Hey Day Challenge Round Up: It's Been a Month

     Hey everyone, so it's been a little while since my last Hey, Day round up.  A lot has been going on for me personally, as well as in the world at large, so I've been a little behind on this.  However, here are all the videos I've released since my last round up video.  If you're looking for mindless entertainment, perhaps this is for you.

DIY Quote Jar

     You may have seen my craft blog post on making a quote jar.  Here's a video adaptation, complete with some of Brian's best absurd quotes.  This video was released on February 17th.

DIY Glittery Photo Frame

     This is a fast and easy way to spruce up a photo frame.  The video launched on February 20th.

DIY Pink and Orange Party Hat

     Make your own fun party hat in this tutorial.  This video premiered on February 25th, in honor of my sister Katie's birthday.

DIY Club/Membership Cards

     In this video, I show you an old club card that I made when I was in middle school.  I also show you how I designed a club card in Microsoft Publisher.  This video launched on March 2nd.

Turning Myself into a Paper Doll

     You may already have seen this video and its follow up in a post on my craft blog.  If not, here's your chance.  The video premiered on March 3rd.

DIY Period Products Case

     In this video, I show you how to make a period products case.  This could be a great gift, particularly for a kid in your life who has just had their first period, or may soon get their first period.  This video went live on March 8th.

Future Files Part III: Coolest Jobs

     In this video, I tell you about what I want to do when I grow up.  This video launched on March 15th.

Sloppy Joes with Tater Tots?!?

     Sloppy tots are actually really tasty.  I would definitely recommend checking out this video recipe if you like both sloppy joes and tater tots.  The video went up on March 19th.

Spring Cleaning and Sticker Organizer

     In this video, I do some spring cleaning and show you how to make a sticker organizer.  I filmed this video well before UMaine switched to remote instruction, so sadly now that I'm no longer seeing my students in person, my sticker organizer isn't getting much use.  It was super helpful for a few weeks, though.  The video premiered on March 20th.

DIY Trophies with Plastic Animals

     If you've been following my blog for a while, you've probably seen some of my Halloween trophy written tutorials.  This video tutorial shows the basic process of making trophies (although without the costuming that I usually do for the Halloween trophies).  The video debuted on March 25th.

DIY Mobile of Humiliation

     This is exactly what the title suggests, a mobile of bad pictures.  Not my favorite video to make or watch.  It went up on March 27th.

Happy Day aka Neon Yellow Day

     In this video, I tell you about an old holiday I made up when I was a teenager, Neon Yellow Day, and do some activities that make me happy, namely making an ice cream float and crafting.  It premiered today.

     So those are all of the videos that went up over the past month and then some.  I have filmed some of April's videos, but not all.  Will I finish them?  I don't know.  The past month, I haven't really felt like filming.  (I was coming off a bad cold for the early part of the month, which is what initially delayed my filming.)  Plus, now that I'm teaching remotely, I'm making videos of my Zoom lectures, which takes more than twice the effort of just teaching, but is essential for students who can no longer tune in at the usual time.  I'm also trying to finish my dissertation and I have no idea what's happening with the wedding.  There's a lot going on for me right now, and it's a little overwhelming.
     That's not to say that I definitely won't make more videos.  If you do enjoy them, then let me know and I'll take that into consideration.  This craft blog, and by extension my YouTube channel, are a labor of love.  My goal with both of these platforms is to provide inspiration and entertainment for you.  My craft blog posts tend to get more traffic than the videos, so it seems probably more people are enjoying the blog content.  But if the videos are something you really do like, please weigh in.  Even if my audience is small, if I'm keeping you entertained, then I'll do what I can to continue that.  I may just scale down the number of videos I'm posting, or take a brief hiatus.
      Stay safe, everyone.  I'm wishing you all the best.

Springy Sunflower Nail Art

     Welcome spring with these bright, sunny nails.  Sunflowers are probably my second favorite flowers, my first being red roses.  These sunny flowers put a smile on my face when I see them, so I decided to add them to my nails.

Materials:

*Sky blue nail polish
*Clear base/top coat
*Yellow acrylic paint
*Brown acrylic paint
*Black acrylic paint
*Ultra fine nail art brush
*Various sizes of dotting tools, ranging from large to very small

Directions:

*Apply clear base coat to nails.  Let dry.

*Apply light blue polish to nails.  Let dry.

*Paint on yellow flower shapes using yellow paint.  To make the flower shape, I began by painting a plus sign on the nail.  I then painted an "x" through the plus sign to make something resembling an asterisk.  I then painted on a line between each of the lines already on my nail.  I've tried to illustrate the process with the image below, with the index finger showing the plus sign stage, the middle finger the plus sign with the x through it, and the ring finger showing the completed flower shape.  Let dry.

*Dip a large dotting tool in brown paint and add brown centers to each of the flower shapes.

*Mix together black and brown paint and use a medium sized dotting tool to add a bit of this color to the center of each flower.

*Mix yellow and brown acrylic paints together to create a light brown paint.  Using a very small dotting tool, add dots around the brown ring of the sunflower.

*Seal with a clear top coat.

