December 2009

Current Project Ideas

Project #1 - Recycled wool mini wreaths (easy) or Wool Bird ornaments

The felted wool sweaters are perfect for these projects. The material is nice and pouffy. I have plenty of recycled sweater supplies for this one.

tools: wire cutters, needle nose pliers, sharp scissors

Project #2 Vintage Style Pinecone Gnomes (Beginner to Intermediate Level)

I have little pinecone elves that my Grandma Frances bought at Woolworth's for 10 cents a box in (I am guessing) 1940's or 50's. I found these new examples and couldn't resist. Pinecone, wooden bead, pipecleaners, glue, and wool felt - all on my list of favorite things.

Project #3 Tiny Mixed Media Collage Ornaments (Intermediate to Advanced level)

tiny repurposed ribbon spool with vintage seal on the back

Great things come in small packages! Reuse and recycle all the tiny bits of stuff in your craft stash. In my stash, I have been hording small cardboard jewelry boxes and other tiny containers. I have always loved dioramas. So we are putting it all together in a nice little Christmas package.

Start thinking about a theme now and collect any specialty ephemera for your project. I will provide lots of basic stuff. I have plenty of boxes and containers in a variety of sizes.

Materials: the sky's the limit! glitter, trim, paint, paper, Christmas cards, polymer clay, beads, sequins, doo-dad's, snow paint, pipe cleaners, photos, junk, tinsel, rubber stamps, whatever.....

Tools: sharp scissors or exacto knife for cutting paper, tweezers for placing small items, toothpicks for glue, brush for mod podge

Christmas morning with frozen stream and vintage card background.
  This is the first one I made!

Disco ballerina with some vintage bling.

vintage card background for deer and tinsel trim

Repurposed an empty ribbon spool for a round
diorama with a scrap of vintage tinsel for trim



Another repuposed ribbon spool - this has lots of vintage.
The gold foil on the back was lining a box of vintage tags.
The white paper pointsettia on the back came from a vintage card.
The flower, trims and button all came from my late grandmother's stash.

the north pole from outer space!
I think this globe came from
a tube of small animal toys.

Vintage snow couple card inspired this mini box ornament!

That's all for now - see you on Dec. 12th!

December 2008

December 2008 Christmas Craft Party

Here is the review of last years' party. From the individual donations of the party participants we raised ~$400 for the Joy's House Scholarship fund. Info about Joy's House can be found at
http://joyshouse.org/. I have chosen Joy's House as the recipient of our collected donations in honor of my two grandmothers.

Gemma Paquette was stricken with Alzheimer's Disease and benefitted from a similar adult care facility in the 1980's in her hometown in New Hampshire. Frances Tschida taught me how to find uses for things rather than throw them out. She took great joy in creating her own Christmas decorations and was a master maker.

I love making stuff especially when we can recycle or reuse something!

In case you couldn't make it, here's what we made last year -

Project #1 - Glass Bubble Magnets and Ornaments:


We used a variety of images from old Christmas cards and tags, some stinky glue and 2 sizes of glass globs to create easy refrigerator magnets or ornaments.





After Party Reflection:


Another great use for recycling old Christmas cards. I learned that images from inkjet printers are not always colorfast. More importantly I learned that the fumes from a table of women working with E6000 glue mixed with liquid holiday cheer can make for some crazy talk and a big mess the day after.






Project #2 - Sweet Cupcake Ornaments:

These cute cupcakes are made from recycled wool sweaters and recycled cardboard paper towel tubes. As soon as my friend, Gretchen, showed me the picture - I knew we had to make them. This project comes from Betz White, who has a blog at http://blog.betzwhite.com/.





After party reflection:


I loved searching for the sweaters at the Goodwill Outlet especially just the right colors. I am now in love with the felted sweater wool. This was a fairly labor intensive project with the cutting and sewing involved. Also I think we need better task lighting for sewing. For those that stuck it out-----they seemed very happy with the results. If you are going to make one of these cupcakes you might as well make 3 in an assembly line fashion to maximize your efficiency.

Project #3 - Winter Village Ornaments
A return of the little cardboard houses we loved so much in 2007. This is officially the first project I have ever repeated (I think). With a couple new templates (school house and church from Martha Stewart)added to the three from last year (picture below), we had great enthusiasm and the basement was as busy as Santa's workshop. Also we can recycle paperboard for the roofs and bases.



After party reflection:


This project is so popular and seems to make everyone happy. For my part, I did not have a good plan for mixing up the snow paint. It dries and gets clumpy in the container so you have to keep mixing it fresh. Also the container and brushes always get trashed because of the way it dries. Also I need more tables and chairs overall for next year - better workspace for all these people.


Project #4 - Quilled Paper Garland


I don't have a picture of this one :( Using 1in wide paper strips in red or white, just curl it tight around a 1/4in dowel or pencil. After curling many many strips, gently unroll to desired shapes and glue together one at a time with a spot of tacky white glue. That's it.

After party reflection:
Why is it that whichever project I locate in the family room is always the least popular? Maybe it is just the room? Although it is nice to have one sort of quiet room and I find rolling the paper to be very theraputic. At least this project had nice simple materials and could easily be repeated with kids.



Overall summary for 2008:

• 4 projects is still too many


• need more tables and chairs - time for party rental


• need better task lighting


• go easy on the E6000 fumes


• recruit a clean-up crew


• keep up the projects that reuse materials or recycle materials


• keep choosing projects that make me smile :)