I couldn't resist....

SPONGE ART
OK

what you need:
SPONGE
PAINT
PAPER
WAAAY TOO MUCH ENTHUSIASM FOR SPONGES

Resin!

Another cool thing I found while wondering around Michaels was this really cool substance called resin. Basically it is this material that comes in two bottles and when you mix even parts of these liquids it cures over night and will harden to form a sort of glass-like plastic. It comes with molds for making pendants and it is clear so you can put anything you want in it. The only thing about this stuff is for just a little kit of it it will set you back about $12-$15 and that isn't even for the good quality stuff. however the things you can make out of it are definitely worth the money. 

Difficulty: 6/10
Access to Materials: 7/10

WARNING THIS STUFF IS TOXIC, do NOT wash it down the sink...or eat it

Fist, here is the stuff I recommend you use if you've never done this before:

It comes in a little plastic bag with a purple label and you can find it over by the bead area in most Michaels stores. Make sure you get the starter kit because that will come with more supplies and molds.

make sure you follow the given instructions, you don't want to mess this up and have a globby mess. 

What you will do is take the larger bottle, and pour in your desired amount into a measuring cup up to one of the lines, lets say go to the 10ml line. then you take the smaller bottle, the hardener, and you have to add half the amount you used for the other bottle, so you would add 5ml. all together in the measuring cup it will come out to 15ml total. Remember that for whatever amount of the larger solution you use, you always add half that amount of hardener. With the mixing stick, evenly mix the two together SLOWLY. you do not want air bubbles in this. If there are, try to scoop out or pop as many as you can. When mixed pour into the mold and then gently poke in whatever materials you want to add! I like to use pressed flowers or beads but you can even use photos. Make sure its on glossy paper though. 

Keep coming back to the molds in the next hour since your items may have floated to the top. Keep poking them down till they stay and the resin begins to get harder. Cover with a piece of paper so dust will not get in and lt them cure for 48 hours. If you are impatient, this is not the craft for you. 

after 48 hours, put the mold in the freezer for five minutes then you can pop them right out! The kit comes with a little drill so you can drill a hole in them to make them into charms or pendants. 

Also, make sure when you clean up, you do not rinse out the measuring cup, use a paper towel to wipe it down as best you can because this stuff should not go down the sink. 

other things you can do with this is fill lockets, tiny glass bottles, etc. 

Bottles and Baubles

One of my favorite things to do is to just wonder around a Michaels craft store. You end up finding so many new and interesting things. There was one time I found this "steam punk" collection that was separate from the regular jewelry and It had the coolest stuff. It had tiny gears, decorative keys, and more...but what I found to be really cool were the tiny glass vials. They had a package of bottles of varying sized most no bigger than two inches and they all had little cork stoppers. This was one of my favorite finds and there are a bunch of cool things you can make with them. 
first of all, here are the bottles:

One of my favorite things to do with these bottles is just fill them with cute stuff. you can put anything in  them really. I also like to make earrings or necklaces out of them. 

Difficulty: 3/10
Access to Materials: 6/10

You are going to need:
Tiny bottles
Wire
Glue (preferably krazy glue or something that can bond to glass)
bits and things of your choosing!

First you pick a bottle and take the cork out. If you are making a necklace out of it you will want to make a small look with your wire leaving a tiny bit of extra wire to stick into the cork. You will want to glue this down, probably with the krazy glue since it with seep into the cork. then all you have to do is fill your bottle! I like to use really tiny origami cranes or stars, but you can use beads or anything really. Some popular stuff that ends up looking really cool is sand with some tiny sea shells. 
Once you have your bottle the way you want it, you're probably going to want to seal everything in so the cork wont come out or break. Glue the outside of the cork then stick it into the bottle and let it dry. Then you're done! 
If you want to take the extra step, you can even make your own stopper out of clay and glue things onto the outside of the bottle, but that can get pretty messy and you'd need a higher quality, more toxic glue. 

Origami Jewelry: part 2

Aside from Cranes there are a lot of other things you can make out of origami. One of my other favorites are origami stars. You can do a lot of different types of crafts with these. 
They are really simple and you do not need a lot of materials. 

Difficulty: 1/10
Access to Materials: 5/10

Before we start anything, here is a tutorial on how to actually make the paper stars
You can make the stars bigger by following the proportions listed in the instructions. 

You can make many things with these stars. 

First: Earrings and Charms
For this you will need paper, wire, varnish, and earring findings.

Start with making the first knot for the stars. Make a loop out of wire and stick it in the knot so the loop sticks out on a corner. Continue to fold around the wire as the instructions show. Once you finish the stars, cover them in a layer of the varnish and let dry. Finally, attach the loops to the earring findings and you are finished. 

You can also attach these stars to other things like cellphone charms or you can even put them on necklaces or string them together. 

Origami Jewelry: part 1

Continuing with this origami theme, it is very simple to make your own jewelry. I make a lot of this stuff and sell it at craft fairs. There are a bunch of different things you can make. I'm going to show you how to make crane earrings, star earrings, and cell phone straps. First-- the birdies:

Difficulty: 4/10
Access to Materials: 5/10

What you'll need:

• Paper for cranes
• craft wire (bought at craft store)
• earring findings (bought at craft store)
• clear varnish (bought at craft store)
• small beads
• pliers
• small bad quality paint brush for varnish

To start, take your origami paper and cut it into .75 in squares. (If you're using legitimate origami paper all you need to do is cut the paper into 16 even squares) The smaller the better, otherwise you'll have giant birds hanging from your ears and that'll be just too crazy. 

Once you have all your little cranes, poke a hole in the top triangle part and stick the wire through making a loop with excess wire hanging off the top. 

Next, paint a coat of gloss varnish onto the cranes, making sure it's not too runny or gloppy. Let them dry and then add three small beads to the wire, then make a loop with the other end onto the earring findings. Make sure the cranes are facing in the right direction when you put them on and then you're done!

Crazy Cranes

Welcome, back! As I mentioned before, the next few posts are going to be all about origami! Starting off with origami cranes. I learned how to make these little cuties about three years ago, and I got totally hooked. Every scrap piece of paper I found ended up as a crane. Soon, I ended up with a huge bag full thinking to myself, "what am I even going to do with all of these?" My solution: Hang them from the ceiling! They looked amazing strung up with practically invisible white thread, I wanted to do the same when I came to college. Unfortunately, at least in my school, we are not allowed to hang anything from the ceiling because it is a fire hazard. However, I found a way around it. And I'll show you how to do it yourself! But first, you should probably figure out how to actually make an origami crane.

Difficulty: 2/10
Access to materials: 1/10

INSTRUCTIONS:
Cranes can be a little bit complicated, so here's a very helpful video on how to make them.

Now that you've figured out how to fold the little birds, it's smooth sailing from here on out. (You don't have to get fancy paper either, printer paper or construction paper works well too!)

Since we can't hang anything from the ceiling, what My roommate and I did was take some thread, string is across the room from wall to wall, and taped them to the wall. Make sure if you're living in a dorm that if there is a fire line, tape the string under the fire line. For us, it is 18 inches down from the ceiling. Also, we suggest using command strips to attach the string to the walls since it may come undone if you're just using tape. Also, make sure you can walk under it too!!!

The next thing you do is tape some pieces of thread to the back part of the crane so they hang evenly. Then tie the string to the long piece already hanging. Continue this with as many cranes as you want spreading them out evenly. Length and size of the cranes are up to you! 

They also don't have to be cranes, other types of origami birds, or butterflies work just as well. Your options are wide open!

*EXTRA*

If you have more cranes than you know what to do with, tape them to your wall bordering things like cork boards or picture frames. You'll get a really cool 3D wall decoration.

Welcome!

Welcome to Comfortably Crafty, a blog about crafts, art, rainy day activities, and maybe larger, more complicated projects. As a Fine Arts major with hopefully a future concentration in Metals, I enjoy working with my hands, decorating, and personalizing pretty much anything. In the first few weeks of the semester of my freshman year in college, my roommate and I were super bored and had close to no friends, so we would leave our door open and look up crafts to do to decorate our dorm room. What we got was a very comfortable space to live in, many compliments, AND friends (Bonus!)  And now our dorm is super artsy and cool! AND YOURS CAN BE TOO! I hope to talk about the types of crafts you can do, go through them step-by-step to explain how to create them, what to do with them, and rate them based on difficulty, easily obtained materials, and more. I hope to start with an Origami section for this blog, so expect to be using a lot of paper!
So, stay tuned for upcoming crafts!
And in the meantime....enjoy this silly gif!