Craftsgiving 2015

How do you celebrate Thanksgiving?

No, I don't mean do you put marshmallows on your sweet potato casserole, I mean how do you really celebrate. How do you connect with visiting family and friends, how do you play over the long weekend?

For many people, this involves standing in line to get a head-start on their holiday shopping. For others, it's a long weekend filled with games of sportsball.

May I suggest crafting?

By coming together to make something with family and friends, you'll get a chance to create a real memory. You'll learn something new, create something beautiful and even have the opportunity to talk and connect. For the next month, here on the blog, I'll be highlighting some of my favorite ideas for crafting around the dinner table, before and after the big meal. I know sometimes you want to stay home and craft in your jammies, close to the leftover pie. I also know that on other days, you just want to flee the house with your favorite cousin. If you are here in our area, we'll have a wonderful group of classes that entire weekend that are perfect for you and the cousin.

See the classes here.

Watch this space for my Craftsgiving At Home posts, but here's a favorite to get you started.

Happy Craftsgiving!

DIY Earring Bar - Not your usual cocktails!

Are you having a party for friends this holiday season? After you get the fancy cocktails planned and decide on the noshes (go with extra goat cheese, it never fails!) you will need something extra. Check out this really awesome idea from Candie Cooper - a DIY earring bar! I think this would be loved by all at my parties. I think I'll even bring a travel version to a holiday-season birthday party I'm attending later this month. Who doesn't love earrings?

Candie breaks it down with a list of all the things you need. She has a link to a video showing how to make earrings, which you could watch before the party. The only thing I would add is that you should make things really easy on yourself and download our Simple Wire Looping how-to sheet with step-by-step photos of how to make the loops on the tops of the head pins. That way you can spend as much time as you want at the fancy cocktail station while your guests make their own darn earrings.

Read Candie's whole Earring Bar how-to here.

Download our Simple Wire Looping PDF here. You can print it in color or black and white for your guests.

Forced Crafting - Making your family craft when they least expect it

Ahh, that dinner was AMAZING!
I love your pie!
Thank you so much for cooking for us!

and after that, they scatter like marbles on a tile floor, don't they? Some might head to a movie, some go watch a game, maybe a few take a walk with the dog. Your aunt and her new boyfriend head to the porch to drink the rest of the wine and your teenager disappears into their bedroom to do whatever it is they do.

sigh

If you want to continue the fun of having everyone together for just a bit more, try making everyone craft after dinner.

No, I am not joking. I wasn't joking last year, either. I think that Thanksgiving Day is the perfect time to force everyone in your family (okay, as many as you can) to make something together. Yes, you know the joy of making things, but that new boyfriend? The last thing he made was a spread sheet. Your cousin? She only makes dinner reservations and annoying comments.

They need to make a CRAFT.

You are the person to show them how.

This Thanksgiving, make a craft with the family. It needs to be easy enough for everyone to do but have enough WOW factor that they'll all say 'that's pretty cool!' when they finish. I'm here to help.

Read my suggestions from previous years here.

Watch this space, my Forced Crafting Pinterest Page and our Ornamentea facebook page for more ideas all week.

5 Family Crafts That Travel Well - My Favorite All-Ages Crafts for Traveling

My family is headed off on a big vacation this week. It's a mountain trip, this time, to a bare-bones cabin. We have to bring just about everything we want for the week, and we tend to travel like Victorians anyway. This means we have to take sheets and towels, but our trusty minivan will also be loaded with rugs, hanging lanterns, speakers for the ipod and that big skillet I use to make paella.

Oh, and the craft stuff. We can't go anywhere without taking some making activities. What makes a good travel craft? For me, it needs to be portable and packable, easy to clean up and, most important-sharable. We're taking this trip with a big group of friends and any craft that gets started on the picnic table can attract a crowd, fast.

Wait, I have one last criteria for a good travel craft; it can't be trashy. It needs to be lovely. I want to make something (or help my friends make something) that I want to keep. I'm not a fan of time-killer crafts; the junky things made from foam stickers and paper plates and google eyes that keep your hands busy but really need to be popped in the recycling bin immediately when you get home. I try to find crafts that are engaging, interesting and look beautiful when they are finished.

