Who needs buff when your man brings you stuff?

I hate roses.  I think they are a huge waste of money.  Whiny, wilty, overpriced attention grabbers.  I hate them.  Oh I know there are ladies out there that love the chocolate and roses bit.  I take them too with a smile when I get them, but ultimately, after 20 years, my husband "gets me."
Today he surprised me with a clean workbench, new Dremel bits, and EZLock cutting kit, and a can of spray shellac.   Sexiest man alive right now.

A clean workbench means I have room to weld and my day was AWESOME!!  I thought I would take your through the process of a simple wine rack.  First, the wire.  I like electric fence wire, but barbed wire works well too.  Whatever you can get your mitts on that isn't too rusty or thin.  I like electric fence wire because its usually galvanized and resistant to weather.  Just make sure you have a well ventilated area.  Galvanized tends to be a little toxic when you weld it.  Okay--a lot toxic.  Use common sense here.  If your getting a headache, you need air.  Artist does not equal stupid.  I have faith in you.

OKay, so the first thing I do is take a long piece of wire and fold it in half equally.  Clamp the folded end in a vice and chuck the 2 fee ends in the drill.  Then twist.

I twist the wire for a couple of reasons.  1 you get a stiffer and more sturdy piece, but mostly because you need a pretty light hand when welding this thin of wire.  Basically, you will be making a series of tacks here and the thinner the wire, the more difficult the tack.  You will either not penetrate the metal at all, or you will blow right through.  Of course, it can be done with practice, but I'm admittedly the first to say less is more, but more is better.  Twist the damn wire. 

Then, brainstorm.  This is the part that you decide what your gonna make and then lay it out the way you want it.  You can fly by the seat of your pants like me (way cooler), or you can draw it, map it, and calculate.  (Zzzzzzzz...) 

I like to make a bunch of swirls and then move them around until I get what I want.  Ish...

It all works out.  Don't be scared. 

Okay, so this is kind of cool.  Remember, we are making a wine rack, so eventually we will need it to function as such.  So, you get it all laid out like you want, donn the sexy SpeedGlass and start lighting stuff up.  This is the cool part.  ACTION SHOT!

Yeah.  That whole sexy dancer by night welder by day thing?  Total bullcrap.  Sexy welder.  Period. 

Don't have a welder?  Get one.  The most fun you'll have and still be conscious.  Not even lying right now.  

So anyway, tack away until its all together....

And it should be welded if you did it right.  My husband says I have a heavy hand and weld a bit more than I should.  About 2 paragraphs ago I said more is better?  Yeah.  I have slag boogers.  Deal.  

Then you take a wire brush or whatever and clean up your tacks.

I like to use a beefy brush backed by some kind of mechanical insanity.  1.  I love tools.  2.  More is better.  If your welds stand up to being raped by overkill, they will hold up to a bottle of wine. Just sayin'.

After you get it all cleaned up, try to brush off any wire bits left, slag, whatever sand down any overzealous blobs and make your piece look nice.  Flip it over to the front side and clean it again.  For the sake of simplicity, I mounted 2 rings on the front to hold the bottle of wine.   ANNNND not done yet.  But close! 

after you get to this point, you want to take it and wash it really good with dish soap and a scrub brush.  not really sure what the deal is, but there is some kind of oily something that shows up when you weld.  Wash it.  you will thank me later.  

After washing and drying, prime it with spray primer.  I use Rustolium.  Good stuff.  That's where I'm at right now.  My rack is primed and drying.  Tomorrow will be 2 coats of black gloss Rustolium and when it's dry, it will be ready to go.  I will post the rest of this post tomorrow with the finished product.  

I also made a fairly simple votive candle wall sconce.  Creepyyyyy.

It's supposed to be a spider, but after looking at it a while...I see woodtick...Hm.  

UPDATE:  

The finished pieces.

Run you better run, run from my bullet...earrings...

I spent the day out in the shop punching out primers from bullet casings to make jewelry, namely earrings.  A lot of people were asking for earrings as opposed to pendants and I really had to real way to utilize a decent earring.  I had made some attempts, but wasn't really happy with the overall result.  It turns out, a .22 has a very thin and easily punched out primer-capsule situation, most likely due to not being a re-loadable type of bullet.  Anyway, a little metal punch and a whack with a hammer made for a very nice, centered hole.  I was able to make some pretty neat specimens last night.

These are .22 shorts and are an 1800's friendly round that I picked up at the cowboy range.  Most specifically, these were laying all over the floor of the church after Fire in the Hills.  The flowers are fire polished Czech glass with antiqued brass filigree.

