Tattooing Myself
Remember that time I tattooed myself? People have asked me about my leg tattoo, and I’m not TOO sad about how it turned out, so I’ll share.
(Let me put it out there that if you don’t have prior training in the art of tattooing, I would suggest to NOT try this at home. Go to a professional. They are paid BECAUSE of their experience, and a good artist is DEFINITELY worth it. I have some prior training, professional experience & equipment, and I STILL don’t always know what I’m doing.)
I wanted a derby tattoo. Not one that had allegiance to any certain team, but one that just represented a love for the sport and what it did for me. I joined derby in Alaska a few months before my husband’s deployment and it was a good distraction from the stresses and worries of life and a 2-year old. I worry about EVERYTHING, but once you get to practice, you pretty much have to leave it at the door and focus on your drills. I loved it, and put a lot of time, energy, and creative effort into it. So I wanted something to sort of mark that time. I found an old black & white retro photo of a girl skating with a pillow on her butt, which I found hilarious, because she’s all-out jumping at the same time. This is sort of my personality, too. And to top it off, the little girl in the pic had curly hair like my daughter. Taking time for myself away from my daughter, even for something I was passionate about, was very difficult for me, but I think it made the deployment a little softer a blow (we all know the key to a deployment is distraction, distraction, distraction)…
I made a couple of modifications to the original photo. First, I was initially hesitant to add my derby number, but it’s a number I associate with my husband, so I decided it was safe. He had always been so super supportive from the minute I joined.
Second, the girl in the original pic had old-school strap-on-your-shoes roller skates. I traded them out for a portrait of my favorite pair of skates…Reidell Minx 965s with Sure-Grip Avenger 45 degree angled plates. I’m cheap when it comes to clothes, and I’m not one for designer bags, so this was a BIG purchase for me. But, lemme tell you, those boots were MADE for flat-footed folks like myself and they were HEAVENLY. And the Avenger plates were like skating on butter. I LOVE them. They were so sweet & sassy, I called them my “Darth Skaters.” My Caddilacs. I have leather toecaps on the ends with cute little red skulls, so I added those, too.
As for the tattooing itself…..well, it could’ve been better. Tattoo artists have warned about tattooing yourself; you’ll be overly critical, you’ll obsess about it. As your work improves, you’ll regret your earlier work. But I thought if I was willing to tattoo on someone else, I should trust myself to tattoo myself.
Turns out the tattoo artists are right, in a way. The lines were QUITE wobbly because I was SOOO nervous about how it would turn out. There is a technique for artists where you draw something from a reference upside down, so it loses its preconceived shapes and becomes just the shading & shapes that you need to translate to your work. I have never been good at this technique, and despite my practicing drawing it several times, I wasn’t crazy with how it turned out. The face, more specifically. Looking back now, it’s such a smaller tattoo that the details (or lack thereof) of the face don’t matter much, but I was REALLY down about it at first. I thought I had butchered it.
All in all, though, I am pretty happy with the final piece! It means what I wanted it to mean, and I don’t think it turned out TOO bad for tattooing it upside down on my own leg.
DIY Customized Helmets
When I was in derby, my desire to customize pretty much everything I own found a nice snuggly spot in helmets. Derby girls often decorate their helmets in all kinds of awesome stickers and artwork, so I started making custom helmets for the ladies (and dudes) on my team. My favorite (and the quickest) way to decorate helmets is with paint pens, which you can get at any craft or art store. Get lots of them, because they run out of paint quickly, and sometimes you get duds that don’t work well. Thick point is best–fine-lines pens will take FOREVER. But don’t get those ones with the mega-marker tips, or you won’t be able to get ANY detail in there.
First off, if you’re working with an older helmet, clean off any dirt or residue from the helmet. No sticker goo. Rubbing alcohol works well for this. New helmet, no problem, just wipe it down a little and get started. Glossy helmets work best. You can paint on a matte helmet, just be warned that when you spray it with sealant at the final step, it will most likely turn a little glossy, so if you’ve got your heart set on a matte-looking helmet, you can choose to leave off the final spray…it’ll just not stay on as long and probably need some touch-ups. I usually like to print references to look at while I work, and doodle it on freehand. Sometimes I’ll find a fancy font and print out what I want, and then freehand it using the printout as a reference.
