lemonsquared!

One Hour One Hour Dress

2011-11-11T06:51:00.000-05:00

Today is 11/11/11, which is awesome. However, I started to write this on Sunday, which is why about half of this is talking about "today" as daylight savings day.
After an afternoon spent stomping on leaves overflowing in my trailer, I realized that today is daylight savings even though my watch was still stuck on non-daylight savings time (except I don't know how to change that, so I guess it'll just be stuck on an hour late for half the year). So what did I do with that hour? Sew a tunic! This is something I've been putting off for a while from lack of time, but now there's no excuse what with there being a whole extra hour in the day. That means that I would spend my one hour being productive instead of just sleeping.
So the challenge of the day was: completing a tunic in 1 hour or less. Let's get started. I got this done in exactly one hour 17 minutes, but once that I realized that I have shoulders, and am not a tube with arms, it took about twenty minutes to fix. So really this only takes 57 minutes.
(NOTE: I have no idea how they teach people to sew easy things like this properly, but this seems to work pretty well AND it's a quick project, so it's worth a try.)
I used a jersey cotton-rayon blend fabric. It's extremely light and soft, and it drapes very easily. Also before you start, I'd advise reading this whole procedure first, because it may not make sense to just go through step-by-step.

(ANOTHER NOTE: this requires some math, but don't worry because it's very basic math. Just division and addition.) Take your bust (#2), waist (#3), and hip (#4) measurements. For each individual measurement, divide it by two, then add 2 inches (for a looser dress, add a couple more inches. Use your judgment. Just make sure not to sew it too tight without adding any seam allowance. Take the measurement from your shoulder to your bust (bust point- #10), then to your waist (front waist length- #9) . Then take the measurement from your waist to your hip. From your hip measurement go down as low as you want- mine was a little above the knee). BurdaStyle is a really cool pattern website- I don't use it too often, but there are a ton of cool ideas on it. I think you can even submit your own patterns.
Make sure your fabric is preshrunk unless you are planning on only ever wearing this once.
Lay it out on a clean surface, folded over with the inside out.
Draw a line (with chalk, or mark it with tape) on the fabric, going down the middle. Then draw each line for the bust, waist, and hip, exactly the bust point, front waist length, and length from the waist to the hip lengths.
To draw the neckline, if you're not sure what kind you want, lay out a few different kinds of T-shirts with different necklines to see which you like with the pattern of the fabric/shape of the dress. I was thinking about a typical T-shirt circle-ish neckline, but decided to do a boat neck instead.
Put on the dress so far to see how far down you'd like to cut the hem. Make sure it's even at the bottom by laying it down on a flat surface again and using a straight-edge.
Pin the hem, then sew.
Time for arm holes! They should be cut already- continue the seam from the waist to the shoulder, with the same seam allowance. But don't sew where you want the arm holes to be. Then, fold the seam allowance in (wrong side to wrong side), pin, and sew. Repeat on other arm hole.
Cut all the extra threads, and you're finished! Now go celebrate the greatest day in 100 years because it's 11/11/11- even better if you're reading this at 11:11!

Fierce.

2011-10-30T21:23:00.000-04:00

You know what's confusing? String theory. Go look it up. Maybe you'll be a little less confused about it than I am.

So two months ago was STRUT VI. It was pretty wonderful. There are so many cool people who do insane things from headpieces to lumberjacks (you know, since it's still Vermont we need some plaid...) and newspaper. Then there was the cross country season (which was wonderful), so now here are some pictures of the show.


Fabric just ordered from MOOD!

Draping is a lot harder than I thought. This shirt took probably took me two weeks to sew because I really did not understand it. But it DOES work out in the end, so if you ever want to try making a cowl/drape something, just be patient. Like on Project Runway season 4, Rami Kashou took like what seemed forever to drape his garments, but when he finished they looked beautiful. Much better than this shirt. Go watch Project Runway Season 2 right now. You will love it or your money back. Just kidding. That's what infomercials tell you.


Pinning

This is how the jacket was initially going to look. Which do you like better?

Thanks so much Cynthea Spa for such fierce hair and makeup. Just look at that death stare.

Egg Tempera

2011-07-20T13:44:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I haven't exactly followed up on my "one post a week" plan. At all. But I was very busy last week... working at Kate Donnelly's ART CAMP! WOOHOO! Unfortunately I don't have any pictures this time, but last week's camp was all about painting. And we even made our own tempera paint out of eggs! It's super easy to make, and you can get really pretty colors that create a shine once dry. You just can't be too squeamish.
EGG TEMPERA PAINT (for about 1/2 cup of paint, but that may not be an accurate measurement at all. It's enough for more than one small painting.):

Separate two eggs- make sure to take the outer membrane of the yolk off. To do this, hold the yolk over the bowl in one hand, and pinch the membrane/skin with the other hand's index finger and thumb. The yolk should start to seep out, and then you can hold it with just your two fingers until all of the yolk is in the bowl. In the meantime, you can use the other halves of the eggs to make a couple egg white omelets or a souffle.
Add as much water as there is yolk into the bowl.
Add two drops (use an eyedropper) of vinegar to the bowl.
Mix.
Now time for the pigment! You can use pigment from a store, or try to find your own things to use! Whatever you add should be crushed up very finely, like charcoal to make black paint. We also tried out paprika and cloves. Don't add just one pigment to the paint: separate the egg mixture on a palate so you can add as many different pigments as you'd like. We used these plastic deviled egg carriers for storage:

This kind of tempera paint is more like pretty water color paint with the water already added, not that gloopy stuff that you used in elementary school.

'Nude Dragons'

2011-07-03T11:54:00.000-04:00

I didn't realize that they're usually clad.
Yesterday my mom, dad, and I went to the Shelburne Museum to see the paper and fashion exhibits. Both were amazing. In the "Paperwork in 3D" exhibit, there's a huge variety of artwork ranging from silhouettes cut out of black paper to extremely realistic papier-mâché sculptures of people and a tree. The fashion exhibit is mostly runway clothing, but there is a section of the exhibit that displays the skirts of dresses designed by Fashion Institute of Technology students to go with bodices from... centuries ago. There's an article about the FIT "complete the look" challenge in Seven Days.

The winning dress in the FIT challenge

So I brought my sketchbook along.
Sketchbooks are like journals. It's always good to have one around, especially if you're planning on going to a museum or any other place where you can sit down and really appreciate whatever is there, because those places are the most inspirational. However, since mine is like a journal, I don't particularly like other people looking at it. I asked my dad to hold it for a moment while walking toward the gun show (yep, they even have a gun show at Shelburne Museum. Except that we went into the wrong building. The Beach Lodge is filled with taxidermy. Staring at stuffed dead animals staring at me is not really my favorite.The gun show is in the building next to the Beach Lodge, the Beach Gallery.) and then realized that he might want to look at the sketches. It's not like there's anything to hide, but I grabbed it back anyway. He responded with "I'm not going to look, you can draw nude dragons or whatever else you want in there." He mentioned some other weird things to draw, too, but I forget what they were.

A dragon from a pop-up book in the paper exhibit

Lately I've noticed how ridiculous fashion is. It's not like you see squirrels running around in skinny jeans and shirts. Or dragons. But so far, I've never even seen a dragon. So I have no more to say about that. I still think clothing can be beautiful and everything, but it's really inconvenient. Thinking about that, everything humans do is ridiculous. We're just a weird species of [mostly] hairless mammals that strive for power and status. Probably if we didn't start hunting other animals and wearing their skins we would be harrier, and then wouldn't even have to wear clothing. That is what I was thinking coming out of the fashion exhibit.
Now into the gun show. There are a lot of different types of guns. There was a whole wall displaying "concealed guns". So that's one use for clothing. Some of the guns were probably 2 feet long. So everything was starting to make more sense. Big 'ridiculous' coats were useful, they were made for protection.
Fashion is an art. But it's a very functional art. (Obviously to keep warm and clothing with pockets to hold things, but also definition in society.) Fashion helps define different cultures, and one's self. Fashion statements lead to a lot of debate, like all the news about raising genderless children. People get so caught up in whether or not it's acceptable for a man or boy to wear a dress. From the 1920s to 1940s, pink was considered a stronger color (being a shade of red), suited for men. Blue was considered daintier, for women. Then all of a sudden it just switched. Now it's much more rare to see men in pink. Although women seem to get away with wearing whatever men wear. It'll be interesting to see when the men/women clothing boundaries don't exist. If that ever happens.
Whew. This is an incredibly long post. Since it's summer now, I have a lot of nothing time, so I'll try to post at least once a week until September. They probably won't be this long.

