Sunday, January 29, 2012

Us?? Sophisticated?? ...You decide.

Several months ago I made a purchase that I thought would lend an up-scale air of sophistication to my home.  


You see, all the high-class (you can read that as wealth) homes, museums, galleries, etc. seem to have at least one....


Hhhhhmmmm...........  I've got you intrigued now, don't I?


Well,  I bought a bust (you know, a statue of a head).  "Just like rich folk!"  (that was a shout-out to my brother).   


After several days of the white head next to the high-class "lucky" bamboo (it seems all the wealthy folk have bamboo too), I decided that those high-class, sophisticated people must be incredibly boring.  


BORING!


So, we decided the least we could do is give him a name.  


My husband thought he looks like the famous statue of David, so he suggested we call him Dave.  I overruled him and named him AL - short for albino (I apologize if that is offensive - we actually discussed this and determined it's not racist because albino is not a race...  but, I digress)


I call him Al.  When he calls me, he calls me Betty.  (Yes, Sarah, I DO think that is funny!)


So, because we are NOT up-scale, high-class people and we ain't got NO sophistication at all (to all the grammar gurus and English teachers out there, yes, I realize the problems with that statement -  just go with it) - Here is Al...


During the World Series - cheering for the World Champion St Louis Cardinals, of course!

incognito for Halloween.  (If that ain't sophisticated, I don't know what is!)



dressed for the countdown to Christmas. 


dressed for Christmas Eve and Christmas day. 


dressed in his fancy sweater vest (it's a vest because he doesn't need sleeves)


Another vest, but this one requires a shirt!


Looking dapper for Valentine's Day!  Al has been influenced by Sarah, he is now a Dr. Who fan - notice his bow tie.  



So, if you come to our house, you will be greeted by Al - he sits by the front door and that's his job.  


It has been suggested that Al create a facebook page.  I had to gently point out that Al can't type...   he has no hands. 

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

WHO is in the Painting

BORING blank wall


 There has been a blank wall staring at me in my living room for quite some time now. I have been trying to decide what to do with it. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on something only to decide later that it isn't exactly what I wanted.

The only thing that I knew for sure was I wanted TURQUOISE - my favorite color. We have the most awesome comfy cozy brown pillows, so I wanted to incorporate some brown onto the wall as well.

So, I decided to be adventurous and paint my own canvases. Now, you should be aware that when I say I paint it's because I enjoy painting, NOT because other people enjoy my paintings. In other words, everything I paint looks like modern art even if it wasn't intended to be modern art. So, this truly was an adventure!

I purchased 2 double pack 16" x 20" canvases from Michael's when they were on sale buy 1 get 1 free. I have my own store-sized inventory of paints and paintbrushes. So, my total investment was about $10.  I figured if I totally hated the results I could paint over them and haven't wasted too much ca$h. 

I'm not sure if this is really my style, but I'm enjoying them!




It makes me smile when I look at them for several reasons:

1. TURQUOISE! Enough said!

2. Sarah and I painted them together. Most of the paint actually made it onto the canvases.

3. My husband even got in on the action! He got to use his laser level to hang them.

4. I like fleur de lis!


And the biggest reason that they make me smile.... After hanging them on the wall and admiring our mad skills, we realized that each of the fleur de lis is actually shaped as


An ear of corn




an upside down penguin (OK, you may have to squint a little to see it)




and... Cindy Lou Who!! 




Let me assure you, this was completely unintentional!

I must admit, when my husband so lovingly (that is sarcasm for those of you who may not realize it) pointed out the ear of corn, I was a little annoyed. Then we took a closer look at all of them and realized this is really funny!!  Now I can't look at them without seeing the "hidden" pictures. 


Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Normal pens are too boring.

I hate having boring pens. I can't write with them!



Instead I have awesome pens:

My lovely fountain pen from Germany

My sonic screwdriver pen for you Doctor Who fans out there

My Elder Wand pen

And, of course, the actual reason for my posting: Our feather pens.

We got the idea for these pens when we were on our weekly inspiration walk...through the Hobby Lobby's store

We saw this display at the end of an aisle filled with just feathers in many different colors. We then proceeded to spend a good 15 minutes trying to pick out the perfect feathers. We tried to find some colored floral tape to attach the feathers to the pens, but we had no luck.

So we got creative. We went down to our fabric shop in our basement, fought through the stacks and stacks of junk until we found the collection of satin ribbons. And, of course, we brought out our good friend the hot glue gun.

Using the same standard Bic pen pictured at the beginning of this post, we hot glued the feather along the pen and then began to wrap the pen and feather in the satin ribbon.
We made sure to stop wrapping at a place that would allow us to replace the inside of the pen when it ran out of ink.

And ta-da! Awesome feather quill pens!


We made these while I was home over Thanksgiving break. You know what I was using to do homework on the plane flight back to school. ;) And during finals time you could totally find me writing/editing essays and studying with purple feather pen in hand.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Sarah's Green Scarf

Stylish green scarf
My latest knitting creation, - my first creation for the new semester/new year - is this green knitted scarf.
I used the same pattern for this scarf as for the scarf I made Mom for Christmas (will be put up eventually, I'm sure). I have fallen in love with making scarves - lace scarves. Lace is just so fun to knit.

This scarf in particular was knit while watching many episodes of Farscape. I'm such a nerd. But this scarf will forever be associated with that amazing TV show.



Green Scarf on My Messy Desk
This picture lets you see the detail a little better, but I guess still not really. But be proud of me! This is my first lace knit project where the mistakes were not overwhelming! In fact, I couldn't find any mistakes when I looked back over it during blocking! That's something superly exciting.

And the day after blocking this of course it was around my neck all day. I felt so cool. :)
Now I don't have any new projects until this blog is up and running and I get the new yarn in for the scarf I am making for a friend. ... Really whichever comes first... I'm really hoping the yarn comes soon...

Welcome!

Welcome to Crazy Curls Girls blog! We are so happy you have found us here.

The Crazy Curls Girls are a mother / daughter team. Guess what... we have curly hair. I mean CRAZY CURLY hair! (and we are a little crazy too.)

We enjoy all kinds of crafting: sewing, crocheting, painting, decoupaging, and hot glueing absolutely anything! just to name a few. Sarah is an extremely talented knitter (Kelly has a new year's resolution to actually learn how to knit. Wish me luck with that!).

Sarah is currently away from home in Washington, DC, attending school, so she is limited in the types of projects she can attempt. For Kelly, the possibilities are limitless!!

We hope to share many of our projects with you on this blog - our great successes and our utter failures (yes, we all fail occasionally). Some of our craft endeavors are completely silly and dorky (those are sometimes the best!) and some are artistically beautiful.

Whatever your crafting style, we hope you use our projects as inspiration for your own craftiness! Make it funky! Make it beautiful! Make it you! Just Make Something!

We would love to hear from you. Give us feedback. Share your projects.

Mosaic Poster

This was a Christmas gift to a friend of mine.

      We found a pretty awesome poster that I thought she would like, and then we cut it into squares (I forget the exact size). Then we put each piece of the poster into baseball card protectors that you can get at Wal-Mart at the checkout. (Although, they are kinda hard to find - which we learned when we ran out of them and had to go to two different Wal-Marts trying desperately to find another pack.) Then, Mom got to open one of her Christmas presents early:
 
Grandma got Crop-A-Dile for Mom for Christmas. This thing is AWESOME! After opening it we spent a good half hour just punching random holes. Then we actually got back to the project at hand.
We punched a small hole in the middle of each side of each card protector. And then, using some copper wire that we had, we made our own jump rings and connected each piece of the puzzle together. 
The final touch was the giant flowers we put on the ends of the dowel rod holding it up.
The only problem we had was wrapping it. ... We chose not to. :)

When we began this project, we were like "Yeah! This is gonna be great! And super easy!" Yeah... Not so much. It was a complete family project. We had to enlist the help of Grandma and Dad to make the jump rings, connect the cards, and, of course, the ever needed moral support.