Big Green Book of Recycled Crafts: Book Review

If I were to make a list of Favorite Things, "Books" would be right up at the top, and angling for position right next to that would be "Crafting", especially using found/recycled materials. Imagine my delight then, just reading the title, The Big Green Book of Recycled Crafts.

And then I opened the book....oooh.

Flowers from pop cans

The book is divided into six sections, Plastic, Paper, Glass, Cans, Textiles, and Throwaways. That is, by the way, all the Table of Contents tells you, along with the page numbers that begin each section. It's all right, though; you are going to want to leaf through page by page anyway. Be sure to have a stack of bookmarks handy for all the projects you'll want to do!

Pumpkins from dryer vent hoses

Each project has it's own page, sometimes two, with a photograph, materials list, and very clear instructions, with copious illustrations and photos where mere words might not suffice. Sprinkled throughout the book are extra tips, and at the end of the book are full-sized patterns.

Who doesn't have a bunch of Cd cases lying around?

This is a book I'm going to use a lot. I found myself thinking, That would really be fun for the Crafting Week with Mama! or Wouldn't that make a great gift for the grandkids!

There were projects I wanted to make as gifts, projects I wanted to make for myself, ideas I wanted to share with various relatives, and ideas that sparked the creative brain waves for new projects of my own.

My prediction: This is a book that will garner a lot of fans.

An elegant throw from recycled sweaters

A CRAFTY VACATION: The Crafts We Did

I've been editing the photos from our crafty vacation, and finally have them ready to show off!

First, I'll show you a few views of the condo we stayed at:

You see the view from a few steps outside the front door, the kitchen and dining rooms, and the living room, with my bed folded down out of the wall, and the view out the living and dining room windows. It's such a pleasant place to stay!


Well known fact: I'd much rather be behind the camera than in front of it, so you see everyone but me in these photos! But the montage above shows Aunt Charlotte (in pink), my mom, and my daughter, working at various crafts.

We made gift tags, something none of us had ever done, using manila tags, magazine illustrations, stamps and ink, stickers, ribbon, and various other embellishments. We decorated and stamped the backs, too, but I'll just show you the fronts:

First three of December's tags

Second three of December's tags

Aunt Charlotte's tags

Mama's tags, with the back of the yellow one inset

My tags

We also made bird feeders from pretty cups and old light fixtures. December packed hers before I took the shots, and I didn't get to make one, but here you see

Mama's

Aunt Charlotte's

Another craft was to decoupage or decal pictures onto the glass in small frames, which we then glued to gold-painted plaques. We also embellished the pictures with glitter, dabs of gold paint, and in Mama's case, a glittery and fuzzy snowflake. A votive stands behind the pictures, and when you light the candle, it softly back lights and shines through the picture:

Aunt Charlotte's

Mama's

Mine

December's

We made hummingbird feeders from old bottles, glass tiles, and flat marbles:

And we made Cook Book Bookmarks and put together Mug Em's, which I didn't photograph, since we'd done them before. (You can see the Mug Em's from last year here, though.)

I have just one fuzzy photo of Mama's bookmarks, because I thought I'd done a blog entry on them before and was just going to point you to it. These panels are from a 1940's cook book I picked up. I copied the cartoon panels, printed some in B&W, and others with a bit of color, and we backed them with scraps of fabric we fringed at the top and bottom:


I think we got quite a lot accomplished, especially when you consider that we also spent two whole mornings thrifting. We arrived at the condo late Monday afternoon, so no crafting that day, went thrifting until 3pm on Tuesday, and until 11 am on Wednesday, crafted in the afternoons, put together lovely lunches and dinners (everyone fended for themselves at breakfast), and played cards until late every night. And December and I managed to squeeze in two swim/hot tubbing excursions, we rented and all watched The Time Traveler's Wife, and got all of the thirty aprons Mama wants to put in her Etsy shop ironed and photographed. And we still managed to check out at noon on Friday!

It was an awesome four-day week, and I can't wait until next year so we can do it again!

SHOW & TELL SATURDAY: OUR CRAFTY WEEK

Our condo. We had the lower level.

Okay. That was a teaser. I'm not really going to tell about the week yet, but I will show a few pictures, just of the condo and the four of us.

Aunt Charlotte, Mama, & my daughter December

Me, Mama, and December

Our crafty vacation ended yesterday at noon. December and I made pretty good time--three and a half hours from Redmond, Oregon to home, chattering like magpies all the way, except for times when she was copying recipes from the awesome cookbook I picked up at one of the thrift stores we'd gone to. I finally told her she could just borrow it; I know she'll bring it back.

I was too exhausted by the time I got home to do much of anything except vegetate, especially since we'd taken time before the drive home for a swim and soak in the hot tub. This morning, I got the DH off to his remodel, which is blessedly near being completed, and then rushed to get ready for a Trillium board meeting, after which I went to Value Village (Oh, my. Can you say SCORE?!) and Joann's. Home for a quick bit of lunch, change of clothes, and then off to our friend Bruce's, where I pounded nails in or pulled them out of lumber he'd thrown in the front yard for the burn pile, and loaded them in to the back of my car. Finished that up in time to get home and fix dinner, and yes, I'm even more tired tonight than I was last night!

