Guest Speaker at Camp SCRAP

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Today I get to be a guest speaker for Camp SCRAP, which is a one to two week summer camp for the crafty reuse kids or those that want to learn about crafty reuse. Last year I was asked to be a guest speaker, but was unable to due to my work schedule. I am very excited about this talk.
The speaker theme this year is travel and craft. We are asked to talk about a place we traveled to and maybe made a craft item related to that travel. It turns out that in 2007 I went to China for two weeks.  Before I left for China, I came to the conclusion that I would save all the plastic bags that I acquired to make a quilted plastic bag purse out of them. I figured it would be the ultimate souvenir, and I am pleased to say that it is!
Here are some pictures of the final product, which I made a few years ago:

I traveled to China with the instructor of my Taiji school and 10 of the students in my Taiji class at the time. (I am now studying with a different instructor.) We stayed in Beijing for one of the two weeks to learn a very basic Bagua form from a Bagua master there. The hotel we stayed at was lovely. They provided matches that were slightly longer than normal and so was the matchbox. You may have seen this project from an earlier post, but I made another one of my refrigerator treasure boxes to share with the Camp SCRAP campers.
Here are some images:

 Wish me luck!

Happy 4th of July (a couple days late)

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I decided to celebrate my freedom this 4th of July by adding more fun to my car.
I have come to the conclusion that I need to add the shiny mardi gras type beads to the hood of the car, so I added what few I have.  It will be a major work in progress as I slowly come across those beads, probably at SCRAP.  Who knows, maybe I will come across the mother load one of these days.

The other thing I added to my car was some leopard spots and words.  Yep, just random words that popped into my head.  My neighbors were having a bbq, so sometimes one of their words would filter over to my ears and I would then add it to the car.  I had a great time.  The leopard spots and words took about 4 hours, but I had nothing but time on the 4th of July.

Later, around 10, I met some friends on Mt. Tabor and checked out the fireworks.  It was a pretty sweet view.  You could see Portland's fireworks, just barely see Vancouver's fireworks, Sellwood's fireworks and then all the personal fireworks all going off around the same time.  I loved it.  I will have to remember that for next year.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!!!

Wild Zero Pedalpalooza Ride

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Hello, crafters.
On Saturday evening, myself and some friends hosted a bike-in movie/Pedalpalooza ride.  For those of you who have never heard of Pedalpalooza, it's a nonstop 3 week bicycle festival in Portland, Oregon.  By nonstop I mean there are at least 10 rides to choose from every day for 3 weeks.  It's a lot of fun.

The movie we showed was Wild Zero, which is Guitar Wolf's action packed zombie/alien killing spectacular.  If you have never heard of either Guitar Wolf or Wild Zero, just Google it.
In the movie, Wild Zero, there are a lot of flames ejecting from tail pipes of motorcycles and cars and microphones; yes, the movie is that cool.  For the ride we encouraged people to dress like Guitar Wolf, which meant a lot of leather, shades, just a general Rock N' Roll look.

To get into the spirit of things I decided to add some tail pipes and flames to my already very decorated bicycle.  I think it looks pretty tough.  The flames are made out of Mylar and the tail pipes are some items that I picked up at SCRAP.  I have no idea what they are.

Rock N' Roll!!!

My Dear Friend Liz

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My dear friend Liz moved to Boston with her husband and daughter almost a year ago now.  We have been doing the old school pen pal thing, which is pretty fun.  A few months ago a made her a small mailable gift in honor of her birthday.

I have always wanted to make a matchbox shrine and I had saved these interesting matchboxes I got when I was in China, which was 5 years ago.  I really like them because they are longer than normal matchboxes.  So here is what I came up with.  I added a super strong magnet to the back so that it could be placed on a refrigerator.
Enjoy~

Art Car Part Deux

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Sorry for the snooze on my blog; however, I've been doing anything but snoozing lately, which is why there is such a gap between posts:)
I have a lot to share, but I will just start with the addition to the art car that I am going to continue to work on and create all summer.
I wanted to make a shrine like or mandalaish pattern on the hood.  One sunny day a month or so ago I ran to the car wash, came home and quickly added some sparkly vinyl and this wooden star pattern as the centerpiece that I had found in a free box about a year or so ago.
I had some vinyl leftover that I had cut out for the mandala so I added it like a border to the top.
This latest addition will hopefully keep things rolling and inspire me to work on it more this summer.  Don't worry, I have plenty of ideas and I will keep you posted with my progress.

New Do and Use of Plastic Flower Fascinators

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Happy Spring!
I was wanting to try a new do for the spring and so I checked out Bust's DIY Guide to Life, which has sorts of amazing things from gardening, cooking, beauty, crafts, hazards, biking, hiking, etc, etc...

Anyway, it's a great book.  I came across the hair style section and I really liked this one so I gave it a shot:

I really didn't have the perfect flower centerpiece, so I decided to try my fused plastic fascinators and was very pleased with the outcome.

My hair style might be a little more princess braids than Frida, but it was my first try.  I still love it.

The Beginnings of My Art Car

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Last summer I desperately wanted to turn my car into an art car.  I have always dreamed of having one and have worked on a few ideas and cars in the past.  Well, I thought I had some great ideas, but working out the logistics of them ultimately stopped me from achieving my dream.
This year I am going to start simple and just see where the art and the car take me.  So to keep me motivated and get the whole ball rolling I decided that my car needed the addition of pom-pom fringe on the inside. I mean, what car doesn't?
Here are a few photos and I will keep you posted on my progress.