Tuesday, July 26, 2011

9 months



Leo went for his 9 months checkup today. the doctor said - and I quote - he's a perfect baby. I knew it!! ;) his weight, length and head are all going right along the curve of the chart as if his growth pattern is the one they based it on. she said that doesn't usually happen and it can be all over the place. she seemed kinda excited and was all smiles about his development. she ended the visit with "keep doing what you're doing" - you mean going along blindly? can do! ;)

Sunday, July 24, 2011

flip flop makeover

I had some old flip flops I was gonna toss. they were cute when I bought them 7+ years ago, but the woven insole stuff started looking really ratty (more so on the left than the right, I just noticed!) and parts would fall off every time I wore them. I figured why not see if I can change them before they go? if it didn't work out, I could still toss them.

so, this is what I started with. Old Navy flip flops - I think I paid $5 for them, and I've definitely got my money's worth over the years.

they have a woven mat on top of a foam base and there's a strip of foam wrapped around the edge. to get the woven mat out I cut the straps at the toe leaving enough so it didn't slip between my toes, and pulled the straps through the holes of the mat.
I traced and cut two pieces of craft foam the size of the mat for each sandal and did a dry fit to see what needed to be trimmed. I measured the straps across the top of my foot, cut them to size, and stitched them together with some heavy duty thread I had.

I was going to go strictly on supplies I had in my craft closet, but when I decided I didn't like the red and that it might be hard to paint on top of, I broke down and popped over to the new Dollar Tree down the road and bought a $1 roll of white foam. I pulled the red out and cut new white foam pieces, then I traced a butterfly wing pattern onto it with a pencil. I cut holes for the straps and toe post and made slits to access them. one more dry fit and trimmed the overhang.

then it was time to paint. I watered down some acrylic paint and painted inside the lines, then went over the lines with dimensional paint after it was dry. it still looked plain with just the outline, so I did some more lines and dots to fill in.

I was a little stumped on what to use for the toe post. I didn't have any buttons big enough, so I went with polymer clay. I wanted to add a domed cap to it, too, so I searched my bottle cap stash for some solid gold colored caps.

before they're domed they need to be trimmed down to a flat disc, so I used pliers and bent the edges down. once it was easier to get my scissors around the rim, I trimmed a rough circle, then followed the inner plastic ring to get a more round and flat shape.

the inner plastic needs to come out or it'll make an uneven dome, and lucky for me these peeled right out! some types are a little more stubborn and require a razor, heat, throwing of tools and swearing ;) but not the case this time :D anyway, so then to shape it. I would explain this process, but ya just hafta do it and get a feel for it. you can watch me use my dapping block here.


so then to make the actual toe post cover thing. I rolled out some yellow and brown polymer clay and used an old plastic egg to cut the circle, then I pressed the gold domes in the center and baked them until the clay was hard. while they were still warm and flexible, I pried the domes out.

for the straps I wanted a 5 strand braid, so I needed 5 different colors... but I didn't have the colors I needed, so I took an old white t shirt and painted some stripes about 2" thick across it, cut them out into 1 inch strips, stretched them until they rolled, and braided them together. the paint made the fabric a little stiff, but it wasn't going to be directly next to my skin so that didn't bother me.

once I had the length I needed to cover the strap, I sewed across the ends and trimmed the rest. I added some leather to finish the edge off and sewed that in place, too.

I used contact cement to adhere the 2 new layers of foam to the sole of the sandal. very smelly and sticky, but it did the trick! once the sole was in place I drilled some holes through the old toe strap piece and the polymer button, sewed them together, and hot glued the domes back in place to cover the stitches. then I glued the braids to the straps and she's done!

I'm pretty happy how they came out - time will tell how much more wear they'll be good for.




I know all the work of painting the wings on the insoles is hidden when they're worn, but I like knowing it's there. kinda like a fun little secret for my feet to keep :)

Monday, July 18, 2011

bag for Hailey :)

I made a doodle painted purse for my friend's birthday. I got a regular black canvas tote from Hobby Lobby (on sale for half off :D) and some silver dimensional paint.
I cut the tote down a few inches from the top and gave it a new hem, then painted my doodles on it and added grommets for the handles on the front and back to attach chains to.
I found one of those small Zip It bags in the clearance section for $4! I removed the handle it came with cause I wanted to use it as a make-up type bag (since there's no pocket in the bag itself) and reused the part I cut off as the top part of the purse handle to tie the look of the bag to the tote. I attached D rings to the zipper part of the handle, added chain to it, then split rings at the other end to put through the grommets.

I think it came out pretty well and I was sad to give it away! but that's the perks to being able to make stuff yourself... you can do it all again! and I already have 3 more totes waiting to be done over :)

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

sale!

until the end of the month I'm offering
25% off everything in my DaWanda shop!

I've added a few new items, so go check it out here,
or by clicking the DaWanda widget to the right.

'like' a savage of an idea on Facebook to keep up
with new items in my shop and sales like this!