New Camera Coming Up!

I apologize for not posting very often lately. I really wanted to keep up with this blog, but it's about crafting, and I haven't really had time for that lately. The temporary work I had kicked my ass, and I'm still feeling tired no matter how little or how long I sleep. So imagine the pain I must feel thinking about going BACK...

I've found a camera I want. Mother's day is coming up, so it's on sale for $350. It's usually $480. That's over $100 off. Also because of mother's day, anything over $50 has free 2 day shipping.

I need to get this camera, NOW!

So, I'm going to go back and see if I can get temporary work for a few days at Labor Ready. I'll be splitting the price for the camera with my boyfriend, as well, so I don't need to make all $350. If they actually send me out to do work, I'll definitely make the money. I just don't know if they will want to send me out. I've had experience HELPING my dad work on things like building a shed, and putting down wood flooring. I know how to swing a hammer, work a cordless drill, but we'll see. Hopefully, they'll think I'll be a fast learner.

So, the reason I'm getting the camera is so I can take pictures of things I want to sell on Etsy and/or Artfire. The other reason is because when I make things, I can't always get a good picture of them on my phone, and then I don't want to post those pictures, and then I don't write on my blog because I don't have pictures to show. That's all going to change, now!

If I get work at Labor Ready, I'm going to continue going there for work. Eventually, I'll get enough experience to get a real job. I'm also going to try to get an Ipod Touch so I can use my square, but my boyfriend is going to wait until he can get a free smartphone from his company instead. I don't want to deal with a smartphone, I also don't want to be using my square on something of his, because I've been in situations where someone saw something I had and wanted it like at the grocery store, and he's not always there when I will need it.

But I have the damn square already, I just need something I can use it with!

On another note, I'm almost done with my $5 in paris sweater. I've debated on long sleeves, short sleeves, then just posted it on facebook and everyone says short sleeves. Honestly, the sweater doesn't keep me warm when I put it on anyways, so I was about to decide on short sleeves anyways. Here's a nasty myspace mirror picture of it:

Nasty Myspace Mirror Picture

All I can say is, SQUEE! It's almost done! Plus, it fits! Perfectly! I have never knitted something this large before, or anything wearable at all, actually, so, I feel awesome about this. It actually didn't take that long at all, either, once I got over my knitting break and continued on with it. I could make tons of these! In fact, I just might! Or, I could move on to something a bit more challenging. Or I could stop knitting myself things and work on jewelry to sell.

I DID make a byzantine bracelet, against my better judgement... The rings are a little too big, so it doesn't look as fancy. Here's another really blurry crappy picture: 

Byzantine Weave in too big rings

I want to make myself a nice Byzantine chain necklace, because for some reason I feel like it'd be completely awesome and everyone will want one. I want to make it with much smaller rings, though. These are 5/32, I believe. I think I may order 1/8 rings next. At the same time, I think I should probably order rings with some color on them, instead of just plain ones. We'll see how expensive this gets...

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Music makes everything better if it's loud enough.

I woke up and no one was here. So I hooked up some speakers and blasted music all day long! It does wonders for me to be able to listen to music that loud.

Instead of making things like I planned to, I ended up cleaning my room. Apparently that's what loud music does to me. It was windy today, and I opened my window. The opening to the attic is in my room, and I learned that the cover isn't very heavy, because I looked up in time to see it lift up as if a raccoon was trying to get out. It was just the wind, but omg I nearly shit myself!

I ended up finding some clothes I don't know what to do with and don't like, so I put those in the box for the yard sale this weekend. I also priced some stuff. The room is still a mess, but it's cleaner than before. In fact I went through some drawers and took all the clothes out and FOLDED them! I usually just cram stuff in because I'm lazy and honestly, my BF will dig through the drawers looking for a pair of socks that doesn't exist and ruin any hard work I've done. But, he doesn't live here at my dads, so I guess I can fold the clothes here. They fit a lot better now.

