The Etsy Craft Party in Lakewood, Ohio was a lot of fun tonight. It was a nice combination of upcycled paper crafts, meditative drawing, and good company!
The Zentangle ladies were there explaining the meditative qualities behind Zentangle and how to do it. Below are some examples of Zentangle. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any really good close ups of the intricate designs, which are truly stunning. The idea is that you brake your piece of paper (or tile) into smaller sections and concentrate on filling that section with a pattern. It’s more about the process than the finished product (though the finished product is really cool) and it’s supposed to be very relaxing.
In addition to Zentangle, I was teaching how to make several upcycled paper projects, which included the origami gift boxes with bows and tags shown above. The box itself is made using card-stock weight junk mail, while the bow is made out of glossy adds, and the tag is a bit of card board packaging like from a cereal box. To watch the Etsy video that taught me how to make the origami boxes above click here.
In contrast to the Zentangle table, serene and contemplative was exactly what my crafting table wasn’t tonight! Their was glue, little scraps of paper, scissors, skewers and every other supply that I brought in a big mass of confusion, helped along by my first two students of the night; a set of brothers, one seven and one four. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of these two little guys because, as you can imagine, my hands were full. I did however, get some shots of most of the other people who made gift boxes with bows and tags, so here they are…
I was also prepared to teach paper bead making tonight, however, that pretty much went out the window after my first two pint sized students. Note to self; paper bead making should be done by persons 10 and over. I wasn’t really prepared to teach small children at this event, I didn’t have any crafts appropriate for children their ages. I tried to make it work anyway with the paper beads but it didn’t go very smoothy. Here are some beads I made earlier as examples. For a really great video tutorial on how to make these click here.
Therese (left) is the owner of Keyhole Gallery, the location for this fabulous event! Therese was teaching how to make origami pendents today, but unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures. I really wasn’t on the ball today.
This was a really great get together and their is talk of us doing this again sometime in the near future, probably this summer! I hope that we do and generate even more interest and have more people come. It’s such good energy being around other creative people.
