Hello!  I’m Amber and MiniMak asked me to do a guest post for you!  I can usually be found at Amberism on MiniMak’s blogroll.  oh wait, I’m not on the blogroll.  hmmm…. interesting that. 

Still, I am very excited to be here where I intend to ramble on (and on) about crafting. 

I am a dabbling crafter.  I can’t say that I have any mad skills in anything really, but I do love to craft and therefore force all my children to craft too.  A family that crafts together, well, crafts together. Plus they make a wonderfully big mess which annoys the hell out of the Papa, and who doesn’t want to annoy the hell out of the Papa?  Exactly.  An added perk! 

So while I am not passionate about any one type of craft, I am passionate about re-using as many materials as I can, and I get downright giddy if I can take an item and re-craft it into something else entirely.  This is especially easy with clothes and I know a lot of people who are crazy talented and can repurpose just about any article of clothing.  Personally I’m not much of a sewer, although my most recent foray into re-purposing clothes was turning fake-silk pajamas into a Super!Claire! costume for my eldest daughter and I was really very proud of the results.  Of course she promptly refused to wear it because she is a toddler and toddlers are like that.  There are days when it is hard to remember that we craft for ourselves and not for the accolades that may never be forthcoming.

Repurposing clothes is always a lot of fun, but what I really love is when a microwave stand becomes a play kitchen or a spice rack turns into a puppet theatre.  I can spend hours just mindlessly walking down thrift store aisles wondering what I can find that can be made into something else.  Scrabble pieces turn into fairy stools, and remnant skeins of yarn into funky socks.  Right now a lot of my re-crafting ideas are definitely kid-focused because I am knee deep in kids, but I must admit that trying to think like a kid again has been a lot of fun.  It brings me a lot of pride to show my kids that the most creative and engaging play items don’t have to be cheap, mass-produced plastic doodads.  Plus having the kids be a part of the creative process makes the item that much more special.

The re-crafted item I am the most proud of was neither my idea, nor did I do much of the work but my passion nevertheless fuelled the idea.  I was coveting a hand-crafted wooden kitchen for my kids and simply couldn’t afford to buy one.  The thought of a plastic kitchen made me antsy so my Mom drafted up some plans thinking that between the two of us, and my husband, we could come up with something.  Then while walking the aisles in our favourite thrift store she came upon a microwave stand and envisioned a play kitchen.  With a little ingenuity, some mad measuring and calculating skills, she created the perfect play kitchen and the only new items she bought were the knobs and oven-door hinges.  No other toy in the house gets as much play time as this one does, it was the best $20 my mother has ever spent.

Beyond the play kitchen, I love creating felt food from thrifted felt and have made dozens of little cupcakes from an old horse blanket.  Play mats and messenger bags have been made from old curtains, a doll bed from a thrifted tray.  Child-designed creatures were made from thrifted scraps, fairy-dolls from old wooden spools, and a fairy house (in progress) from an old birdhouse.

Even the (incomplete) “mural” on my kid’s wall is made from recycled cardboard and old scrap papers that have been in my stash for years.

I really feel that all of us have a need to be creative in some capacity, and I love bringing together that need with my passion for this earth and finding ways to keep on crafting with a smaller impact on our planet.  I hope that one of these ideas inspires you, too.

I would like to introduce to you my sister-in-law, Maria.  She has graciously accepted my invitation to do a DIY guest post of her Urban Chicken Door Stops.  I am very excited to have her as a guest blogger.  Please leave her a comment. 

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Hello there! 

My name is Maria, and I am admittedly, a half-assed crafty person.  That is, I get a surge of energy and a great idea, run around like a freak collecting all the stuff I need to make something, then sit on it for the next three months.  Plus, my two little ones tend to occupy 95% of my waking energy.  So, the projects are few and far between.  But, it is, oh so satisfying when I do get those moments to put something together. This is one of those little projects I’d like to share.

My husband brought home about two dozen fabric swatch books one day about a year ago – beautiful, gorgeous, upholstery fabrics, just waiting for some creative projects.  We live in an old, drafty, crooked but much loved 1912 house, so I was intending to make some patchwork draft dodgers. While I was scouring the Internet for a free pattern to make one, I came across this tutorial for a chicken door stop. It was absolutely perfect – our old doors never quite stay open because nothing is quite square in the house, and, well, I LOVE chickens!