I’ve done lots of helmets this way, using simple color combos, varying shades of paint pens. Sometimes when they get older, pen paint changes color a little, and you can get two shades of the same color (as in the celtic clover above). Often, the person I’m doing it for will give me a rough idea of what they have in mind, but usually they just let me go crazy with ’em. Since skate helmets are around $35, and you have to replace them now & then, it allows players to have options in the helmets they wear. Some will wear certain ones to practice and others to bouts, etc.
If you mess up while you’re painting with the paint pens, you might be able to salvage it with a paper towel soaked in rubbing alcohol. Usually, it’ll wipe away oil-based paint pens pretty easily, and allow you to correct your mistake.
I usually put the players’ name on the right side of the helmet (facing the crowd, in a bout), and the fun design on the left, facing in. Sometimes I’ll put the number on there somewhere (back or side). Some ladies prefer the numbers off….not that it has anything to do with being less visible to the refs or anything. 🙂
I’ve also handpainted a few helmets, although this requires MUCH more work. I use acrylic paints for them, and go to town. Handpainting allows for much more detail and artistic license, but honestly, is a little too “fine” for derby, which can really bang up a helmet.
Whether you handpaint a helmet or use paint pens, your best bet for durability is to finish it with SEVERAL coats of acrylic gloss varnish, which you can get anywhere that sells spray paint. It’s a clear gloss spray that “seals” the helmet in a coat of varnish to protect it. Be warned: I have had some problems with spray paint underpainting or acrylic handpainting warping and bubbling with some sprays, and I’ve never found a rhyme or reason why (never had a problem spraying over paint pens, though). After you’ve sprayed your helmet evenly and completely, let it dry, then spray it again….and again…and again. Hopefully, that’ll be enough to protect it through at least one bout! But hey–they look good all scratched up, too…. 🙂
Family Map
When we were visiting family during my husband’s deployment, my sister suggested showing our 3-year old daughter a map to better give her an idea of where everyone was. I found a cool, simple, graphic US map on Etsy from thepixelprince and mounted it on foam core in a little frame. Most office supplies stores have these cute little pushpins that make it look a lot more interesting. Then I typed in a teensy weensy font the names of who was where, a tiny round picture of each little family, and the years we were at a place (for the places we’d already lived), and printed them on sticker printer paper (so they could be easily changed out, since we’re an often-moving military family). A little embroidery floss wrapped around the pins marks the spot and the little stickers hold them down.
Now, if it could automatically update itself like the Weasly family clock, that would be perfect….
Marble Game Boards
My family plays marbles. Not the “sit around a circle flicking marbles at eachother” 1950s marbles. This game is more like the game “Sorry,” and my family has played it for as long as I can remember. It originated from my dad’s side, with my Grandma Betty. Every visit would always involve a slew of marble games that would feature a variety of things: My grandma punching whoever was closest to her for knocking her marble off, holding a lighter under her die to put it in the “hot seat” if it didn’t roll a 1 or a 6, someone getting pinch bruises, and my grandma yelling, “You’re getting my Irish up!!!” My best memories of my grandma are always somehow tied to marbles.
The game involves each of 4 players having 4 marbles. You team up with the person opposite the board from you. You must roll a 1 or a 6 to get a marble out of your start point, and keep rolling. You must get all of your marbles around the board and into your home row, and then you can roll and play for your partner. First team with each player’s 4 marbles home wins. If you land on another marble, you can send them home. Marbles has fierce suspicions…some people have “lucky” dice, and will only play with them. If your die start “listening” to another player’s chants, it’s time to get new dice. For that matter, if you “chant” numbers at another person’s dice (to avoid them getting the number you want), sometimes it works. No one else should touch your dice, or they’ll start “listening” to them. Unspoken rule: “First one out, last one home.” The fun part: your win is NEVER guaranteed. Just because you think you’re winning, the game could change it all and give the other team the advantage. Our family gets LOUD with it. We play wild, we yell, we laugh, we get aggressive. It’s fun.
The first marble board I remember at my Grandma Betty’s house was very plain. Apparently my grandpa had made it, and they’d had it forever. It had years worth of marble playing on it, and it was awesome. Several years ago, my father made a few plain ones to keep back home. I don’t remember if he asked me, or if I sort of took over, but I painted some as gifts–an ornate garden one for my mother, a maze with trompe l’oeil butterflies for me, a lizard one for my sister, and an Egyptian one for my dad. The idea was to make each corner (for each player) be a strong, cool character that each person would want to play.