Stripes

2011-05-09T19:35:00.001-04:00

First of all, sorry this is so much later than it should be, and that the posting is so inconsistent.
Second of all: Eyes are the best. They really are fantastic. They're the only one of your five senses that you can turn off, then on again. (Because you can close your eyes, and then the only thing you can see is the inside of your eyelids. You can put your hands over your ears to try and block out sound, but in doing that, you still hear some things- just muffled. Since you can still see something, light is still being let in through your eyelids. BUT if they didn't let any light in at all, then your eyes truly would be turning off with each blink.) Geeky topic? Yes. But whatever, it's way too cool to ignore. When you see with your eyes, you see a bunch of light. And I think you are seeing the reflection of whatever plants would see if they could see. [Color/light is still kind of a gray area for me, but hopefully I'll get to learn more about it...] Anyway, light creates a lot of illusions that don't really make sense.
There was an article in the New York Times Style Magazine about stripes a few weekends ago. [For a while, they weren't publishing the Style Magazine, and it was really sad, because every week I checked, but it was never there. Now, they come every two weeks in the New York Times.] This seemed to be a fitting article for me, because my wardrobe basically consists of jeans, graphic tees, and lots and lots of stripes.

“Stripes cause illusory jazzy motion, which nobody really understands.”
Maybe this weird visual illusion has to do with your blind spots. In each eye, there's a spot in your pupil where the nucleus is located (called the blind spot). The blind spot is about 8 moons big, according to Scientific American. Even though such a big part of your vision is being blocked out, the rest of your eye covers up what you can't see using the colors and shapes around the blind spot. (But if you want to test it, draw a dot on a plain [white or colored] piece of paper, close your right eye, and look slightly to the right of the dot with your left eye. The dot should disappear.) So it seems like your eye gets confused whenever they see stripes, because their blind spot blocks out a big part, so the rest of the eye doesn't know which color it should cover up this gaping hole (made by the blind spot) with.

But that's just one theory. Who knows if it's right or not.
This summer I'd like to work more with black and white prints for the next STRUT. Black and white have a kind of "illusory jazzy motion" too when paired together [in prints especially]. But I have no idea why. So if anyone reading has any ideas, feel free to comment!

Jumpsuits [in NEW YORK CITY]

2011-04-18T21:21:00.000-04:00

A trip to NYC for the weekend was supposed to be my 13th birthday gift, but it didn't really work out. I got the swine flu the day before we were supposed to leave. Then later, my grandpa got sick, so I wasn't sure if we'd get to go. But everyone's better now! This past weekend has definitely been one of the best ever.
We (my mother, grandmother, aunt, and I) mostly focused on the fashion part of the trip.

The first day (on Saturday) we went to an exhibit at the Museum at FIT. It was part of the fashion and textile history gallery, called His & Hers. There I realized how fashionable jumpsuits can be. Before, it always seemed that they were just kinda goofy, but there was a long black one that was beautifully draped, it looked so elegant. Even the polka-dotted one that was shorter and more casual looked nice.
While we were shopping the next day and looking into store windows, I saw so many more jumpsuits on display- some looked pretty ridiculous, but others were definitely wearable. The thing is, the only person I've seen wearing a jumpsuit on the street is Sachi. (And she can pull off just about anything!)
So how come more people don't wear them?

Mochi Adventures

2011-03-01T17:55:00.000-05:00

Well, after three attempts, I'd say my grandmother, mom, and I made some pretty good mochi. The first came out in a solid block- oops, not one POUND of glutenous rice flour, one CUP. Well, we didn't make that mistake the second time, but... 7 minutes in the microwave was a bit much. That was definitely the worst. The dough started bubbling and burning- when it finally cooled down, the blob of goo was solid as a rock, stuck to the bottom of the pan. The first two experiments were a new recipe- the supposedly easier and faster choice. Although they were faster, we must take into account that we never really FINISHED that recipe. Finally, my grandmother decided to use her own recipe that she always uses when making mochi. Hmmm... Why didn't we think of that before? Oh, well. This time, we used the rice cooker to cook the dough to the perfect consistency. The finished product was a ton of little pink mochis filled with peanut butter- and they were really good, too!

