How to Put a Cork in it: DIY Necklace

It's Summer.  I'm 2 days into break and am already blitzing through projects that have been on my list for at least a year.

Here's one that's been on the bottom of my list for far too long: make a necklace using these corks.
I love the texture, so when I found them in a vintage science kit, I grabbed them up.

  

I proceeded to neglect the corks for about 2 years, until last night.  I was itching to do something creative and my other projects (mostly things involving paint) need time to cure.  In an effort to cultivate patience I set up to make a necklace instead. 

First I found my sewing kit.  It was a present from Erin, who owns Yellow Bird Gifts.  Check her out! 

    

I also located 2 pieces of felt from a failed felt Peter Pan collar necklace that I attempted to make a little bit ago.  I laid out the corks on the fabric to see if it could work.  And it did!  

Waste not; want not.   

 

I used a safety pin to poke holes in each cork.  You could do this with a needle to save some steps, but I didn't want to risk bending a sewing needle.  

Then because the corks have a rustic texture, I marked each hole with straight pins so I wouldn't lose all of the holes I'd made.  I thought they looked pretty.

Because they do.

Then came the not so pretty part. I sewed the corks to the felt in the arrangement I'd planned.  I used upholstery thread because it was the closest color to that of the cork that I had.  I stitched as much behind the corks as possible, because I didn't want them to be very visible. 

This led to and irregular stitches and a very messy look. 

After stitching and securing each cork, I tacked on ribbon on the ends.  I could have also attached a chain, but I wanted to keep the media down to wood and cloth.

The good thing about a failed Peter Pan collar is that there are two pieces that failed and are identical.

I stitched the second piece over the foundation felt to help the necklace look more polished.

Polished is a relative term, I know because I'm clearly wearing corks.    But it works! 

Everything Falls in the Toilet: a Weekend Project & Solution

I have a bathroom problem.
There is terrible little space.
The area between sink, toilet, medicine cabinet, and radiator is minimal.  Inches.
And my habits in getting ready in the morning render opening the medicine cabinet difficult.
See?

On multiple occasions I have dropped important things in the toilet.
My toothbrush, for instance.
The replacement toothbrush, for another.

Understandably, I dislike fishing things out, which means I needed to come up with a way to contain makeup and toiletries that isn't on a very narrow ledge.

And here my solution has been staring at me for months.

Enter tea canisters.  

I love these tins, and in fact I love all boxes, so I greatly increased my tea intake to warrant purchasing more.

Bravo tea company, you got me.

Now I thought on my problem this morning and realized have many many empty tins (about 8).

I imagined a few different ways to suspend, elevate, the tins this morning.  One thought involved tension rods (it didn't go well on the test run) another 3M hooks.  

Apartment living, and trying to do no harm to keep your security deposit sure does help 3M doesn't it? Remind me to get their prospectus this summer to check stock options. 

I decided some discrete tea cup hooks would work best.  The holes (if properly placed) won't show up in an inspection. 

One of the good things about me being me is, I had everything I needed already:
An imagination.
A surplus of tins.
Hooks.
Nails.
A Hammer.

Do you have those?  Good... let's get started.

First I drove a nail through each tin.  I poked about 3 holes per tin and you will need the metal to be up against a hard surface, if it isn't the sides will dent.  I decided to nail it on the back porch to utilize the crack in the boards.

The hole (if you are poking out) will make the metal around the hole sharp.  File it down if you have kids or are prone to accidents. 

Then I drove a nail in the medicine cabinet shelf to make twisting the hook relatively simple.  Depending on the wood, you may need to use pliers.  

Make sure that the hook will clear the wall when twisting before starting the hole.  It may seem like I am talking down to you, but even if your spacial skills are keen pretend to rotate the hook first, then start the hole.  Trust me. 

If you've made the hole in the tin 1.) large enough and 2.) close enough to the top to accommodate the hook, you're in business.  Everything is smooth sailing from here on.

Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.


And 25 minutes later, if you got distracted by texts, making coffee, or misplacing your hammer multiple times (it happens) you should be done.

I gave this a vote of confidence and then stood on the toilet to show you how logistically this is a difficult bathroom setup.

I can open my cabinet now!

Harney & Sons, you have been instrumental in helping me get organized and stay sanitary.
I salute you.

Adding Beauty

I woke up feeling brittle today.
Sad is a better easily defined feeling word, but brittle, able to break easily says it better.

I wandered around my apartment, read, moved one strange thing: a single bead, a paperclip, a glove, a power drill, from one unlikely spot to another.

And then I heard my good friend's voice in my head.  It's what she says to me after I've been dumped.  Yes, she's developed a line for that.

How will you put beauty into the world today?

Indeed.  How?
I wandered around more and out onto my back porch and spied my wall.
It's been heavily pooped on lately, because some black birds have nested and are in a family way there.

Sadness. Determining to end, halt, delete, or bypass it typically doesn't work.  It leaves a void.  And sadness is a kind of void, so the antidote isn't in cessation.

What seems to have a lasting impact is the manner I address sadness.
Shifting my thoughts toward beauty means then that I can add and contribute.
It assumes I am worthy and capable.
It says, you can do this.

But how?
The poop gave me an idea of what to do.


It also reminded me Madeline L'Engle's book A Two Part Invention.  In it she writes:

I come across four lines of Yeats and copy them down:
But love has pitched her mansion in 
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not be rent.

The place of excrement...How do we walk through excrement and keep clean in the heart?  How do we become whole by being rent?

I had a thought on how, found my flower pot sidewalk chalk, and set to work.

A flower pot of sidewalk chalk?  Yes.
Again, I have unlikely things in unlikely spots all over my apartment.