I also hemmed some pants, which I rarely ever bother doing, but my sister gave me some pants that were actually sized "petite" and they fit perfectly, so I can just put those on top of longer pants and mark where I need to hem at. I also now appreciate having pants that aren't ripped and horrible at the ends! I used to not care ever and actually liked them, but now I realize that wearing pants that are too long DO make you look shorter because of the way they bag at the bottom. I can't stand laying in the bed/chairs at the biomat (where I donate blood plasma) and my pants that are the right, short size ride up and show my mismatched socks. But they always do that when they don't drag on the ground. Annoying. Then again I guess I usually am not laying down when I'm wearing pants. Like public pants I mean... Jeans and stuff.

I ALSO! Fixed up a pair of jeans! They had holes in the thighs. When they started doing that, I stopped wearing them, but I finally took some scrap fabric and sewed it to the inside of the pants, then sewed all over the hole and around the hole with thread that matched the color of the jeans. Sort of. It matches the rest of the jeans, but the inner thighs are worn down to a very light blue/white color now, so it's definitely noticeable when I sit with my legs wide open like a guy. Or a slut. Or just like a regular person because honestly we all sit like that!

I broke a needle. It's the first time I've had to replace the needle in my machine, but it's not the first time I've broken a needle... I was pretty hard on them when I handsewed, too. Here's a pic of the broken needle and a new one, to compare the damage I did:

Sad needle is sad! 

I also FINALLY managed to make a freaking scale maille flower: 

It was unbelievable the problems I had trying to make a flower, any kind of flower, until I found this tutorial. I don't even like it... The rings are so huge, they stick up a lot in the front of the flower. Oh well... It's a flower. I will just deal with it, I guess -.- 

Anyways. That's what I did today... That was crafty, at least. It was a nice productive day! 

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Dice Bag Prototype

After I FINALLY finished the boxchain choker I made the mistake of deciding to make (It just took SO LONG!) my hands hurt in the exact positions the pliers would rest against so I decided to try knitting a prototype dice bag. I want it to be rather small, although the one I just finished comfortably carries 30 dice and could carry more. I just wanted it smaller than the gargantuan tentacle bag I made from the tutorial here. I'm glad I made it full size, because it's been put to good use; it carries not only dice, but lots and lots of little characters we use in our d&d campaign. The bag is starting to fall apart, though, which makes me sad because it's huge, took forever to make, and I don't have anymore yarn to use for it.

Anyways, here's the bag I made today (Please ignore the color, it was all I could find at my dads):

Ugly pink prototype dice bag

I want the bottom to be more flat, otherwise I'm pretty happy with the shape and size. I just braided some yarn together for the drawstring, but I could pretty that up as well. I'm thinking I might just knit it longer and then pull all the stitches together at the bottom without actually decreasing might look better. Any thoughts on that? I'm pretty bad at decreasing. 

Here's the boxchain I finished today. 

Boxchain Choker

It's adjustable from 15 to 17.25 inches, and took tons of rings. I used a heavy duty lobster clasp to finish it. It's for sale for $30. It doesn't look that long in my hand, but it's hanging down a little bit behind my hand. If only I could get a few more good pictures of it, and then I could put it up on Etsy. Which I plan on doing eventually! 

I applied to volunteer at the Humane Society. It didn't ask for any experience to list, but it asked about allergies, so all they really got was my name and the fact that I'm allergic to Guinea Pigs. I hope they overlook that and contact me, because I took the pre-vet tech class at Tri-Tech and I did an amazing internship last summer. I already know that they deal with Guinea Pigs because the few times I've been there they had some. So, really... I could be conned out of VOLUNTEERING... At which point I may just have to kill myself, because I obviously am a waste of space if I'm not good enough to just volunteer. I'm not serious, but that would just kill me! I have given wild birds intramuscular shots, tubed them, caught and restrained them, cleaned their crap, bottle fed deer (and was consequently beaten nearly to death by their hoofs) and much more. I think I'm qualified to handle some dogs and cats after just the pre-vet tech class. Especially since they will take 14 yr olds as volunteers. All I want is experience by this point! 