Since then, not only have we spread marbles around to friends we’ve known (who always fall in love with the game), but I’ve made several as gifts over the years. I have a Harry Potter one for my husband, and a Monty Python one for myself. The one at the beginning of this post was for a friend as a reminder of our time in Alaska.
The great thing is, when we’re not using them, we hang them in L-brackets on the wall, and they make cool and interesting pieces. I don’t remember ever getting to make a personalized one for my Grandma Betty, but somehow I think she enjoyed the plain, well-worn family board more than any I could have made her…
It’s Munny Time!
And here we have the Munny, from Kid Robot. This plain plastic toy begs to be doodled on. Just try googling “customized Munny,” and you’ll see how much fun people have with these. You can paint them, glue things to them, draw on them with markers, and even sculpt things and add them to change their appearance.
I love a blank “canvas,” especially a canvas that is functional in some way, that isn’t just pretty to look at. The fact that this is kind of a toy and can be whatever you want it to is appealing to me. So I saw a few at our local bookstore, and decided to do one of our daughter.
Our daughter at the time was little and still in cloth diapers, and she still loves a great mess, loves robots and loves her rollerskates. So I gave her a metal robot suit with rainbow leggings (because Babylegs are awesome). Little mini pink wheels. I had planned on maybe gluing buttons on for the wheels, but they wouldn’t stay, and I gave up & just painted them. Munnys come with plastic accessories, and you never know what you’re going to get. This one had a cape. Her name begins with “M” and since I’m a big fan of the ol’ Wonder Woman, I flipped it & made that her cape logo. Coated in a few coats of gloss varnish, and good to go.
I had so much fun with that one, I did one for my husband. He chose Boba Fett, and I screwed in a little L-hook into the top of his head to match Boba’s helmet. It’s way easier to paint a cute little round kid’s face on a rounded head than it is to make it look normal on a full-grown dude.
Next up, I had to do one for myself. I’m not a big fan of doing self-portraits, but I was really having fun with these! C-3PO was always my favorite Star Wars droid (I know, I know, he’s the nerdy one…but he was FUNNY!)–and on a side note, C3PO is now my daughter’s favorite (with no coaxing of my own–she was enthralled by him from the moment she saw him). I had some spraypaint that was sort of a rough textured gold, which gave it a cool, beat-up metal look (and it didn’t hurt that the spray can sort of sputtered on me). Since Munnys have stumpy legs, I didn’t give myself a silver leg, so don’t give me a hard time about that. Again, the grown-up face on a rounded Munny is a little rough to work with.
If you’re not that into painting, maybe try what a friend did, and cover a Munny in quotes from one of her favorite books. Might I suggest a Sharpie? And also, try Sculpey clay out if you want to really get into customizing (I didn’t). So I still have one left….what should I do? There are only three of us, and now that I’m done with us, the options are endless….
Derby Snuggles
Facebook family already knows this, but I love roller derby. My good friend Sunny introduced me to it a few years back, and after getting the hang of being on skates for the first time since I was a little bugger, and slowly working my way to an awesome pair of new super awesome (albeit expensive) skates thanks to my Alaskan friend Shocker’s shop 2n1, I got pretty comfy on quad skates. Not enough to skate circles around anyone by any means, but I loved playing blocker. Shoulder hits. Plow stops. Smacking into a jammer on the run, sitting on a pack to slow them down. I love the aggression, I love the action. I love skating.
I started derby in Alaska, on a very small team called the North Pole Babes in Toyland (from North Pole, Alaska. No, really–it’s a real place. Santa lives there.). I’ll spare anyone the team’s history, as I’m sure every team has their high points and low, but one of the most wonderful and at the same time CHALLENGING things about derby is that it’s all self-run. The skaters run the team. That means logos, merch, websites, fundraising, sponsorship, you name it. They do it all. Since I got in at ground level, I was lucky enough to have been given full reins with graphics and web design. I designed NPBT’s logo (the Christmas girl in skates shown a few times in the quilt above), along with an alternate logo (the skullflake in the lower portion). I designed t-shirts and merch (along with other derby designs) for the team (which are still available here). Although drama surrounds any good group, I enjoyed myself, and I loved what we had created.
