Mosquitoes may be stalking me.

The Sonoran Desert isn’t known for mosquitoes, but after an unusually wet September, they’re everywhere. It seems like I get new bites every time I leave the house – or don’t.

I finally resorted to pulling the bug repellent (ick) out of the cabinet, but that didn’t even work. Maybe it’s old. I’d like to find a natural (or at least less chemical-y) solution that works.

My great grandmother used to swear by Avon’s Skin-So-Soft for pretty much everything, including keeping mosquitoes away during humid Indiana summers. I also found an article with some interesting DIY natural repellent ideas, like putting baby oil or cider vinegar on your skin.

Have you tried any of these or found something else that works for you?

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This is my Microblog Mondays post. More quick reads at Stirrup Queens!

October 9, 2014November 9, 2014

Re:Make Festival: A celebration of making

So what is the deal with this Re:Make thing I keep mentioning?

Re:Make is Brit + Co’s two-day maker event held a couple times a year. Day 1 is an invitation-only conference with awesome speakers and demos by startups. Day 2 is a festival open to the public with tons of handmade products and DIY project stations.

I was able to attend September’s Re:Make in San Francisco, largely due to a Brit + Co contributor travel stipend from Lowe’s (also a conference sponsor).

Even though the festival day happened after the conference day, I’m going to start on Day 2 at the festival.

The Living Room of the Future

With all the fabulous festival happenings, you know what I did first? Hunt for an outlet to charge my almost-dead phone. I figured my best bet would be the The Living Room of the Future. (Feel free to read that in a deep, echoing voice like “The Living Room-oom-oom! of the Future-uture-uture!”)

The Living Room of the Future was a whole room constructed just for the weekend to demonstrate Lowe’s IRIS line of smart home products. It had sturdy walls (holding artwork and a pretty massive monitor), a full set of furniture, a door, and (thankfully!) working outlets.

One of the Lowe’s reps moved a plug down to make room for my charger. Turns out it wasn’t just any plug, it was a smart plug. (Did you know plugs could be smart?!) It’s basically the updated version of those timers you plug your lights into when you go out of town. Except it you can control it from your phone. The only “installation” required is plugging it in to an outlet. That piqued my interest, because we rent our place, so we can’t get too crazy in the home improvement department.

Since I was hanging out waiting for my phone anyway, I asked what else they had that would work in a rental. Turns out most of their stuff would. There are sensors that can text you if there’s motion in your house or just if someone opens the door. (Of course, I had travel on the brain, but it’d be nice if you’re at work all day too.)

I didn’t notice it when I walked in, but the door to The Living Room of the Future (Door to the Future?!) had one of those cool keypad doorknobs. The house where I Airbnb’ed in July had one too. So. handy. Think about not having to coordinate a key handoff for houseguests/pet sitters/a friend stopping by while you’re stuck in traffic/etc.

In case you’re wondering, yes, Lowe’s bought my plane ticket. But I did not expect to get this excited about a smart home system. I’m really not into tech for the sake of tech, but if it makes my life better, I’m in. And their stuff turned out to be pretty neat.

Walking through Pinterest boards

Once I got my phone charged up, I needed a recharge too. I headed over to get some handpoured goodness from the Philz Coffee crew, who had become my BFFs during the conference.

From there, the hall opened up. There was a booth with Luna Bar samples in apothecary jars (Because this was Re:Make. And even the granola bars needed to be cute.), a mini version Brit + Co’s community maker space MakeShop with Brit Kits and 3D printers, a Michael’s “Raw Bar” with projects inspired by the same raw-look trend as our cork vase Make Break the day before, and handmade cornhole games in progress (Can someone explain to me why cornhole is suddenly everywhere?)

There were also lots of photo booth backdrops (also very Brit + Co) for selfies. I snapped a quick one in front of a Lowe’s backdrop, and then someone asked me a question, and I got totally sidetracked and forgot to take a better one.

Sprinkled throughout the hall were DIY stations where you could do things like paint your own tote, make a Lego house, or decorate a Lowe’s paint cans to hold your purchases.

100 vendors were there with handmade and artisan products – messenger bags, ceramics, jewelry, cards, soaps. I basically wanted to buy everything. Combined with all the DIYing going on, it really kind of felt like my Pinterest boards had come to life. Seriously. You can check out the merch in the B+C Shop.

An impressive 4,000 people made their way to the festival by the end of the day. It was overwhelming but so amazing!

I’ll fill you in on the first day of Re:Make (the conference day) next week! In the meantime, check out my Make Break post or Instagrams from the trip.

October 6, 2014November 24, 2018

DIY Mask Inspiration and Microblogging

Microblog Mondays

Melissa of Stirrup Queens had a fabulous idea to help people get back to blogging called Microblog Mondays. Basically, you post something to your own site/blog that you’d normally just post to social media. It can be short and sweet – the key is to get something posted and not overthink it. (Read more and join up on her site.)

Even though I do blog regularly, this made me think about all the content that ends up scattered across my social sites and never ends up here. I’m going to experiment with using Mondays for this type of quick reads, starting today with a roundup of masks that otherwise would’ve just lived on my Pinterest.

Mask decoration inspiration

At CraftHack next Monday (10/13), we’ll be decorating Halloween masks courtesy of Brit + Co and Velcro Companies. That sent me looking for mask decorating ideas. Here are some I found.

Example masks made with the Brit Kit.

Matching swirl masks from Masque Boutique.

Nature masks from a BHG contest.

Venetian masks from Carta Alta.

Downloadable mask template on A Subtle Revelry.

October 1, 2014

Make (and) Break

There were no coffee breaks at the Re:Make conference I went to in September.

Instead, staying with the DIY theme, there were Make Breaks.

(Also, Philz coffee flowed freely all day. No break required.)

We customized vases during the mid-morning Make Break. The project was sponsored by Michaels, and their spokesperson explained it was inspired by a trend they’ve been seeing. More crafters are using materials like cork, wood, kraft paper, etc., and leaving it unfinished, letting the raw material show through instead of painting completely over it.

Our project materials included rectangular glass vases, paint, stick-on initials, washi tape, and this cool adhesive-backed cork (for the raw look).

I decided to cover half my vase in cork and wrap it all with a few washi tape “stripes”. The cork was actually pretty easy to work with. You just cut it to size, peel off the backing, and apply it, smoothing out any wrinkles as you go.

I found some green tape I liked, but I felt like it needed a little something else. I remembered I had my little bag of travel journaling supplies with me and there was blue-and-white washi tape in there that would be perfect.

Would it be weird to pull that out and use my own tape?

Then I realized: If there were ever an event where it was socially acceptable to bring your own washi tape, Re:Make would be the one. So I went for it.

Correction: If there were ever an event where it was socially acceptable to bring your own washi tape and then Instagram yourself mid-stick with the hashtag #hardcorecrafter, Re:Make would be the one. Yeah. That happened too.