Getting Organized: A New-Old Cork Board

Happy New Year’s Everyone!

Since January is the season of New Year’s resolutions, and I wanted to post about one of mine; “Get Organized.”  While this may be easier said than done, I have taken a few drastic steps towards a more organized life.  Most recently I was finally able to hang up a wonderful large bulletin board that I made many months ago out of recycled wine corks.

I used two large pieces of particle board that I had been saving, and simply made the board in two square pieces which fitted together into one large rectangle.  Using hot glue I attached the corks one by one, doing my best to keep each row as even as possible.  I was actually quite surprised at the difference in heights of the different varieties of corks, as well as the different widths, but by fitting shorter corks on top of longer ones, I was able to keep each row roughly even.  While completely unnecessary, aesthetically it was something I felt was important.  I could have glued the corks on in either direction, but I chose to glue them on vertically next to each other, so that I added each row horizontally as it is now hanging on the wall.

I can’t wait to fill it up with inspirations for both this blog and my business.  Right now I’m using a few fabric covered pushpins that I made a while back, but I will probably augment those with a bunch of simple T-pins once I remember where I stashed my supply…

What organizational projects have you undertaken recently?  Or what other New Year’s resolutions are you tackling instead?

Happy 2013!  Allison

Sparkly Holiday Ornaments

Happy Holidays Everyone!  I absolutely love this time of year, especially in New York City.  There are lights and decorations everywhere, plus I love when the Christmas tree vendors fill the streets with evergreens.  In honor of the season I wanted to share a few ornaments I’ve been working on with you guys.  (And while I’ve been using them for my Christmas tree, they would also make perfect New Year’s Eve decorations!)

I absolutely love making ornaments, in fact I will often work on them year round!  But I usually get more excited by them at Christmas time, and this year was no exception.  A few weeks ago my good friend Ann (from All Things Paper) sent me a link to these gorgeous sequin ornaments.  All you need is a styrofoam ball, some sequins, and a lot of straight pins.  Oh, and thumbs of steel… I’m seriously thinking about investing in an old-fashioned thimble for future ornaments.

Basically you just push a straight pin through the center of each sequin, and into the styrofoam ball, it couldn’t be easier.  It is, however, a bit time consuming.  These random balls probably took me 2-3 hours each, though I was making them while watching movies so I wasn’t always concentrating 100% on each ornament.  The original tutorial I found was making balls out of just one color of sequin, and that is something I want to try too, but for now the only sequins I could find locally were in a big jumbled box of mixed colors and sizes, so I started with these multicolored ornaments and ordered a larger selection of single color sequins online (which should be arriving today!)  Each sequin is a 10mm cup sequin, and the styrofoam balls are 3 inches in diameter.  You could use any size sequin for this project but the smaller they are, the more sequins (and work) you’ll need to cover the whole surface.  For the hook at the top I cut an extra ornament hook in half, dabbed a bit of hot glue on the ends and pushed it down into the styrofoam until I had the perfect bit of U-shaped hook sticking out the top, to attach to a second ornament hook for hanging.

You can also make fun patterns and shapes with the sequins, to create more unique ornaments.  Once I get my bulk order of single color sequins I want to try other patterns like maybe stripes, as well as solid balls, but for now I decided to try using the mixture of colors I had to make flowers.  Each sequin flower is 6 of one color, with a second color sequin in the center.  And while each flower is a different color, all of the in between areas are filled in with pale blue sequins.

Honestly, I’m proud at how this one came out, but it was a HUGE amount of work, hours and hours and hours of plotting out how to fit the flowers in perfectly, and cover a spherical surface, plus a lot of removing of pins and sequins to re-position them.  I even drew guidelines on the styrofoam before I started and it was still a bit of a nightmare figuring it out.  And honestly, it looks cool but at the same time because of the different colors it doesn’t quite pack the punch I was hoping for…  I think I might try this again with just one color flower, using the knowledge I have from this first attempt, but then again I may decide its not really worth it.  We’ll see.

And finally, an ornament I actually made a few months ago, which really embraces the 3 R’s perfectly!  Recycled soda can tabs, glued to a clear plastic ornament.

I absolutely love how this came out, including the sort of spiky shape it made!  I’ve had it hanging over my desk at school and everyone in my department wanted to buy one, so maybe one day I’ll start making and selling them on Etsy.  For now it is happily decorating my Christmas tree, along with its sparklier sequin cousins.  Basically I just hot glued the tabs onto a pre-existing clear plastic ornament, the kind you can buy to decorate yourself.  Starting at the bottom and working my way up to the top I just overlapped the tabs like shingles, keeping approximately half of each tab sticking out under the overlapping layer.  I have also purchased a small selection of red tabs, so maybe one day I’ll try a candy cane sort of striped ornament, we’ll see.