When we moved from Alaska, I had to leave the team. I had survived a bruised & torn collarbone, a badly sprained ankle, bruised jawbone, and tore some ligaments in my knee thanks to derby, and enjoyed nearly every minute of it. Now my ol’ bones are creaking, and whether I find another team and play again, or go zebra (referee), or forgo it altogether, I will never forget how awesome derby was for me. I loved it. I breathed it. I snuggled up in it.
–Wait, what?
Well, I wanted a way to commemorate my derby time in the frozen north, and you amass a HUGE amount of t-shirts in derby. So I decided to make a t-shirt quilt. I wasn’t crazy about the square, sterile blocky versions I’ve seen around. That’s just not derby. Derby is crazy and mixed-up and all over the place. So I gathered some of my favorite NPBT shirts (plus a Juneau shirt from my first away bout) that I was willing to transform, and cut out the best parts of them. I began by cutting the shirts to a roughly similar size, then I started piecing them together in random strips of regular fabric. Since our colors were mainly red & white and our theme was somewhat year-round Christmasy, I was a little worried about it looking like an ugly Christmas sweater, so I added other fabrics I thought were awesome.
And there you have it! A little wonky, a little crooked, and a whole lotta cool and snuggly. …And believe me, I still have TONS of derby shirts left over…. Not to mention a ton of patches on my skate bag and stickers on my helmet.
Doodle Chimes
Our kid likes to draw a lot. I mean a LOT.
I take photos of all of them, because I’m so fascinated by them. I love watching her skills develop, and love seeing how her mind thinks, how she can see something and observe how it’s done, and sort of meld that with her own work.
Through all my scouring the internet, I’ve seen lots and lots of ideas of what to DO with all these doodles, and I’ve done quite a few of them. We have bulletin boards where we’ve pinned some of our favorites. We have some in changeable frames. I’ve had strings with doodles clipped to them with clothespins. My mother uses the photos of doodles in the backgrounds when she makes a digital photo album. I’ve heard of people making books full of kid doodles.
I wanted a way to show them as a decorative piece in the house; a way we could enjoy them in an awesome way while putting all those doodles to good use.
So I got some laminate paper, stuck them on there to keep ’em safe, punched some holes in them, and strung them from eachother. We hung them in her bedroom window, and I think they turned out lovely!
Our daughter went through a Shrinky-Dink period for a few weeks, where she created TONS of Shrinky Dink doodles. What to do? Why, same thing, of course! Strung up little doodles look like lovely little wind chimes hanging in our kitchen windows! With Shrinkies, you have to either punch the holes before you shrink them in the oven, or spend some quality time with your Dremel and a tiny drill bit….
So what do you do with all your kid doodles?
One Giant Step for…Me.
Ouch. This one hurts. I’m still a little bitter about this one, and I’ll tell you why.
In early 2011, Etsy teamed up with NASA for a space craft contest. The winners received not only a gift card for Etsy and a trip to NASA, but their craft (or a picture of it) was to be flown aboard space in a SPACE SHUTTLE!!! How cool is that??? The only requirement was that it reflect the shuttle program as a celebration of NASA’s accomplishments. The rules stated that if you had an Etsy shop, you submit your work in your shop with certain tags. If you didn’t have a shop (which I didn’t), NEVER FEAR! You could submit photos of your work to a certain address, with detailed information in it.
I was excited. If there was ever a contest to enter, this one was for me! Remember my jingle dolls? What a perfect opportunity to use these unique crafts in a fun way! So I carefully painted with loving detail two portraits: one of Alan Shepard (who piloted the Freedom 7 shuttle, and was the first American in space) and Neil Armstrong (commander of the Apollo 11, and first person on the moon). A great choice, I thought! Both illustrate the wonder and amazement folks like me (with a space-loving dad) have for the space shuttle program, and our accomplishments. I don’t rarely get cocky about a piece at ALL. Normally, I’m filled with self-doubt and uncertainty, but I felt GOOD about this one. I thought for SURE I had a winner. I followed the instructions to the T (because I’m geeky like that), and submitted a packet with my work. I waited anxiously for the news of the first cut.
