Vinyl of the Weird and the Awesome

I know, I know--all I do is talk about vinyl records. Obsessions are healthy, though, right?

Um, right?

And what with our family's inability to do away with any record that isn't completely scratched into oblivion (in heavy rotation on our current playlist--a scratchy record consisting solely of wolf calls), and the fact that I need a whole new batch of record bowls for my farmer's market craft fair every month, AND the fact that I'm doing Strange Folk again this fall (yay!) and will need a whole new big batch of bowls for that, I'm already starting to freak out that I don't have enough vinyl to get me through to October and free day at the Red Cross Book Fair.

That being said, since I'm skipping out on the August farmer's market craft fair, I've got a little extra time this month to make some undies for the girls, applique them some shirts, alter a couple of dresses for myself, sew buttons back on Matt's pants (what is it with that man and buttons?), and update my pumpkinbear etsy shop with some of these record bowls I've been slaving over. Along with, you know, making spin art and very large maps with the girls and eating lots of tomato-bread salad and visiting the library every single wet day and Bryan Park pool every single dry day. I'm busy, you know?

I generally only make record bowls out of albums that are not only too scratched to play but that are also albums that I, personally, think are awesome--awesome awesome or awful awesome, doesn't matter, but it has to be something that I really dig. So when you visit my booth you get a lot of eighties stuff, soundtracks, children's music, esoteric junk, heavy metal--basically a soundtrack of my life as I know it to this point. Here are some of my very favorite favorites that I put on my pumpkinbear etsy shop today:

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

The best thing about this record, all Santa songs, is that I recognize, oh, ONE of them. Seriously, how many Santa songs are there in the world? Although, some of these do look pretty forgettable--The Weatherman's Christmas Prayer? Ech.

Neil Diamond's Hot August Night

Sweet Caroline. 'Nuff said. Okay, but have you ever heard the Langley Schools Music Project cover of Sweet Caroline? Also awesome. And their cover of Space Oddity.

Flintstones

The album says it's the Flintstones, but it doesn't include the theme song or anything as a track, and unfortunately the vinyl was too damaged for me to play at all to figure out what's going on here, so I just have in my head this idea that for this album, they got together all the voices of the Flintstones characters, and made them sing all these random songs in character? Like the Brady Bunch? Or in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, when the guy gets up to do his song from Dracula the Musical, and he does it in a Transylvanian accent? Which made me laugh so hard I woke the babies.

Annie Get Your Gun

I'm a sucker for soundtracks in general, although Annie Get Your Gun isn't one of my favorites. Whenever I see it, however, I always flash back to watching Soleil Moon Frye on Carson or something as a kid, promo-ing Punky Brewster, which I LOVED (the episode when one kid got trapped in a refrigerator and Punky had to do CPR? Priceless), and Carson asks her how she got her name, and she's all, "It's from Annie Get Your Gun--'I've got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.'"

In other news, the girlies have been rocking themselves some British Soccer Camp this week--these guys who play professional soccer in England for some reason spend part of their summer here in Bloomington, and they teach soccer to the baby townies. I already mentioned this on my Facebook, but my absolute favorite thing about British soccer camp is the athletic young men with British accents playfully and nurturingly interacting with small children. Swoon?
Swoon. Not the best photo, mind you, but my Syd, she's not too team-oriented, and this is about the billionth time that one of the coaches loped over to where Sydney had wandered off and jollied her back to the group--lots of "Come on, love," etc.

My least favorite thing about soccer camp is my introduction to Soccer Mom. Soccer Mom sits next to me when my mom friend doesn't show up one day. We're sitting against the gym wall in the REALLY crowded gym because it's storming outside, so with the noise of the storm on the metal roof, the noise of four soccer teams all playing different games on basketball court, the noise of the YMCA day camps over on the other court, and the generic noise of the random people working out in the Y to begin with, it's deafening in there. And yet, for the entire hour, Soccer Mom sideline coaches her kid. The WHOLE hour. I read the same sentence in my book about one thousand times.