This is my list of Great Travel Crafts:

1.Needle felting
Needle felting is a fabulous travel craft. You can embellish items that you are wearing or plan to wear, you can make toys, you can make felted book marks. Needle felting is appropriate for anyone old enough to hold the needle. Yes, I just wrote that. My children both needle felted at age 3 and no one lost a finger. They made dearly-loved balls of wool with eyes and ears and tails. I think they were supposed to be hamsters. Or kittens. Imagine a very young child's drawing, but three-dimensional. Children can also make snakes (long, ropey things) with ease. The wool is inexpensive, the tools are reusable and the clean-up is absolutely minimal. If you want to read an amazing needle felting blog, check out Puffy Little Things from New Zealand. Her work and tutorials are super incredible.
What you need:

1. Wool Roving (get an assortment like this)
2. Felting Needles (I like this tool to hold the needles, it is safer)
3. Extras-yarn scraps, needles for stitching the yarn, buttons for eyes (you can also felt the eyes!)

2.Kumihimo or macrame knotting projects
Friendship bracelets and stacking bracelets are such a trend now that just about everyone in your group will want to make something colorful and knotty to wear. You can use a kumihimo braiding board or print out and make your own. You can also embrace your inner love-child and create some macrame bracelets. I love the bracelet tutorials on this site for macrame and knotting.

What you'll need:

1. yarn or cording of some kind (I like this hemp assortment)
2. kumihimo braiding boards  (I like this assortment of shapes)
3. scissors! I like these cute ones!
4. a ruler or yardstick is also helpful

3.Altered books
Creating an altered book while on a trip is a nice way to make the scrapbook in the moment. Especially if you are travelling with school-age children, this can be a good way to insert some quiet time into your day. We've do this on beach trips. We borrowed a small photo printer from a friend and each day the children could cut, paste, paint and stitch their pages describing the activities that happened the day before. I'm one of those people who has boxes of photos and ticket stubs and maps that I want to add to a scrapbook 'someday' - doing the book ON the trip means nothing else has to go into that box! To create an altered book scrapbook on your trip, take along some scissors, glue sticks, rubber stamps, ink pads, markers, an old book and a photo printer. The rest of the embellishments can come from your trip. For inspiration, you can check out this book.

4.Apothecary bottle necklaces
These tiny glass-bottle necklaces are a great travel craft. You can fill them with beach sand, sharks teeth, a feather, a leaf or a tiny rock from the mountains. This craft is EASY PEASY and perfect for the 'I am not crafty' set.
You'll need:
tiny glass bottles (find them here)


5.Decopatch
Decopatch requires a bit more of a work space, and some drying time, but it's a great rainy-day-on-vacation craft. You can cover a paper-mache animal, or a box, or you can even Decopatch a pair of shoes! This craft is also good for the 'I'm not crafty' crowd as it involves little more than paint brush strokes and really, you can't mess it up!

5.Metal-etching
Don't laugh at this last one. I am trying it this week in the mountains with a group of friends. We'll take some copper discs and decorate them with words or images using Sharpie markers. We'll etch them and then use a punch to turn them into pendants or key-chains. Handmade souvenirs, voila! This meets my criteria for a not trashy craft, and I don't think it will be super hard to clean up.

Do you have a favorite travel craft you think I should try? Leave it below in the comments.

Thanksgiving Day crafts for the whole family

I write about this every year. I can't help it. Somehow spending a whole day in the kitchen, drinking red wine and sprinkling sage on anything that doesn't move makes me want to be crafty. I take that feeling out on my dinner guests. I call it Forced Crafting.

Since they come back each year, I guess they like it, too.

If you are spending Thanksgiving with family and want to do something other than talk about politics or football or, heaven forbid, hit the 'early bird' sales, you need to craft. It's the best option. After the dinner is over just commandeer the dining table for an hour or two of MAKING THINGS. Your family and guests will thank you.

I promise.

 

Try making decopatched soap dispensers. Load up on some inexpensive pump-style soaps and get a mix of decopatch papers and glue. Cover the dining room table with an old shower curtain. Turn on some jazzy music. Get your uncle to do the paper-tearing, and let the kids cover the bottles in glue. Watch this video to prep for the experience. These make good teacher gifts, by the way!

Warning: this IS messy. Fun, but MESSY.

Create tiny snowman ornaments. This project is not messy. This project involves sticking a piece of wire through some felt balls. And using a permanent marker. These tiny snowmen are perfect for tying on gifts or just hanging around the house as snow-day good luck charms. See the tutorial for info. 

 Read a few more ideas here.