Stop in and Craft @ Crafty Goodness!

Every Thursday in June you can stop inside Crafty Goodness any time from 12-8 and make a quick and awesome project to take home for just $5 and there’s no need to register! You get to choose from a whole list of fun projects. When I stopped by today there was a young girl making a glass tile pendent, which I thought was pretty cool, so I decided to make one too! We had a wide variety of great papers to embellish the tiles with; scrap booking paper, vintage children’s books, and a gigantic, illustrated dictionary. I found the image for my pendent in the dictionary. LOVE IT!  IF you want to check out next weeks Stop in and Craft Thursday click here for directions to Crafty Goodness.

And, while I was there, Chris showed me this very nicely written article she wrote about Crafty Goodness that was recently printed in the Lakewood Observer.  She even mentions me in the article!

Next week, in addition to Stop in and Craft Thursday, Crafty Goodness is hosting its first ever Craftapalooza on Friday, June 17th from 7-9pm!  Come out and listen to Taylor Lynch perform an acoustic set, a blend of bluesy folk with a touch of ska!  You’ll also be able to make for $5 crafts, this time with a rock and roll theme all day long, starting at 12.  Or, just pick up a music themed item, 100% handmade by a local artist!

TOMORROW make sure you come out to the Etsy Craft Party over at Keyhole Gallery.  It will be a recycled paper theme and making things such as paper beads, origami pendents, gift bows and boxes, etc.  It’s FREE to attend, but please do bring some old magazines (or even junk mail) to donate if you have them.  Click here for more details.

Hope to see you at these events!

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Party Time Etsy Style!

It’s almost time for Etsy’s second annual Global Craft Party!  Last year, over 5,000 people participated in over 500 meetups around the world.  This year there will be an Etsy Craft Party right here in Lakewood, Ohio at Keyhole Gallery on Detroit begining at 7pm!

The theme for this party is Upcycled Paper!  We hope that you will join us in making projects such as paper beads, origami pendants, gift bows, and collages…all out of recyled magazines!  Also, their may even be some Zentangle demos!

RECYCLE by bringing an old magazine or any paper, and add it to the collective pot! That way, we’ll have many choices in color and paper for all the projects! All other supplies will be provided and are FREE of charge! All projects are quick, fun, and for all levels of ability!

So come on, don’t be shy!  This is the perfect opportunity to meet other crafty, creative people in the area and get your craft on!

For more information on Etsy and the Lakewood/Cleveland Craft Party visit the meetup page.

Hope to see you there!

 

Crafty Classes!

It’s not too late to sign up for some crafty classes with me this month! 

Fesi (Moroccan Embroidery) class

In this class you will learn a traditional style of embroidery from Morocco called Fesi by making an embroidered sampler to learn the technique.  Fesi is a special type of embroidery that looks the same on the right and wrong sides of your fabric (or in this case, paper)! Experience in embroidery is not necessary for this class, but those who already like to embroider might find this style particularly interesting and a bit of a challenge.  Check out this post for the history as to how I came to learn this process as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco.

When: Sunday, May 22, 2011. 2-4 pm (please register by Friday, May 20th)
Where: Crafty Goodness,
15621 Madison Avenue, Lakewood, OH 44107
Ages: Teen to Adult
Cost: $25 To register for this class click here. There is a 6 person class limit so sign up soon!

Felted Bead class

In this class you will learn how to create your own felted beads using the wet felting technique. You can later use your beads for embellishing knitted or crochet items or creating your own jewelry. Kit includes a variety of different colored wool roving. We will not be making the beads into jewelry during this class, as they will need at least a day to dry, but we will discuss different ways in which you can use your beads.

When: Sunday, May 29, 2011. 2-3 pm (please register by Friday, May 27th)
Where: Crafty Goodness,
15621 Madison Avenue, Lakewood, OH 44107
Ages: 10 and up
Cost: $10. To register for this class click here. Two spots for this class have been filled, which means that there is still room for 4 more. Make sure you sign up today!

Last minute craft fair prep

Tomorrow is the MayDay craft bazaar at Bella Dubby and I’m busy putting the finishing touches on all of my products.  As usual, I had some last minute ideas, such as typing my website on the backs of my new, hand-embroidered note cards (above and below).

And here’s a little sneak peek of some other new items since the Spring Showers Show; bookmarks (above) and small flower pins (below).

I finally ran out of the cute stationary paper that I used to make my last set of DIY business cards, so I thought I’d get high tech and use the computer to draft my next batch.  However, as it turns out, my printer isn’t working!  Luckily I was able to bang out some new ones using my good old trusty typewriter and nice, thick drawing paper.

Believe it or not, all my products and display items for tomorrow’s show will fit in my newly refinished suitcase, shown above.  Handy, since I’ll need to walk home after the event.

I hope to see you tomorrow at MayDay!

DIY fireplace redo; Legend of Zelda papier-mâché fire

Today I’d like to share a DIY project by my husband, Jon. Jon has been getting into the DIY spirit lately and decided that we needed to update our fireplace niche.

We live in an older home and have a handsome fireplace, and like many people, we don’t actually use it for its intended purpose, that is to say, we don’t light fires in it.

This doesn’t mean the fireplace niche has to be empty or “dead” space. We knew that we wanted to fill it with something interesting and eye-catching, yet integrated with the rest of the room.