But the weirdest thing is, there's no way her soccer kid could have heard a thing she said. She was talking in a loud conversational tone, I guess--the kid could have heard her from that distance if we'd been in the library, but the crowded gym? Not a chance. Nor, of course, did he acknowledge or respond to any of her admonitions--he couldn't hear her, you know. But still she kept it up, this constant patter, and even though he couldn't hear her, it was really loud in MY ear--everything from "That's great, buddy, run! Oops, you lost your ball, go get it, now run! Yay, good job!" to "Sit up, buddy! Keep your hands to yourself! No, no, get away from the orange cone! Hurry, find your spot!"

W. T. F?

Fortunately, Willow went from resolutely sitting on her soccer ball and picking clover for the whole hour on Monday to being all soccer, all the time by the end of the hour on Tuesday:

She is particularly good at a little tracking game they play called Cats and Dogs. And there's none of this American everybody did just as well as the other person because we're all special crap at British soccer camp. At British soccer camp, if your name is Willow and you are REALLY good at Cats and Dogs, you get to hear a coach shout "Willow is the winner!" and then everybody gives you a high five.

I tell you, this living vicariously through your kids business might have something going for it.

The Red Cross Gives Me Stuff

Yes, it is my office hours, and so yes, I should be grading stuff, but I just had a ten-minute consultation with a student about her Project #2, and that calls for a half-hour blogging break, right?

In half an hour, I can tell you that today, I baked Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Brownies with my squabbling girlies. I hosted a playdate for one of Will's little girlfriends, during which they dragged out every toy owned by either of my children, all of which had been put back in their appropriate spots by me the night before in preparation for said playdate. I sewed ornaments for our Halloween tree while watching season 4 of Numb3rs. At 4:30 pm, I took a shower. I spent half an hour looking for two tutus and one pair of ballet flats. I read some of , which is so far even better than the Twilight series (we're politely pretending that the final book of that series didn't happen, aren't we? Good). But before all that, way at the crack of 9:00 am, the girls and I took their child-sized real metal shopping cart and a big cardboard box over to FREE DAY AT THE RED CROSS BOOK SALE!!!!!
I wrote in a previous comment that I was torn between taking my girls to the children's section or the crafts book table first, knowing that while visiting one, the other would be thoroughly picked over. You know the solution to this problem? Nice old lady volunteer. She took the girls to the children's section and helped them choose books while I gave the crafts table a quick once-over, then ravaged the nature tables for plant and animal books with good illustrations for collaging. The nice old lady system wasn't perfect, as she limited them to picturebooks and her selection was a little religion-heavy (eek!), but I snuck back later and got all the cool stuff, too.

Look at the awesome morbid Santa illustration--he's all grey and dead-looking, and are those badminton birdies falling all around him? I found some other books with Christmas-y scenes, as well--we have about five ornaments in our house, and I'd like to make a ton for our tree and as gifts, maybe with an image decoupaged to each side of a die-cut or cardboard cut-out and then mod podged.

I also found a ton more records for future record bowls--ten or so old-school Disney movie soundtracks and a dozen or so Christmas albums, some old atlases for the girls to cut up when they're decorating the big maps they like me to print out for them, a couple of cheezy craft books that might have some cool projects in them and also might not, lots of vintage children's books, LOTS of books for the cutting and coloring bin (If you and your kiddos don't have a bin of outdated old books to use in art projects, you are totally missing out on some serious awesomeness), and some random kid's book with this most fabulous illustration:

I don't really knit myself, and so I don't know what to do with this fabulous illustration, but it is totally fabulous, right? I'll think of something.

June Fair of the Arts

Whew--I'm exhausted! Today was the June edition of A Fair of the Arts, our local monthy craft fair attached to our farmer's market. Great weather, great people, no weirdos, and lots of love--a fun time was had by all.

Here's my booth this month: It's the first time I've actually been pleased with my display; it's organized, visible, reasonably attractive, especially if you look back on the blog and compare it to my other displays in past craft fairs. It could still look much more put together, such as with matching colors, more well-constructed signs, and a professional-looking quilt rack, but that's a job for another day.