Guess who didn’t make it? Me. And you know, I really would’ve been okay with that if the first cut was amazing. I would’ve been blown away and inspired. I would have been awestruck. But you know what I saw? Some people just took things that were vaguely space-related and ALREADY in their store, and put a “Space” tag on it. I mean, you can’t tell me that a purple scarf represents the shuttle program. I saw hacky sacks with Michael Jackson’s face on them (I guess because of the moonwalk?), dolls that had nothing to do with space, and things that didn’t seem to take much effort. I saw a plain-colored BALSA WOOD spaceship that looked like it was hacked out with a steakknife and the tips roughly painted black with a sharpie marker. And they MADE THE CUT.
I was confused.
I’m not one at all to disparage other forms of artwork. I’m not a metalsmith, and I don’t understand jewelry but I can appreciate the amount of work that goes into something like that. But what annoyed me is the seeming lack of care that went into so many of the entries and who MADE THE FIRST CUT!!! I don’t think I’m very egotistical in my work, but there are times when I’m really proud of something and want to share it with the world. I was a little disappointed.
Okay, I was a little hurt and heartbroken. And this is unusual for me, because I usually trust the judges in a contest, and therefore don’t take it personally when I don’t win. I’ve entered contest after contest after contest and I almost consistently NEVER win. But some of the things that got into this one just made me sad.
So I gave the jingle dolls to my dad for Christmas. He works with a lot of gub’ment folks, who get a kick out of them. He proudly displays them at this office, which makes me happy, and people ask him about them all the time. I’ve still got a sore spot about them, but at least they’ve got a good home. Who needs the space program, when you’ve got you’re dad’s work desk? 🙂
Have you ever had a really big disappointment? Something you just KNEW you were a shoe-in for? Something that still stings a little to this day? I want to hear about it!
Duty Station Lovin’
I’m an army brat. I grew up around the army. Later, I did about 4 years in the army, where I met my husband. I am army wife. Now I’m an army mom. I’ve been all over the place with my family, and wanted a way to show all the places we’ve been. For years, I’ve seen the plaques with pendant boards hanging down, listing each duty station (like this), but I wanted to see if I could do something a little different.
My husband & I met when we were both stationed in Hawaii. We got married there, and when I got out, I worked as a photo editor/graphic artist for King Digital in Honolulu. The photo paper they used came on these large thick cardboard “toilet paper roll” tubes, which they sent out for recycling. Before we PCSd, I was able to get a few of them to take with me. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with them at the time, but they were calling my name. They looked REALLY fun to paint on.
I decided to make each tube a sort of painted collage of the things we had done at each duty station, the things we remembered most about it. My husband and I have fun trying to choose what will go on each tube. I started with one for Oklahoma (where I was born) and one for Ohio (where he’s from).
We’ve got a good collection going! Only now….I can’t seem to find the “toilet paper roll” tubes anymore! I’ve run out! I have a couple of smaller ones, but none like these. I was even the crazy lady, asking for them at Wal-Mart’s photo lab. I can’t seem to find any anywhere!
So I’m going to keep looking. I’m running behind, though, since I try to do one after we leave each duty station. We left Alaska several months ago…so we’re due for a new tube! In the meantime, share your stories! If you’re a family that moves around a lot, is there a special way you commemorate your duty stations, or the places you’ve lived? Do you frame a photo? Make a list of license plates? I’d love to hear your ideas!
I am Arthur!
My mother once found hand painted wooden jingle figures in the Czech Republic that were absolutely BEAUTIFUL. Years later, when I tried to find my own blank ones, all I could find were blanks of the Russian stacking dolls (which are also fun to paint, by the way). But these don’t open, and when you shake them, they JINGLE!!
After days of calling several Russian art dealers (never mind the difficulty of explaining what they WERE), I finally found someone I could buy a few from. I thought they’d be fun to do portrait orders on at local craft shows. Well, the time put into them was more than a craft show crowd was willing to pay, and the idea just fizzled.
So now I do my own things with them! This is King Arthur, King of all Britons, and his faithful sidekick, Patsy.
I’ve done Santas, animals, wookies and celebrities, but these guys are my favorite. If you’re not up to the task of going through the trouble of calling all over the world to find jingle dolls, there are nice alternatives at your local craft store–little paper mâché eggs, pressed cardboard shapes and wooden boxes. You could draw on them, paint, even mod podge little printed photos of family and paint on top if you’re feeling crafty. They make great gifts!
busy mockingbird 