Holy Crickey

Swanky Linen Art Binder - Fabric Covered Binder that Doesn't Look Dumb

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:46:04 -0400

After spending a disappointing hour on Pinterest looking for cool-ish fabric covered binders I gave up. They all looked lame and chintzy. I have been holding on to two very cool smaller sized three ring binders to carry around with me when I sketch or watercolor. I wanted something that would make my bookbinding-mentor-friend proud, not something Twilight moms would pin and repin. I wanted something artsy, minimal and timeless. Here is what I came up with. The po’ man’s version of a cool, portable, mini portfolio.

Swanky Little Linen Three Ring Binder

pros:
opens up and lays flat while you write/paint/draw
small, easy to carry
three rings lets to reuse it over and over
remove wet pages and return them when dry
print images on paper, punch holes in them and add to binder
attractive and minimal
weatherproof and rugged
strong cover protects paper from bending

materials:
three ring binder (I used 7.5x10, perfect size for me)
fabric (enough to cover binder)
modge podge or anything gluey
ruler
pen
binder clips/paper clips
cardstock/matboard/bristol board
scissors
paintbrush

This project shouldn’t take more than an hour-ish if you have a fan to help dry the glue. You can break it into two parts.

First:

Cut out a piece of fabric big enough to cover your binder.

(NOTE: Because the binder I had was dark blue and I didn’t want the blue to show through my linen fabric I covered the binder with a scrap of white fabric first, if you aren’t concerned with the color underneath peeking you’ll only need one layer.)

Then:

Leave a little margin around the edge, your fabric will wrap over your binder. Now get your glue and brush once the fabric is cut to the right size.

Cover the binder with a decent layer of glue and press the fabric, smoothing out all bubbles. If you are doing a liner (the white fabric in the tutorial is actually the liner in my version and it cut exactly to the size of the binder, the linen piece is cut with an inch or so border) affix the liner and let it dry.

Now:

Tuck the fabric under the metal binder part or your binder will look ghetto. and start painting glue around the edges and fold the fabric over it like this:

Go around the whole binder and paperclip the edges. Binder clips work the best but I only had two.

Once you feel like it has stuck, remove clips and paint over the fabric and reclip if you are anal retentive like I sometimes am.

(NOTE: The tricky part is folding the corners. I eye-balled it and snipped extra fabric then folded it until it felt right.)

Cut your card stock/mat board/bristol board to fit the insides to cover the ugly fabric edges. Be sure they are the right size by closing the binder and making sure its a good fit. Glue the board in once you like the size.

Oh. woah. You are like, done. Just let it dry and then all punched pages you want to draw on, paint or write romantic poetry on and bring it with you to look cool.

(By the way, I didn’t draw that. I printed off Guercino’s The Assassination of Amnon at the Feast of Absalom on a piece of my thick swanky cotton paper and sketched over the top. I like doing that to make my own copy as a means of studying techniques of other artists, just FYI).

All images are taken by me, Leah Sidwell, Ms. Holy Crickey herself.

Moon Phase Twister

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:38:00 -0400

i wanted to make games for nieces and nephews at the family reunion. i decided to take a twist on a popular game - pardon my pun, on second thought - don’t. you aren’t here for my writing style, you are here for my ideas. here goes.

materials:

1 twin or full sheet (black, white or blue are best in my opinion)
white paint (i used flat eggshell housepaint i had laying around)
blue paint (i used a small bottle of acrylic paint)
something circle to trace (i used an embroidery hoop)
paint pens or permanent marker (i used black and blue)
pencil or disappearing fabric ink
a long ruler is helpful

step one - measure

take your blank bedsheet and measure out where you want your circles to go. i’m someone who doesn’t cook with recipes so it’s hard for me to pin you down with a set number of circles. i just eye-balled it after figuring out how many circles would nicely fit down and across.

step two - draw and paint

take your embroidery hoop and draw light circles with a pencil or disappearing fabric marker. i drew 42 circles (7 across the top, 6 down the side) but this was for a large group of kids at our reunion. don’t feel constrained by what i did.

(image credit)

step three - paint

i went though and painted all of the circles white, then went back and painted the blue shapes over it. when the paint dried overnight, i put the sheet in the washer for a cool moony texture. i printed the above image to remind me of the moon phases as i painted and kept a tally of which moons i had used and how often to be sure it was even.

