I got my package from Bigmouth, and I'm in awe!  I love everything so much, thank you a ton Bigmouth. 
And now it's photo time so I can show it off!


This is an oven mitt made from a shrunken old sweater and some bits of yarn and cotton thread from another swap.  It's perfect because I lost my last oven mitt while I was moving!!



A cool little pouch made out of fused plastic target bags and some thrifted/saved rickrack and buttons.  It's going right in my huge purse to hold my essentials in a place I can actually find them.



A stack of really beautiful handmade paper (in green and purple ).  The best part is, they're made out of anti-abortion pamphlets--I had told Bigmouth that I was a feminist and she worked it into the crafts in such fun ways!


Some awesome handmade notecards.  They're handmade paper and the embellishments are all kinds of fun  stuff from thrifted books (and some ribbon).  The envelopes are all made out of a whole foods paper bag--each envelope has it's own little personality, too!


This is my favorite one of the notecards from above.  It has the definitions for "right" and "radical" on it, along with a cool funky solar system illustration.  I'm going to make sure I save this one for a worthy recipient!

Again, thank you so much, Bigmouth.  I love everything!

I love that cross stitch!  It looks so domestic and docile and then you look closer and it's awesome and feministy.  It's really well done, too!

I hope millik likes my package!  It should be there soon

Editing to add photos of the package I just got from millik!!

First, a fucking bad ass apron.  I love to bake, but with an apron that's embroidered with Betty Dodson's face, I doubt I'll get people telling me I'm being domestic!  She even has little bead "earrings" sewn on!  I love it!


Second, an equally awesome pillow.  Not only is it in my favorite colors, not only does it have a uterus on it, but the uterus has a moustache.  Superb!


Third, a happy/sad uterus pin set.  So everyone knows what my uterus is feeling like.  Soon to make many appearances on my purse/jacket.


Fourth, and god I love this one, it's so clever--A little package of stickers.  The case, perfect size for sticking in my purse to have at the ready for whenever I need them:


And what's inside?


Lastly, she also included a zine that she and her friend made for a menstrual workshop--I love menstrual activism and alternative menstruation, so it's awesome that we have that in common and this zine is lookin' sweet to boot!


Thank you so much for everything, millik.  It's all so beautiful, creative, and well-made!  Also, millik noticed that I like to use recycled and repurposed materials, so she made all the items without buying any materials besides what she already had, which I love.  How thoughtful!  What a great swap!

So I bought a new camera!  It takes the loveliest photos, too!

So, finally, here's photos of the things that I received from RamenQueen.

A painted and decorated photo frame--one of the buttons fell off in shipping, I just haven't gotten around to gluing it back on yet.


Some blank notecards that she decorated.


Some painted/collaged wall art.


And this was the card she sent.


She also sent some chocolates and some Valentinesy paper die cuts for crafting.  So thanks again, Tawna!



Anyway, I didn't take photos of everything I sent to her, but I did take photos of the thing I'm the most proud of so I guess I'll just post those!  I made her a little notebook made completely out of repurposed paper waste.  The cover is a piece of chipboard that I rescued from the trash at my office, and it's covered on the outside with some vintage 1964 sheet music for the organ, and on the inside with the bag that my lunch had come in that day (with her name hand stamped on it).  The pages were all collected from various half-used and discarded notebooks.  I cut them all to size and then hand-bound them into the journal.  I also included a (non-crafted, but awesome) pencil made entirely out of recycled newspapers!  Anyway, some photos of the journal!

Front cover


Back cover


Inside cover


Some of the pages


Second, she said she liked white chocolate and fruit, so I improvised and changed around some recipes I had to make a dry white hot chocolate mix and some homemade pink raspberry heart-shaped mini marshmallows (or as I called them on the packaging, "heartshmallows!").  I didn't take any photos of that, though.

The third item was an origami heart folded out of a dollar bill.  I also took photos and wrote instructions to make a personal tutorial for her so she could make her own.  And actually, I made that available for her online here if anyone else wants to look at it.

The card I made was just a cute little pinup and some more stamping.  I didn't take any photos of that, either.

Anyway, yay!  This was a really fun swap to craft for, and I hope to do more swaps in the future.

I made a little journal for a friend of mine for her birthday.  Nothing too special though I think it turned out quite well.  I cut all of the pages from partially used notebooks I bought at a thrift store (except for a few pages which were several layers of a used sewing pattern glued together for a little bit of strength since it's so tissue-papery).  The pages that are glued to the front to attach the pages to the cover were cut from an old Readers Digest atlas.  The cover was rescued from a discarded tagboard box from my office that held file folders or something of the sort before one of my coworkers threw it away (didn't even recycle it!).  The cover is then covered with some old sheet music.  I bound it with the stitch that I forget the name of, but it's the one that allows the book to lie flat when open.  There's five signatures of five sheets (ten pages) each.


The sheet music cover, on which I stamped her name (store bought stamps) and a little heart (hand-carved by me).


The inside cover, which has a map of Washington state (where she lives) with the same heart from the cover stamped on Bellingham (where she is about to move for school this Sunday).


The back inside cover, which has a map of Maryland (where I live) with the same heart again stamped on Baltimore (where I live).


Look at all the different types of paper!


One of the sewing pattern pages, and also a plain lined page (but the lines are really faded and also vertical due to the way I cut the paper).


Just another shot of some more of the variety of papers I used.

Anyway, that's it!  I'm mailing it to her probably tomorrow so I hope she likes it.  I like the fact that I was able to take a bunch of things discarded by other people and bring it all together into something for someone I care about.

I started out with this lamp from IKEA:



Then, with some Mod Podge and a bunch of awesome postage stamps of nude art, I made this:

(Click the pictures to get full size images that are not distorted from the automatic resize)

The lamp:

Side 1 (my favorite side):

Side 2:

Side 3:

Side 4:


The worst part was removing the bamboo sticks from the inside of the lamp so that there wouldn't be shadows on the stamps (I left it on the top part).  I think I seperated a little bit of my thumb from the nail because I was ever so carefully sliding my thumb inbetween the bamboo and the rice paper.

Anyway, really simple project but I love love love the way it turned out.

So, here's my entry for the new life for old jeans craft challenge.  Right after I saw the challenge I decided I wanted to do it, but at first I couldn't think of something fun and original that I would actually like to make.  Then, suddenly, an idea just ocurred to me.

Feel free to click any of the pictures to view a larger version.







So in case you haven't figured out what this little bit of my old pair of jeans is, it's...

An embellished birth control pill case!



I had about a billion of the cases laying around since I get a new one every time I fill my prescription.  Along with it, I get the little pamphlet about how you should buy one of their special cases that has some lame picture printed on it.  I decided it would be way more fun to make my own.

To make it, I first glued the denim down to the case.  For embellishments I glued on a few oblong pearl beads, a scrap of ribbon, and a beautiful handmade ceramic button (I just pulled out the wire toggle loop in the back so it would lay flat).  I then painted around the edge of the case to keep the denim and ribbon from fraying.

Cute and functional!