DIY Graduation Tassel

     A lot of colleges and universities, including my school, the University of Maine, are moving courses online for the remainder of the semester due to COVID-19.  It is uncertain at this time whether many schools will be able to hold commencement, but there is a good chance that a formal commencement will not be in the cards for some if not most 2020 graduates.  I know this is frustrating for many of us - I've been looking forward to earning and celebrating my PhD for years now, especially since Brian and I were hoping to walk together at graduation.  However, there still is room for celebration, just on a much smaller scale.  Today I'm going to show you how I made some tassels for UMaine's mini graduation ceremony, aka Coronamencement.

Me with my tassel.

     While I dug out my old Master's cap for the Coronamencement, I saw a lot of clever caps from people who didn't have access to an official school cap.  Some people bought graduation caps from Party City, while others made caps by attaching cardboard to baseball caps.  A friend of mine donned a blue bathrobe as a substitute graduation robe.

Brian had to work, so he couldn't make it to Coronamencement, but I made him a tassel anyway.

At Coronamencement.

     I know many 2020 graduates won't get any graduation celebration, official or unofficial, and certainly not on the scale of Coronamencement.  That sucks.  But even though you may not have a tremendous audience, your accomplishments are still worth celebrating.  When graduation day comes, have a virtual ceremony with your friends and family.  DIY tassels, caps, and robes with objects you have around the house, or wear a nice outfit.  I'm sorry for all of us that this is how our academic careers are coming to an end, but we have accomplished something big nonetheless, and you have every right to be proud of that.

Materials:

*Yarn
*Scissors
*Glittery cardstock
*Die cutting machine or X-acto knife

Directions:

*To make the "2020" for your tassel, use the template below or one of your own design to cut a "2020" from gold cardstock.  You could either use a die cutting machine or scissors and an X-acto knife to make it.

*Take yarn in a color of your choice and wind it around your hand about 16 times, like this:

*Carefully slide the yarn off your hand.

*Cut off a length of yarn long enough to serve as the string that fastens your tassel to your cap.  Mine were about 17" long.

*Slide the piece of yarn through your wound yarn and knot the ends together.

*Cut off a shorter length of yarn, about 6", and slip it through the end of your "2020" tag.

*Tie the piece of yarn around your wound yarn, up toward the top.

*Cut open the bottom of the wound yarn to create the tassel shapes.  Trim as needed.

Turning Myself into a Paper Doll

     If you've ever wanted to cartoonize yourself, but felt like you don't have the prerequisite drawing skills, then this may be the post for you.  In the first video in this two-part series, I'll show you how to use a tracing technique to come up with a cartoon version of yourself.  In the second, I'll show you how to color in the image digitally to get a more polished looking image.
     This technique works great for making paper doll versions of yourself or your loved ones, and could be a great gift, especially for the kids in your lives.  While the paper doll angle is the focus of this series, the same techniques will work for making cartoon avatars.
     When I made the first iteration of my paper doll, I had no intention of making a series of paper doll videos.  I was trying to think of a doll related craft to do for my Hey, Day series, and wondered if this would work.  I've used tracing before to create silhouettes, but I thought that I lacked the skills to draw in the facial features.  When the drawing portion worked better than I had expected, I decided to play around with coloring techniques to see if I could get a more polished looking doll, and when that worked okay, I decided to make a second video.  I don't currently have plans for any subsequent videos, but I do love paper crafting, so if you'd like to see more content like this, let me know and I'll see what I can come up with.

How to Draw Yourself as a Paper Doll (Part I of the Video Series)

Digitizing Your Paper Self (Part II of the Video Series)

Star Confetti Bookmark

     Add some shine to your books with a confetti bookmark.

Materials:

*Star confetti
*Laminator and laminating sheets
*Hole punch
*Ribbon
*Scissors

Directions:

*Arrange confetti in a rectangular shape between the laminating sheets.

*Laminate the confetti.

*Punch a hole at the top of the confetti rectangle.  I recommend doing this before you start cutting out the bookmark so you don't forget to leave space at the top to punch the hole.

*Cut rectangular bookmark shape out of the laminating sheet, making sure to leave about a quarter of an inch of excess plastic beyond the edges of the confetti.

*Tie a ribbon through the hole you punched.

Strawberry Frosted Donut Inspired Nail Art

     Give yourself a manicure that looks good enough to eat!

Materials:

*Clear base/top coat
*Pink nail polish
*Acrylic paint in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and white
*Fine nail art brush

Directions:

*Paint nails with a clear base coat, followed by a coat of pink polish.  Let dry.

*Paint on "sprinkles" by adding randomly oriented streaks of color.  Start with some red acrylic paint and add one to two sprinkles per nail.

*Next add one to two orange sprinkles per nail, making sure to leave enough space for the remaining colors.

*Continue adding one to two sprinkles of each color, one color at a time.

*Seal with a clear top coat.

DIY Wedding Invites with the Foil Quill

     As some of you know, Brian and I are getting married this May.  When it came to the invites, we decided to make them ourselves.  To aid us with the invites, we picked up a machine called the Foil Quill, which adds shiny foil to your cards.  In this video tutorial, we'll show you the method we developed for using the Foil Quill to add some shine to our invites.

Here's what the front and back of the invites look like, as well as the RSVP card.

     Check out the video tutorial below to see how we used the Foil Quill to make our invites shine.

     Although I don't go through the design process in this video, if you want to find the clip art I used for the back of the card and the RSVP card, I ordered it from Etsy.  The three packs I used are Alice in Wonderland Clipart, Tea & Macaroons, and Autumn in Wonderland.