Craft-A-Way Camp

I spent a weekend in the woods at Craft-A-Way Camp! Amazing, right? Amy and Ethan of Small Craft organized a weekend camp for 20 people to come out to the woods and learn new crafts, gather round the fire and relax. Amazing! 

Here you see Andy Sell, the Foraging Florist leading us on a morning hike through the woods to gather material for a floral centerpiece created with a floral frog he taught us to make.

Right around the end of that session, I decided to put the camera away and just enjoy the experience. But we went on to learn screenprinting techniques and print our own craft-a-way- camp t-shirts, learned meditative stick wrapping and painting with Val Willer, reverse applique with Karen LePage, made gorgeous wood bead necklaces with Courtney Fischer. Lots of eating, drinking and fire time.

Here's one final shot of our craft cocktail session, of course. Such a great way to lead into the week of July 4th and it truly made me feel like summer has set it.

DIY gifts: Screenprinting with stencils

This Christmas I was committed to making many of my gifts by hand. The project I had the most fun with was for my brother Matthew. He lives in a loft-style apartment and has way too many empty walls (despite being extremely loyal to his sister and showing off many of my paintings, both current and dating back to my art school days!) 

I've been drooling over the projects in Lena Corwin's Printing By Hand book for a long time and knew I wanted to try some kind of silkscreen project. She also covers stamping and freezer and contact paper stencils. I had originally pictured doing a set of nine canvases all equal in size to hang in a 3x3 grid. But since I didn't get to this one until the day before we were leaving town, that was a bit ambitious and I made do with what I could find. I picked up some frames from the ReUse Center and then camped out at Blue House for the day so I wouldn't be distracted the computer. It was such fun! I was just kind of winging it with the design and cut stencils by hand. (Since I didn't finish until late, I didn't get a chance to take better photos at home.) 

So, if you're looking for inspiration for a creative project, I would check out this book, or spend a little time at Blue House this year!

Handmade ornaments with Blue House

After a busy craft show day Saturday, I was so happy to spend Sunday at the Blue House for an afternoon of festive ornament-making. There was a lovely group of about fifteen people participating, and with warm beverages in our hands and soothing music on the speakers we set to work on a variety of ornaments. They are all quite easy projects that you probably have the materials on hand for at home, many of them taking advantage of recycled/upcycled materials. I didn't try my hand at each, but these pictures are of the ones I made. Above left is a little bird made from bits of felted sweater and button eyes. He even sits on a twig branch, though that is camouflaged in this photo.  You could make these in any shape you want. I plan to make a few stars next.  

Next, is a very simplified ball ornament based on Japanese temari balls. These are usually ribbon and yarn wrapped around a styrofoam ball in very ornate patterns. We simplified the process and simply wrapped wadded up newspaper with yarn and stitched into it. You can adorn them any way you'd like — Siobhan, Blue House's owner, added an appliqued bird to hers. So cute.

Next we made paint chip orbs based on those from ReadyMade. I added some decoration by punching holes all over, and after it was assembled, Siobhan suggested using the ones with holes as shades for Christmas lights — how fun and easy! We used fewer sides in these, but when I got home I tried making one with the full 20 sides and loved how it looks. I used my stack of misprints as material and may have some of these on sale at DUCF this weekend. 

That's the beauty of Blue House — you often come away with new ideas that you can easily recreate at home from recycled materials. I wish I could show you how festive and sweet the decorations are there right now, but my camera went on the fritz that day.  Beyond the ornaments I came away with so many simple yet beautiful ideas I can't wait to try. Really, if you're near you should stop by and be inspired. And if not, keep on coming back here and I will share with you what I see and try!

Craft show prep

Well, I'm busily working away on my setup for Sunday's Ann Arbor Artisan Market. It is officially "MICE @ the Market" day with a number of local Etsy sellers (see the lovely logo below for more details). I've had the table set up in our living room all week and am getting down to the final details. I lucked out with a visit to the Ritz Camera in town that unfortunately went out of business. I picked up some stands that work perfectly for cards and prints. I have put off on making a banner and price signs, but am determined to have it all finished tonight so I can spend the day tomorrow with friends who just got a new sailboat. That seems like a much healthier way to spend the day than frantically running around trying to add more to my setup. I figure, there will always be more I CAN do, but not that I HAVE to. I'm sticking with the — don't let perfect get in the way of good— line of reasoning. Yippee! Wish me luck on Sunday and drop by for a visit if you are in the area.

A Yeti saved my Gocco!

Today I spent the whole morning working on hand-printing cards of a little house in snow. I cut out shapes from cardboard, which didn't work — I kept getting the corrugated lines which I didn't like. Then I moved on to styrofoam. Pretty easy to cut. The result was okay. But then, as I was applying the final touches of hand-painting the snow, I realized something awful. The freakin' houses didn't look like houses. They looked like Yetis! Some like King Kong. Only one kinda resembled a house. Bummer. Well, not a total bummer. Everybody likes a Yeti. But I felt like I wasted a whole morning. I added eyes to this one to really show off the Yeti-ness:

My little disaster turned into an afternoon of pure bliss! I dusted of the cover of my highly-prized, yet never touched Gocco printer. I had gotten the full B-6 kit for Christmas a couple of years ago, but it only came with 5 screens and 10 bulbs. Since Gocco has discontinued production of their printers, I have been saving my Gocco for THE BEST DESIGN EVER for it to be worthy of using my limited supply. I've had the darn thing for over two years. What good is it if I'm afraid to use it. So, today was the day. I love it! I'm totally hooked. I immediately ordered more screens and bulbs despite being jobless (oops!I couldn't resist!) Have a look:

Crafty gifts

I wanted to make as many of Christmas gifts as possible this year -- since I had some extra time and NEED to save money! I decided to go with a cooking theme, since it's something my family enjoys doing together and that I've been doing a lot of these days. I made my own recipe books with my favorite recipes from 2008 and packaged them with felted potholders that I knit. Yippeee! They turned out pretty well, though these pictures are quite crappy.