PAINTING TIP: watering down the blue paint will crate a nice effect when you paint it over the white. notice the white portions are not fully white but have faint blue texture - this is achieved by watering down the blue paint and painting over dried white paint.

step three - paint pens

get your embroidery hoop (or other circle object you used to draw the pencil circles) and draw an outline with a paint pen. i used a blue paint pen because i wanted to be sure the kids could see the edge - especially on a full moon where it’s all white.

step four - label

write the name of the kind of moon it is - this is important because a waxing gibbous turns into a waning gibbous when viewed upside down.

step five - playing the game

i wrote the names of the moon phases on cards and pulled them out of a hat. you could make a spinner board, alter a real twister board, use some sort of dice, etc. i was on a tight deadline, so i didn’t make a “real” board but you will need some random way of determining the next moon to play and with what body part.

moon list:

full moon
new moon
first quarter
last quarter
waning gibbous
waning crescent
waxing gibbous
waxing crescent

Body part:

right hand
left hand
right foot
left foot

call out one item from each list and everyone on the board has to follow. for example: “right hand, waning gibbous”, “left foot, full moon” and so on….

honestly, you can make your own twister game with just about anything, types of flowers, animals, family members faces (a cheap way to inkjet print on fabric), book characters - whatever.

my inner hippie and my snobby side thought it would be cool to make this because then my kids could identify what kind of moon it was after a few rounds of this game. how cool to have a preschooler point out a waxing crescent on your drive home from grandma’s.

i feel like i made my college astronomy teacher proud today.

Post by Holy Crickey

DIY Wallflowers Scented Plugin

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:54:00 -0400

i’m about to get hippie on you all. plugin air fresheners (and tons of other stuff) have something called VOC in them. VOC stands for “volatile organic compounds” and they are highly toxic. they are chemicals with a low boiling point.

VOC cause all sorts of problems in your body: infertility (some of you may like that!), headaches, nervous system disorders, memory loss and cancer for both your pet and you…. lots of things.

i was bummed when i learned about this and unplugged mine. being a packrat i couldn’t bring myself to toss it out and thought, maybe i’ll just plug it in for the holidays and poison my loved ones only a few times a year.

then i had a bright idea:
replace the bad stuff with good stuff: essential oils, which are awesome for you and, sometimes a lot cheaper than the liquid cancer bath and body works sells.

here’s how you do it.

remove the wick part (which ironically looks like a cigarette) empty and rinse out the bulb

find an oil you like. i chose peppermint because its pretty cheap and it makes my house smell cool and clean. i highly recommend orange, lavender, cinnamon, roman chamomile, clary sage, lemon, rose, grapefruit, jasmine or ylang ylang oil.

pour the oil into the bulb

i fill it up about 1/3 of the way but it will last lay longer if you do the whole thing.

fill the rest of the bulb with water, but not to the top or else inserting the wick with make it spill. put the wick back in the bulb.

screw it back into the plug in part and enjoy refreshing, healing air that won’t make your hair fall out.

Photos and Post by Holy Crickey

DIY Lighting Stands

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:15:00 -0400

Make these simple/cheap can stands to clip lights on to for indoor photo shoots or whatevs.

supplies:

empty paint cans, gallon milk jugs, buckets

long sticks from hardware store/lumber yard

concrete

water

something to stir the concrete/water mixture ( i was ghetto and used a screwdriver)

get your sticks

and buckets

and bag-o-concrete

(read the concrete instructions. make fun of the hokey illustrations and slogan: “Do-It-Yourself doesn’t mean Go-It-Alone” and wonder why “Go-It-Alone is a registered trademark)

add water

but not too much. ;(

(cue the bob marley) “stir it up”

(here’s what the cut out milk carton looks like)

let them sit and dry

that’s it. for real. you are done. clamp lights to the stick part. it looks ghetto but it works.

Photos and Post by Holy Crickey

DIY Altoids

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:42:00 -0400

Ingredients:

gum paste (you can buy online or in a craft store, sometimes places like Target)

flavored or essential oil (essential oil is best but LorAnn oils work too - I used mint chocolate chip flavor)

powdered sugar (if you want to use it like flower so the paste doesn’t stick to your hands)

gum paste ball (about the size of a kiwi - the fruit, not a person from New Zealand)

essential or LorrAnn concentrated flavored oil.

knead oil into paste till it magically dissapears

i decided to add raw cacao power to make it more chocolatey

it made a cool swirly pattern (sorry its the shape, size and consistency of excrement in this shot - stay with me)

roll it out (the paste has a pattern similar to the wood grain rolling pin - i planned that)

at this point you can cut out circles with a straw, your wedding band, whatevs - i cut it into strips because i already felt like a dork for making something that only costs a dollar and didn’t want to spend that much time and effort.

then i snipped them into little squares.

the end.

by holy crickey