Circus-a-Day Project Recap of Week 17

Days 113-114 (K) Fortune Teller Necklaces Continued… & (M) 3D Quilling and Dye Experiments

K here. I’ve been working for four days on this series of necklaces. I started months ago by making the soldered charms, and I finished the fourth one tonight. Those of you who make jewelry will understand how obsessed I was with making sure they all hung properly and carried the theme. Each one contains one fortune and a color theme, from pink for love to green for money. I definitely think these will impart good fortune to their eventual wearers!

Also, I’ve learned that I am very stingy. It was hard for me to part with so many different supplies, especially the unique pieces, such as the old cash-register key in the green necklace, the lucky penny in the purple necklace, and the voodoo dolly in the pink one. But I am learning and getting better at letting go of my hoard!

M has been looking for creative ways to expand her quilling skills and hit upon some examples of 3D quilling. I decided to try my hand at it by making a flowerpot and free standing flower. It took quite some time to quill the flower pot and lots of glue to coat it to keep its shape. I used a toothpick covered with green paper as the stem and glued the flower to the top. The flowerpot turned out a bit lopsided so it didn’t want to stay on its own very well. Better luck next time.

M also spent some time tea staining petticoats and hand dyeing some other items we have in our stock that weren’t moving in their original plain white state. They turned out not quite as expected from the dye colors, but I learned a lot about dying things and that you should always use at least double the dye, leave the item in the dye at least twice as long as suggested, and you must use the salt recommended and apparently vinegar as well. Still learning how to do this, so hopefully we will have some better color in the future.

Day 115 & 116 (M) BedTime JimJams & Badge Ribbons

M has been working on these jimjams for over a year and finally got the buttonholes sewn for the drawstrings thanks to her new sewing machine and was able to finish the waistbands thanks to her lovely serger. Then using a bodkin (seriously one of the best and simplest inventions ever) she threaded the velvet ribbon drawstrings. Using the ribbon printer we bought last year I was able to make custom tags for the jimjams with all the legally required info such as fiber content and washing instructions. They look so legit! While I had the ribbon printer up, I learned to change the foils and printed up some custom badge ribbons to hand out at conventions. K helped by coming up with some clever sayings and keeping me on task as we were trying to get the van loaded to leave for San Antonio and I have a tendency to get sidetracked and waste time.

Day 117

Our first day of driving for the trip to San Antonio and AetherFest. We drove through some rain (again) and the silver lining of it this time were the gorgeous cotton candy clouds we witnessed at sunset. It may not be very Steampunky but cotton candy and circuses go hand in hand so we are totally counting this!

Day 118 The Peanut Shoppe

We made a stop on our way to San Antonio at The Peanut Shoppe after seeing the billboards for miles. It looked like a 70s throwback from the rainbow signage and we knew it would have to be good. Endless supplies of sugary treats, nutty goodness, and real beef jerkey did not disappoint! We bought atub of peanut brittle to share around at the convention, some beef jerkey, and some jalapeno brittle which K brought home to her beau. They also had quite the supply of sour ball candies and gummi bears! Just what we like!

Day 119 Circus Pretzels

Our circus for today was provided by our friend Jed. We met via our Facebook page when he started posting his amazing creations and we were instant fangirls. When he found out we were gonna be in his part of the country we made plans to meet up. M was surprised when a man who looked suspiciously like Abraham Lincoln walked up to her and extended his hand in greeting as if he knew her… then she read his name tag and realized he did know her, after a fashion. Well, being the awesome fella he is, he brought us pastel pretzels for our sweet cravings and our circus! Yaay, for friends!!