Almost forgot: Just before jumping into the car to run load wood, I grabbed my camera and got a few shots of the Grandpa Ott morning glories and crocosmia out in the yard:


Aren't they beautiful?

I'm looking forward to tomorrow: I finally got to my email and found out who my partner is for the Decorative Envies postcard and envelope swaps. Oh, I am Smiling!

A CRAFTY VACATION

About twenty years ago, my parents bought into one of those time share vacation deals, nothing really fancy, but nice. Each year they paid maintenance fees that entitled them to a week-long stay in one of a number of resorts. I’m sure they didn’t realize they were about to create a tradition when they did it, but that’s exactly what they did.

My living room, this past Sunday, tells a part of the story of that tradition:

Each of those piles you see stacked around on the chairs and sofa represents a craft we’ll be doing this week, up at the condo at Eagle Crest in Redmond, Oregon. I’ve been gathering the materials for days, and when it started to feel like one big overwhelming jumble, along about Friday, I finally got smart and pulled out some big note cards, wrote a craft on each one, and organized the items by projects.

Then I put each stack into its own box or bag, and Monday morning, I started packing it all into the car.

Our week at the condo has arrived!

The cast of characters has changed over the years. It started with Mom, Dad, Uncle Walt, Auntie Jewel, my husband and I. Each year, we women would each plan two or three crafts and assemble the materials and instructions for making them, and plan meals for the week, and on the appointed date we would meet at whichever resort Mom and Dad had chosen.

We very quickly established a routine: Breakfast, and then the women would head out to the thrift stores and garage sales, searching out the things for crafts that hadn’t yet been found. The guys would golf or sight-see. We’d all reassemble at the condo for lunch, after which the men would read, nap, or go out again, and then the women would craft until it was time to quit for dinner. After dinner, we might rest for a bit, walk, or ride our bikes. Then it was cards until late.

We’re a close family. It has always been a week of laughter, stories, the sweetness of just being together. Add in a solid week of crafting, and it’s such bliss that I start looking forward to the next one before we ever get home.

Last year was hard. My Dad’s brother, my Uncle Walt had died some years back, but we’d carried on. Mama’s sister, Auntie Charlotte, joined us. Then, two and a half years ago, Dad passed away, and less than six months later, darling Auntie Jewel. We didn’t go to the condo that year, and I wondered if Mom would ever have the heart for it again, but we put the week together for 2009. It wasn’t the same. No Uncle Walt, no Auntie Jewel, and no Dad. We added my daughter and granddaughter, but we didn’t play cards, and Auntie Charlotte had to leave two days early.

Oops. No Auntie Charlotte--she was taking the picture!

It took some doing to talk Mama into giving it another go this year. It’s still Mama, Auntie Charlotte, and me, but my husband is working hard on a remodel and couldn’t come, and the daughter who came last year couldn’t either. My youngest daughter, December, could though, so it’s four women, and a great, big, pile of crafts.

I am writing this on our second night at the condo. We are exhausted. We got up and planned our day this morning, went out and shopped (and boy, did we score some bargains!), came home and ate lunch (at 3:20!) crafted until dinner, and then ate a luscious meal prepared by December—Quiche and French toast made with apple strudel bread topped with real maple syrup or homemade blackberry syrup. And then we played cards.

Scattered through the day were stories, many of them about Dad or Auntie Jewel, or Uncle Walt.

Tomorrow, we will do it all over again. It’s a family tradition.

MUG SOMEBODY TODAY!

We made Muffin Stands (aka Mini Cake Stands). Only one thing could have come from that--baking! We didn't exactly bake anything, though, unless you count the delicious enchiladas my daughter fixed for Monday dinner.

What we did was put together mixes for someone else to bake, using a book I'd picked up titled, Mug'Ems--Sweet Things It's a nifty little tome full of recipes for mixes, with printed tags. Assemble the mix, put it in a plastic bag in a mug, cut the tag from the book and attach it, and give it away. Your recipient adds the last few ingredients (usually liquid), and bakes it, right in the mug. Hence the title.


I figure it would be easy enough to come up with your own recipes for this, but I had the book so it made sense to use it. We made Chocolate Blondie Mix, and had so much fun we wanted to make more. Unfortunately, we hadn't brought more baking supplies than we needed for just the one mix, so we were out of luck, with the nearest grocery store about ten miles away.

The lovely thing about this activity/craft was that is was one even our five-year-old could participate in, with her mama's help. Of course, part of the activity was finding the mugs to use. I'd brought some with me, and we found others at the local Goodwill. Even little Meggie picked out two mugs she loved. In the photo, hers is the one with the hearts, her mom's is the plain one, my mom's is the one with the rose pattern, my daughter Sarah's is the one with the caterpillar, and mine is the one with the swirls--each a reflection of our respective personalities.

