decided to create my own. Using some glitter from my craft supplies, its safe to use with solvents so it doesnt melt or lose its colour when added to nail polish, some powdered mineral eye shadow, a couple of small steel ball bearings and some thick clear nail varnish I set to making my own polish.

STEP ONE I cleaned out a nail varnish bottle, that had a teeny drop of polish in it, using acetone (the strong painter using type, not the diluted cosmetic type) and let the bottle dry upside down, i also cleaned off the brush and inside the bottle cap.

STEP TWO Using a small plastic funnel (it came with a perfume decanter) I carefully poured the clear nail polish into the empty bottle up to about half way. I added two small steel ball bearings to the polish to help it mix. I then cleaned and dried the funnel.

STEP THREE with a plastic teaspoon I carefully took a small amount of the powdered mineral eye shadow (blue) and with the funnel, sprinkled into the clear polish. I repeated this with the light green powdered eyeshadow, and the purple powdered eyeshadow, using very small amounts as the pigments are strong and i did not want an opaque colour. I cleaned and dried the funnel again.

STEP FOUR I took a plastic teaspoon full of the minuscule green solvent safe metallic glitter and using the funnel sprinkled it into the nail polish mixture.

STEP FIVE I replaced the brush and lid to the bottle and carefully shook it gently, not crazily as i did not want air bubbles, i just wanted to move the bottle enough to get the ball bearings in the bottle to move and mix up the polish.

After I cleaned up the mess I made... Note to self, using old newspaper on the table top would have been a good idea, I painted my nails!

Here is a pic of my new franken polish, three coats on a base coat and a clear top coat.The flash drained the colour a bit, but you get the idea!

FRANKEN POLISH PURPLE GLITZ

Another nail polish I wanted was a deep slightly shimmery purple, I happened to have a pot of purple shimmer mineral eyeshadow in just the right tone! So using the technique I outline above, I sprinkled small a ounts of the powdered eye shadow into the remainder of the clear nail polish until the desired hue was reached.

COLLAGE NAILS

The last manicure I will show you is my 'travelling with work bored in a motel room' nail collage. I had a lovely sleek French manicure, but due to severe enui in the motel room while away for work I decided to stick stuff on it and a p my nails up a. notch!

Using nail glue I adhered small nail decals, shiny acrylic gems, and beads to my nails and then covered the lot in a slightly pink hued top coat. I loved the end result although it was a bit difficult to remove at the end of the week even with the foil method!

WHAT NEXT

I have ordered some more solvent safe glitter, in different shapes and colours, as I have ideas for an Alice in Wonderland inspired franken polish.... Stay tuned for that!

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ALPHABET BLOG CHALLENGE: L is for Lace, ribbon, fabric!

Today i am writing about ideas to use up one's craft scraps. I have the week off work for the holiday period, and we are sorting the house out, that includes my study of art and cra supplies! While sorting stuff out i noticed a huge box full of tiny scraps of ribbon, lace, and bits of fabric. Just about to throw the lot away, i had a thought, why not use these scraps!!

Firstly i did a stock take of what i had, from the mess in the box, i divided it firstly into colours, then subdivided them into type. The colours were mainly red, black, green, and purple and after the sorting I realised there was quite a lot of usable lace and ribbon there.

What did i make?

(I will post pix another time)

ROSE HAIRCLIP With some scraps of red velvet ribbon i fashioned a fabric rose, i attached some green satin fabric, cut into leaves, to its base, and adorned it with black lace. I then hot glued the rose i had made onto a hair clip!

LAVENDER SACHETS I had scraps of fabric netting, i cut them into neat circles, added some scoops of dried lavender, and gathered the edges up, and tied the lot up with lace and ribbon! Shoved in the drawers of my dressing table they look decorative, smell lovelyl keeping the contents of the drawers fresh, and keep insects at bay!!

HAIR BOWS with matching lace and ribbon i formed bows, sewed them so they didnt undo, and then attached them to snag free hair ties.

LACEY SOCKS i sewed lace edging to brighten up some of my socks, and added little ribbon bows to the lace!

Ok i could rave on and on here, but the point is, before you throw stuff away have a look at it, work out what is there, and use it! Use, reusue, upcycle and recycle!!!

What do you do with your crafting scraps? I'd love to hear your ideas! Please feel free to add your comments and share your ideas!

 

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ALPHABET BLOG CHALLENGE: K is for Kalaidescope of colours! Lime Crime Cosmetics

Another of my alphabet challenge blog posts, up to the letter K. K s for Kalaidescope colours, swirling into a chaos of glitter and gloss! What cosmetic company provides an amazing kalaidescope of colurs in their pallette? Lime Crime!

Lime Crime is both Vegan and cruelty free, is affordably priced , all products feature beautiful colours and are imaginatively packaged.

The latest of the Lime Crime brush on liquid lipsticks is their new Velvetines range. Available in two beautiful colours Red Velvet and Suedeberry. The Red Velvet appears to be the most popular shade of the two, with it selling out fast from both the Lime Crime site and resellers! The gorgeous soft matte texture of the Velvetines range and the vibrant pigmentation, make these lipsticks beautiful to use and they look beautiful on!

Lime Crime also produces bullet style lipsticks and gorgeous lip gloss! The lipgloss is called Carousel, the packaging is sublime, and the product is smooth, pigmented in beautiful colours, and protects your lips. Team the glosses up with the Lime Crime lipsticks for extra colour!

Another favourite of mine from Lime Crime is there eye liner range, a recent purchase I have made is the gorgeous metallic eyeliners called Rhyme and Reason. Rhyme is a beautiful true gold pigment, it glides on smoothly with a small brush in the cap for ease of precision and has great staying power. Reason is like molten silver, both these metallics look great teamed up with Quill, which is Lime Crime's shiny black eye liner!

In addition to eyeliner, Lime Crime also produces beautiful eye shadow palettes, available in the imaginatively named, Alchemy, Aquataenia, Chna Doll, and Pallete D'Antoinette. Packaged in sleek delightfully decorative containers, the eye shadows may be used both wet and dry. For extra colour stay power, team them up with a primer, also available from Lime Crime. Use the eye shadow primer on your lids first, then apply your eyeshadow; I prefer to use the primer, dus lightly with translucent poweder, then dmp eyeshadow, followed up with a light brush of the eye shadow in its dry form.

Lime Crime is availble online from:

http://www.limecrimemakeup.com/

http://www.beserk.com.au/

http://shopemeraldcity.com/

 

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ALPHABET BLOG CHALLENGE: J is for JEWELS for your hair

Up to J in my alphabet blog! Today's blog is about JEWELS for your hair!

MISS SKELETON'S HAIRBOWS AND ACCESSORIES is a home based business based in Queensland Australia, run by the very talented Samantha, sales are made via her facebook business page.

Samantha often puts up fabric images on her page to ask for interest in them before she makes up bows, i recently expressed interest in bows made out of a particular fabric, and within a week she had ordered the fabric, made the bows, and sent them to me!

I own many clips, bows, and hairbands made by this talented lady, they are well made, bargain priced, and sent super fast! She makes old fashioned 50's style type head scarves, bows on clips, gorgeous fabric frilly hair accessories, hair clips, and is happy to take on custom orders!

If you or someone you knows likes to use gorgeous hair accessories, then please visit her facebook page today!

............................................................................................................... Please visit me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat handcrafted gothic goodies at bargain prices. see me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat ...Please visit me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat handcrafted gothic goodies at bargain prices. see me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat

 

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ALPHABET BLOG CHALLENGE: I. I is for Icarus

Still on my alphabet blog, and up to I.

Today I am waffling on about the Greek myth of Icarus, the son of Daedulus a master craftsman who according to the myths designed and created the labyrinth for King Minos.

Batlings, you may be wondering why I chose to blog about Icarus. Firstly I needed something starting with the letter I for my alphabet blog challenge, and secondly, this myth intrigues me.

To refresh your memories, Daedulus, a fictionional precursor to say Leonardo Da Vinci maybe, is always making stuff. Over active imagination perhaps, but he was always tinkering. One day he started experimenting with how to make people fly. He constructed some human sized wings and glued feathers on his wing frame with wax. Icarus wants to do a test flight, so his dad gives in to his pleas and helps him on with the wings. Daedulus finds a spot for Icarus to try out the flying device, but cautions him to stick to the plan and just fly in the area they had already sussed out as the safest place to try ut these wings.

Icarus, overcome with ambition and eagerness over his first flight, ignored the instuctions o his father, and instead of flying in the predetermined path, he flew up and up towards the sun. So here we hav a guy with manmade wings strapped to his back and arms, and feathers stuck on with...wax.... yes.... wax. So batlings, what is wrong with this picture, wax....the sun... hmmmmm

So say the feathers were glued on with bees wax, which melts at around 45 degrees celcius, and say the average temperature of the surface of the sun is oooooh around 5400-6000 degrees celcius.... (lets not get to how hot it is at the core, lets face it batlings, he would never have got there), what say you as what would have happened to this waxy glue????

