Decades ago when I briefly lived in New England, I got
together with a friend and we did crafts. We called ourselves “craftists”
because we were not strictly making art nor were we strictly making craft
projects. We liked to think that we hovered somewhere between the two.
I remember reading somewhere that the difference between crafting and being an artist was being original. I cannot say that I really am that original. Most of what I do is because I have looked at something and thought, "That would be perfect IF...." and immediately I am deconstructing it to make it my own. Is that art? *shrug* Probably not. It just means that I know what I like.
Recently I have been making an assortment of crafts
from Christmas spiders, which I previously blogged about, to my first attempt
attempting quilling, and even making Shrinky Dinks.
That’s right! Remember when you
were a kid and you got to trace and color pictures, stick your entire project
in the oven (with adult supervision, of course), and then watch as your work
shrunk into tiny pieces of amazingness?!?
Well, over the holiday, I cleaned up
my office, which is used as an office/ crafting space/ library/ reading nook
and I found a pack of my Shrinky Dinks plastic pages from circa 1999. They were
tucked away with a book on making paper flowers. Oh, yes, I feel that urge
coming. Just you wait.
Anyhow, since the academic semester begins next week
both for me as an instructor and also for me as a student in my final semester
of the Public History program, I have a ton of items to check off on my to-do
list. So, what am I doing this evening? Why, I am crafting!
First, here is my first attempt at quilling. I picked
up a small introduction kit years ago and prompting shoved it in a drawer. Last
year when my mother was cleaning up some of her stash of crafts, she handed
over some of her own quilling supplies because while she thought she would try
it, she never did.
I followed a basic bat pattern and then created the
full moon and overgrown cemetery freestyle. The second one was all freehand
without a pattern. I think if given excessive time, I might have a knack for
quilling.
Shrinking Dinks can be much less creative. Since I do
not have the natural ability to draw freehand, and the world just does not
provide me with the visual images that I life, I tend to merge visuals with my
own ideas. Case in point, I saw a heart shape mouth and decided it would look
much better with fangs. The little vampire boy was freehand and he does look a
bit wonky but that’s alright because I like wonky.
The entire Shrinky Dinks crafting project stemmed from
Edgar Allan Poe’s 209th birthday party next week. I realized that I needed a
brooch to wear to the Poe Museum birthday event. Because I’m planning to wear
black velvet and the only raven brooch I have is, err, black, I decided that I
needed to come up with another option. With so little time to order a custom
brooch on Etsy, I decided that Shrinky Dinks was my answer.
Voila! Crafting
magic in the house!
Fabulous creations!
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