St. Patrick's Day Wake and the Scraps of Life

Last night's craft gathering turned into an Irish style wake for dear sweet Noah. We sat around and told stories, laughed, ate chocolate cake, drank hot toddies and Irish beer and celebrated the long life and gentle soul of this good dog. Jean brought a hand-made star garlard from 10,000 Villages to donate for craft materials, but it turned into the perfect hanging piece for the window above Noah's corner, creating a little shrine of light, color and remembrance. I didn't get a photo of that, but here is an old photo I found of Noah enjoying life and the scraps left on Theo's high chair tray.



No crafting got done last night, but we did get to paw through fabric scraps. Charlene (aka Mimi) recently gave our group 3 bagfuls of great fabrics leftover from her quilting and sewing projects. Thank you Charlene!



I also brought Mimi's "click-it bags" for show-and tell and we made copies of the instructions so maybe that will be a future GGM activity. Everyone loved these bags, and Jean wants to make one to hold make-up.



Thanks also to Jean for the fun clothing scraps and remnants. With all of these great materials we now have no excuse not to get crafting!

Cuddling with the cuttlefish

Just a quick follow-up to show the cuttlefish in action. Angus loves it, and his mama is super proud of the no-pattern project. (Special thanks to Jean and Kristin for the idea and Lynn for turning all 8 arms inside out!)

A Productive Craft Night

The GGM crew saw a lot of each other in November and December--but not for crafting. We had a Thanksgiving potluck, a clothing exchange, and we celebrated Birthdays (mine, Lynn's, and little Theo's). We even got to reconnect with our friends Rob and Eleni who have been living on the east coast for a few years now.

Finally, we sat down to actually make things--and we made up for lost time!

I don't know which project to show first; I love them all! When Sadie's son outgrew his favorite comfy pants, she turned them into his favorite crustacean: A cuttlefish. Only her version is a cuddlefish! Angus is going to love it.

The original pants

A cuttlefish

A cuddlefish!

One more look at the cuddlefish

Lynn turned a funny logo'd T-shirt into a useful post-St. Patrick's Day eye pillow and headrest. If it's still available, I recommend clicking over to her Etsy shop and buying it this very minute!

Hangover helper

K models the pillow set--she's a natural!

I led a mini DIY jewelry-making tutorial for Kabriela and Rachel. Here's K's pair of circle-drop earrings. I have to track down Rachel's, which admittedly look the same (a good thing--it means they both followed my instructions).

K's earrings (nice display!)

Finally, I made a cocktail ring out of a piece of a chandelier. Lynn painstakingly took apart the crystals on a chandelier that was on it's way to the trash. I glued a scrap of green fabric to a pre-made ring form and added the glass on top. There's a lot of potential in those glass beads. From rings to key chains, we'll make sure the lamp lives on.

Chandelier ring

Showing off Skirts

After over a month without GGM, it felt great last night to be back in "action". I put action in quotes because GGM is often more about talking, laughing, eating and drinking than actual craft. The theme of last night's GGM turned out to be SKIRTS. I wore this skirt (photo below) which I had crafted together earlier in the week from a too short jeans skirt and a too see-through floral skirt. Combined as one it is a wearable skirt. (Also check out the wristlet I crafted earlier yesterday and which fits my crafting criteria of quick and cute, so there will be more of this product to come.)



Unfortunately Jean could not join us last night but told us that she also recently made a skirt which she blogged about here:

http://jeanofalltrades.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/diy-maxi-skirt/

I love the looks of this maxi skirt and hope Jean will wear or bring this to the next GGM so I can take a peak and hopefully make one myself. Here is an image I took from her blog:



And finally, the most creative use of skirt goes to Lynn, who crafted this pretty purple hand-me-down skirt from our friend Aisha into a new door window curtain:



Not too much crafting got done last night on premises. We were glad Kirstin was able to join us even though she had a super packed day, and she filled us in on exciting happenings (i.e. potential house offer). And Lynn attempted to work on another curtain project until Theo's quiet but mighty presence made that focus pretty much impossible. I did get some work done on paper wallets, which will hopefully be completed in the near future. We forgot to ask Lynn about the special treats she had brought back from New England, so we will have to wait for that surprise until Friday, Aug. 19th, next GGM (we are back on schedule!).

Buttons!!

It was another full house at the (new) crafting quarters with Lynn, Sadie, Jean and Moi all in attendance and with special appearances from a significant little dude in his orange stripy p.j's and his sweet dog Noah.

I started some gift cards using some basic sketches of sunflowers and hummingbirds and sewing/stitching color details onto them. Jean made progress determining paper size and cutting card stock for use in turning her amazing photos into cards. Lynn continued her work on a darling multi-fabric skirt to use in her clogging performances and Sadie, our most prolific crafter of the eve, finished the Emo book, made at least one coin purse and altered her awesome tiger jean jacket, turning it into a vest (and came up with some cool ideas for use of the sleeves and cuffs off of said jean jacket.)

BUT, the best part of this GGM session was our sweet and oh so cool gift from Miss Misha, our girl who stayed wild and moved to New Zealand. She very cleverly crafted these great rings, using a bit of elastic and buttons! She also made us each a very personalized and sweet gift card. Thank you Misha!! Sadie took the gorgeous green ring, Lynn chose the very pretty and delicate white ring, Jean, of course, needed to have the bold and fashionable red ring (she is our resident fashionista) and I claimed the lovely yellow flowery ring, I'm really into yellow and green these days. :)

Twas a great night with our usual libations and an additional delicious treat, vegan brownies baked by Lynn. Going mild has it's perks. :) Until next time....

K

The Great American Lager

If the crafting gods are crazy, then the crafters must certainly be even crazier! After nearly getting my mother-in-law's car stuck in the muck to go snag this gift from the crafting gods, I continued on my way to take my son to meet a few toddler friends at a children's museum on the "East Side." He fell asleep on the way, so I pulled into a thrift store parking lot to let him finish napping and to try to catch a few winks myself. I can only imagine what it must have looked like to anyone who may have peeked in our window: An empty, torn-up package of Budweiser (24 cans!), mother asleep in the driver's seat; baby passed out in the back; a tiny slug crawling across the passenger side floor (a stowaway from the soggy beer box).

Fortunately no cops were on duty in the church parking lot, so I was not accused of drinking and driving, littering (the cans having been tossed out the window, of course), endangering the life of a child, etc.

It took me a few weeks, but I finally got around to completing the special-request Budweiser journal! It's nothing fancy, but then again, neither is Budweiser. I used the stab-bound method of binding the journal, with a rustic-looking piece of twine, and recycled paper.









The special request was part of an Etsy order I received for this Mountain Fresh Rainier Journal, which really is pretty fancy. I love doing custom orders, especially when it sends me on a scavenger hunt to find just the right piece of trash to turn into a unique treasure!

XO
LP

The Crafting Gods Must Be Crazy

A few weeks ago Lynn received a custom order for a Budweiser beer journal. She didn't have any Bud trash to turn treasure, so she did a little dumpster diving at her favorite dive bars and still came up empty handed. She even sent out an email to her crafting cohorts to keep our eyes peeled for recycled Budweiser boxes. Then last week she was looking out her front window and noticed an empty box of Budweiser right outside her front yard... fallen right out of the sky. And while the whole area was muddy and wet from Seattle April showers, the box remained clean and intact. This definitely proves that the crafting gods MUST be crazy.



Stay tuned to see the finished product. Or visit The Hair of the Dog to see similar Pick Yer Poison journals.