Get free Knittn’ Kitten eBook

This bib necklace is inspired by one I saw at Anthropologie, and I made it with stuff I found at my local craft thrift store, Knittn’ Kitten. You can use pretty much anything you want to customize this necklace. You should be able to find some of your materials at the dollar store, too! Make an Anthropologie-inspired necklace with ribbon, cord, fabric, and sequined appliques (or create your own sequin medallions).

This is the Anthropologie necklace that inspired my project.

Project Estimate:

• Cord, ribbon, or fabric, $1 or on hand
• Sequin appliques, $1 each and up
• Hot glue, on hand
• Needle & thread, on hand

Total: Free and up

You can find my instructions in the free ebook “Crafts for The Knittn’ Kitten.” This fall, a bunch of Portland crafters (myself included) banded together to create free project sheets for the Kitten to encourage locals to shop at our favorite store, and now they’re all available in a free ebook that anyone can download! You’ll find my project along with eight other amazing free projects to make.

Go here to download

The book was designed by Sister Diane and the cover photos and a bunch of other photos are by Lee Meredith.

Happy holidays!

When is it a good idea to copy someone?

The other day I posted a Picasso quote over at CraftFail that I found over at Make & Meaning, (in the article “On the Care and Feeding of Ideas” by Sean Ragan)

Remember Picasso: “When you make a thing, a thing that is new, it is so complicated making it that it is bound to be ugly. But those that make it after you, they don’t have to worry about making it. And they can make it pretty, and so everybody can like it when others make it after you.”

It was applicable to craft-failing because oftentimes our craft-fails are born out of an idea that we have never executed before. Before it can be perfect, it has to be brought into being, and often times, copied and redone until it is perfected. The first draft is usually just that… a first draft. I am usually guilty of stopping my projects at the first draft stage. I’m a novelty junkie, so I like to make something once and then move on, thereby cheating myself of all the good things that can come from repeating the process, refining it, and riffing on it. 

This reminds me of this video where Ira Glass from This American Life talks about creating and closing the gap between taste (you have good taste!) and what you can create (why your creations fall way short of your good taste). If you don’t like watching videos* check this page for the transcript and you can read what he says.

One way to help close the gap between your good taste and your cruddy execution of your ideas is to look at work you admire and imitate it, copy it, dissect it, riff on it. Beginning artists are encouraged to copy the masters. Why? Because it helps them learn the principles of creating a good work of art.

Jeffrey Veen | UX Week 2009 | Adaptive Path from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

This video has another Picasso quote in it:

Good artists copy.
Great artists steal.

This topic has been a hot one in indie crafting circles for years and years. Is it okay to copy someone else’s project? What’s the difference between copying something and “being inspired” by something? What did Picasso mean by this statement? Check the video for a little more info on the Picasso quote and a discussion of copying.

I also came across another interesting series of blog posts by an indie designer who I really admire, Outi from Outsapop. She has a series of articles about “Forgotten Design” which are built on her thesis of: don’t forget design when you are making things.

To make reconstructed and recycled fashions truly fashionable you cannot forget design. No matter what materials or techniques used the finished product must have the design appeal. Too often crafters and recycle fashion labels just make stuff from recycled materials, but they hardly ever qualify as recycle design.

I admit, I am often guilty of this too. I get a lot of joy out of just making things. Sometimes I create things with a design in mind (yes, I even use my sketchbook first!), but sometimes I just go with my gut. When I get to the end of the project, I rarely want to actually use the thing I created because it just isn’t my taste. I know, I made it, but it’s not my taste. Why is that? Hmm, perhaps because I didn’t inject any design into the *ahem* design.

One of her posts discusses why it can be a good idea to copy high-end designs in your art and craft: High Street Imitation.

*I don’t usually watch videos online when people post them, so I excuse you if you don’t want to watch these ones!*

Elephant

Make Felted Sweater Mittens

Have some felted sweaters on hand? Make some quick & cozy mittens. You can find wool sweaters at the thrift store (just make sure the tag says it is mostly or 100% animal fiber such as wool, alpaca or cashmere). Need to know more about the process of felting? Check out this post by Diane Gilleland at Craft Stylish about felting your sweaters.