This faux fire is the perfect solution. Jon is a big fan of old-school Nintendo games, so this project incorporates that perfectly into fun and graphic fireplace art.

While the following is not a complete step-by-step tutorial for making your own paper-mâché geek craft based on the Legend of Zelda fire, the pictures do show much of the process.  The materials at least are easy to come by and cheap.  All you need is some foam core or cardboard for the inside structure, newspaper and/ or paper shopping bags to use as the paper-mâché, some watered-down white glue (such as Elmore’s), and acrylic paint.

Happy crafting!

The fire has a bit of thickness to it (it’s almost 2 inches thick), so it’s able to stand on its own (see top of post). However, Jon wanted the fire to appear as though it was floating (above photo), so he suspended it with monofilament from a dowel rod wedged into the chimney.

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Toot Tuesday: Paper Beads

For today’s Toot Tuesday I’m posting a tutorial that I originally published on my previous blog, Emily and Jon in Morocco.  To view the original post, click here.

In this post I will give a how to for making paper beads and will show examples of some finished jewelry pieces.  I got the idea for trying the paper bead project from a CraftSanity blog post. On Jennifer’s blog she even has an awesome video of a TV segment where she demonstrates the process.  After I originally published this tutorial last August, I found another really great video tutorial from Mzuribeads, a cooperative in Uganda who make amazing paper beads!

How To Make Paper Beads

Materials:
Old Magazines
Glue (I found mine at the hardware store)
Paint brush (small)
Something to form the bead around such as knitting needles, pens, etc. (I like beads with small holes so I use a very skinny knitting needle. They are widely available in Morocco)

Step one
cut up some magazine pages into long triangular pieces. Play around with the length and width of the pieces because they will make differently shaped beads. Try to keep the triangles uniform if you want your beads to be a similar size and shape.  For example, if you want your beads to be 2m at their widest mark off one side of your magazine sheet every 2cm.  On the opposite side, measure 1cm from the edge, then mark off every 2cm from there.  Then draw lines across your paper to create the elongated triangular pieces and cut out the triangles.

Step two
Paint the glue onto the wrong side of the magazine (the side you don’t want to see). Start the glue about one inch from wide end. If your glue starts all the way at the wide end then you will glue it to whatever you are making your bead with (oops).

Step three
Starting at the wide end, tightly wrap the paper around the knitting needle/pen. Go slowly so that it looks pretty!

Add just a little more glue to the point and hold it in place for a second or two to secure it well.

Step four
Generously add a coat of glue to the entire bead and let dry in a way that the bead is not touching any surface

Now you know how to make a paper bead so make lots of them so that you can get some use out of those old magazines and junk mail!

After learning the process myself, I lead a workshop on it for the woman’s cooperative, Al Falah, that I worked with while in Morocco.  They loved making the beads and couldn’t get enough of it!  Below are some of the pieces that they made.

Above; Oumaima (right) and Fatima work diligently to make paper beads for an upcoming event.  To view more photos of this particular day and the women at work check out this post.

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DIY Valentine; Heart Pin + Gift Box

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner (tomorrow!), I thought it would be nice to share a quick and fun project that could be a nice parent-child activity…making a heart-shaped pin and with origami gift box!

I got the idea to make the pin when I was looking through some holiday apparel and found this home-made beauty (above) that I’ve had since I was very young.  Truth be told, I’m not usually into this sort of thing but I kind of dig it for its kitschyness. A short while ago I inherited a bunch of the plastic canvas needed to make this pin so I thought, “what the heck?” If you think it’s kitschy cute too read on for the how-to…

First the pin…
Materials:
Plastic canvas
Marker
Blunt-tip sewing needle
Scissors
Yarn (about 15 feet or so)
safety-pin

Directions:
Use a marker to draw a heart onto the plastic canvas and cut it out.

Measure out about 12 feet of yarn.

Here’s a quick way to do this:
I’m 5’1″ tall, which means my “wing span” is about 5 feet. So, if I pull the yarn between both hands with them stretched out twice plus once from one hand to my chest, that’s about 12.5 feet. It’s a great way to estimate yarn length. With 12 feet you’ll be able to make this project and not have to add more yarn part way through, but you also don’t want to have more than about 12 feet because it would be difficult to work with.

Thread the yarn through your needle and pull it so that both ends match up. You will be making this project with your yarn doubled like this.

Starting at one end of your heart, stitch in straight vertical rows. Instead of making a knot with your loose end, pull the tail across the back of the heart so that it will be hidden as you wrap the yarn over top of it. Try to keep the yarn from twisting as you sew.

Once you’ve gone all the way across the heart like this, start sewing around the edges.

Weave the end of the tail into the back threads and snip the excess yarn. Open your safety-pin and insert the back portion through the back threads to hold it.

Here’s the front of the finished project! Leave it as-is or embellish it with googly eyes, embroidery thread, beads, whatever!


I think the green heart will be nice for St. Patrick’s day and the black one could be fun to give to someone who might be a bit bitter about “the Hallmark holiday.”

Now, if you’d like to give these little cuties away tomorrow (and who wouldn’t), you might want to make a gift box.

I made these boxes using junk mail! It’s really simple. I learned how from an Etsy video a few years ago. Click here for the easy to follow how-to. To make sure that your box is big enough for your pin, you’ll need two squares of heavy paper that measures about 21cm square.

Happy crafting and thank you for stopping by!

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