Quick Bedroom Upgrade: Line Dresser Drawers with Wrapping Paper

A photo posted by stephanieliebold (@stephanieliebold) on Jun 9, 2013 at 8:58pm PDT

I was putting laundry away and decided I’d had it with my underwear drawer. It had become an overstuffed catch-all for camis and jammies, briefs and bras, swimsuits and socks, unmentionables and mentionables, all mingled together in a messy jumble. I re-homed, re-arranged and got rid of everything that didn’t belong in there.

The unfinished wood at the bottom of the drawer seemed a little too rough for my delicates, so I started looking around the house for a quick fix.

What turned out to be perfect was this colorful striped wrapping paper.

I cut it to size, folded the uneven edge, and secured it with masking tape.

That’s it. And, 2 years later, it’s still in tact and in place – even after our recent move.

You could use odd-sized paper ends for smaller drawers (nightstand? desk?) or even reuse paper from presents you’ve unwrapped to smooth out all your dresser drawers and make your laundry day a little brighter.

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PS I was messing around with creating a page that makes it easier to find posts from my Instagrams, and I forgot that those posts would also go in my RSS. So if you noticed a bunch of random photos with dates as the title on our Facebook or in your inbox (if you subscribe), that’s all that’s about.

August 31, 2015January 3, 2018

Grandma’s Sunburn Remedy

I sunburn easily.

I blame my genes. Basically, I descend from a mélange of peoples, who, I assume, just kept walking north until they got to the regions of Europe that were cold and cloudy enough not to punish their pallid skin.

Generations later, I was born in sunny Phoenix, Arizona, wearing the maladapted melanin of my kin. Here, summer rays can be intense enough to burn a Celtic lass like me within 10 minutes.

My grandma used to tell me to put vinegar on sunburns. “The sooner the better,” she’d say. Being a teenager, I’d roll my eyes and/or ignore her advice.

Then, after one sunburn that left my skin ablaze like a village after a Viking* raid, I finally gave in and tried it. The pain was gone almost instantly. I did smell like vinegar, but I had no intentions of going back outside anytime soon anyway.

Now I wear a moisturizer with sunscreen in it daily. If I do get a sunburn, I have no problem reaching for the vinegar and gently daubing some on. Totally worth smelling like a salad dressing (or maybe a jar of pickles) for a few hours.

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*I also have Viking ancestors. I like to think of them as not the village-destroying type, though. Maybe horned-hat-wearing and fierce – like you wouldn’t want to mess with them – yet somehow kind hearted. (This may not be historically accurate.)

August 3, 2015March 1, 2022

DIY Quilling Tool

Sometimes you have to get creative to get creative. Like with our monthly CraftHack meetups – they’re free, so that pushes us to be resourceful when it comes to providing materials and supplies.

Robin Corey volunteered to do last month’s demo on paper quilling, a technique that involves winding strips of paper around a tool to get spiral shapes.

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A post shared by Robin Corey (@rrcorey)

While you can buy a quilling tool for around 8 bucks, ordering 20 for a free class would get pretty pricey.

She found a super solution buried in her Pinterest boards: make your own from a cork and a tapestry needle. Basically, stick the needle in the center of the cork and glue it, cut off the top with wire cutters, file any sharp edges, and you have a super inexpensive tool that makes winding strips of paper for quilling easy.

She made about 20 of them for less than the cost of buying just one, and we all got to take one home for future projects.

PS If you live in Phoenix and like to make stuff, make sure you’re planning to come to Craft Camp this Saturday!
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July 16, 2015July 15, 2015

You can make pickles without canning!

One week our CSA box came with more cucumbers than we knew what to do with.

Someone suggested making pickles, but so far I’ve shied away from anything that involves actual canning. The combination of glass jars + boiling water + my klutziness sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

So I was really excited to learn you could make refrigerator pickles without the whole scary canning process. As the name would suggest, they need to remain chilled and not on a shelf.

I shared a few jars with family. They were as excited as if I’d done something really brilliant and difficult, when, in reality, it was much easier than conquering my fear of canning.

I’ll tell you how I did it, as long as everyone agrees to keep thinking (or at least acting like) I’m brilliant.

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EatingWell’s post on “How to pickle anything” was the key. I decided to make sour/dill pickles, seasoned with various combinations of fresh oregano, green onions, garlic, dill, turmeric, and cumin seeds.

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Following their guide, I sliced cucumbers, piled them in just-washed jars, added seasonings, and then made the brine to poured over the top.

The next day it was time for a taste test – and we had pickles! It was almost like magic. They were great on sandwiches and turkey burgers and even just piled on the plate as a side dish. Refrigerator pickles keep for about a month and the flavor gets stronger, so they were pretty intense by the end.

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From there, you can experiment with seasonings and even use the same recipe with different vegetables.

Brilliant, right?

June 4, 2015June 7, 2015

Constructing Costumes, Characters, and Time-Traveling Cars

At Phoenix Comicon, I attended 5 panels where authors, cosplayers, and time-machine builders gave advice about their respective crafts.

Character Clothing

Four authors and a comic book artist shared about the role clothing plays in their works and what to keep in mind when you consider how your characters dress.

1. What Are They Wearing?:

Is the clothing functional in the environment? If not, make sure the character feels its effects. –Travis Hanson

Try making the costume of one of your characters and wearing it for day. Feel what it’s like to move around in what they wear. Sensory input can really inform your writing. –Leanna Renee Hieber

Cosplay

2. A Beginner’s Guide to Foam Smithing:

New cosplayers often start working with foam, because it’s fairly easy to work with and cheap. If something you try doesn’t work, you’re probably only out about 50 cents.

Foam doesn’t have to be something you move on from. You can incorporate many different materials into your costume. It also uses many of same tools as Sintra and other thermoplastics. [Check out the Tools and Materials list in our DIY Armor post.]

3. Cosplay Like a Pro: Less Stress, More Fun!

You notice the flaws of a costume you’ve been working on but others won’t. They see the overall picture.

Remember the 10-foot rule: your costume doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs to look good from 10 feet away. If someone wants to get closer than that, that’s when you suddenly have a panel to rush off to.

4. We are ALL Wonder Women! with Heather Ann Cosplay, Stray Kat Cosplay, and Whitney.

Even if you feel you don’t look like the character or aren’t sure about your costume, you can feel like Wonder Woman. –Stray Kat Cosplay

Watching Wonder Woman inspired little girls that
they could stand up for themselves and others. –Whitney

Time Machine

Oliver and Terry Holler used parts they found and made to turn a DeLorean into a far out Back to the Future time machine. With it, they have traveled to all 50 states to fund raise for a future Parkinson’s Disease cure (a cause close to my heart because of my cousin Allison).

5. Back to the Future: Adventures in a DeLorean Time Machine:

The great thing about making something yourself is then you can fix it.

Money comes and goes. Time only goes.

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Thank you to Phoenix Comicon for providing media passes.