For now I hope you are all having a happy and sparkly holiday season, and I wish you all the best in the new year!  Happy 2013!!  Allison

Folding, folding, folding…

Early Turkey Day Greetings All!

I wanted to post a few photos to show everyone my newest lighting creation.

As usual, this project started with a different concept in mind, and blossomed unexpectedly into something completely different and yet, totally awesome.

I have debated long and hard, but decided not to post instructions for how I made it.  Now that I am beginning to realize that my lighting business could actually be a real business, and having been a bit burned with what seem like copycats on Etsy, I’ve decided that sometimes I’m going to make projects that I want to share with all of you, without necessarily giving away all my secrets.  I hope everyone understands why I’ve come to this decision, because I do believe in sharing the wealth and making tutorials and teaching you how I created my lights so you can make your own, but I guess I just feel the need to draw the line somewhere.

However, I will share more details on something else I’ve been working on, which is taking newer staged photos of some of my lights.  I will always want photos of my lights completely on their own, against a white or gray background, to show them in the simplest and clearest fashion.  But, I am also making an effort to show them in context a bit more, to give a bigger picture to my products.  So, on a recent trip to Ikea for a new bookshelf, I spotted some interesting new props for my photographs.  My favorite ones so far are the set of white glass vases featured in these photographs, but I also bought a set of simple glass cylinder vases for flower arrangements, or bunches of branches and berries.  In fact my mom has this gorgeous bunch of hydrangeas in her front hall right now that she has promised to me after Thanksgiving for my photos.  I think they will look so beautiful not only with my white lights, but also with my Artichoke Book Page lights, with the subtle pinks and greens in the flowers, and the browns and tans of the books.  Can you tell my mind is already whirling?

For now I’ve only done one photo shoot with this newest light, and the actual lighting in my apartment is beginning to wane now that it is winter so I may be a bit limited going forward, but I’m always hopeful and worse comes to worse I’ll set up shop at someone else’s apartment who has more light!  So I hope everyone in America has a lovely Thanksgiving, and for any international readers, have a lovely rest of your week!

Ciao, Allison

Celebratory Piñata

Happy Sunday Greetings All!

I’m finally back with a new post and a new project!  This is a project that I actually completed last April, but it has taken me this long to get the photos edited and posted.  Last Spring was my 10 year high school reunion, and I was talking with my friend Elizabeth about the party we were going to have, and the topic of piñatas came up.  She has her own awesome blog called The Occasionist and a while back she had done a post about amazing piñatas.  We had both been really inspired, and realized that neither of us had ever made a piñata before, so we decided we had to try making one for our party.  Now don’t laugh, but the mascot for our high school was a Beaver, so for our reunion party we made a Beaver piñata, who we nicknamed Pickle.  (Why Pickle?  Well apparently in the 80’s Pickle was the nickname for a typical student at our school, because someone had joked that they were always ‘getting into a pickle.’  And we thought it was funny.)  Before I include a tutorial, here are a few photos of the finished Pickle!

Ok, now a “how to” for our piñata.  We googled a few instructions from various places online, but basically just made our own instructions from there.  (Photos at the end.)

1. Balloons.  Build a form out of balloons, we chose to use two to make Pickle, one for her body and one for her head.  We also filled in some additional shape with both newspaper and tape, for instance we filled in the neck with tape, and we also built a squarer beaver nose for the front of the ‘head’ balloon with some extra newspaper.

2. Papier Mache.  Tear newspaper into long strips, and make a glue out of flour and water. We chose a no-cook recipe from somewhere online, 1 part flour to 2 parts water.  Just mix the two parts together until the consistency seems right.

3. Cover your piñata with papier mache.  There’s no right or wrong way to do this, just remember to leave an opening where you can add the candy later.  We chose to leave a hole near the rear area of the beaver because it would be covered with the tail eventually.  Overall we probably added 2 or 3 layers of newspaper on most of the shape, but we didn’t bother letting it dry in between layers because we wanted to get all of the papier mache finished on one day.

4. Adding Fur!  After letting our papier mache dry for a few days it was time to add the tissue paper fur.  We decided to just stick with a simple brown for the body, because we weren’t able to find other colors of brown to mix in.  Each layer was two pieces of tissue, folded in half so that the strip was 2 inches wide, and four layers thick, with the folded edge at the top and the 4 open edges on the bottom which we cut into fringe.  Then starting around the opening we had left for adding candy, we started wrapping our beaver with fur from tail to head.  We also made hind legs and front paws out of newspaper wrapped in tissue, and added those as we went.  Finally I made a big beaver tail out of cardboard which we covered with alternating black and brown tissue paper.

