Friday Favorites #3

Happy Friday!  Here are some things I've been looking at this week...

////This is a MUST SEE for any Game of Thrones fan :)

////I didn't know this before, but Lynn Hirschberg's interviews of really famous people are fantastic.  Check out her interviews on Pinterest .  I actually thought Taylor Swift interviewed surprisingly very well.   I thought Joseph Gordon Levitt's was really interesting as well...

////I thought this was cool- Every outfit Walter White ever wore on Breaking bad

////This is a dessert made to look like Ramen!  HAH!

////Here is a history of the most popular female names in America.  Kinda weird!

////Here is a silly ad campaign for the Canadian beer company Molson

////11 Illustrations of Words with no English equivalent

////This ice cream recipe

////These amazing book edge paintings 

///I'll be needing these earrings stat, haha

///I can't seem to find shoes in this particular style anywhere, but I'm on the lookout.  They're cute!

What about you?  What's caught your eye this week??

How to make your very own PEPPERMINT BUTLER!

For those of you who are not familiar, Peppermint Butler is the loyal butler to Princess Bubblegum in the popular series Adventure Time.  The show has a bunch of great characters, so I thought it would be fun to dress up as Princess Bubblegum for Halloween. After working on the dress and the crown for my costume, I got the idea to create a Peppermint Butler purse.  I'm going to fill it with bubblegum and peppermints :)

It was a bit time consuming, but still really easy to make dear old Pepp.  What takes time is waiting for all of that glue to dry ;)

The first thing you need to do is draw a circle.  You can really make your Butler any size.  Mine was about 8 inches in diameter.  Cut out about 4 circles of the same diameter using regular printer paper.

Now, use a cereal box or some sort of flimsy cardboard, take the circle you cut out from printer paper and trace it over your cardboard, and cut a circle out of the cardboard.  Do this two times.

Next up, cut out two more pieces of cardboard as pictured below, it can be any width.  I chose 3.5 inches.  It worked out pretty nicely as far as peppermint proportions go...

Tape the two pieces together.

Little by little, start taping your long straight piece to your cardboard circle. Tape the inside too for extra support...

If you desire, you can line the inside of your purse.  I had some purple felt left over from making the Princess' lapels so that is what I chose to use.  you can line it with any color, really...

After it is all lined, finish taping both sides of the box...

`

Before the felt goes on, you're going to cover the cardboard with those white printer paper circles you made earlier.  That way, the cardboard and tape and ugly stuff doesn't show through...

Below you see I've applied the felt to the front and the paper to the sides.  The glue is on top there and I'm just about to put the felt on top...(P.S. use this glue, it is AWESOME)

After that you slowly start bringing him to life using different color felts.  Its helpful to have those extra cut outs of the printer paper so that you can measure how wide to make his clothes and so on...

His arms and legs were a bit tricky.  to make them, I rolled a piece of felt up with a wire I got from a craft store.  In other words, there is a wire in his legs and arms so you can bend them. I sewed the felt up and added the cuffs on the end to hide the imperfections.  

I made his hands and feet the same way...  I will tell you how I did the hand so you get the idea...I drew a 1 dimensional hand on felt and cut that pattern out 4 times.  I sewed two of the pieces together and stuffed them with left over felt to give it some dimension.  I placed the hands into the cuffs and using white thread, sewed the unseen part of the hand into the white cuff.  You can't really see it and it keeps the hand on the arm really well.  You basically use the same idea for the feet except that the feet go over the leg and you use red thread to sew it to the leg...

So, for those of you wondering how I attached the appendages onto the body, I'll tell ya.  I sewed the arms and legs into the cardboard! It wasn't all that easy.  You are basically blindly trying to find the perfect spot for your needle to go, and it takes a couple of times to get it right.  On top of that, pushing a needle through cardboard, albiet flimsy cardboard, HURTS yo' fingas!  Be sure to have a thimble handy to protect those digits...

Here is the finished product...My Peppermint Butler glamour shoot!

Ahh! Cat hair on his feets!

Kinda need to do some last minute glue touch ups, but I ran out of glue!!

UPDATE:   I got some cord from a fabric store and put two holes at the top and turn Mr. Butler into a purse! That way he will always be at my side ;)  Here is a photo of me in my halloween costume with my butler purse!!

Screen Door

Have you ever been to that restaurant in Portland called Screen Door?  That is what this post title reminds me of.  You can get so much fried chicken there, it is nothing short of amazing!  That's not the kind of screen door I'm talking about right now though.  The one I'm talking about just made my apartment feel more like home.  I made a screen door!  Now my cat can't escape when I want to leave the door open!  I've been waiting for my screen door for months, and I finally had time to do it :)

Here is a quick picture tutorial on how to make one yourself.  You will definitely need at least two people to do it.

Here is what you need:

5 pieces of wood
A drill and drill bits
Measuring tape
Clamps
A Ruler
A razor blade
Long screws, depending on how thick your wood is (I think our screws were around 3")
Other regular screws
A hand saw
Screen material
at least 2 hinges
an eyelet latch
a handle
a friend

The very first thing you need to do is measure your door frame where your screen will go.  Ours measured something like 80.5" x 36"

Then you will need to measure the wood pieces

We measured two long pieces and two short pieces.  All together your frame will have 4 pieces of wood.  Later you will add 1 more piece somewhere in the middle as a support.  We'll get to that in a minute!

Then we clamped our wood down to our coffee table (limited work space here!!)

We used the razor blade to make a measuring mark on where we wanted to cut the wood.

Annnnd SAW!!  When sawing it is best to "let the saw do the work." Just  rock the saw back and forth gently and it will cut through the wood super easy.  Be sure to have a vacuum handy because there will be sawdust!

Fix your beard and continue...

Drill two holes (for extra support) where you want your screws to go.  This depends on the width of your wood.  Our width was pretty thick so we had to drill through the wood as much as possible so that the screw would actually attach to the smaller piece.  Make sure the drill bit that you use to drill holes in the wood is slightly larger than the head of the screw that you are using.

Clamp the two pieces together and get ready to screw them together!

We got super cute blue screws at the hardware store.  They aren't meant for wood but they still work and they were super long!

We got pretty excited about making the skeleton of the screen door and we decided to test it out in the door frame...

It fits!

After all the excitement we added the support piece in the middle.  Make sure to place the support piece  lower or higher than the door knob to your main door!

We then added screen material to what we considered to be "the back of the door"  and we used a staple gun to fix it to the wood.  I stood on the wood while Brian pulled it SUPER taut.  The long side took about 10 staples, while the short side took about 5.  We didn't staple gun the support piece.

When we were done staple gunning the screen material, we used a ruler and the razor blade to cut off the excess material.  Ow on your knees if you have a hard wood floor!  Oh well.  It took about 8 minutes to do this.

Finally you add the hinges, about 10-12 inches down from the top and bottom of the door.  The short side of the hinge is affixed to the wood, while the long side is affixed to the door frame outside.  Make sure you know which way you want your door to open!!

This is the hinge after we fastened it to the door.

We also wanted the screen to lock from the inside, so we bought this eyelet hook piece.  The hook screws into the door frame, and the eyelet screws into the screen.  We put the lock at the same length as our support beam.  I guess you could put the lock wherever you want, though...

Lastly we added the door handle.  I think the handle is meant for drawers and stuff.  I liked the flower pattern and it was on clearance.  Perfect!

Here is our little country screen door all finished...

****NOTE:  Be sure to subtract the space that the hinge will take up in the door frame when you are measuring the short side of your wood.  I'd say it takes up about 3/16".



P.S. Screen Door Portland.  I want it!