Crafts – The Cynical Woman Website

Cats Theme – Day 01, Let’s Start with a Plan

By Cynical Woman February 1, 2016 February 1, 2016 Cats, Challenges, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Crochet, Needlefelting, Sewing

Her Majesty Queen Marmalade is too busy napping to bother with a plan.

I started doing creative themes back in October, and none of them have had a plan yet beyond “make something related to a theme!” This month, I want to see what happens if I have a plan. I have a few projects in mind that I would like to make for the “Cats” theme, and they are…

A crochet Catbug pillow
Another cat bolster, this one for Princess’ birthday
A cat hat with built-in scarf and pockets
Crochet a Franken-kitty for Pixie
Maybe make a needle-felted Mitchiri Neko

That’s four projects for the next four weeks. The Catbug pillow is actually already started. I’ve finished two big parts, but need to get the rest done. So I’m thinking that tomorrow I will clean up my yarn stash and unfinished projects and pull that project out and get back to it!

Beyond that, I’m keeping expectations low. February is a busy month for Girl Scouts, with cookies being delivered this month. So we’ll see how I do.

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Creature Comforts – Day 30, Easy Patterns and Chunky Yarn

By Cynical Woman January 30, 2016 January 30, 2016 Challenges, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Creature Comforts, Crochet, Girl Scouts

Hurray for quick and easy projects!

I realize the colors on this crochet project look a bit jarring, but trust me, they work together beautifully. I know this because I once dyed my hair these two colors, and I looked FAB!

Anyway, I think I'm over whatever bug I had earlier in the week, but now I am in the midst of a very busy weekend. This morning was 2 hours of black belt class at the dojo, followed by an intensive house cleaning. That was followed by an evening working with Princess and a group of her school friends. The girls were working on a painting for the school auction coming up in a few weeks. Things went well, but there's nothing like a gang of hyper pre-teens eating pizza and slinging around acrylic paint in my freshly cleaned living room to set my teeth on edge.

To soothe my frazzled nerves, I picked up my biggest crochet hook and set to work on a simple project. This poncho I'm working on only has 15 rows, and it's made with very chunky yarn. I'm already through the first third of it, and I expect if I get up early tomorrow, I can get through the rest of it before I have to pack up and head out for the rest of my busy weekend at the kids' school and church. The school is holding an open house and wants Girl Scouts represented there, and then we are celebrating Scout Sunday at the evening Mass, followed by a reception with CAKE and LEMONADE. (And I just now realized I forgot to buy the lemonade mix. Yay, one more thing to deal with tomorrow.)

So I'm thinking maybe I can get this poncho done by Mass tomorrow evening, or at least keep it with me to calm me down between stints of being a responsible Girl Scout volunteer. I plan to spend Monday avoiding anything that looks like responsible activity, but for tomorrow, I must be good. Blech.

Good night for now. I'll let you know how this all goes tomorrow.

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Creature Comforts – Day 22 & 23, Snow Days!

By Cynical Woman January 23, 2016 January 23, 2016 Challenges, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Creature Comforts, Family, Kids, Resin

So, how’s the weather been in your area?

Around here we’ve had snow alternating with rain and sleet and more snow. In other words, it’s been yucky. Yesterday, the girls’ school let out early, so I decided we’d do some crafting. There’s nothing more comforting that hot chocolate, cookies, crafting and games on a snow day. I’d recently seen some videos on resin casting with embedded objects and I already had a lot of the supplies on hand, so I decided we could try that! After a lot of set up and preparation and a game of “Adventure Time Munchkin,” the girls and I were able to make these…

These are NOT muffins! Do not eat them!

The shiny sparkly blue casting is Pixie’s. The pretty red sprinkly one is Princess’. And the thing that looks like sparkly raw eggs is mine.

Before I show you how mine turned out (the girls absconded with theirs before I could get pics), let me explain what Iwas trying to do. I wanted to place some small buttons of breakfast foods in the front of the casting and layer a kitten sticker behind that. Then I wanted to add a layer of pretty yellow glitter, followed by a layer of clear yellow resin. The idea was to make a sort of sunny kitten breakfast scene. However, I didn’t leave anough time between my layers, and this is what I got instead.

“Breakfast Kitten Trapped in Runny Eggs”

I like it, but it does look like I embalmed that poor kitten in egg yolks for all eternity.

Aside from the layers getting all mixed up, I think it looks pretty good. I’m wondering if polishing would help clear it up, but I’m not sure I want to try that. I’m afraid I’ll mess it up. I think instead, I’ll do a few trial pieces and learn how to polish on those. For now, runny-eggs-breakfast-kitten looks good to me.

Good night!