I mostly followed the directions to a T, so I’ll just show you what I did.  The minor adjustments I made were mostly so I could understand what I was doing, because I am a very novice sewer. If you know your way around a sewing machine, you can whip one of these off in no time!

This is just a bit of the fabric I got:

I used the clear plastic that covered one of my fabric swatch books as my template so that I could use it again. Also, I wanted the chickens to be dual purpose – doorstop + occasional cookbook holder-opener.  So I enlarged the pattern by 50% (I think, you’ll have to play with it to get the size you want). Then I wrote down exactly where the comb, waddle and beak were to go on the pattern.

The sewing up only takes a few minutes actually.  For me, most of the time was spent figuring out where all the chicken parts go.

And that bottom piece was a bit fiddly, but accuracy, thankfully, is not a big deal.

When I sewed the last edge, I did make a point of leaving that 2″ or so gap right in the middle, instead of a corner.  That’s because I find it hard to make it look good hand sewing into an end.

And then I filled my chicken with uncooked rice.  I ended up just rolling my template piece into a cone shape as my other funnel was too small. The plastic worked really well.

There are many eyeball options.  I opted for the non-sewing option.  The girls had a bunch of googly eyes kicking around, and I think you just can’t go wrong with googly eyes. So …

I decided to give this one great big eyeballs. I know chickens have beady little eyes, but BIG eyes are so fun!  Here she is with her sister, whose beak I think is a bit too elongated.  While I freehanded the beaks, etc. I realized after the first one that the beak should be more equilateral triangle like and not so long and pointy.

We now have chickens at almost every door of the house standing guard. Bok bok!

I am happy to present to you another Monday Guest Blogger: Marsinah from Blushing Pearl!  I gave her a series of interview questions to answer and here is what she had to say!  AND she has a giveaway so please show her some love!  ~ Christine 

Q1. What is your name and where you are from?

A: My name is Marsinah (mar-see-na). I am a Southern Californian girl, born and raised in Los Angeles. Now I live in the Pacific Northwest.

Q2. What is your favourite craft?

A: My favorite craft is, of course, letterpress printing!

I do love to indulge in an occasional knitting session here and there  

Q3. Where do you get inspiration?

A: I find inspiration from my cultural upbringing and background. I also love to travel and take photos of vintage structures and street art.
I posted my findings here:  
I love fashion and find a lot of inspiration in the brightness and color combination found in nature. 

 Q4. When do you find time to craft? Are you a night owl crafter, an early morning crafter or sometime in between?

A: When I used to work full time, I would craft (knit) while unwinding in front of the TV.   Now I practice my “craft” of letterpress 24/7.

Q5. What kind of projects are you working on these days? 

A: My current projects these days include re-designing my website (this has been on my to-do list for quite a while now!),an Asian inspired wedding invitation suite in colors representative of dragon fruit (fuchsia, chartreuse/yellow), a vintage chic graduation announcement, custom colored baby shower invitations, and lastly, I’ve been in the process of expanding parts of Blushing Pearl:

*Privileged- a custom design served that specializes in creating a fully customized design that would best suit you or a business
*Bliss- an equisite ine of wedding suite designs
*Shortcakes- a line of baby announcements and stationery

phew! what a list!

*onesie design and photo by simplewear, product tag by blushing pearl*

Thank you Christine of MiniMak Makings for featuring me on her blog!

Follow me here and don’t forget to take a peek at my shop!

{blog} blushingpearl.blogspot.com 
{twitter} @blushingpearl
{site} www.blushingpear.net
{become a fan} http://ow.ly/1yIKv

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GIVEAWAY!!!

Description:

Inspired by Native American textile prints, these blank note cards are perfect for a unique gift, or for a unique note!

A set of 4 letterpress printed cards printed on the velvety Neenah Classic Crest cover paper. Each card is printed with hand-mixed ink in Raspberry, Mauve-Brown, and Dutch Blue. The cards are blank inside and comes with a violet envelope.

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 All you have to do is leave a comment and you are entered to win!  Blog or tweet about this Giveaway and you get an extra entry!  Just be sure to leave another comment with the link back to your blog post or tweet.

The winner will be announced on FRIDAY April 23, 2010!!

