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Polar Opposites

July 19, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

Max and Diesel couldn’t be any farther apart in personality. Polar opposites:

Diesel is mostly cantankerous and grumpy. I guess I might be too if I looked like the cross between an owl and a prehistoric squirrel:

Max on the other hand wants to be a part of everything that’s going on. I set up my camera the other day to catch what happens when I try to do sit-ups. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t approve of any type of exercise unless it includes a leash and the outdoors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLaVHZP57d8

A Week of Writing Prompts – Week 2

July 17, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

(Daily writing prompts are posted Monday through Friday at 7am on Facebook. This is the weekly roundup with a few excerpts from my personal journal. The goal is to write for at least 10 minutes without stopping, regardless of what ends up on the paper. Feel free to share writing in the comment section. Write on!)

A little inspiration to start out:

“Write when you are in despair or euphoria, write it all! Write especially during the sometimes boring middle parts. Write about how pathetic or brave you feel, or how you just saw your unguarded face in the reflection of the TV screen and saw for just an instant…your grandmother’s face.” –Sark, Juicy Pens Thirsty Paper

Prompt 6: Anne Lamotte wrote in Bird by Bird that “good writing is about telling the truth.”Write down one true thing. And then another. And then keep going.

From my journal:
“I’ve been finding a lot of crow feathers in my path. They aren’t as black as I thought they would be. Some are more blue than black, “midnight” if I had to come up with a word. If crows weren’t such funny little creatures I would think the feathers were an ominous omen. “

Prompt 7: Pick one word from the list and write to wherever it takes you:

MELAMINE
HAIR NET
CLAM
ASHES

From my journal:
“The muskrats used to take the freshwater clams to their burrows in the styrofoam. Cracked open for their meat the discarded clams would litter the beach. I thought resembled shiny vinyl records or the blacks of saddleshoes. Some were lockets held together by a tiny ligament. I would try and nest tinier shells within the larger ones until they fell apart.”

Prompt 8: Grab a nearby newspaper, magazine or book. Write down a list of 20 interesting words you find. Pick one from the list to be today’s prompt.

From my journal:
“Ohhh…lots of good words here: storytelling, adirondack, traditional, sidekick, summer slide, unmask, librarian, dust, drought, Rothko, siphon, divining rod. DROUGHT. I read recently that the amount of water on the earth never changes which means that water is added in some places and subtracted in others. Subtraction is where the earth begins to tighten and contract and the shapes in the dried mud begin to resemble a geometry lesson.”

Prompt 9: What is the earliest memory you have?

From my journal:
“I remember when my brother was born in Massachusetts, the drive to the hospital where the road seemed to go on forever. We were only in Boston for a few months in a rental house. I got one of those big vanity Barbie heads at a neighbor’s garage sale but it didn’t come with any of the makeup or brushes. When we returned to our house at the lake it seemed to big and vacant, like it had been sitting empty forever.”

Prompt 10: Where love lives.

From my journal:
“In open hearts. In open hands. In open minds. In open days. In houses with open doors. In pitter patter. In trails of ink….”

More posts on writing here:

How to Make a Plastic Feather Necklace

July 15, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

I’m loving these feather pendants I made the other day….five in all in a variety of shades. I used two to make this plastic feather pendant necklace:

I made the feathers using a 3D printing pen. As a Michaels Maker, I had a chance to try out the new 3Doodler 2.0 3D Printing Pen and this was the project I came up with:

Here’s the 3D printing pen called the 3Doodler:

It was pretty easy to work. Boo actually read the directions and figured it out first, plugging it in was the first step. Second step: feeding these plastic rods down into the pen. The rods melt, and come out whatever shaped-metal tip you use:

I knew I wanted to make something practical that would get some use: feather pendant necklace was the first thing to come to mind because I have a metal feather necklace I wear a lot, and I actually lost it for about a month before it showed back up again. So why not have some backup jewelry in the same style? To start I drew a feather and then replicated it into multiples onto a piece of tracing paper:

Using a gray colored plastic rod I began to trace and draw parts of the feather directly onto the tracing paper:

I worked on several feathers at the same time:

Switching between different color rods:

I kept layering colors of plastic until I had the below effect. The plastic peels right off the tracing paper when cool:

Blue, clear, black, gray and white feathers:

I attached two feathers for a pendant using a rustic lobster clasp also from Michaels:

A finished plastic feather pendant:

Cool right?

I’d be wearing it but Boo stole it for her own wardrobe.

A little bit more info about the 3Doodler:

The 3Doodler 2.0 is THE must-have 3D printing pen that is an easy to use (and fun!) tool for crafters, artists and even designers!
The slim, light-weight pen draws dimensional figures and structures and is much more affordable than a 3Dprinter – you have to check it out!
You can purchase the pen directly from Michaels.com– and if you need some additional project ideas check out this awesome video.

{Giveaway is over. Winner is #62. But please feel free to leave a comment below still listing your favorite book!}