Extension Cord Tree

You know something is wrong when you tell your friends “sorry, I can’t, I’m decorating my extension cord tonight” and they say “oh, okay” without looking even mildly disconcerted.

The weird outdoor powerpoint in the roof finally got its chance to shine.

I plugged the end in and propped the power board against a brick so that the cord hung in midair and I could paint the whole thing at once - plus it had the benefit of being outside. (I was going to say that if I breathe in any more paint fumes while painting indoors I’ll go loco, but, um. I’m painting an extension cord.) Once it dried, I put a couple of cord hooks on the wall and snapped it in so it dangled in a vaguely tree-like shape.

I was originally going to print and stick paper leaves on it, but that seemed a little ‘who let a class of six year olds loose in your bedroom?’. Then I remembered the pillow I made Zoe for Elli Day.

I cut out another pile of fabric leaves and doused them with fabric stiffener, then snipped off a bunch of ten centimetre sticks of twenty-gauge wire and Mod Podged them to the leaves. From there, all I had to do was wind the end of the wire around the cord and bend the ‘stem’ until I liked the angle. 

 My favourite is the little owl hanging out on the knothole of the tree, though.

I suppose the advantage of never buying anything new is that hey, everything matches!

Now I only have to come up with seven more projects using leaves to finally get rid of that weird material with exasperated-looking angels on it.

TARDIS Tissue Box

For the weeks leading up to the anniversary of my aunt’s death, I was miserable and wishing I’d told her I loved her while I had the chance. I needed a distraction, and it seemed like the appropriate way to honour her would be to pick ten people and make them gifts or cards or ridiculous acrostic poems covered in glittery confetti. This was meant to be Lyndon’s Christmas present before I got bored and decided to watch Big Bang Theory instead, so I already had all the materials and had found a tutorial from g33k, which I then proceeded to sort of follow.

 I don’t know why I always photograph Lyndon’s presents outside. His room isn’t hopelessly untidy, I promise.

I made it to the actual dimensions of the tissue box rather than square (which I suppose means Lyndon is stuck with the same brand of tissues for the rest of his life, or until this thing falls apart in a month or two). I was concerned that it would get saggy and wrinkly if there was excess material on the sides, but it also meant that I had to change the size of the windows and the squares, so pick your poison.

                                                                                            

It didn’t occur to me until afterwards that I could have done the letters a lot more neatly if I’d chalked them on the material and stitched the outline. But given that the chalk was in the next room and my bed was warm, I probably wouldn’t have bothered anyway.

The only thing I significantly changed was the top. I tried sewing two pieces of material together and stuffing it with wadding, and it was epic, epic fail. It looked like the TARDIS had taken up reading Cleo and discovered that berets are trendy this season. I ended up cutting four small strips of cardboard and gluing them together in a square then gluing a flat piece on top and wrapping the material around it. I ran a bead of hot glue around the inside of the cardboard strips to attach it to the rest of the cozy.

(Of course, the first thing Lyndon did was pick it up by the top, and I had to confess that that really wasn’t a good idea.)

Don’t think you can skip the lining because it’s on the inside anyway and nobody’s going to see it. Know what happens when you wriggle a hard-cornered tissue box in and out? It eats all those vulnerable exposed threads for breakfast. Also, don’t use a bent piece of cardboard for the base just because you’re lazy and Lyndon is coming home soon. Just don’t.

When I got up, I found Lyndon had slipped me this note under my door as a thank you.

It's on my project list.