Pink bullets

Holy home #DIY

More DIY adventures at the ivory tower.

Across 110th street

It’s finally over. After 36 skeins, which sum up to approximately 4 km worth of 50% cotton 50% acrylic blend thread, I’m finally finished with my adult blanket. Took me one month (to the day) to complete.

Heart of Glass

I believe my eye-sight is getting worse, which I guess is a bad thing, however this gives me the excuse of renewing my spectacles. This time around I’m head-over-heels-in-love with cat-eye frames. I guess that’s due to my crazy-cat-lady-collection.

Part of Your World

I just loved (and still do!) the little mermaid growing up. I may have at times only responded to Ariel. She was my hero! Her flowing red hair and beautiful singing voice and adventures under the sea.

Original Merry Mermaid. Free template available from Lark Crafts.

As serendipity has it, on my casual walk through the infinite abyss that is the internet I came across a template for DIY mermaid doll, apparently some expired sew-along/sweepstakes. Well there was just one thing to do, scrap everything until I would have a mermaid of my very own and printed out the free template.

My Buenos Aries Babe

Now, I didn’t quite like the minimal facial features. Instead I mimicked the asymmetric facial features of a doll I bought a year ago in a tiny boutique in Buenos Aires’ Palermo district. I did a rough draft in pencil (which I know is very bad of me) on the muslin and used free-motion sewing to embroider it. As luck would have it, the pencil marks magically vanished. So no harm, no foul, right?

FIY: All materials are up-cycled. The hair is a former pillow case (duvet case is missing, beats me), the fin is an awful green dress, filling is lining from a coat I’m currently up-cycling the fleece (stay tuned!), etc., etc., etc. Making this a very eco-friendly mermaid!

I’m very well pleased with the results, despite slight early onset female baldness (right side) which I might just cover up by adding another bow.

Kaleidoscope Eyes

For a very long time, I’ve been wanting a proper bedspread — that fully covers my enormous 4m². Alas, my size is online-shopping unfriendly. I’ve already tried, in good hope, acquiring one. Apparently I misjudged some of the conversions — apparently I have some dubious novelty definition of a King-size bed.

Since most store-bought goods in Iceland are not to my exquisite taste, I will have to make me own. I have been keeping a look-out for scraps to make a patchwork quilt, such as this one from UO (which I grant you comes on the cheap, alas, not in my size):

Urban outfitters

Now, due to my pinterest addiction, I’ve come across some gorgeous geometric shapes that have been suggested to be “great for quilt-making” and I must say I completely and utterly agree with my fellow pinners. Here’s what I’ve been mostly leaning towards…

Tongue Tied

Once upon a time, when I rekindled my relationship with long-lost knitting needles, I dyed my own yarn: Don’t take a sip of the Kool-Aid, it’s to dye for. It was somewhat tricky business, since there were meters upon meters of yarn that had to be kept untangled (at all cost). Other than that, it was relatively easy monkey business. Since then, I’ve been dying to dye again.

There are mainly two techniques that are #DIY friendly, namely, Tie-dying and Dip-dying — the yarn adventure from 2011 belongs in the latter category.

There are a lot of inspirational dyes out there, worth aspiring to recreate. I remember a ruffled bag from Royal Extreme from Hönnunarmars a few years back. It was an ombre mix of crimson red and mustard yellow. Simply divine. Alas, no pictures available from the internet. Luckily I a very vivid memory of it, so it’s all good.

Dip-dye

Tights. #DIY instructions.

Tricky Two

Remember my neon-love post few weeks back? Well, I’ve made my first steps in fluoroscopic living: reviving plain vanilla Oxford flats into two-toned neon extravaganza — with matching hot pink laces.

Two-toned Oxford flats #DIY

It only takes a mere 5ml Depend’s #161 nail polish, available at your local pharmacy, and some plain Oxford looking flats. I got mine for a bargain on sale at Top Shop earlier this summer.

I masked the contours of the shoe with clear tape (with minimum adhesive so it wouldn’t tear up the fake suede when I’d finally take it off). Then I filled in the blank with my mini nail-brush. The ‘hard labor’ only took a few minutes, however some extra time was needed for the nail polish to set, in order to get more out of the bottle.

Tip: If you’re running seriously low on nail polish, with very little left to paint — you can eke out more out of your nail polish by adding a small drop of nail polish remover; that releases the polish from the sides of bottle. There will be a slight color disfiguration, however in small amounts it’s barely noticeable.