The woman at the left of my photo is my awesome friend Betsy, and here's what awesome Betsy is awesomely busy doing:

Bags of bags! Betsy folds, cuts up, ties together, and crochets those vile plastic bags from our local stores into these handsome, sturdy, washable, and non-vile totes. Betsy didn't sell any of them today (I might maybe have over-priced them on account of I think they're so terrific, but I seriously think they're cheap at twice the price), but man, she got the love. She kept me company from 8:00 am until we closed at 1:00 pm, crocheting the whole time, and I can't even tell you how many people she had to explain her work process to, and happily so, because she's Betsy, and she likes to teach. This one mom brought up something like four kids and had Betsy explain the whole thing, how she got from bag to bag, with visual aids, and even after the mom wandered off to look at record bowls, the kids all still stood around our table, just staring at Betsy, maybe a foot away from her. "Keep talking," I whispered to her out of the side of my mouth. Anyway, I think Betsy's going to try to make a couple of items at lower price points for next time, so we'll see how the love pays out then.The fatty stegs also got a lot of the love today. A representative from the Waldron Arts Center asked if I'd bring some into their gallery shop to sell this summer--um, yeah! Only thing is, now I've got to spend the week working in my one-woman fatty steg sweat shoppe instead of decompressing, because I sold most of these, including the vinyl steg. It's very nice, because being represented in some local stores is one of my goals, and I managed to partly achieve it today without actually having to get off my butt. Yay.I spent most of the rainy day yesterday making this display on the living room floor, specifically to hold these record bowls, and it paid off nicely. People really like record bowls, and they have a great profit margin. I actually collect pretty specifically--I like showtunes/musicals; children's music; music I remember from when I was a kid (Peter, Paul and Mary, anyone? I sold my entire collection of them today); and weird self-improvement or instructional recordings--so often people will browse all the titles, and then pick a bowl based on what speaks to them. One guy today said to his wife, "Oh, my god, honey! She's got The Lettermen!" It's fun to sell to people when they do stuff like that.

And what else did we do today, you ask? Well, there was this little thing today that I like to call...THE GOODWILL 50%-OFF STOREWIDE SALE! But that's a story for another post.

Vinyl, Vinyl Everywhere

It's weird, because I am all about the natural materials, but for some reason this week has been all about vinyl. Well, it's also been about this and this:

and this:

but it's also been about vinyl.

I received some awesome advice from I don't even remember who that if you have a bunch of stuff to post on etsy, it's better to post one thing every day for however long than to post everything all the same day. That's because the default search listing is by list date--most recent postings show up first. So, posting more often keeps you more relevant in the searches, which leads to more links to your web shop, which leads to... well, nothing substantial yet, in my case, but I do have a ton more hearts than I did before I started this. So instead of posting all my record bowls over the weekend, on Monday I posted this:

On Tuesday I posted this: And on Wednesday I posted this:

I also received my very excessive yet happy fabric order from Distinctive Fabrics this week, so I took some time out from the craft fair sweat shop I usually run while Sydney naps to turn this:

into this:

It's blue glitter vinyl, y'all! I love, love, love it! And in my most attuned decorating sense, it's okay to put in the living room because the living room walls are blue--the living room is the blue room. While I took a break from the vinyl to sit on the couch and eat something (my favorite activity), Willow created this with the backside of the vinyl:

Happy face.

The blue glitter vinyl is inspirational, people. The blue glitter vinyl makes me dream. So when Matt told me his idea that I should make some fatty stegosauruses from materials other than felted wool sweaters, my thoughts ran to BLUE GLITTER VINYL! Off and on all day, in between chasing kids and cats and cleaning up after kids and cats and speaking patiently to kids and cats while screaming my head off at kids and cats only inside my head, I cut out and sewed together this utter masterpiece of blue glitter vinyl fatty stegosaurus-ness:

This is rough, of course--I still need to trim it and stuff it and sew the ends up, etc., but still--awesome? Awesome.

Yay, Record Bowls! Tutorial Included

I cooked up a batch of craft fair record bowls this weekend, so I thought I'd write up a tutorial, perhaps for the every single person who comes by my craft fair booth, looks at and lavishly praises my record bowls, holds them up to the light and admires them and talks about what they'd put in them, then says, "How did you make these?" When I give the very vaguest of replies as to how to make record bowls, these people invariably say, "Okay, thanks," put down the record bowl they're holding, and leave. Now I can say, "I have a tutorial on my blog," and hand them a moo business card with my etsy shop and blog addresses. Then, not only will people come to my etsy shop and my blog, but if they read the tutorial, they'll see how much work goes into making a record bowl, and they'll way rather buy one from me for five bucks than go to all the trouble of making one themselves. Score.