We had a real ball making our piñata, but it was also so much work!  I can’t believe how cheaply you can buy them, even on Etsy where they’ve been handmade by someone.  I now have a lot more respect for those handmade piñatas.  So don’t look for me to start making and selling piñatas in the future!

Most importantly, don’t forget to take the time to make the little details like eyes and a nose (or big front teeth!)  We had a lot of fun adding personality to Pickle, from her cute little front paws to her pretty red bow.  

 

Pickle was a big hit at our party, though she was so heavy once we stuffed her with candy that we had a hard time figuring out where to hang her (inside an apartment in NYC.)  So maybe our future piñata endeavors will involve a backyard and a tree…

Has anyone else made a piñata before?  What shape or animal did you make?  I always love hearing everyone else’s crafting stories.  Ciao!  Allison

My New Website

Hi All,

So I know I disappeared again, sorry about that!  And here is why.  Not only have I been crazy busy juggling teaching full time with my lighting business (which is feeling more and more full time also) but I have also been working on launching my new website!

I’ve been thinking about making an official website for my lighting for a while, and finally I did it!  I was able to get the domain name http://www.Zipper8Lighting.com and I’ve been working on adding more and more info and photos and features as fast as I can.  It also includes some new portfolio photos I’ve been working on, like the photo here which I took a few weeks ago.  It features my large coffee filter pendant (or now a slightly smaller size actually) and is set up to evoke thoughts of summer weddings and garden parties.

It has been a labor of love, with emphasis on both those words because although I absolutely am in love with it, it has been a lot of work!  It is still in progress, as I collect more photos and get more products posted, but for now I am considering it officially launched and I could not be more proud.

All in all life is a bit crazy right now, but things should calm down in the next week or two (after my 90 progress reports are due) and so hopefully then I’ll have a chance to write a bunch of new posts about some exciting new projects.

Ciao, Allison

Zipper8Lighting on Fab.com, Take 2!

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for the disappearing act, but I’ve been super busy because starting today my lights are for sale on fab.com for a second time!  

I’m super excited, and this time I’m offering a wider selection of my artichoke pendants, including the original book page style, but also the versions made from maps, cartoons, sheet music and flowers.

I’ve been busy preparing for the last few months really, and if you didn’t believe me here’s a shot of a small piece of my hallway.  Yep, that’s lots and lots of lights hanging from the ceiling…  I’m thinking that I need to build in money for a studio, or some sort of storage, into my future business plan!

If you’re interested in checking out the sale (you can scoop up my lights at 24-27% off) then here’s the link:  http://fab.com/sale/9586/  And if you aren’t a member of fab.com it’s free to sign up, and I think you can join on the home page.

Cheers!  Allison

Chalkboard Animals Anyone?

One of my favorite projects from my 30x30x3 journey were the cork pencil cups I did with animal silhouettes painted on them.  Anyone remember these?

Anyway, I was recently thinking about them and it occurred to me, what if instead of cutting out a stencil and painting the animals on, what if I cut the animal shapes out of a vinyl chalkboard sticker?  Then you would have a cute animal AND a chalkboard label, all in one!  I had made the stencils by hand cutting each animal out of contact paper with an xacto blade, so how different would it be to cut them out of a vinyl label instead?

I can’t wait to try this out, now I just need to purchase some vinyl chalkboard labels on Etsy and dig up those old silhouettes I had found for the original project.  I’m sure I saved them digitally somewhere…

I’ll update everyone once I’ve had a chance to try this out!  Cheers, Allison

Road Maps Run Rampant! (3 R’s of a different nature…)

Apologies for the long disappearance, life got a bit busy and I feel terrible but I just wasn’t able to find the time to write blog posts.  Sorry!!  For today I thought I’d jump back in with a quick and fun variation on one of my most popular designs, my large faceted pendant light made from fortune tellers.  This time instead of using plain white paper, I used pages from a French road atlas instead, creating a wonderfully colorful light with a very different feel from the crisp white version.

Personally I am loving this updated version, it is also smaller than my previous light, this one measures approximately 14 inches across instead of 18.  I think the colorful maps make for a really fun light, which would look awesome in a bedroom or den, especially in a kids bedroom.

I used 4 inch squares of paper (if I remember correctly) and a 12 inch lantern, and approximately 125-150 fortune tellers, I can’t remember the exact number.

One interesting difference is the look of the light when lit.  The maps let less light through than the plain white paper, so when the light is turned on the centers of the fortune tellers are much more opaque.  While somewhat unexpected at first, I think it leads to added visual interest when the light is on, for a more varied surface overall.

