Rammy

 Apparently I've been so caught up in the fun and excitement of being underemployed that I never posted Rammy.

Rammy was made for Kristen's birthday.  Nothing says "Happy Birthday, UNC Legal Staff" like turning a Kid Robot Mini Raffy into a bootleg UNC toy.

When I first imagined the Raffy to Rammy transition, I considered sculpting beautiful Carolina blue horns.  Fortunately this delirium passed, and I bought a paint pen instead.

After Rammy's face was completed, Rammy was decapitated for fleecing purposes.  This involved gluing pom poms onto a decapitated giraffe body.

The only difference between DIY giraffes and DIY sheep is one's willingness to glue pom poms.  Also, I'd like to thank Munnyworld for not giving this thing the most distinctive feature of a giraffe so that it could easily be turned into a ram.

Rammy now lives happily among the actual licensed rams.

Photo Booth Magnets

Brian and I found a photo booth at the mall on Friday.  Oh, nobody told you?  Going to the mall on a Friday night is totally cool now.

I'm not sure how photo booths still exist now that people's grandmothers have fancier phones than I do, but this one let you choose awesome effects and printed out a big sticker sheet.  Sophisticated trendsetters that we are, we went with 80s.  In the 1980s, everything was neon, and now so are we.

Harnessing the power of technology, I scanned the sticker sheet.  According to the booth, the sheet could be peeled off and folded in half and then torn to pieces or something (I've only made it as far as "peel and stick together").  On the back of each of the four pictures is a collage of all four images.  This probably doesn't make any sense since I've tried and failed to explain it to Brian multiple times, but the collage is in the lower right corner.

Here are the three respectable pictures and the smaller versions to be made into magnets with the necessary materials: business card magnets and scissors that cut well, but that you won't really care if you ruin them with adhesive magnets.

The small pictures and the magnets aren't quite the right shape, but I didn't want to deal with a huge magnet sheet that I wouldn't use all of.  Cutting carefully, it's possible to save a little magnet end.  Peel back the white backing just enough to put the picture down, then use the paper to press the picture to the magnet.  This also prevents fingerprints, so you can also use the magnet backing to hold the picture/magnet while you trim off the extra.

I may try to find a screen protector to put on top of the pictures so that they can be more functional magnets instead of "potentially smeared with everyone's grubby fingers."  I thought I still had some, but apparently I've been lovingly treasuring the package the screen protectors came in.

Princess Kenny-Chan

Back in July, I suggested to Kristen that we split expenses and make Kendra a star blanket for her birthday.  If you'd like to know how much free time one gets as a part-time, adjunct college instructor, Kendra's birthday is in August, and I managed to finish the blanket in time for Christmas!

Naturally we went with Kendra's signature colors, making this the first star blanket not to use variegated yarn.  It does sparkle like a moody teenage vampire though.

God Rest Ye Merry 5th Graders

The fact that the bottom of the Creeper's mouth is slightly out of alignment bugs the crap out of me.  This is probably something that only I would be bothered by and is probably nothing to complain about since all the cutting was done completely freehand.

It's the "ssssss" on the envelope flap that elevates  me from "cool girlfriend" to "awesome girlfriend."  

Heh. Ram.

This year's Christmas theme: Scarves for everyone who wasn't overwhelmed with scarves the last time that was the Christmas theme!  Also school spirit!

Gay Brian works at VCU and probably enjoys accessorizing.  He also dresses like it's still the 90's, and I vaguely remember Mark from the quintessentially 90's musical Rent wearing a scarf like this, so this should go to your Pinterest board for "Amazingly Heartfelt Gifts and Exercise Routines No One Has Ever Actually Used."

This is Red Heart Team Spirit which is self-striping.  Since self-striping yarns tend to be designed for knit patterns, I went with a pattern written for this yarn in which the picture showed semi-decent looking stripes: Sports Fever Scarf.

Because I am insane, the slight unevenness of the stripes vexes me greatly.  I assume no one else has even noticed (except the Kristen).

But hopefully Gay Brian will enjoy wearing this fierce and fabulous scarf at all the VCU football games.

Merry Craftmas

A common theme on crochet posts is how I have too much yarn.  I don't mean my crochet posts specifically--I mean everyone who knits and crochets apparently hoards yarn like the Lion Brand factory could shut down any day now.

So, I thought Lion Brand's new packages of little yarn would be good for me.  I could make small projects without having to hoard more stupid yarn.  Since there's a Christmas themed package, I thought I could make nice Christmas decorations during the vast hours of leisure time I have at the end of the semester.

One issue I've discovered while making my festive holiday garland is that one still ends up with scraps of leftover yarn--they're just smaller and even more useless that all the other scraps I'm hoarding in case civilization collapses and I need to start crocheting crude garments out of whatever I've got.

Exhibit A: Running out of white yarn before my vision is realized.

You non-crafters are probably wondering why I can't just go grab some more white yarn from the overflowing mountain of craft supplies that I sleep on.  Because you don't understand that all the other yarn is slightly the wrong size or slightly the wrong color or texture, and I have too much damn yarn because it is all slightly different.  I have at least three skeins of slightly different white yarn that would not work.  Yeah, don't take up any hobbies.

After finishing my stars, I contemplated the ridiculous unfairness of having too much white and silver left over despite running out of white.  Solution: snowflake ornaments.  This was quickly followed by a better solution: add snowflakes to garland.  That'll teach Lion Brand Yarn to try to ruin my last minute decorating!

The actual pattern suggests using festive ribbon or string to finish the garland, but that didn't take into account not being able to fin any ribbon an having just enough red yarn to not be able to make anything else (yes, I have at least three different kinds of slightly wrong red yarn.  This is the holly jolly hell I live in).

The stars and snowflakes are tied to the string with matching yarn for their outer row.  I'm not sure if it should stay over the mantel or be promote to banister duty.


Despite using surplus yarn to finish the garland I still have all this crap left to deal with.  My options are limited by the fact that I absolutely refuse to make tiny hats and scarves for wine bottles.

Last Minute Christmas Decorating (and Drinking)

This is a good craft for lazy people who need a last minute Christmas decoration and who would like to drink away their holiday feelings.

Step 1: Get some Cat Wine.  Sometimes cat wine appears at Kroger, and I found the orange cat wine at World Market this year.

Step 2: Drink the wine.  Cat wine is smaller than regular wine, so you can totally knock this out while you watch the greatest Christmas movie ever made: Batman Returns.

Step 3: Rinse out the bottle.  Don't forget to shake it like a Polaroid picture--or like a Snapchat for you damn kids--to get most of the water out.  Lay the cat down on a towel to dry.

Step 4: Embellish.  Give your cat a yarn or ribbon collar.  In honor of Brian's favorite colors, I have used some navy blue yarn to attach an ornament to the orange cat.

For clear glass cats, get some miniature lights.  Rice lights might be too small to fill up the whole cat, and the effect isn't as bright.  I used a string of 20 Christmas lights from A.C. Moore.  Carefully feed them into the wine bottle.  If the lights get stuck, use a pencil to slowly push them further in or pull the bulb back out and try feeding it in again.

Once all the lights are in the cat, the cord may be a bit short.  Be flexible with cat placement or get an extension cord.

Step 5: Set up Decorative Christmas Cat in a place that needs more Christmas cheer and open another bottle of wine to celebrate.