GOOD LUCK!

hi. my name is dain and this is my little story.

i’ve been making art/crafting my whole life. which is weird because my family isn’t very crafty, but somehow i just got the gene. maybe from my grandmas … they both were really interested in art and design. i always loved rearranging my room, painting, making jewelry, scrap-booking, collaging, etc. i went to college for art therapy but changed halfway thru and ended up minoring in art. i still never thought i’d have an “art career”, it was always just a side project that i did for my sanity. for a while i started getting in to event planning …. which i still somewhat do. i also started working in the music industry for some independent musicians so i was always working on projects and events for that, all the while creating art on my own, just for myself and friends (cards, etc). well, at some point i happened upon the blog world, and from there i just got sucked in (even tho i HATE computers with a passion).

last winter (dec 2008), i got really sick. i was misdiagnosed by my doctor until the spring (april 2009), had broken up with my bf of 7 years, and quit my job. without any income (let alone, 2 incomes), i had to move out of my condo, since i couldn’t pay the mortgage. i was pretty much in a huge slump, just feeling terrible about everything.

one afternoon i went to hang out with the ladies at my favorite local scrap book store (paper tales) and i was playing around with this vintage velvet ribbon flower brooch that one of the ladies who works there showed me, and i was like, umm, this would be SO CUTE on a headband. the ladies all laughed at me because i ALWAY wear headbands and think that anything would look cuter attached to a band. but when i got home that night, i was really stuck on the idea of making something similar. i had some black and cream maya road ribbon laying around from a scrapbook kit (might have even been the last red velvet art kit that rachel used to do?) and i just sewed it up, attached it to a headband that i had laying around, and was in love. i brought it back down to paper tales the next week and the ladies loved it and totally encouraged me to start making them to sell. what did i have to lose? i was unemployed, living back home with my mom, and getting over a 6 month plus illness. next thing i know, it’s 3 weeks later, i have a seller’s permit, an etsy shop, a business name, logo, business cards, have scheduled a photoshoot and booked models, and i’m wearing my own designs everyday.

 making the headbands gave me a sense of purpose, and really gave my something to focus on and have fun with. during this time, my friends and family were so encouraging (even if they don’t QUITE understand it, haha) and now, almost a year later, here i am, still trucking. i have SO SO SO much to learn, but i feel pretty proud that i’ve stuck with it so far, even when i’ve been discouraged and sad. i’ve had two professional photo shoots, am in the process of my website being designed (should be launching around the year mark of starting! yey!), am reaching out to more brick and mortar stores, and am expanding my goals and dreams.

i still think EVERYTHING (ok, well, not EVERYTHING) looks cuter on a headband, and i’m always playing with new color schemes and textures. i feel honored to get to share my story with you – at the end of the day i would love to be able to help inspire other people to do something they love, to create, to experiment and follow their dreams.

you can find out more about me and see what i’m up to at www.daintydainjb.blogspot.com

or on facebook at www.facebook.com/daintyhandcrafted

 ***all photos by kate daigneault xo, Dain

Hi there! I’m Meaghan, owner of Urban Farm Designs. I’m here to tell you how I got started!

I’ve always been a crafty kid. I remember in grade school, my favorite part of summer break was the craft kits they handed out on the last day of class. I would cut everything out, paint and color everything and do all the crafts in the first week! I loved to paint and color.

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Once I got older, my focus turned to journaling. I suppose you could call it scrap booking, but I just thought of it as cutting out magazine clippings and pretty paper. My journals were full of doodles and the beginnings of design ideas… as well as a few entries about boys.

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As far as sewing, when I was 20, I started working on a US Forest Service fire crew.

That’s me at the end of that rope!

By my third year on the crew, I was chosen to be the sewing apprentice. They always chose one rookie to train, and it was my lucky year! I remember walking into the sewing room with wide eyes. A metal cutting table, hot knives for the webbing and rope, bolts of fabric neatly hung up on the wall… and the glorious industrial sewing machine. I was hard to get used to how powerful that machine was! I learned how to sew strong bags and kept sewing even after I left…

***

I didn’t set out making aprons and bags with the intention of selling them. One day, a friend of mine saw a picture of a hat I had made on Facebook and said to me, “I want to buy that! You should sell these!” So I sent her the hat, set up an Etsy shop, and have been filling it up ever since!

I’m really stoked about my big spring update that’s happening at the end of April! I’ll have the shop stocked full of new messenger bags, daybags, half and full aprons and eyeglass cases. I’m also doing a preview update on March 30th to whet some appetites. There is also one new surprise item that I’m SUPER excited to unveil!

Thanks for reading!

Meaghan @ Urban Farm Designs
http://urbanfarmdesigns.etsy.com
http://urbanfarmdesigns.blogspot.com
urbanfarmdesigns@gmail.com