Just For Fun: Crochet Condom Poster

This past Saturday at the Spring Showers Craft Show some of us vendors participated in a fun little contest which involved making something crafty out of a condom.  Above was my entry.

The idea to make a parody poster came to me right away. I wanted to do something that would make people laugh.

The piece itself is the poster of course, but I made the condom and wrapper myself as well.  Though I didn’t win the contest (the winner made an awesome bedazzled condom brooch) I had so much fun making it and seeing people’s reactions to it.

I hope that there will be more contests like this at future craft shows.  You never know what will come out of something like that.

The Rambling Crafter; Public Art

Above; Stencil on sidewalk, Liverpool, England.  July, 2010.

As creative people, we tend to find art and beauty wherever we go.  That old, run down barn or factory; leafless trees on an overcast day; a pile of trash.

But sometimes we come across things that are meant to be art in public spaces.  These murals, stencils, and sculptures are put in public areas (both legally and illegally) by people or groups who, for whatever reason, want us to experience this art without going through the trouble of visiting a museum or gallery.

Today I am sharing with you just some of the public art that I’ve come across in the last year or so where I was lucky enough to have my camera ready.  Enjoy!

Above; Superlambanana, Liverpool, England.
“An ironic comment on the dangers of genetic engineering, it was developed with the city specifically in mind as both the banana and lamb were once a common cargo in Liverpool’s bustling docks.”-Wikipedia

Above; what seemed to be a two-story tall pooping Santa Claus in the middle of a mall in Barcelona, Spain, turned out to be a traditional nativity figure called a caganer.

“The caganer is a particular and highly popular feature of modern Catalan nativity scenes. It is believed to have entered the nativity scene by the late 17th-early 18th century, during the Baroque period…the caganer is often tucked away in a corner of the model, typically nowhere near the manger scene. A tradition in the Catalan Countries is to have children find the hidden figure, a task which they seem to relish. One explanation for the figure is that it represents the equality of all people: regardless of status, race, or gender, everyone defecates.” – Wikipidia

Above two; The mosaics in Park Guell by Antoni Gaudi (also in Barcelona, Spain) are at once amazing works of public art as well as a popular tourist attraction.

Above; my husband, Jon (left) and our friend, Colin, pose with a large replica of a Lego pirate in front of a toy store in Malta. Is it art or just clever advertising? Who cares! I love Legos and I LOVE pirates and I had to have a picture of this guy.

Above two; Statue of War in Cartagena, Spain.

And, just to bring things full circle, above is a mustache man sticker in Cartagena, Spain.

Irish Flowers

It’s March, but unfortunately, Spring is not in the air.

This past weekend I was on overdrive getting ready for the Cleveland Craft Coalition Art and Craft Bazaar coming up this Saturday.  Since the theme is loosely based on St. Patrick’s Day and all things green, I’ve had Ireland on the brain as of late.

That’s why I’ve decided to share some photos I took last August of some pretty amazing plants, flowers, and fields that cover the landscape of Ireland.  Enjoy!

Geek Craft + Birthday Extravaganza

Yesterday was Jon’s 30th birthday and I wanted to make it special even though our cash flow is quite low at this time.  Since Jon grew up with playing Nintendo and thinks of that time in his life so fondly, I decided to do an “old school” Nintendo theme for the occasion.

It all started last year when I made him a coin purse featuring a Mario star.  He liked the purse, but it wasn’t quite long enough to hold his credit card and ID, so he suggested that I make him a new one and even drew out the design he wanted; a ruby from Legend of Zelda.  So the first thing I did to prepare for his birthday this year was make the coin purse that he had requested so long ago.  I used some bamboo yarn and the tapestry crochet technique to execute the design.

Looking around my studio, I brainstormed about what else I could make for him using materials I already had on hand.  A couple of weeks ago I found someone’s stash of wool crewel yarn in awesome 7os colors at a thrift store.  I also had a bunch of plastic needle point canvas scraps given to me by my Grandma Virgie a few years ago.  So I put two and two together and came up with making….you guessed it; coasters! (Jon, however, has declared these babies too precious to set a coffee cup and wants to have them framed.)