If you'd like to make some withOUT having to go through two bags of rice flower before making something edible, here's the recipe (although it does require a rice cooker):

Mochi
3 cups water
2 cups sugar
16 ounces (one pound) glutinous rice flour (sweet)
Peanut butter/ice cream/nutella/any other filling you would want to try
If you want the mochi colored- food dye

Place sugar in removable bowl of rice cooker. Add 3 cups of water. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Add rice flour and stir. (Add food dye, if desired.) Add 2 rice bowl measuring cups worth of water to rice cooker. Turn on rice cooker.
Set a timer for 10 minutes.
Once ten minutes is up, stir the mixture, but don't turn off the rice cooker!
Put the cover back on.
Let it cook until done (until the lever on the rice cooker goes up.)
Put corn starch on a clean surface or baking sheet, like putting flour down for making pizza.
Move the dough onto the corn starch, and flatten it out so it is about 3/4 inch thick. Use a spoon to cut off little bits (about an inch wide- enough to put something inside and fold over) and flatten them out into little patties. Put the filling inside. (If you've ever made dumplings, this will make more sense.) Roll the dough into a ball, keeping the filling in the middle. You may need to keep your hands corn starch-y because the dough is very sticky. Once you've used up all of the dough, enjoy!

Mochi

2011-02-08T10:30:00.000-05:00

Mochi is a very delicious desert (at least the ice cream kind; I think there's also a red bean mochi, which I'm sure is very good as well) that's soft and chewy on the outside, and filled with ice cream on the inside. It is also part of the name of a really cool blog, Mochimochi Land. Although I don't know how to crochet, I've attempted to make some of Anna Hrachovec's patterns, like "the chicken or the egg?" that was published in Craft Magazine a few years ago. Except that my version of it was made on one of those circular tube-making knitting things that are used for making hats the easy way. Also, the egg looks more like a cartoon ghost than an egg...

Mochimochi Chicken/Egg

Anyway, one of the coolest projects on her blog was an entirely crocheted land. So that definitely inspired me to sew my own land/city/planet. I'd thought about this before, while sewing a giraffe. I figured I could just make a bunch of patterns of jungle animals and sew Madagascar out of felt or something. But there was probably much more to the making of Mochimochi Land than that. So we'll see how that turns out...

Also, it would be really fun to learn how to make mochi [to eat], because it really is quite delicious, but is a bit expensive to get in Vermont. Here's a link to a Japanese Ice Cream blog, that shows you how to make Mochi! Who knew there were so many different kinds of Japanese ice cream?

Mobius Bagel

2010-12-14T21:28:00.000-05:00

This morning, I ate a bagel. Then I realized just how geeky I am, when I excitedly showed my sister that it was an interlocking two-twist Möbius strip.

I tried to do this yesterday, but I guess I was too tired to make it interlock, because it just ended up being one giant Möbius loop.
If you live in Vermont and want to do this, Myer's bagels work really well, because they have big holes in the centers (and they are delicious).
I got this from Makezine.com and then saw how to make it work after failing the first time from George Hart's instructions.

STRUT V

2010-09-19T18:43:00.000-04:00

Strut V is over (sadly), but was a huge success!
So many people showed up, they had to add more seats! That's really good, because it means that it will happen again next year.
The first dress I showed was Natalie's dress inspired by soot sprites. You can see the sketch and the inspiration from the sketch in the previous post. Here's how it turned out:

The next dress is Gabby in the dress inspired by the film Ponyo.

I do not have a sketch for this one, but my initial idea was to have three tiers, or layers of fabric that were all around the same size layered on top of one another, but when I constructed it that way, it just looked shapeless and was not very flattering.

Here is a picture in the making, after I scrapped the first dress, I made the second which is almost the one Gabby is wearing at the show:

Although after I finished the whole thing, I found out that my mannequin was 3 inches too small, right before I had to go to pre-season Cross Country camp. So my mom helped out by adding the 3 inches while I was away with the cross country team running and biking and running and eating and running and sleeping and running. But finally we had a finished product to wear, when the it short circuited. So an hour before the show I was re-sewing the circuit with conductive thread in the tent.

Only the top half ended up lighting up, but it was great anyway. I was so relieved that it was finished and wasn't going to give me any more trouble.