Project Materials:

• Felted sweater
• Scissors
• Sewing stuff (sewing machine & thread)
• Paper and pen

To Make Mitten Template:

Trace your hand (or your child’s hand) on a piece of paper.

Add a seam allowance line about 1/2 inch around the outside of your traced area.

Place template on sweater and cut out two pieces for each hand.

Place pieces right sides together and sew around the edge. Be sure to reinforce the seam at the cuff of the mitten by backing your stitch up a bit.

Clip any excessive extra fabric (pay attention to the area near the thumb), and turn mitten right side out. Try on mitten to see if it works. If you need to, you can turn it back inside-out and adjust.

Smile because that was so simple and quick!

Visit me at Dollar Store Crafts for more great holiday ideas and tutorials!

First Cookies of the Holiday: Raspberry Window Shortbreads

Today my (almost) 2 and 3 year old and I made our first batch of holiday cookies. I say “first” but it might also be the last. Baking cookies with kiddos can take it out of you!

We made Raspberry Window Shortbreads from Sunset Magazine. It uses their Butter Shortbread recipe – what’s not to like about butter, sugar, and flour? The recipe was simple, but we did have to mix it for a LONG time (like ten minutes) to get the dough to transform from crumbs into slightly stickier crumbs! The recipe calls for chilling the dough for 30 minutes, so while we did that, we made a second batch of gingerbread dough. All of these recipes are new to us!

The raspberry window shortbreads are so pretty, and they taste great! We only made a very small pan of them (both boys were going wild at that point, plus the baby was crying. I had to power through the last five minutes). When I finish the batch (by MYSELF, later), I am going to make the rest of them the smaller cookie size shown here (about 2″) and make sure I roll the dough out thin enough. They’re rich!

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 325°. Put flour, butter, granulated sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on low speed until blended, then increase to medium and mix until dough is no longer crumbly and just comes together. Form into disk, and chill 30 minutes.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll dough 1/8 in. thick. Use a selection of 1½-in. decorative cutters to cut as many shapes as you can, making sure you have an equal number of each shape to form a top and a bottom, and rerolling scraps as needed.

Arrange cookies 1 in. apart on baking sheets. Use a variety of smaller cutters to remove center from half of cookies (the tops). Chill on sheets 15 minutes; then bake until light golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool.

Spread each whole cookie with about 1/2 tsp. raspberry preserves. Sprinkle powdered sugar over cut-out cookie tops, or glaze them with a mixture of 1 cup powdered sugar and 21/2 tsp. milk. Set tops on jam-topped bottoms. Makes 26.

(From Sunset Magazine)

Baking with toddlers and preschoolers is always kind of stressful, even if you make an effort not to worry about things like flour on the floor and more dough going into mouths than onto the cookie sheet. I always plan for us to make a mess when we bake, but the real problem I’ve found is that the process is just too long when you have helpers, and their best behavior begins to wane about 45 minutes into the process (just as the sugar rush from licking the spoon begins to take effect).

Here are my suggestions for having fun while baking with toddlers:

1. Make it an event. I put on fun music, make sure everyone has an apron, and make a big (fun) deal about washing hands/getting ready to bake.
2. Know that you are going to make a mess. Knowing before you begin is key to allowing the mess to happen without frustration. If you tell yourself you won’t worry about a mess before a mess happens, things will be less stressful for you.
3. Let the child help as much as possible. If you have more than one child, let them take turns measuring (or split the measurements: if you need 2 cups of flour, let each of them measure one, etc.). Let the child get ingredients or utensils out, if they are able.
4. Plan for it to take at least twice as long as it would without kids!
5. Consider splitting it into two activities for two different days: The mixing of the cookie dough the first day, and the rolling and making of the cookies the second day. If you do this, you might want to sneak a small pan into the oven while your kids finish playing with the dough mixing, so they can get a reward for their hard work (like eating copious amounts of raw dough isn’t enough!). If you are going to decorate the cookies, you might want to add a third day in there. Yay, a whole week’s worth of activities!