"Monster" Masquerade Mask

Hello, again, all you fans of cans! We've just had our first small taste of chilly fall weather! Yay! Halloween is almost here! So, being in the spirit of spookiness, I made one of the hair holders I've been playing around with into a colorful masquerade mask using my stash of Monster (and other energy drink) tabs.





I LOVE me some anodized tabs! I used up most of my colored can tab stash on this mask. I never have many to work with because, to my dismay, they come on only energy drinks, and caffeine just doesn't play nice with me. I really like all the slight color variations of the tabs. Wish I had MORE. If any of you have any tabs to spare, I would just about beg, borrow or steal to get some more. Well, maybe just beg or trade. I've got a holiday project planned that would really be improved by some more red ones.

(BTW, awhile back I DID contact Monster about the possibility of a caffeine-free version. Hehe. The kind customer service rep actually wrote me back that she would send it on to the product development dept. for consideration. What do you think my chances are? It would probably have a plain old silver tab, anyway. DRAT!! I'm still waiting patiently for an update. ;D )

I may pick up some feathers and things to dress up the mask a little. I think a jeweled bottlecap will look nice on one side, too.

***** UPDATE 10/03/09 *****

Just finished adding some feathery decoration to the mask.



Hope it improves it. I like how the fluffy colorful stuff turned out. The idea was inspired a bit strangely. I noticed the "cracker", or tip, at the end of the poly rope whip I plaited for my daughter a while back. (The pics are on my other blog.) It got all fuzzy from cracking, as crackers tend to do. The poly rope comes in 75 ft bundles for a $1 at our dollar store. I went ahead and got some other colors (blue, red, and yellow). I may use them for other things. Can never have enough rope, right? :) Anyway, the black and white spikey stuff is plastic shopping bag. When you roll up a strip and pull it, it gets stiff and can stand on its own. I thought it was pretty cool.

Thanks for stopping by! And, have a SCARIFIC Halloween!

Hair Accessories for Halloween

While making my first purse posted just before this, I came up with this idea to make hair holders purely by accident. So, I've decided to try to make some to put in my Etsy.com store. I have experimented with two different styles. The "infinity" style with streaming ends shown here:




The ends aren't really finished, yet. I'm debating to add beads and other things to the ends.

And, the plain flat one here:




I may also lengthen the idea into tie-on headbands, as well. Since Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, they're woven with black and orange t-shirt fabric. I may add some charms or ribbon to the the bottom edge.

They are secured in the hair with a chopstick. Now that I think about it, if I had used "plarn" (plastic bag yarn) these could easily be made out of discarded chinese take-out trash. Now, what would I use the pesky styrofoam or cardboard boxes for? Hmmm... Guess I could store my hair accessories in them. :)

Thanks for stopping by. Until next post, have a CAN-tastic time!

Autumn is Just Around the Corner!

Pics are here as promised! Hope you like the new retro additions. While working on the hat tutorial I wanted to make a different style than the sun hats. And, after this hat was nearly finished it "told" me it needed a purse to go with it. (And, I really wanted to use up all the scrap from the hat) :) I'm really not one who uses a purse these days. I have a tendency to lay them down in unusual places. Oopsy. But, I've had a lot of folks asking if I'm going to make any purses, so I thought I'd better get one done. It probably isn't a very practical size for most, but I think it's adorable, anyway.



Both the hat and the purse are made from three t-shirts (black, blue and white) that I happened to have around because I keep EVERYTHING. They took most of all the shirts to make except a few small scraps. Because of the indecisive person I am, I made two styles of straps for the purse. The one pictured above is a wide strap to wear over the shoulder and the other is the two smaller handles shown below. They hook in with lanyard hooks. The purse has a bottlecap button on both sides that fasten to the removable closure. And, the hat has a matching bottlecap flower embellishment.





I lined the purse with some extra blue t-shirt I had left. And, I also added a small pocket inside.



Though you can't tell in the pics, I was very please at how my make-up turned out. I've been playing around with different looks and was trying for something a little retro 20's vampish or something. The pic below is the best angle I have due to the hat brim covering my eyes. It was very odd, not to mention sticky, wearing a turtleneck sweater, wool skirt and full length wool coat in 80+ degree muggy Texas heat. Wonder what the neighbors were thinking. :) I wanted to give the images a good fall/winter feeling. Just ignore the greenery, if you will. ;)



Thanks for lookin'.

POP TOP Tute and Patterns on Etsy

Finally put the POP TOP Tutorial/Patterns up at my Etsy store, which reminds me that I want to say a big THANKS, again to everyone who has purchased the "Tabistry Basics". I'm so happy it has been received so well.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30706194

It's been a long time editing these tutorials, but I finally had to stop making excuses and get the hat tutorial up. I'm a bit fussy and can't quit tweaking every little thing. While writing it, I put together a new "bucket" style hat that I will get action pics of as soon as I get it and a matching purse finished. Hope to have the pics taken this weekend. **crosses fingers, knocks on wood, does little dance, etc...**

For now, you'll just have to be content with this one from the tute:



Sorry, but it started growing out of my lightbox. I still haven't got the lighting just right, but the images of the construction are much better than my previous attempts.

In other news, I was also inspired to make a couple designs for some hair accessories that I may sell on Etsy, as well. With the way things are going at present, they probably won't be ready until after October, though. We shall see. I've got my garb to get ready for TRF! Speaking of faire (and I do quite often), we'll be at Middlefaire opening weekend on September 19th for their bellydance themed weekend. I think you'll be able to guess what I'm wearing. :)

So many things to make and so little time! Better get back to my tabs.