While looking online for source images to use for the coasters I came across some images of Mario made out of Skittles.  That’s when I got the idea to put a design on Jon’s cake using M&M minis.  The design fit really well on the 8″ cake.  The side of the cake is a play on the phrase “1 up.”  In case you’re wondering, no, M&Ms do not come in packages of single colors, you have to sort them yourself.  It actually didn’t take that long to segregate the entire bag, then once I was done I played around with which image I wanted to use.

Along with the change purse and coasters, I gave Jon some Burt’s Bees Saving cream and deodorant.  The only thing left to do now was wrap it all up and make a card.  Again I looked around my studio and found an oatmeal canister we had recently emptied.  I removed the label and replaced it with some white paper, then used a glue stick to paste on more pixellated Nintendo images.

On the card I did a line drawing of an old school Nintendo controller. (Incidentally, when I used to work as a caricature artist and some kid wanted to be drawn playing a video game, I would always draw them with one of these controllers, as I never really liked video games but used to play the original Nintendo once in a while with my older brother.)  The inside of the card reads, “Jon, you always know how to push my buttons.”

Jon, I hope your birthday was a memorable one!

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Signs; The Cliffs of Moher

Signs are everywhere and lately I’ve been paying more attention to them.

I believe I started seriously collecting sign imagery during my trip to the UK in late July/early August, 2010.

I can’t put my finger on the exact reason I decided to start my collection, but I think it had to do with the fact that I was in a different culture, had a brand-new toy to play with (my SLR camera), and am generally attracted to interesting graphics.

The specific signs featured in this post are from a single afternoon in August when my parents, husband, and I visited the cliffs of Moher on the West coast of Ireland. The view was breathtaking to say the least, but the signs, the signs were so much fun!

I’m playing around with some ideas as to how to incorporate my sign collection into a project in the future, so keep your eyes open!

Winter Wonderland + Cozy Fireplace

After some beautiful weather last week (clear, sunny skies and mild temperatures), winter has officially returned.  The following are some photos that I took from my apartment this morning.  Surprisingly, it didn’t feel that cold on the balcony where I took the close-up shots of the frozen branches.

It’s easy to romanticized winter in November and December when holiday decorations and excessive amounts to hot-out-of-the-oven cookies are surrounding us.  It’s a time for shopping, giving, and over-eating that makes us feel so good at the time, yet so bad for the first few months of the following year (i.e. now).  Hence the need for New Years resolutions.

I always think it’s kind of sad to see the Christmas decorations come down around January 1st because they represent so much warmth and coziness, even if we are sick of seeing them by then. It’s as though the house becomes ten degrees colder because their aren’t strands of twinkle lights and Santa Clauses surrounding us. Almost everyone wishes for a “white Christmas,” when in reality the snow is usually at its worst from January through March.

This is why I wanted to do something to add some warmth and coziness to our apartment now, when we really need it. So I directed my attention to the prominent, beautiful, yet unused fireplace in our living room. It seemed like a shame to leave it empty, but we didn’t know what to put there.

Finally, I decided on a small Christmas tree. When I first mentioned this idea to my husband he was skeptical about my interior design taste. “A Christmas tree? It’s January,” he said. I could see his point. After all, the tree did have a red, velvet bow around its base and a strand of blue lights which seemed to choke the poor thing more than provide festive decoration.

After I removed the lights, the bow, and fluffed up the branches it looked nice, and much less Christmas-y. However, it still looked a bit sad and lonely in the fireplace all by itself. It was as if it was waiting for us to come along, light a match, and burn it to ashes at any moment.

That’s when I thought of the crochet snow flake ornament patterns my Grandma Virgie had given to me recently.  Why should snow flakes be reserved strictly for Christmas? Below is the pattern booklet, circa 1983, along with some of the snow flakes that I made.

I like the way that the crisp, white flakes pop against the dark cavity of the fireplace, while being framed by the white mantle and book cases. In the spring I’d like to paint the walls a light, warm gray to make the mantel pop even more.