I love that this is so quick, easy, and inexpensive!

PS HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DEAR HUSBAND!
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MAKE A MINI CAKE STAND

Make a mini cake stand? Your first question may not be "How?", but "Why?"



Oddly, when I wrote the sentences above, what popped into my mind was the question of why anyone would climb Mt Everest, and its classic answer: "Because it's there."

We have even better reasons for mini cake stands:

• They're pretty, and you can put things other than cake on them:


• Cupcakes and muffins


• Candy


• Soap


• Jewelry


• Candles


• Your keys


• Small bottles of perfume, lotion, etc.


• Any number of other small things that would be pretty displayed like that

I'm back from my near-week of crafting with Mama, Aunt Charlotte, two daughters, and a five-year-old granddaughter, and eager to share what we did. The muffin stands were the first things we worked on.

You need:

• Candle sticks, or similarly shaped glass items


• Pretty saucers or salad plates


• A really reliable glue (My choice: E6000)
  

The process is simple: Glue a saucer to a candle stick. Done.



But tips are good, too:
.
Pay attention to style consistency--put modern with modern, delicate with delicate, etc.

Let yourself see things with "different eyes". A candlestick may be what's on the Materials List, but that doesn't mean you can't use an upside-down wine glass, or a tumbler. What else makes a good pedestal? Let yourself see the possibilities. I frequently shop the thrift store aisles with a saucer in hand, checking to see if one thing or another will work!

Most surprising to me was the discovery that plates and saucers may be somewhat warped, rather than perfectly flat, and candlesticks may not have perfectly level tops. Before you glue pieces together, make sure the saucer is level. If it isn't, try rotating it on the candlestick, as sometimes the slant of one can be positioned to offset the slant of the other. If that doesn't work, try another piece.

You may feel a colored candlestick might work better than crystal. You can paint them, if you like. I paint the inside of the cup on top, and the underside of the base with the color I want, and then coat the paint with a clear, protective "lacquer".


I have a mental image of the breakfast table set, with one of these stands at each place, a lovely fat muffin atop each one, inviting smiles and butter. I have the stands now. All I need are muffins!

(A final word on the glue. E6000 is the best I've found for bonding glass, bar none. You do have to go back and check every few minutes for the first half hour or so, to make sure things haven't slid off-center, and do be sure to give the full twenty-four hours before doing anything too brutal to test the bond, but after that you'll be hard pressed to pry the pieces apart. You can get it at craft stores. And no, I don't work for the company that makes the stuff!)
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A SOLID WEEK OF SOLID FUN

It's a family tradition. Mom and Dad bought one of those time share vacation packages years ago, and every year they would choose a location, and then we would gather--Mom, Dad, Uncle Walt, Aunt Jewel, my husband, and me--and we would spend from five to seven days together.

We had a routine. In the mornings, for the first several days, the women would hit all the thrift stores and garage sales in the area, gathering booty, mostly things we needed for crafting.

"Crafting," you say? Oh, yes. Each woman was charged with selecting a craft all of us might enjoy doing, and bringing the materials for that craft. Many times, we've chosen crafts that utilized things you could get second-hand--glassware, placemats, old jewelry, etc. Hence, the garage sales.

The guys would go golfing, or take in tourist spots in the morning.

Noonish, we'd all gather back at the condo, and have lunch, and there was always a sort of ceremonial unwrapping of everything we'd found. The job of the guys was to exclaim over what great deals we got, and they were good at it. We hardly ever caught expressions of befuddlement on their faces.

The afternoons were spent crafting. Once in a great long while the men would join in, but mostly they watched TV or read.

Evenings after dinner we played cards.

Uncle Walt passed away about five years ago, but we went on. Dad died seventeen months ago, and then Aunt Jewel, a few months later. It was hard to think about going on after that. Mama didn't think she could bear it, until I suggested we make it "Ladies' Week". My DH thought that was a good idea, and said he wouldn't mind being left out.

So here we are again, at Eagle Crest in Eastern Oregon. For the first time, it's just the women, but we've added one, my eldest daughter. Actually, we've added two, because she brought her daughter along, too, five-year-old Meggie. We have four generations of women here! On top of that, my middle daughter will join us tomorrow, and actually asked if she could cook dinner. She cooks for a living, God bless her. We gave an emphatic "YES!" and are looking forward to her enchilladas. Oh. Yum.

This is day four of our week, and I'm just going to put up a few photos of the first full day's garage/thrift sale fun. I'll add more soon, but I'm a mile or two from an internet connection, so I don't exactly know when that will be.

My daughter and granddaughter checking out the goodies




Bags o' booty




What will we make, & with what?


We've spent a lot of time doing all the things we've always done, having fun, laughing together, playing and creating. And there have been poignant moments, too, thinking about the dear people aren't with us anymore, but I'm so glad we still have this time to share, so happy that it won't end, and that we're widening the circle, passing the tradition down.