I set to work and clearly I am not able to do Mary Poppin's worthy sidewalk art, but the exercise broke into some of my thoughts, which was the point.

Here is my wall of doodles.  My chalk is at the ready and is now stationed outside for the next time.


Now, dear readers,
How will you put beauty into the world today?"

How do you "keep clean in the heart?"

My Vow to DIY An Upcyced Photo Booth After the Big Day

Did you know I work at weddings?  Surprise!  That's right.  I am a wedding assistant.
It's a job with many perks one of them being a insider look at The Big Day.
Can you imagine seeing people at their most stressed and (hopefully) most happy moment week after week?
Like I said, it's definitely an insider look.
Writers like that sort of thing, collecting snap shots of humanity, personality, quotes.  I get excited just reflecting on it.
But much as I would love to share some of those moments, I won't.  Not till I think it all out and make it tasteful and worthy of the vows these couples are taking.

I would like to talk a moment about things.  Talking about things is much safer than talking about people.

I have been surprised by how many things are created, labored over, displayed and then forgotten after the couple leaves.  Bows, petals, candles, ribbon.

It makes me cringe a little, being dedicated to recycling and up-cycling what I can.  I have a business idea swirling around in my head to help fix this conundrum, but for now I just whisk what I can aside or out of a trash can and try to find it a home or suitable purpose.

My reputation is spreading. I thought my diverting these items from landfill doom was discrete, but when I arrived to a wedding on April 12th, my coordinator said, if you want those flower balls, the bride doesn't want them after today, so you can have them or sell them or whatever.

Let's call these flower orbs, so that I might sound more lady-like for the remainder of this piece.
They are huge Styrofoam balls impaled with assorted creamy white flowers.  And when I looked outside to see if I did want the flower orbs, I saw them being blown about by the wind.  They looked like the tumble weeds of heaven.

Though I had no idea how I could use them nor do I want to begin a life as a flower orb hoarder, I agreed.  I was convinced I could sell them or give them away somehow.
I started to doubt this when I loaded up two industrial sized trash bags with flower orbs.

And a few weeks ago, I got a perfect opportunity to use them.

I had pitched an idea for the Shop 'Til You Drop fundraiser for The Covering House months earlier that we should have a photo booth at the event to capture pictures to promote at later times and to help boost the non-profits visibility on the Internet, specifically social media.

The only difficulty is, I don't know how to make a photo booth.  Also, I didn't want to spend a lot of money.

At some point, my creative spirit was stirred up and I thought...what about all of those wedding decorations? (By all I mean the orbs along with the isle runner I had snapped up and donated to my school's creativity
closet, where it lay untouched.)

These were my materials:
a tension rod (which I found somewhere)
isle runner material
fishing line
flower orbs
hot glue
pencils
a sharp object (mine was a stick)
duck tape
2 3M hooks (new)


Unlike photo booths I have seen in the past, I wanted the clothes of the event to be the thing that popped so my creamy neutrally colored materials were perfect.

First, with the help of my friend Natalie, I hung 2 hooks on the wall.  (If this is your space, use nails, hooks, etc, but we were borrowing it and needed to do no harm to the walls.) Wait an hour for the hooks to adhere/ set and do other things.

I decided to make the backdrop out of the runner to help give a clean look and absorb possible glares.

I used hot glue to create a pocket and cut the panel to be ridiculously long so it could be trimmed later.  I made and used 2 panels.
Then I ran the curtain rod through them.

 

Now for the orbs.  

This is one of the smaller of the spheres.  

To prepare them for hanging, I found a sharp object and plunged it through the center.  This took some doing.  The Styrofoam was much more dense than I had anticipated and it's a ball so it was rolling all over the place.  It felt a little violent jamming a sharp stick into what I know is not living but...I didn't document this step.  Because it felt icky.  

P.S. If you are making a flower orb and then hanging it, good luck to you.  You are a dedicated person.  Tell yourself that when you are about to give up.

After I made the hole, I sent another long dowel rod through the hole after having attached some fishing line.  I had to duck tape the fishing line to the rod and then pull it through.

Finally, I attached the line to a pencil by tying it 3 times and then taping it.  On numerous projects I have had this nylon thread undo its knots, and I needed it to stay hanging for more than a day.

Slipping?  Not on my watch.

I can't say that this part was pretty, but you can easily cover it up.

Think function not form on this step. 

And then cover up your unsightly but stable pencil/ stick/ ruler/ paint stick/ lollipop (anything that is longer than it is wide).

Repeat until you question if this is worth the time you're investing.  

Also watch something that will keep you rooted to your job and distract you a bit but not capture your total attention, because you could stab yourself.  I tried out The Good Wife.  It worked for me.

Make sure your line is again ridiculously long.  

I made this without knowing the space well, so I needed to make sure I had slack.

I was very fortunate that I had pipes overhead at the space.  I flung the threads over the pipes, (nice and sturdy!!) and then created a huge loop attaching it at the bottom of that dreaded unsightly pencil. 

It stayed put.

If you don't have conveniently placed pipes, use hooks, nails, or 3M hooks (buy ones that are made for the weight you need).  

My trooper of a friend Natalie helped me with loops, holding the ladder, and gave moral support as well as manufactured opinions about orb placement.

By the time we were nearing the end neither of us cared about the appearance anymore.

But this is what it looked like in construction.

I can't say it enough: it's important to have helpers...  

 

to give you that look that keeps you going and to be there smiling with you when the job is done.  

*Point of fact, my cat wanted me to stop and was trying to thwart and halt all photo booth production as it was cutting into our hide and seek and fetch times together.  But that doesn't sound as poetic and hopeful as I like to be in an ending sentence.