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More and more and more chainmaille!!!

So I don't think I'm going to be able to make scaled dice bags until I've got more than 100 scales of each color. I calculated the number of stitches on size 9 needles for a dice bag (I'm trying out 35) and I can't imagine being able to make a nice one with only 3 layers of scales. I'm pretty sure that's going to be a small dice bag as well, so with bigger ones it'll take way more. I REALLY wish that I could find a local company that made scales for scalemaille!

So, instead, I'm making another dragon. This is going to be the last one until I get more 1/2 inch ID rings, which I can probably get at Micheals. Here is the beginnning of this second dragon:

Red and Black this time

I have red scales, so I figured I should make a dragon that matched with red rings as well. The first dragon is silver, green, black, and gold. Colors, that is. The silver is aluminum and the gold is jewelry brass. It's also extremely light... Like less than 1/8 of a pound! I showed it to my dad and he was amazed when he picked it up. The bracelets I make out of aluminum always scare me because I feel like they can fall off without me noticing the sudden weight loss on my wrist. 

I'm working on a boxchain choker now: 

Only a little over 5 inches here. 

My hands are starting to hurt, so I'm taking a break. I also sewed today, but all I did was add a decorative stitch along the bottom of a skirt. It's a tiered skirt, with the bottom tiers being REALLY long, so it took absolutely forever to sew all the way across. I ran out of bobbin thread 9 inches before I finally finished T.T omg, I thought I was going to flip a bitch at that point. 

This weekend I also finished cutting out all the 5 inch squares I could out of all of the onesies and other baby clothes I could from a friend. I'm going to make her a quilt out of them, so she can keep them. Or rather, her kid... The quilt isn't going to be big enough for my friend. If I sewed it together now, it'll be about 31 inches square... That's small even for a baby blanket! I'm going to have a border all around each of the squares, but it'll still be pretty small, so. But that's just fine with me, because it's going to be the first quilt I actually make (the first one I started cutting up needs more squares then I can get so I'll have to wait until I get more coordinating fabric for it).

Looking at the boxchain, I'm thinking about making some chainmaille snakes. I got the chainmaille to make jewelry and I'm stuck making animals! Oh well... They'll probably sell better. I hope I can just sell them somewhere local, because I'm starting to really hate the idea of shipping. 

Yesterday I did like, NOTHING at all, because I figured my BF would pick me up. Well, that never happened... Nor did it happen today, so, I guess I should fill my time somehow. I really wanted to donate plasma today though. Oh well. 

Bonus picture; I was looking around for my cat and couldn't find her. Meow? Meow!?!? *rustle rustle* ?? *look down* Of course. Playing with my yarn, which I had stashed in my purse so it wouldn't roll around. She's actually laying on top of the ball itself here: 

Silly Kitty.

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Getting things done.

I find I'm having a hard time thinking up of titles, because all I've been working on is knitting, chainmaille, or both (more on "both" later). It's not like I can title a post "chainmaille" every day, or call it "chainmaille bracelet" because I have more stuff than just a bracelet to show you. So if you think I have unimaginative or random titles in the next few days.. weeks.. for a while, it's because it's just the same category, but different stuff.

I finished the chainmaille dragon today:

He's longer now, in the picture he was 7 inches, and now he's 10 inches. I just added some more body in order to add more scales. He looked a little short to me. I think I will add some Chinese dragon whiskers to his little face. You can't really tell, but his eyes are jewelry brass. I followed someones tutorial on making the head, but I didn't bother finding rings with the right gauges so it turned out a little loose. I just shoved a scale into the middle of his head to take up space, and it's a bit better now. It's also better now that it's attached to the body. 

Here's the knitting AND chainmaille:

I just knitted a small swatch to see if I wanted to put scales on every stitch or every other stitch. I think I should have just looked at other peoples knitted scalemaille, as it's obvious that EVERYONE does it every other stitch. It's more secure that way, anyways. Plus it uses up less scales. I only have 100 of each color. 

I plan on making knit scaly dice bags like this. I tried making a scale maille flower, but it's pretty much impossible with the rings I have, so that will have to wait.. For now it's just dragons and dice bags, at least hopefully. I bet those will sell faster than chainmaille jewelry, anyways. 

I think that I am just going to start buying wire from chainmaille websites so I can make rings in every size, because it costs a lot of money to order rings in every size. Every time I order, I'm always disappointed in my limitations because of the size of the maille. Because of this, I ordered discounted packs of random sizes of aluminum, copper, and jewelry brass a long time ago. I would rather have all the sizes separated instead of spending an hour at a time looking through the piles trying to find the right sizes though. 

So, that's what I've been doing all day. I also made cookies. I can't eat any though because I just ate a giant package of skittles, even though I hate them. I can feel my teeth rotting. Ugh. 

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I love chainmaille!!!

So, yesterday, I started working on chainmaille! Finally. I was NOT happy with the wait. I never want to order from Canada again. While I was waiting, I looked it up online and found all of these horror stories about shipping to and from Canada... Ugh. I've just never had to wait as long as they actually said, or I already knew about a long wait coming and was getting continual updates about my package. Anyways, on to the fun stuff!

I forgot how much pain my hands would be in after a long break from working with pliers. I didn't stop because I was too excited to try some things out, though. The first thing I made was a half Persian bracelet:

Women's Size Persian Bracelet

I should probably stop wearing it, as I want to sell it, but YAY CHAINMAILLE! Next I tried making a juggling ball. I'm not too happy with it, it's sort of misshapen for some reason, plus I couldn't get the very last ring in. I'll probably take it apart, I think that the AR will have to be a little different with the 1/4 inch ID rings.

Crappy Juggling ball to be taken apart in the near future. 

Next, I started on a chainmaille dragon. I haven't figured out how I want to do the head, but here is the body and the tail:

Might add more scales at the end of the tail...

There IS a tutorial I have found to make the dragons, but the body would have taken too many rings. I used much bigger green and black rings, at least with a 1/2 inch ID if not bigger, to make the body in full Persian. Then I mixed the blue scales with the silver because I wanted more silver to be incorporated. He is only about 6 1/2 inches long right now. Since I used bigger rings for the body, I may use smaller ones to add legs.
After that I hope to sell him. I'll have to figure out the shipping prices. I think he'll be $20-25, depending on how many rings I use, as well as how much time I waste trying to figure out his head.

I'm posting on a Facebook page my friend created specifically for chainmaille, if you like what you see come find us there!

To end on a happy note, my cat is inside:

Poor Kitty

My stepmom says she's been peeing on a chair, and my dad told me that the chair is ruined. I got home, saw that my cat is now being chased outside every time she's found inside, but no soiled chair. She's locked in my room for now, and she hasn't peed on ANYTHING... But to be on the safe side, she's staying in my room. She usually hates being in here, but now she'll do anything to be allowed to stay inside, so she's happy snuggling up in my comforter. Like the scarf she's cuddling? My friend Leah makes those and sells them for $10! Send me a message if you want one! 

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FINALLY!!!

Yay, so my chainmaille arrived! Can't wait to get down to business with this stuff:

Since I'm home for a little bit (not sure if for a couple of minutes or an hour or two) I think I will get started on going through some baby clothes to see if I can make a quilt. There's some family problems going on at my house so when I got here I pretty much left straight away, and haven't gotten anything done for the 2nd week in a row. Oh well, I've been knitting pretty much the entire time anyways. I tried on my sweater last night, the body is about halfway done. I've finished with the first hank of black yarn and have to wait until I can add the second one. I hope I can finish the sleeves with only the 2 balls of yarn that I have.

Now that I've got my chainmaille, I hope to power through it pretty quickly, but actually sell some pieces off before I need to order more. I might go back to the other website even though it's more expensive, at least they're not shipping from Canada.

