Quick Tips 001: Color Swatch Keyring

I have this really rad poster of all of the current Procion fiber reactive dye colors, and it has been really helpful in making color choices for my projects, but it's not exactly easy to see what colors complement each other. In the following example, I'll show you how I solved this problem by turning my poster into a set of swatches.

First, I suggest that whatever poster you're using, you buy two of them. One of the posters you will keep intact, and the other you can make into swatches. Sometimes it's nice to have your colors still displayed as a poster.

At Dharma's they have these two posters available:

Fiber Reactive Dyes
Acid Dyes

Depending on your craft, whether you use glazes, paints, or dyes, often times you can even find free brochures that have color swatches printed on them.

The first thing I do to my poster is have it laminated to enhance the durability of the swatches. If you don't have access to a laminator or it's too expensive to have done, I have some other tips for you which you can do later.

I then draw lines across the poster in between the swatches. I measure carefully to make sure the lines are evenly spaces so that my swatches will be the same size.

For my project, my swatches were 1 ^3/8" tall and 1 ^5/8" wide.

 Next I cut the poster into long strips following the lines I drew.

 I finally cut the strips into individual swatches.

 *I you haven't laminated your poster yet, now might be the time to do it. You might be able to fit trimmed-down strips or individual swatches into a smaller laminator. The benefit is that all sides of your swatches will be sealed, making them a little more water proof. The drawback is that you have to cut them out again! If you're looking for a cheap hack, use packing tape. Unroll a length of packing tape sticky-side up, and place your swatches on the tape. Unroll another length of tape and carefully apply to the other side of your swatches. Now you can cut them up again!*

 To keep all the swatches organized, I decided I wanted to keep them on a keyring. I punched a hole in the corner, not less that 1/4" from the edge.

I used the first swatch as a template for marking the location of the holes on the remaining swatches so that they would sit evenly on the keyring.

 After all the punching, I discovered a secret. The hole makes a nice window to see how colors look together! 

Don't attempt to secure your swatches with a traditional spiral keyring; you'll damage the holes! Either use a threaded key ring, a hinged key ring, or a small decorative carabiner like I did.

 Now you have all of your swatches protected, organized, and ready to play with!

Pintering 001: My Most Popular Pin is Garbage

So far, very few of my pins get re-pinned and that's fine because my boards are for my amusement primarily, and if others enjoy my curations, well, that's pretty rad too. It ends up being a pretty big deal when I get a re-pin as notifications get sent through multiple apps via every device I have. The notifications have been pretty frequent the last few days, but I've been too busy to follow up. I finally did. Here it is:

Some time ago I wrote at length about my disapproval of toilet paper tube art. In doing so I ended up pinning an awful lot of crap I do not even like. What I didn't think about is that people would see my pins and then also pin them. Somehow I doubt these re-pinners are as cynical as I am, and were probably re-pinning because they were actually inspired by this thing.

I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I try really hard to embrace this concept, but really, look at this thing. The painting is sloppily done, it's obvious that it's made of toilet paper tubes, the color palette is uninspiring, the composition is dull, and there are some cheap looking little plastic pearls glued to the flowers unnecessarily. As far as all toilet paper tube art goes, it's one of the least skillfully done projects I've ever seen. It's displeasing to look at. It's just bad. But that's just my opinion. (If I'm being honest, it's not just my opinion. This thing is objectively, not subjectively, bad.)

Yet it has the most re-pins of all of my pins combined.

I get notified every time it's re-pinned and I get to see who's re-pinned it. I click on these people to look at what they pin and sometimes I'm treated to the worst taste ever, and sometimes I find a person who seems to have pretty good taste, and perhaps just had a momentary lapse in judgement. Or maybe they're just assholes like me who enjoy ironic pinning.

It's an interesting window into what people value, and it leaves me feeling lonely sometimes. I've got these pins of people from all over the world doing their craft, and they get very few pins. Maybe it's just the luck of the Pinterest algorithms and not just that people love painted garbage more than the cultural heritage of craft.