The third dress was Sequoia's and was inspired by Kiki in Kiki's Delivery Service.

This was the easiest, because all I had to do was sew two pieces of fabric together that were the exact same pieces, and then sew in some details in the shoulders, and add a sash.

The fourth "look" was Sally in a jacket and silk screened tank top. The jacket was inspired by the castle in Howl's Moving Castle, and the tank top was inspired by Studio Ghibli in general, because I put a picture of an airplane on it which is what Ghibli is, and I wrote Lemon Squared! in japanese, although it might say lemon power! instead...

Anyway, I silk screened the tank top using a process called photo emulsion, which is where you burn your image into the screen with light. The tank top glowed in the dark because I sprinkled phosphorescent (glow in the dark) powder onto the print when it was wet, and the powder dried onto it.

These pictures are not the best of Sally's jacket, because most of the details were on the right half of the jacket, but the pictures mostly show the left side. I was pleased with the overall look, and my mom said she looked like a "post-apocalyptic female action hero".

The second to last dress was Gwen, who wore the fire dress. (Gwen has orange hair, so I thought she should be the one representing Calcifer, the fire demon from Howl's Moving Castle)

I hand-dyed the dress after it was sewn together to try and get the effect that made it look like she was on fire the way the dye was. Then I sewed red LEDs all over the dress that flickered as she walked.

Finally, my sister Sachi wore my favorite dress inspired by the dragon, Haku, in the film Spirited Away.

The sketch is a pretty good representation of the actual dress, with minor changes.

This is the dress before I added electroluminescent (EL) wire to rim the hood making it light up about the same color as the green on the dragon's back. I wanted the hood to be dramatically big, and when I first put it together, I wasn't sure about the shape of it, but I realized that it was what I had intended all along, and it ended up being my favorite aspect of the dress. (Don't mind all of the junk in the background!)

Sachi did an awesome job on the runway (as did all of my other models!).

I think the construction of this was better than the other outfits because I could borrow her whenever I needed to for a fitting!

Preview: Soot Sprites and Fire

2010-09-06T18:35:00.001-04:00

Since there are 5 days until STRUT(!), I've decided to share my sketches and inspirations.

The first dress I made was based on these little dust balls called soot sprites (also known as susuwatari in Japanese) that are in both My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. My vision was to sew a little black dress with spokes, or pyramids sewn all over to create the feeling of the puffiness of the soot sprites without looking messy. I used the same method mentioned in Diana Eng's deployable structures video, but took one of the commentor's advice and used an iron instead of sewing each edge. This turned out to be one of my favorite dresses of my collection.

My next dress was inspired by the fire called Calcifer in Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle. My plan was to add lights that flicker to the beat of the music, but then I changed that to be that it would flicker as she walked or twirled.

Sundress

2010-08-15T20:06:00.000-04:00

This is a simple sundress that I made a while ago, just for fun. I used printed cotton from nido, a fabric store in downtown Burlington and put it together using my own pattern. The dress was inspired by one worn by Satsuki in Hayao Miyazaki's animated film My Neighbor Totoro. After making this dress, I decided that I would put together a line for Burlington's annual Art Hop fashion show, Strut, based on Miyazaki's films.

PROM DRESS

2010-05-30T22:20:00.003-04:00

I finally finished Sachi's prom dress!
(although I did have to make some minor adjustments today, and prom is going on right now)
ANYWAY, here is a picture of the sketch:

and the finished dress:

The shoes matched perfectly, which was really nice. It didn't even take too long to find them!

Cows Come Home

2010-05-19T21:31:00.000-04:00

There was a project around Burlington VT where local artists got fiberglass cows to decorate. The cows are all around downtown Burlington, and they are all very cool.
Here is a link to see some of the cows:
http://www.vermont.org/cows/index.aspx

I've decided that my next huge project will be to make a duct tape cow, because I was inspired by the Cows Come Home project.

Cabaret Clutch 2

2010-04-11T11:34:00.004-04:00

I made a clutch for this year's cabaret night at my school. This time it sold for $35!

This is the inside:

And the outside:

Petticoat

2010-03-24T21:46:00.004-04:00

My mom and I made a petticoat for my sister, Sachi, for the dress that I'm working on. We used the tutorial from SugarDale, but made two layers on each tier instead of one to add more volume.