What do you guys think?

I’ll be back this week with another new project, I promise!  For now, have a lovely Saturday evening.  Cheers! Allison

(Oh and of course I forgot to mention, it’s available in my Etsy shop!)

Birthday Balloon Wreath

Happy Birthday to Me!  (Today, March 1st, is my 28th birthday.)

Last year I had wanted to make this balloon wreath and post it as my birthday post.  And then I found out how expensive balloons are!  The whole project got a bit sidetracked, but I finally got it finished so it maybe be a year late, but I am finally able to post this as a special birthday themed project.

I first spotted this balloon wreath idea here on How Does She? and it was one of the first things to get pinned to my pinterest board!  The supplies have been sitting in my apartment for over a year, waiting to be made and I finally got down to it last week.  I am also trying to get better about taking photos as I work, and making more formal tutorials so I figured this was a great simple project to start with!

Materials:

Wreath: I used a styrofoam wreath because its cheap, the original tutorial used a straw wreath, I think they’d both work just fine.  Balloons, LOTS: Sorry, I have NO idea how many I used, a friend bought them for me and they arrived in one big bag all jumbled.  Floral Pins: The tutorial calls them Greening Pins, you find them in craft stores in the fake flower section, Michaels has them, that’s where I got mine.  I used roughly 200, though one box was open so I may have lost some over the year.

Step 1:  Gather 1-4 balloons.  I used bunches of 4 to save pins, the original tutorial calls for each balloon to be pinned individually, its up to you.

Step 2: The pin is U shaped, insert the balloon cluster into the U of the pin, so the pin is at the ‘stem’ of the balloons where they are skinny.

Step 3: Insert the pin into your wreath, pinning the balloons securely against the wreath. Don’t worry if you can see the pin clearly, once you add another few bunches they balloons will cover all the pins.

Step 4: Keep adding balloons until you’ve covered your whole wreath.  I took photos as I went, so you can see the balloons growing.  Also I found that they were so nice and thick, that I didn’t need to really cover much of the sides of the wreath, but that’s also because the wreath I was using was small.  It was a 12″ styrofoam wreath, which resulted in a 16″ balloon wreath.

Step 5: Add a hook of some sort, I tied a piece of string around it and pinned it securely in place with leftover floral pins.  I found the wreath was pretty heavy (another reason to use styrofoam as the original form, keep it as light as possible) so make sure your hook is really securely fastened to the wreath.

Step 6: Hang, and enjoy!  I plan on displaying mine at my birthday party this weekend!

Ok, so as tutorials go this wasn’t exactly rocket science, but still its good to practice writing out steps, and it was fun to take photos as I went.  Plus I discovered that even though I was doing this project at night in my dimly lit apt, the photos aren’t terrible, especially after a bit of photoshop.  So no more sunlight excuses for me!

I just love themed projects, don’t you?  Does anyone have another fun birthday project that they’ve done or really want to do?  I’ll need ideas for next year!!

Ciao, Allison

Book Cover News

I have more super exciting news to share with everyone, who recognizes this photo on the gorgeous book cover for Hannah Nunn’s new book ‘Illuminate’?

That’s right, it’s my light!!  Hannah, who makes absolutely STUNNING paper cut lights of her own, had contacted me last year about including my Paper Starburst Light in a gallery of photos at the back of her new book.  I said “of course!” because seeing my light in a book would have been so cool, no matter what the size of the photo it would have been amazing.  Well, what do you know, the photo attracted attention and it ended up as the cover of the entire book!  I couldn’t be more excited, can you tell?!  While it isn’t due out until November 2012, you can pre-order the book through Amazon UK or you can sign up to be notified when it is available for pre-order through Amazon USA.  (Seriously, seeing my light there on a page on Amazon.com is absolutely mind blowing.)  Oh, and is it just me or does Hannah have one of the most graphically pleasing names ever?!

Speaking of Hannah, you must must must go check out her gorgeous lights.  She sells them through her own website, as well as her Etsy shop, and a physical shop called Radiance in the UK.  (What a fantastic name for a lighting shop!)  And while you’re at it, check out her fun blog where she talks about her lights, and lots of other lovely things.

I am just so honored to be part of this project and I can’t wait to see the book when it is finally published, I just know it is going to be absolutely gorgeous cover to cover!  Well, you’ve probably had enough exclamation points to last a lifetime with this post (I swear when ever I talk about this cover I practically speak in exclamation points!) so I hope everyone has a lovely start to this Leap Year week, and I’m off to edit photos for a very special post coming up this Thursday.  Why special?  Because its my birthday!

Ciao, Allison