Whisker Graphics

Tonight we are going to a friend’s Red Pump Party. I’d never heard of such a thing, but I guess the women (and men if they choose) are to wear red pumps. Um, I don’t do high heels. I’m 5′9″ and the tallest one in our family. I don’t own high heels. I did want to pay tribute to the party’s theme so I tried to think of an alternate idea. First thought was to cover our two bicycle pumps in red duct tape, but that would be awkward at the party to handle. The LOML suggested earrings a la shrinky dink. Little Cat A was my production assistant and here’s what we came up with.

Supplies: image from web, hole punch, to-go salad container, red nail polish, red sharpie, scissors, & tracing paper.

Printed out image from web, traced with tracing paper, reduced outline on home printer/scanner.

Tracing, un-shrunk shoe and shrunk shoe

Traced shoe outline with red Sharpie on salad container. Punched with hole punch. Toasted in toaster oven.

Finished earrings

Painted with red nail polish and used earring pieces from another pair of earrings I don’t wear anymore. The black heel tips are teeny tiny pieces of japanese masking tape.

Modeling earrings under close supervision of #1 assistant.

So, if I will be wearing red pumps on my ears, what will I be wearing on my feet?

I’ll be wearing my patent leather mary jane flats. Cause that’s how I roll.

We had a lovely time at Maker Faire last Saturday. The weather was perfect and there were loads of cool stuff to see. If I had an extra $300 to drop, one of these might come live at my house. But, one of the coolest things I learned on Saturday was to make Shrinky Dink art from #6 recyclable clamshells.

You can take this:

And make this:

image from www.skiptomylou.org

Here are two great tutorials at: Skip To My Lou and Dabbled

In our neighborhood we can recycle #1-5  and #7 plastics, but no #6, so it’s nice to be able to have a use for these. Keeps the kids busy, adds some beauty in our lives and keeps trash out of the land fill. It’s a win-win-win.