In the making

Sachi modeling her new petticoat. She's always wanted to be a ballerina:

Happy Pi Day!

2010-03-14T20:25:00.002-04:00

Since today is Pi day (3/14), my family and I decided to celebrate with some cherry pie!

More Rings!

2010-02-28T12:09:00.005-05:00

I wanted to make a ring out of two Izze bottle caps that I had, so this is what I ended up with:

My dad and I ended up pounding the bottle caps with a mallet (probably not the BEST idea. I started out thinking that the ring would look something like a flower, but it didn't work the way I wanted it to), then I glued the two caps together and glued that onto an old ring that I didn't want anymore.

My second ring is one that I made out of some buttons that I got at a button shop in Montreal.

I first sewed all of the buttons together, then sewed it onto another ring.
I have to say I'm more satisfied with this second ring, and I think that I'll try the bottle cap ring again, but leave the bottle cap as it came.

Winter Coat

2010-02-28T11:48:00.005-05:00

I recently took a class at the Davis Studio in Burlington with Wylie Garcia where I learned how to make a coat.
Here is a picture of me wearing my jacket. I am standing next to a mannequin of my sister wearing a dress that I'm making her for prom. The mannequin is made the same way I made my duct tape dress form, but it is made with paper tape instead of duct tape, so it's easier to poke pins into. (I'll write more about the dress in a later post)

This is a close up picture of the back. I made the design by sewing random circles and lines on the sewing machine. This coat is made out of wool (on the outside) and fleece (on the inside). The design helped to keep the two fabrics together.

For the belt is just a long strip of fleece. I made the buckle by using an old belt buckle and sewing some fleece onto it. I used the same kind of pattern on this, but with darker thread.
The lapel and cuffs were both felted with blue and purple wool.

Otedama Animals

2010-02-28T11:35:00.005-05:00

While I was looking through my CRAFT magazines for something to make, I came across this page:

Otedama are little juggling toys made out of old scraps of fabric, and they are very easy to make.
I made some of my own, based on totoros (little creatures from my favorite movie)
Here is the smaller one in the making:

The finished products:

Now I know how to make a giant Totoro beanbag (something I've always wanted to make!)

Panda Bag

2010-02-28T11:20:00.003-05:00

These are two views of a bag that I made for my friend, Ella. She really likes pandas, so I printed out an image of the WWF logo (the panda) and cut it out onto the duct tape with an x-acto knife so that it was exactly the image that I wanted. The straps are plaid, and are actually duct tape! I owe that to my friend Lulu, because she found that tape for me. Personally, I think plaid duct tape is one of the coolest things ever.

Barack Obama

2009-08-08T19:20:00.003-04:00

This week I have been working on a duct tape portrait of Barack Obama.
I started out by making one side of an 18x24 sheet of duct tape (one side is sticky, the other isn't). Then, I started out with simple shapes for Obama's head and hair and started layering and getting into detail with it.

Here are some pictures:

In progress-

Obama and Me-

The Final Product-

Wearable Art Camp II

2009-07-14T12:58:00.013-04:00

This past week, a couple of friends and I attended the older session of wearable art camp.

The first thing we did was to make dress forms. Then, we crafted either dresses or, since there were two guys at the camp, they made shirts, onto the dress forms.

My friend Ella made her dress out of an old sudoku themed page-a-day calender. She used a bunch of pages from the calender and contact paper. Ella also made a hat and bag with the same material. She also made a mask, which was made from paper pulp.

My friend Ruby made her dress out of weed fabric, plastic bags from the Burlington Free Press, and plastic. She also made a necklace out of gum wrappers that she made into ninja stars.

Kate Donnelly's son, Sam, decided to make a modern western style outfit. He made a vest out of cut up cereal boxes and contact paper; a hat out of duct tape and newspaper rolls; a gun that looks like a candy cane out of PVC pipe left over from the dress forms; and a whip out of braided rope.

One of the campers named Aran made a complete rain outfit out of duct tape. He made a raincoat by covering an old shirt with different designs out of duct tape; boots out of foam, newspaper rolls, and duct tape; a hat out of duct tape; and lastly, a giant umbrella made of cardboard, 4 or 5 wooden dowels, and of course, more duct tape.

