best of luck to you on this special day

yes, i am typing this entire post without use of caps. i've said before that greatly enjoy not using caps, and i'm finally gonna do it; deal.
also, happy friday the 13th! in case you don't have any black cats, i offer this picture to fulfill the holiday's obligation. ^_^ the uncensored version is here.

this week i finished one of my first craft projects in some time. it was actually quite an impulsive creation, while simultaneously being weeks in the making. how, you ask? well.

on may 14 i was chatting with a friend online, and happened to mention that crafting tangents can be very dangerous. shortly thereafter, i found these images of claudia schiffer (below, possibly-nsfw link) that appeared in the german vogue magazine. i was in love! no, not with claudia schiffer, you fools, with the mask (but yes yes, she is lovely too!). that mask is way hot, and she totally rocked it. i thought, i must have one of my own!

enter the crafting tangent.
exit my having never broken a bone in my body.

i saw that mask and thought, "awesome! i wonder if i could make that out of record vinyl?" so i went to the craft room and was standing at the table with my record supplies, flipping through different albums looking for an appropriately amusing album to make the mask with. right as i realized that the stack i was looking through was dangerously close to the edge of the table, and in the true nature of crafting tangents, this stack of records decided to fall. off the table. onto my foot.

now, this might not be a big deal. i mean, there were only 12 albums there, and those can't be that heavy, right? no, they're not. but when they are suddenly throwing themselves off a tall work table and landing, vertically, onto your big toe... the seeming minimal weight and momentum are amplified by the millimeters-thick edge, which deals the full force of the 12" of vinyl. deals it onto my toe. all at once.

cue 30 minutes of nausea, light-headedness, and general confusion towards record vinyl as to why it would do this to me.

and in case you think i'm being a pussy about this, i encourage you to try dropping a dozen records vertically onto your own big toe. it will hurt like a bitch, i promise! but you deserve it for questioning me. it really made me rethink the legitimacy of beheading zombies via LP.

to be fair, i don't think i broke my toe in a seriously bad way. i mean, there were no bones protruding, it wasn't bending the wrong way, and i could still walk. however, many of the records happened to fall directly onto the joint, so i think this both fractured bone(s) and damaged the cartilage in that joint. i've been able to walk on it this entire time, but i've not tried wearing heels yet and going without them has been a bummer.

anyway, it wasn't until the next day that i sketched out the mask onto the vinyl, but i had difficulties cutting the shape out. i stared at the project as it sat near my desk for several weeks, pondering whether finishing it was worth the possibility of further injury, and how to go about doing it. finally this past week i went to town on it, with the results you see above. :D

so to recap the cat mask project: yes, it really is made out of record vinyl, disney's "101 dalmations" to be exact. oh, the delicious irony! start-to-finish the project took me less than 24 hours; my main tools were my dremel and my long-term relationship with record vinyl (in other words, it's a trade secret). i ended up annoyed that it took me so long to pick it up again, but i am very pleased with the results! my version is much shorter than the one schiffer is wearing, which is evidenced by the amount of forehead mine shows, but i think hers is also more narrow than mine. but whatever, mine's made out of record vinyl! and that is awesome. from the looks of it, the inspiration was made out of molded plastic, which is not something most people can do on their own. also, i really like the soft leathery look mine has; initially i had considered varnishing it to get that same high gloss but i like the matte look so much, i think i'll just have to make another so i have both. ;)

so yeah, thus goes my tale of the danger of crafting tangents: it is a TRUE and EVIL danger. i can't believe it's actually been a month since that happened. thankfully, i am victorious in the end! okay well, i still can't bend my toe all the way, but it's not like i'm in a rush. i don't have any toe-bending competitions to go to. i do, however, have a neat idea... ;)