Arts and Crafty

Last week was one of the rare occasions when I decide to wear my sparkly rhinestone tie. Every time I wear that tie, people are so amused by it, and tell me how sparkly I am and make jokes. That tie makes people smile, and it makes me smile, so I started to think, "Maybe I should get another one."

Not several, mind you. One of the joys of the rhinestone tie is that it is rare. If I wore something sparkly every day, it would stop being charming and instead just become routine. On the other hand, I have somewhere between a hundred and a hundred and fifty ties. Throwing in another couple with a little sparkle to them might liven things up, so I started to keep my eyes open for some.

Finding a rhinestone encrusted tie in Knoxville is a little harder than you might think, but I did eventually come across some last weekend. A lady was hanging some up in her booth at one of the antique stores I go to, so I stopped to talk to her and to look at the price.

"Those are forty dollars."

"Forty dollars?" I'm sorry, are those real diamonds?

"My friend makes them out of vintage ties. She hand glues all of the rhinestones herself. They're art."

"They seem very nice. I'll think about it."

Oh, I'll think about it, lady. I'll think about how I'm not spending forty dollars on a tie just because your friend hot glued some rhinestones to it. Why, if I had some time on my hands and some craft supplies, I could probably just do that myself, and it wouldn't cost forty bucks, lady.

And then the lightbulb went on above my head.

I don't have to work this weekend. I have no plans for Saturday other than walking and thinking about Cheetos. With that in mind, I ran some errands this afternoon, and then had some crafty time.

I started with this:



Seven dollars worth of thrift shop ties and twenty dollars worth of craft supplies. I got the ties first, then walked around the craft store looking for inspiration. I figured that even if I screw up a couple, the total cost was still less than one of that lady's rhinestone ties, so I might as well go for it.

The blue tie turned out ok, but not perfect:



It's blingy, though. I tried something similar on the orange tie, which is turning out better but which will also take longer than I planned:



I guarantee, though, that people will love that thing when I wear it on some home game Friday.

I didn't just do rhinestones, though. As I said above, less is more in that regard, and there were so many other things I could do.

Terrible things.

Things like this:



Yes. I glued googly eyes to that paisley tie, and I love it now.

I also love the way that stamping and fabric paint worked on the burgundy tie:





It's not a hundred percent perfect, but I think it looks great. I made my own pattern!

I tried something similar on the gold ties, stamping on bumble bees in black, but I accidentally smeared it pretty badly and threw it away.

One out of five isn't bad, and now I have five new ties.