This time I decided to make an outfit without using duct tape at all. I made a dress out of fused plastic newspaper bags for the top, a sheet of plastic covered up with paint chips for the skirt part, and attached with safety pins. I also made a hat out of a place mat, paint chips, and woven fused plastic newspaper bags; gloves out of gaffers tape, fused plastic newspaper bags, and grommets; and shoes out of foam, and tin cans.

Birthday Bag

2009-06-28T20:19:00.005-04:00

I made my friend Willa a bag for her birthday.
We went to see the movie Up, so I made the 'I' into a balloon. The movie was really good, and I definitely recommend seeing it.
She only invited a few friends, and we accidentally all got her bags! But she liked them all, which is good. One of my friends made Willa a bag out of potholders, which is really cool, and very colorful. The bought her a messenger bag, but also made her really cool earrings.

Marshmallow Shooters and Bags

2009-06-28T20:08:00.007-04:00

A couple of days ago my friend Sally and I made marshmallow shooters from the book, Howtoons. It is a book that I got at Maker Faire and I got to meet one of the guys who worked on it.
Marshmallow Shooters are pretty simple to make. All you need are a couple of 1/2 inch PVC pipes and some joints.
I got Sally into duct tape, so we made bags to hold all of our marshmallows out of duct tape.
In the future I might alter the shooter to make it shoot more marshmallows at once, and add a ball pump to it to make it shoot with a trigger instead of blowing into it.
For now, though, I think I'll stick with a simple shooter.

Wearable Art Camp

2009-06-26T17:16:00.012-04:00

This past week I've been working at a Wearable Art Camp, taught by one of our family friends, Kate Donnelly. Today was the last day, and to show off the camper's 'wearable art', we had a mini fashion show!

Some of the things the campers made were flipflops made out of foam and decorated with all sorts of things like pom poms and other things.

They also made armor, as well as swords and shields.

This girl decided to make a viking helmet instead of a mask. The horns are extremely big, but she loved how it turned out!

Another outfit was mail shirts, like chain mail, but these shirts were made with cards instead of chains. These girls decided to make dresses, so it was the same process, just longer.
Along with the dresses they wore hats, made out of place mats for the rim, and cut up cereal boxes for the head part. They were decorated with all sorts of things, such as fabric flowers, pompoms, feathers, and whatever they thought would look good.
The last part of these costumes were their bags. This project took a while. First, they painted five pictures for the five sides. Then, we laminated them in contact paper, and they had to sew the sides together. This part took them a while. The final part was creating the handles. We put in grommets (I got a few bruises from them hammering, but that's ok... nothing too bad) and made the handles with plastic tubing. They filled the tubes with glass and beads.

The final thing the campers showed for the fashion show were their masks and capes.
The masks are made of paper pulp, and they put it in mask forms that Kate made with a glass head she has. This project took a few days, because we needed the masks to dry, and then modge podge them, and then decorate them.
The capes were just cut out fabric that they decorated in sharpie, and then we put duct tape around the edges to make sure that it stayed together.

Duct Tape Gifts for my Teachers

2009-06-20T13:48:00.007-04:00

This post is a little late, because the last day of my school year was last Thursday, but here are the gifts that I made for my Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies teachers.

I made my Language Arts teacher a wallet that looks like a book, because he teaches reading and writing.

I made my Math teacher a tie with a duct tape calculator on it, because he lost most of his classroom calculators, so I decided to give him some sort of a calculator.

I made my Science teacher a purse with a frog face on it, because this year we dissected frogs. It was disgusting, but fun! I don't think I want to be a surgeon when I grow up. It was hard enough for me to look at the frog.

And finally, I gave my Social Studies a finger puppet of him. It doesn't really look like him, but he liked it anyway. The reason I gave him a finger puppet is because he has one of Benjamin Franklin that he plays with all the time, and other historical figures in finger puppets. So, I decided to help him add to his collection.

Duct Tape Tree!

2009-06-13T17:36:00.004-04:00

This is a short video of my duct tape tree that I made at school. It was a project in 'Tech Ed' (which is 'shop' with a different name) where we designed our own project. I decided that I needed something to help organize my duct tape, so this is what I came up with.

1930s Hat

2009-06-08T18:14:00.003-04:00

Here are some pictures of my duct tape 1930s hat that I made for a jazz festival that my school's stage band played in. I played the keyboard in it.

