Author Archive
Posted on February 27, 2009 - by Chezlin
Ay Sus!
I’m Filipino-American so I know a few silly Tagalog words here and there that my mom says now and then. My little sister and I like to combine some of these words to make completely nonsensical phrases. One of these gems is “Ay sus ginoo, sapatos puwet kugmo!” Any Tagalog speaker now should see that this doesn’t really make any sense, but that’s the point! “Ay sus ginoo” is an expression.. kind of like saying “oh my god.” I’m often greeted with that expression from my mom when I’m just goofing around the house. The rest of it is literally, sapatos= shoes, puwet= butt and kugmo= booger. So yeah, as you can see, it makes no sense. Spanish speakers may notice the influence their language has had on Tagalog.
Anyway, the point of this post is that my sister and I wanted to make shirts with this phrase on them. We would always talk about it, but never really do anything, so randomly I decided I was going to make mine at least… I didn’t know what shirt she wanted to use, and I didn’t know if she approved on the final layout of the letters.
Here’s the printout.
Posted on February 1, 2009 - by Chezlin
Drawing on mugs is fun!
So this post today is for two reasons. First and foremost, I made some kickin’ rad one of a kind mugs. I got this idea thanks to craftster, roboarsonist. She used a ceramic paint pen by Pebeo called Porcelaine 150 and used it to draw some designs on a few mugs. Once I saw that I knew I had to try it. I went to Michaels and grabbed myself one pen and then to Goodwill to grab up some mugs and then went to town on them. Well, actually only two of them so far… and here they are!
Posted on January 22, 2009 - by Chezlin
The poor mans dress form
Soooo, not everyone has enough money to buy a dress form.. especially nowadays. Luckily for those of us who would like one, it’s not too hard to whip up a cheap one if you have the right stuff. There are a zillion tutorials on how to make one for cheap.. whether it be with paper-tape, paper mache or duct tape.
Posted on December 1, 2008 - by Chezlin
Busy bee!
I’ve been busting my butt lately with school work that I haven’t had time to craft 
I thought I’d at least post something to let you all know that I’m still here! And to give a little peek at what I’ve been doing.. art wise.. for school.
I had a semester long assignment where we had to do a color study of 30 colors for each week of class. Of course, I put it off and had to do almost all of them during the Thanksgiving break. Yay, 300+ colors!
Here’s my final for painting… four paintings, inspired by different artists. I’m so glad to be almost done with this class!
On top of those, I have to print and bound a book and print around 10 more prints for my book arts class. There’s also the color theory assignment I have where I have to re-do an old piece that I’ve done where I’m not happy with the colors… twice. Oh yeah, and studying for my two other classes. Woo, the end of the semester!
Hopefully I’ll be crafting and posting in a week or two, when classes are done!
Posted on November 19, 2008 - by Chezlin
Cassette tape coin purse
So, many of you know that I make cassette tape wallets.. After a few weeks of using mine, I found out that they’re not ideal for storing lose change. It slides out of the sides when you unzip it causing you to scramble around on the floor to collect your change. Or maybe that’s just me. In any case, it inspired me to make a coin purse version of the cassette tape wallet. I wanted a metal purse frame clamshell thing as a closure instead of a zipper, but I didn’t want to pay 5+ bucks for one (yeah, I’m cheap) so that was really the only thing holding me up from making one. However, after cleaning my room the other day I found an old wallet which happened to have a coin purse attached.. perfect! The wallet was already falling apart, so I just ripped the frame out and got crackin’.
These are my materials:
a cassette tape, a metal purse frame (I’m not sure of the size because I just ripped it out of that wallet) and fabric.
Posted on November 3, 2008 - by Chezlin
Wind me up!
Phew, it’s been a while! If you guys hadn’t noticed, this blogging thing is pretty difficult for me to stay on top of. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to post somewhat regularly, haha. 
I’ve done a few things between now and my last post.. one of the biggest things being attending the Austin Maker Faire.. and I know I’m going to be a few weeks late, but I’ll eventually post a few of my pictures from there. I also made a duct tape dressform for my little sister and I’ve started a jacket.. which has been sitting in my room half finished for about a week. Oh yeah, I just made these awesome earrings, but you’ll just have to wait for those pictures because this post is really for my… halloween costume!
Posted on September 28, 2008 - by Chezlin
Oh my god, shoes.
I’m not even going to try to come up with excuses as to why I haven’t posted in forever… I’ll just get to the good stuff.
My little sister had some shoes she didn’t really care for anymore, and asked if I could re-cover them for her. I had seen an article in Craft Magazine where they had done this so I knew it could be done.
Here are the shoes in question:
Posted on July 10, 2008 - by Chezlin
Lip balm galore!
After watching this episode of Threadbanger, I decided I needed to make some homemade lip balm. I bought all of the necessities, bees wax, lip balm tubes, scented oil, the works. That was a few months ago. I finally decided to get off my rump and make some balm!
Here’s the recipe I used:
1 tablespoon of beeswax
2 tablespoons of some kind of oil. In this case I used coconut oil. You can either go out and buy some, or you can buy a coconut and extract some yourself! Here’s a post where I made some coconut oil.
a few drops of an essential oil. I didn’t use any for this batch because the only oil I had smelled like orange.
Here’s the tablespoon of wax and two tablespoons of oil.
Posted on July 10, 2008 - by Chezlin
Coconuts: 101 different ways!
This post is all about coconuts. A single coconut has multiple uses, and I’m going to show you just a few of them. Okay, I lied. I’m not going to talk about 101 different ways to use the same coconut.. I’m going to talk about four or five different ways. That’s still a lot!
The first use! Coconut oil. Here’s a bunch of pictures of when my mom taught me how to make coconut oil.
I apologize in advance for the not so great pictures.
Blurry picture of her cracking that sucker open. She was moving pretty fast.
Mmm, this is a good coconut. Lots of meat.
Posted on June 27, 2008 - by Chezlin
That’s hot. Seriously. Hot, fused plastic. Tote.
Man, I haven’t posted in a loooong long time.. I had to brush the dust off of this thing before I started this post! Haha. I apologize, I don’t even have a real good reason, but I’ll try to make it up to you with this post.
I was trying to get myself out of this no crafting deal I had been having for a while by flipping through some of my old magazines for inspiration.. when I found just what I needed.
I saw this bag on the right, and I knew I had to make one. That bag, from Keen Footwear is actually made from woven rice paper, but I decided to do mine with fused plastic. I used a tutorial from the Etsy Labs on how to fuse the plastic bags. After that I just made a basic tote.. with some woven details. Here’s what was created:
