Wire Wrapping!

  

Procrastinate Now and Panic later



Procrastinate now and panic later. Okay, so, this is what I'm trying NOT to do! My classes are starting to get ahead of me and I'm trying to catch up completely by this Saturday, but panic is starting to set in. With the new job and being sick for over a week from a bad reaction to a vaccine, by the time I get home I'm totally exhausted. I'm also resisting the urge to put off working on my class assignments to go thrift store shopping tonight. 

I have a pretty bad habit of having too many projects going on at once, but I always have a to-do list on hand.  That's one thing I think I could never live without.  I'm considering taking someone's suggestion to compile a journal or scrapbook of all of my to-do lists to analyze later.  Who knows, maybe it will help curb my dependency on lists.

Reupholstering Project: Channel Back Chair

A few years ago a friend and I were eyeing an awesomely pink channel back chair that someone abandoned in the hallway of her apartment building in the French Quarter.  She waited to see if anyone claimed it and then moved it into her living room, only to find out how uncomfortable it was!  So it went back out into the hallway.  Months later, I brought it back to my own apartment, vowing to one day make it beautiful and comfortable and, more importantly, mine.  So it sat in my living room, moved to my bedroom, my workroom, back out to the living room, and as of about two months ago it has been living back in my workroom. 

I did a bit of research on what all is involved in reupholstering a channel back chair and then practiced by reupholstering the seats on these kitchen chairs:

So, I recently tried removing the current fabric on the channel back chair.  It's much more difficult than I thought.  Since the chair is so old, the tacks are rusty and were breaking off instead of coming out with ease, so I had to use pliers to pull each one out.  I took a break while in the middle of removing the fabric on the back of the chair, so the fabric was flopped over with all of the tacks and nails and staples facing out.  That evening, I was getting ready for a date, ran into my workroom to grab something from the closet and carelessly brushed my arm against the chair's metal "teeth."  My date was obviously relieved to see that I survived an attack from a vicious tiger cub and managed to get away with just a bloody arm.

Anyway, I'm not sure when I'll get another chance to tackle this project, but seek comfort in knowing you will be among the first to know.

Mustache vs. Moustache

I've had a slight obsession with moustaches lately. Relax, it's nothing to worry about. But it did inspire me to create a sterling silver mustache necklace and now I'm planning a moustache themed birthday extravaganza for my 24th birthday next month! The plan is to get together with my friend, John, who's birthday is just a few days after mine and have a duo birthday celebration at a friend's hookah bar in the French Quarter with bellydancing and the works. Of course, it will be B.Y.O.M. (Bring Your Own Moustache) and I'm planning on handing out cheap felt stick on moustaches to complete strangers. It's New Orleans. Weirder things have happened. I also feel the need for some sort of moustache game involving pictures with random moustachioed strangers/moustache bingo/guess that moustache/et cetera. There will definitely be chocolate moustaches on sticks and a giant moustache shaped cake. What else am I forgetting??

So, my question, "mustache" or "moustache?" Which spelling do you prefer? I'm working on creating invitations for this classy event and I'm torn between the two. As my friend, Doug, just pointed out to me, "but moustachioed is such a better word than mustached."

Everything Old is New Again

With so many much needed changes happening in my life, I'm feeling the need to start blogging again, revamping this super old blog with a new purpose, name, and template. I think the reason why I gave up so quickly on this blog two years ago is because I created it with the sole purpose of having a blog revolve entirely around creating jewelry, when I had to fight to find the time to make jewelry, let alone blog about it. The new name I came up with (literally five minutes ago), The Frazzled Crafter, is because, well, if you know me at all, you know that I'm in a constant state of frazzled.

As far as updates go (and the reasons for being so frazzled) I have a new website (http://www.angelafalcone.com/) with a functioning online store and everything - fancy! I just landed a new job three months ago (thanks to my bestie, Alex - http://accusima.blogspot.com/, for getting me the interview) at an insurance company as an account manager. This is the first time EVER that I have a job that is neither in the retail or service industry. It's definitely refreshing. Overall, I think it was a wise career change as it leaves my evenings and weekends open for class, jewelry making and crafting, and spending time with awesome people. Speaking of class, I have roughly 4 semesters left (if everything goes as planned and I don't take summer classes) until I graduate with two degrees. I'm finally seeing that light at the end of the tunnel!

As for jewelry making, I've stopped creating so much of the simple jewelry just because it's easy to sell. I know I need to make a profit, but if I'm not enjoying it, what's the point? The whole reason why I started selling my jewelry was to fund something that I was passionate about. So I'm packing up and moving on. I recently started sawing sterling silver sheet metal and, wow, so much fun! You can see from the picture I posted here one of the first pieces I created with sawing. It's a bff puzzle heart necklace duo made for my bestie and myself. I know, cheesy, right? I still haven't learned how to solder, but I have done some PMC and am super excited about this since I learned that I can fire it over a gas stove instead of having to buy a kiln.

So, expect more posts with not just jewelry, but other fun projects I'm working on in between work and classes, like reupholstering an awesome channel back chair and playing around with a new gouache set that my godmother gave me recently.