Pencil Case

2009-06-07T11:04:00.000-04:00

I made my friend a duct tape pencil case for her birthday. Here are some pictures:

Front

Back

Inside

Duct Tape Jacket!!!!!

2009-05-27T17:28:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures of my duct tape jacket. It took a really long time to make(i kept putting it off), but it is finally finished!
I sewed the inside, which is fabric, and then duct taped the outside.

This is how it started out (still in the process of making it):

I made a lot of changes, and now it looks like a jacket:

Yellow Cello Bag

2009-05-27T17:22:00.000-04:00

Hi-
This is a duct tape bag I made for my friend's birthday.

Daisy Clutch

2009-03-30T17:54:00.000-04:00

Here is a duct tape clutch that I made for the silent auction at my school's Cabaret Night. It sold for $20 and got 3 bids!

Front Inside Back

This Little Piggy Bank

2009-03-16T19:17:00.000-04:00

Here is a duct tape piggy bank that I made. It is made purely out of duct tape. It was hard to make sure that it stood up, and required lots of tape. The pig eats the money through it's nose. When you squeeze the snout, you can put money inside it. Instead of breaking the bank open, I cut it in half and covered the cut with duct tape, so that when you need money, you can get it easily without breaking the bank forever :)

Mechamo Robot Crab Cover

2009-03-16T19:10:00.000-04:00

Here is the cover for a crab robot kit that I made. The crab dances. Someday I will post a video of the dancing crab, but for now, there is just a picture.

Pillow Pants

2009-03-07T15:49:00.000-05:00

I made my first pair of pillow pants last summer. They are really easy to make. Here's how you make your own pair:

Find an old pair of pajama pants (or any other comfortable pants)
Sew the cuffs closed
Stuff them through the waist
Close up the waist
There you have it!

You can use them as a regular pillow, or you can wear them around your neck.
Pillow pants are great for long trips, because they're just like the ones you can get at the airport, but cheaper!

Giraffe

2009-02-15T16:11:00.000-05:00

I made this giraffe last summer for my cousin Violet. I made it out of felt. I also put a pocket on the neck to hold a four leaf clover.

Custom Dress Form

2009-02-14T11:43:00.001-05:00

Making a Custom Dress Form

2009-02-14T11:36:00.000-05:00

Put on an old tee shirt.
Wrap yourself in 3 layers of duct tape.
Have someone cut the form off of you.
Put a hanger in the shoulders, and a pole in the middle.
Stuff the form. I used poly batting.
Put a cardboard stopper on the bottom.
There you have it!
(except it's more complicated than just that. also, be careful when you wrap the tape around you- if you wrap it too tight, it'll be hard to take off, and it'll be a pain.)

Ring

2009-02-14T11:35:00.001-05:00

I make these rings from colored duct tape. The band is silver duct tape.

Purse

2009-02-14T11:33:00.001-05:00

I made this purse out of colored duct tape. The closure is velcro.

Wallet

2009-02-14T11:31:00.000-05:00

I made this wallet from purple, blue, and green duct tape. The closure is made of velcro. There is an ID window made from clear duct tape.

Tricorner Hat and Horn

2009-02-14T11:29:00.000-05:00

I made this tricorner hat for our continental congress reenactment at school. It is made out of black duct tape. The horn is made out of a funnel and hose encased in silver duct tape.

Messenger Bag

2009-02-14T11:24:00.000-05:00

I made this school bag out of blue and teal duct tape. There are pockets for cell phone and pencils and a key fob and a water bottle holder inside.

Santa Hat and Pants

2009-02-14T11:21:00.000-05:00

I made this Santa hat out of red and white duct tape. I made the pants out of regular grey duct tape. They are lined in cotton fabric. I'm also wearing my green and white duct tape shoes.

Halloween

2009-02-14T11:18:00.000-05:00

I made this costume for Halloween 2008. It is the Lubot (Lucy Robot), made out of vacuum hose, tin foil, and silver, pink, and green duct tape.

duct tape sun hat

2009-02-14T11:15:00.001-05:00

I made this sun hat last summer out of orange and yellow duct tape.

duct tape shoes

2009-02-14T11:11:00.000-05:00

I made these shoes last Spring and wore them to school. They are made of green and white duct tape (even the laces!) I used foam rubber encased in duct tape for the soles.