Infest the Waters: A Blog About Design, Life and Making Stuff

Happy new year, everyone!  Another Christmas past, another bunch of holiday making to share.  No matter how busy the holiday season is for me with performances (and this one was a doozy), I always seem to feel the urge to make a few things to give as gifts.  For me, this usually culminates in a breakdown sometime in the few days leading up to Christmas (after several late nights of frantically scrambling to finish ALL THE THINGS).  Ben had the pleasure of being the recipient of this breakdown on Christmas Eve this year (Thank God he’s a patient soul!), upon which event my sister set out a bottle of bourbon and two glasses and mock-yelled at me, “DON’T YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT CHRISTMAS?!?”  Ah, holidays.

I’m in a much better state of mind after almost two solid weeks of nothing but drinking, gorging myself on Christmas cookies and peppermint bark, reading, and basking in the warm glow of my Christmas tree.  Thus, I am ready to share with you all the lovely projects that I was cursing only two short weeks ago.

Since I’ve been spending a good deal of time at the Department of Making + Doing, I’ve been inspired by the laser cutter there and decided that I wanted to make a bunch of laser cut ornaments this year customized for each recipient.

Since Ben loves succulents, I made him a prickly pear ornament.  My mom is a bird lover, so I made her a bird ornament that features the little bird that we use as a bit of a mascot for The Wittchen Initiative.  For my sister, I made a Philadelphia map (below).  Ben’s dad collects antique irons, so he got one more for his collection, and my cousin, who bakes amazing cakes, got a stand mixer.

Then I got a little obsessed with the idea of seeing how much I could cut out of an ornament and have it still be structurally sound, so made a crane for Ben’s mom, whose maiden name is Crane, and a snowflake for my aunt and uncle.  (And again you can see the bird I made for my mom, which I decided wouldn’t show up well enough with so much negative space, so I added a white backer.  I daresay my mom may have preferred it without the backer, as she traded it for another ornament I made with the cutouts from her ornament.  Oh well.)

Then, after learning that my cousin is fond of dragonflies, I got really ambitious with the laser cutter and cut a dragonfly with impossibly thin wings.

The wings turned out to be extremely delicate and fragile, so I tried cutting the dragonfly again with minor adjustments to the design file to make the wings sturdier.  I attempted to cut it twice, and each time the wood caught fire.  So it appears that the necklace I made was truly one of a kind since I really don’t know if I could cut one ever again.  It seems like it was a minor miracle that it didn’t burn up the first time.

I was still stuck with the problem of what to do to strengthen the necklace, though, since I was almost 100% convinced that it would break upon the first wearing.  I considered several solutions, including coating it in super glue or epoxy or dipping it in resin.  A friend suggested a good epoxy, but there was no way I was going to be able to order it in time.  I was starting to lose hope when I had an idea come to me almost out of the blue.  Nail polish.  It had most of the material properties I needed, and I could pick it up at Target.  I coated the dragonfly, and voilà!  Not only was it super strong, but it was shiny, too!  Mission accomplished.  I congratulate myself on my resourcefulness.

Next it was on to a table runner for my mom.  Remember those reclaimed felt rounds I got from The Resource Exchange many moons ago, pondered over how to use them for quite some time and ultimately used to make placemats?  Well, it turned out that my mom was sad when she learned that I had given them to my best friend as a housewarming gift.  I considered making her a pair of placemats, too, but then I thought she might make better use of a small table runner that she could set hot dishes on.

I’m not sure I’ll make something this large with the felt rounds again, though.  Man, were they a pain to sew on without having them shift all around on me!

After a conversation several months ago with my best friend, I learned that she didn’t own an apron, which really seemed like a travesty to me.  So I resolved then that I would make one for her for Christmas.  I probably should have started it sooner, but hey, if it weren’t for last minutes, there’d be no minutes, right?  I decided to go with a more boxy shape and designed it myself.  (It’s a super simple design.)  I really like the way it turned out, and I may even make one for myself.  It also might be a great project for a future Intro to Sewing class at DM+D.

  And last but not least, I made my Christmas cards again this year.  I knew I wanted to try my hand a block printing again, and once I had to say goodbye to my dog earlier in December, it became clear what the subject matter should be.  It was nice to still have Tex awhile longer through the holidays.

I hope all your holidays were merry and bright, and even though Christmas is over, I think I may keep the wreath I made up just a little while longer.  Happy winter, everyone.  Hope it’s full of making!