Sorry for the small break in between posts, but as I said, family problems, so I went to a friends house who doesn't really have internet. Sometimes she does, but mostly she doesn't. Not entirely sure how that is. But whatever. I knitted and tried to help clean. and traded beads.

I've learned recently that the best way to get a good selection of beads is to trade some off with other people. I'm rather happy with what I've got in return, and happy to get rid of some of the beads that I had a LOT of. It all works out pretty good. Especially when it turns out like this:

"Oh, I really like those beads!"
"Well, I don't really know what to do with those, so you can pretty much have them all. Oo, those are awesome!"
"I don't ever use those, so take what you want of them!"

Yeah. Anyways. CRAFTING TIME!!!

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Woot, gettin' things done.

I knitted up the horns last night for the Viking hat, now to figure out how to do the beard. If I can finish it tonight, I can give it to my friend tomorrow. Let's hope! The picture is a little... bright, or something. I didn't really take the time to position the hat so the horns were even, but they're much more even than the picture looks! 

My sweater is coming along great! I'm much farther than I've ever gotten on any other clothing-type knit I've tried doing in the past... Not that any of those ever got finished. It's the same colors as the hat, obviously. It should be past my boobs now, and I'm working on the decreases for some shapely-ness. If anyone would like to try this pattern, I've started up a Knit Along here on Craftster, where I'm posting in progress pictures and you can too! 

I had a picture of a bracelet, but it didn't turn out too well. The camera I'm using doesn't have a very high quality screen, so I can't tell if the picture is clear or not until it's uploaded onto the computer. Well, the picture of the bracelet didn't turn out clear, sadly. But it's okay. It was just a bunch of random beads anyways. Just different beads than before. I should be more creative anyways! I wanted to show you something finished. Most of my projects right now are taking a while to finish, but at least now I can show you some work! 

On to 52 Weeks of Happiness: 

1. I am almost finished with the Viking Hat! 
2. My sweater is turning out, instead of being another UFO/frogged. 
3. I have a camera to use!
4. I've actually been able to make some crafty things this week!.

Unhappiness: My chainmaille is still in Minnesota. I've been looking up the cities it's been in and it's taking the most ridiculous route EVER. It went from somewhere in Canada close to Washington, to somewhere near the Great Lakes. It hasn't moved since Friday... But Monday is almost over, here, and in Minnesota. It should have at least gone somewhere today. Meh!

Long Shipping Times and how to deal with them.

I've been whining and bitching about my chainmaille order being late. Mostly on facebook though. But still.

I finally posted on their Facebook last night, and they posted "Your order shipped on Monday the 11th. You ordered on Thursday the 7th. So it left here in the correct amount of time. You can find your UPS tracking info in the "My Account" area of our site. I don't see anything late about it."

I found out there's a delay shipping to the U.S., not on the website itself but somebody else's complaint on their Facebook. That would have been really nice to know BEFORE I ordered from that site. I wondered why exactly it was so much for shipping... the package is less than 1 pound. I still think the shipping price was pretty extravagant. Especially now that the package isn't going to be here in any time close to what I was expecting.

The thing is, the cheapest shipping was specified as "7 day shipping". For a website to give that option, they have to ship the stuff out in a way that will get the package to you in 7 business days. If it was just a generic cheap shipping without specifying how many days it took, I would have safely assumed 1-2 weeks. But no. I ordered it expecting it at my house in 7 business days.

So how am I dealing with not having my chainmaille magically transported to me to make me happy with my tall expectations? By constantly looking at chainmaille online. Hey, that weave is pretty! That one makes me wish I ordered rubber rings. That would be a cool project to take on in the future! Blah blah blah!

How else am I dealing with it? Knitting.

