Author: Caryn

Throwback Thursday: Picture frames

On By CarynIn Craft, throwback

In May of 2013 I was into making sculptural wood and wire photo frames.

Photo description: oak wood photo frame with wire tree and Mother of Pearl buttons as leaves

I cut the frame from hardwood, sanded and finished it, then put a peg hole and dowel in the back to function as a stand. I drilled holes for the wires, epoxied them in and shaped them. I added tabs to the back to hold the photos in. Did I take a picture of the back? Not of this one.

Photo description: back of an owl photo frame showing peg stand, metal tabs, and hanging hardware. The eyes of the owl were fused glass with iron oxide pupils that matched the tone of the wood. the back of the eyes can be seen in the photo.

My photo skills took a slip back at this time. Many of the photos for the other frames were blurry, or at a strange angle, and others were taken with photos in them. Some of the photos of photos were decent, but since I don’t post faces on this blog, it made them unsuitable for future use. In my past-self’s defense, I had two young children and I’m frankly lucky to have remembered to take pictures at all.

Multi-use

On By CarynIn Craft

My turned rosewood distaff made by Enid Ashcroft is a beautiful piece of work. I appreciate that the top end is just the right size for a pencil topper, and not only does it function well for its intended purpose of holding fiber for spinning, it can also function as a ring holder. Pictured below it is holding many sizes of quartz bead rings.

Photo description: ring distaff holding rings with a heart eyed emoji topper

The thought process that lead up to this discovery was “I need something that will keep these rings in size order during transport.”

Moth balls

On By CarynIn Insects
Photo description: two moths in the dryer with a wool dryer ball

I’ve started a new campaign to keep the moth community sparkling clean: Moth Balls! Toss the ball into the dryer and it releases hundreds of detail oriented nocturnal lepidopteran insects to scour clothing. Ew, no, I’m kidding, April Fools. Gah, the thought (shudder).

I did find moths in my dryer at the dawn of Spring. They were safely transported outside. It was weird finding them there, though. We’ve lived here for seven years and I’ve never before found flying insects in the dryer. I wonder if I have a crack or breakage somewhere.

Photo description: moth rescued from the dryer on a piece of paper

I gave them wings

On By CarynIn Craft

When we hide rocks for the Kindness Rocks project, we put some simple instructions on the back. I wanted to put something similar on my worry worms. I started with a scarf idea, with a simple slit for the attachment and words burned into man-made felt. After a couple tests, I thought the scarf looked more like wings, so changed my design in Adobe Illustrator, saved it as an SVG, and imported it in my laser cutter’s program.

Photo description: three worry worms with a scarf (left), wings with a bold font (middle), and wings with a thin stencil font (right)
Photo description: yellow and orange felt in the laser cutter, there were definite cutting differences between colors, in this photo the orange cut much cleaner than the yellow with the same settings
Photo description: purple glow worry worms with a with purple wings that say “Hi! You found me! Keep me or pass me on” with more worms and wings in the background

I just love their little wings! I did find it interesting that the thin stencil font was easier to read than a bold stencil.

I took these to my regional chorus competition and my chorus had a great time “hiding” them for other competitors to find.

Glow worms

On By CarynIn Craft

I had left over yarn from my glowing jellyfish hat, so I made glow worms! These are a glowing version of my worry worms.

Photo description: worry worms crocheted with five colors of Lions brand DIY Glow Cozy yarn with black sew on eyes
Photo description: glow worms in a dish, in the dark, glowing shades of green

I did enter them in the Lion brand Show us your Glow contest by tagging the picture in Instagram, but did not do a social push because I wanted my friends and family to vote for the jellyfish. Neither made the top 10, but there were some spectacular entries with serious time investment and large social backing. I do have my patterns available for free for the worry worm, and the jellyfish hat!