How to Make a Record Bowl (or Ten)

1. Take out at least one of the racks from your oven, put a metal bowl upside-down on the remaining rack, and preheat. Depending on your oven, you're looking for the magic temperature somewhere between 200 degrees and 250 degrees--you want the temperature hot enough to soften your vinyl record enough to make it really pliable and you want it to do this in a reasonable amount of time, say five or so minutes, but you want the temperature cool enough that it does not cause the vinyl to noticeably release toxic fumes into your house. The vinyl will always release some fumes when you heat it, but if you can smell it, or you get a headache or burning nose, or your pet bird dies, your oven is too hot. I always use lots of ventilation when I do this, and I never work for more than half an hour at a time--less, if I let the kids help. And seriously, vinyl fumes will kill pet birds.


2. Gather your materials:

You'll need oven mitts to handle the record when it's hot, and a selection of pots, pans, mixing bowls, plates, and cups with which to mold your record bowls. I like to gather a large assortment and then experiment with different combinations for different shapes.

3. Put a record in the oven on top of the upside-down metal bowl. Keep an eye on it, and when it droops down like the record in the photo--

--take it out with your oven mitt and...

4. Plop it quickly in a bowl or pot to mold it into a bowl shape:

If you make a little mark with a Sharpie at the dead center of the pot you're using, you can find that mark in the hole in the middle of your record, and have a perfectly symmetrical bowl. You can also experiment with forming the sides of your record by nesting another bowl, cup, or plate on top of the record in the pot. A nesting bowl slightly smaller than the one you're using, for instance, will form the sides really smooth and flat, and a plate placed on top of a record bowl that you're molding inside a large casserole dish will make a sort of record platter with a nice, flat bottom. Here I used a cup for this somewhat narrow record bowl to keep the sides of the bowl from coming in too much: Remember that you've maybe only got a minute, tops, before the vinyl stiffens back up and you can no longer work with it, but you can always reheat it for another go.

5. When the vinyl is cool to the touch, pop it out of the pot and admire:

Here's the entire collection that I started making yesterday evening while Matt and the girls cleaned out the car in preparation for going to the drive-in and that I finished this morning before breakfast while they watched a little PBS: Man, I wish I owned a record player.

Show-and-Tell: What I Make

I dabble in a lot of projects, although for craft fairs I try to specialize--the first season that I did a craft fair every month, I tried to introduce a couple of new types of crafts each time, but I think my quality suffered. It takes a LOT of practice and consistency to produce professional-looking objects, and that's sometimes something that I need to force myself to do, rather than flit around from project to project, leaving a wash of half-used materials in my wake and ending up with a lot of not-that-awesome end results. So this season, I've decided to keep most of the experiments at home, and only display a few selected types of crafts. Here's some of what I think I do well:

Record bowls are my bread-and-butter. The records are cheap and plentiful (I specialize in show tunes and children's recordings), the process is quick and easy, I can do it with the girls hanging out on the floor of the kitchen with me, the profit margin is high, and people like to buy them.

Okay, I love to make denim quilts, and they're soft and comfy and sturdy and warm, but I have to admit that I do have to literally give them away--they make happy presents for family and friends, but I haven't yet sold a single one at a craft fair or the farmer's market. It's such a super project, though, because blue jeans are one of the things you can always get for free--my best sources are the sidewalk exchange at the Recycling Center here and friends who blow out the butts or knees of their otherwise fine pants--and the colors, when pieced and sewn together, are subtle yet always complementary and, I think, really beautiful.

T-shirt quilts are pretty popular, though, and they're also somewhat pricey, which is good when I need to get paid. They're also some of the more satisfying things I make because there's a lot of scope there--for instance, I like to collect T-shirts around fan-geek themes, like Superman or video games or 80s cartoons, and make a quilt that's an homage to some nerdy joy. I do sci-fi and comic book conventions with these, which is a nice change of pace from the regular craft fair crowd sometimes, since I'm pretty much just a fan-geek myself.

Like everyone else, it seems, I also make soldered glass pendants and 1" buttons, but Matt, my partner, is getting antsy to get out of the house today, and I owe him for teaching how to post images on my blog and only yelling at me twice while doing so, so the lovely odes to paper and the melting of metals will have to wait.

What I made today: panties for Willow from a soft old T-shirt; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pillowcase dress for Sydney.