Another distraction: I got an eye exam and should be getting new glasses soon! Possibly before my chainmaille even gets here! I got these really pretty frames, because all of a sudden it sounds like my insurance pays for nice frames and crappy lenses. At least I got scratch resisitant. The glasses I'm wearing now have a HUGE crack in them, scratches, as well as the anti-glare coating is peeling off, interestingly enough. I wouldn't have known that except for the doctor telling me so. I just assumed it was also scratches.

My new glasses. Are going to be amazing. Compared to wearing glasses that aren't my prescription. Plus the pretty frames. They have like, flowery shapes on the sides. It'll be fun to wear. Yay. New stuffs.


...

/rant.

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Mosquitoes are definitely here for the warm months.

I've been seeing plenty of mosquitoes these past couple of days, and I now know that the bites I had on my face a while ago were in fact mosquito bites. I just couldn't believe it... It's too early for them to be out!

We usually don't have a mosquito problem here were I live because the city blows its budget on finding and killing the eggs and larvae. I personally think this is a worthy thing for money to be spent on, but the past couple of years we have been taking money away from fire prevention and using it for fire fighting. Thus there were more fires that couldn't be prevented, so we had to take MORE money away from fire prevention...

The dogs here whine until we open the door, then one will go outside while the other sits halfway out the door, preventing us from closing it. During the summer we leave the door wide open all day and sometimes even all night for them. They hate the winter much more than we do. So that's how I got mosquito bites on my face... It's so cold inside that everything else is covered. It's unbelievably annoying to have to deal with dogs who want to go outside every 5 minutes... Especially when they just want to go out for 30 seconds then hope we went back to the living room so we won't close it right away.

I now have a bite on my wrist. I used to scratch them furiously, but I've finally grown up enough to just ignore the itch. When I figured out I was scratching bites on my face, I stopped and they went away almost immediately. It's amazing what ignoring some things can do. If only I could just ignore the dogs. Especially when I'm sleeping.

The only good thing about mosquitoes is the fact that they mean warmer weather is on it's way, which is the biggest reason I'm talking about them.

On another note, my chainmaille should arrive on or before Thursday. I'm hoping for before, because then I will be at home to receive it. Then I can start working on it! I'm not getting my hopes up though... The website I ordered from seems to be taking their sweet time packing my chainmaille. I am used to websites saying that my order will be delivered within 7 days but getting it in 3 or 4 days. Well, it's already been 2 days and they haven't even packed it. The website said it had plenty of what I was ordering already in the bags of however much I was getting. So all they really need to do is print some stuff and put it in a box. I don't really know how companies really go about packing their stuff, so I shouldn't whine about it, but I want it now! So I can start making dice bags and such.

Today was my bfs and mine 3rd anniversary! (I have no idea how to word that correctly.) We watched the first 3 Resident Evil movies, went to the gym, and went to Sonic for some slushes. We had to stop after the 3rd movie because he had to head to work. I got him a stuffed sheep! He is more excited about having sheep than having a dairy cow or a small flock of chickens like I am. Oh well!

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Chainmaille!

I ordered some chainmaille from theringlord.com... Much cheaper than the previous site I bought from, bluebuddhaboutique.com. I like getting 5/32 ID rings, which for 1000 used to be $17.00, and now it's closer to $5.00. That's a HUGE price cut!

When I first started ordering rings, theringlord seemed like a really crappy site. It still is harder to navigate than bluebuddhaboutique, but now that I've seen the prices, I can't believe I ever decided to get rings anywhere else. I'm not sure about their quality, and I'm already annoyed by their lack of customization choices, but I think it's worth dealing with that.

I bought scalemaille, and plan to make dice bags and flowers with it. Here are some examples below:

Flowers

Bag

I hope to make some other things as well, because I like scalemaille and I plan on selling some products made with it but I haven't found anything else SMALL enough to make. Maybe some jewelry! I'm sure bracelets and necklaces would look pretty cool with scalemaille.... In fact I saw a pretty cool necklace at Radcon that somebody was wearing but I didn't get a close enough look to replicate anything close to it. Ah well! I should be creative enough to make my own stuff, right? 

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