I experimented with some other sizes since my hubby bought me some small drill bits as a treat the other night.  I often break these, so a set of drill bits is better than a dozen roses to me any day of the week.  

So anyway, 30 carbines.  The lighting in my room is really crappy, but you get the idea of them anyway.  A .30 carbine was introduced in the 40's, so unlike most of my bullet casings, it's not a Victorian-era round.  I have a lovely assortment of firearm enthusiast friends that keep me supplied in odd casings. 

Here again, larger Czech fire-polished glass flowers with aged copper filigree findings. 

And lastly, another pair of .22 shorts.  Mottled, creamy green and brown Czech flowers with antiqued brass and a rhinestone roundel. 

So, that was last night's project.  I also have been working on a few dollhouse miniatures for my sister who recently acquired a very large display dollhouse with a pretty limited supply of minis to go inside.  I had some Sculpy and Fimo, so decided to try my hand at miniature making.  She had a garden plot on her Pineterest, so I went about trying to make veggies.

I'm getting the hang of it.  they are really tiny, so its a little harder than I had anticipated it to be.

Things I have learned in the process is, keep your heat gun on hand.  When you do a section or layer, hit it with your heat gun and "bake" your piece (Be careful, you can burn them and yourself.  I had the bits I was working on stabbed onto a pin that I had mounted on the end of a chopstick).  That way, when you put on the next layer, you can fiddle with all the little details without messing up your prior layer. With these tiny guys, you really don't need to bake it if you just use your heat gun.  Also, have some pastel chalks on hand.  that way you can add color layers to your items before heating them up.  This is how I got my carrots "dirty"  the carrot top is a tiny piece of moss that I had harvested and dried from the roof of my garage.  One little hunk of moss with make millions of carrot tops.  I may do a picture tutorial on my UniqueEuphoria blog to better explain my method.  Really though, this is fun and really does not cost a lot to get into.  The most expensive part is the actual clay, and you use so little making such tiny things, you really get your money's worth out of it.  All the other goodies can be found at the hardware store or in your house.  The texture of the leaves on the cauliflower was a little seashell and the leaves of the corn was textured using an old toothbrush.  It helps to Google images of the thing you are making, so you have a reference to color and texture and you can refer to the screen as you work.

Upcycled photo frame pin cushion project

Here's a cute little idea for old, tiny picture frames.  My mom had given me a box of stuff she was cleaning out of her craft room and inside were these little picture/mirrors things:

Cute right?  I suppose the lucky person would find these and the backs would easily pop right out so you can safely remove the glass without too much drama.  Me, I live for drama.  My backs were glued in.  So a little exacto knife carving, a little prying and a little swearing, I managed to...

Ahhhhh, break the mirror   Seven year's bad luck?  I think not.  I'm recycling.  And...I'm too awesome.  I repel bad luck. Stay strong and keep prying.  

Ta da!!!!  Now choose your fabric.  Not only am I recycling the old frame, but that fabric is left overs from another project somewhere out there.  

Sorry the picture quality is kind of meh.  It's like, 5:00 a.m. and I'm trying to do this in low light, all stealthy so as not to wake up the spawn.  

So anyway, you want to cut your fabric a little bigger than the back plate thingy.  This isn't an exact science.  Just follow the general shape of your backing thing and make it a little bigger.  

Start hot gluing it down following the edge of your fabric.  Pleat it with your fingers to keep it all even.  You want this to pouf out the front of the frame.

See?  Like this.  all glued.  

Now, your back plate thingy was not made to allow for fabric.  Usually these things consist of some kind of cardboard, so take your utility knife or scissors and carve it down a bit so its a little more frame friendly.

Your going to want to get some fiberfill.  You don't necessarily need to spend money on this either.  I like to visit the dump weekly and see what I can find.  An example would be leather chairs.  Always carry utility knives with you so you can harvest the free.  Within those leather chairs is an endless supply of perfectly usable and clean fiberfill.  WOO!

Pack that inside the fabric pocket while hot gluing the back thingy (I'm sure this is the official name for it).  Use a pencil or something to get the fiberfill under control while gluing in your back thingy.  

This is going to be under a little stress, with the fiberfill all packed in there, so run a bead of hot glue around the edge to neatly seal everything up.  

When your done, you have a cute pincushion.  I left the hanger thing (yet another official term) on the back so I could hang it up on the wall next to my sewing area.  

You can use any frame to do this.  I happened to like the antique look, so I kept it pretty original, but you can spray paint your frame or embellish it any way you want.   Have a friend who likes coffee?  Make one with coffee theme fabric and embellish with coffee buttons.  Sewer?  Wine drinker?  Pirate lover?  Trust me here, they have a fabric for that.  Go nuts.