OK.. here we have young ambitious eager to show he is a star Icarus, plunging to the earth subsequent to all his feathers melting off in the massive inferno of the sun.... and... splash... he falls into the icy depths of the sea, where he meets his ultimate salty sea water end.

I don't know about you my dear batlings, but this Icarus tragedy reminds me of Lady Macbeth... ok she was neither Greek nor a wearer of feathers, but may i remind you that her ambition led also to her untimely demise? Not to mention how she encouraged her husband to also leap ahead with ill thought out overly ambitious plans.

Macbeth: I have no spur, To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, And falls on th'other. . . .

i have read some moralising theorists rant about the myth of Icarus being about the lesson you must always heed the advice of your elders.... not all the advice of our elders is necessarily correct... so im not going with this idea. To me the ill fated flight of Icarus to me points out the folly of not sticking to the plan making a decision without a proper risk assessment, and allowing the effects of over ambition to rule one's actions.

Nothing worng with having ambition, but take heed my dear batlings, and do not use bees wax as glue if you are going to fly near the sun.









 

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Alphabet Challenge: Happily Handmade Handcrafts

Up to H in my alphabet challenge blogs, and today's post is about Happily Handmade items, beautiful things made by clever artists.

Beaded Webs

There is an amazing artisan creating as Beaded Webs, who makes the most delciate and decorative wire and bead creations! Based in Queensland Australia, she works from home and sells from Facebook.

Starting off with wire sculpting and hand beaded web shapes, she has since branched out (excuse the pun) into tree of life shapes, as well as owls, bats, and cars. Her gorgeous bead and wire art is created in a variety of sizes such as large hanging decorations, pendant or keyring sized and medium sized beaded decorations.

I have purchased a purple, as well as a red and black beaded web from her and they are gorgeous! I also have two gorgeous bat beaded decorations that she made to order for me!

Beautifully made, and unique items, her online store is worth a look, and why not buy yourself something beautiful from her today!

Below are some pictures of her great pieces

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Alphabet challenge: crochet

Blog post brought to you by the letter C as part of my Alphabet blog challenge.

My Mother taught me how to crochet when i was about four years old, i remember making massive metres of chain out of yarn! As i got the hang of the whole crochet thing i started making clothes for my toys and granny squares for cushion covers. I enjoy crocheting and recently made myself a scarf, fingerless gloves, and matching beret out of dark sage green yarn. I don't usually bother with patterns and tend to make things up as i go along, or just use the pattern as a guide.

As well as making my own crochet pieces i like seeing the crochet made by others. There is an amazing textile artist on Etsy, ScarletRabbit, who makes the most delicate elegant fantastic crochet accessories, and i have become a fan of her work, having the honour of owning several of her fingerless gloves and wristlets, many which i have custom ordered.

Ruth, from the etsy store ScarletRabbit, is extremely talented and artistic, as well as crocheting, she draws in pen and ink, and also makes beautiful jewellery.

The fingerless gloves I have purchased from ScarletRabbit are delicate fine crochet created with 100% cotton yarn. The designs are unique, and the crochet is perfect; the lacey crochet design makes these fingerless gloves an absolute delight to see and to wear. I also have a delicate lace crochet and ribbon choker that i bought from ScarletRabbit!

My most recent purchase from ScarletRabbit was a custom order of a pair of purple fingerless gloves and a pair of emerald green. Absolutely beautifully made, they are gorgeous and so comfortable to wear! (see picture of them above)

If you appreciate elegant unique hand made crochet, please visit ScarletRabbit !

Alphabet Blog Challenge: introduction

Dear Batlings,

I throw down the metaphoric gothic gauntlet and challenge you to an alphabet blog!!! Who is in?

The rules:

1. Each blog post must star a letter of the alphabet
2. There are to be twenty six consecutive blog posts, each with the next letter featured, in alphabetical order
3. Blogs may be daily, weekly, hourly, whatever, as long as each successive blog features the next letter of the alphabet.
4. If you want to play along, feel free to post a link to your alphabet blog posts in the comments threads of my blog!
5. Example: blog 1: apples (a post about apples). Blog 2: burgers (a post about burgers) and so on till the end of the alphabet!!

Whether anyone wants to join me or not, i will be doing the alphabet challenge!!

Please stay tuned, and feel free to comment!

Links to the alphabet blog posts:

A

B

C

D