Holidays help us whip up creativity
It’s a wonderful time of the year, especially for crafters.
The calendar is packed with craft shows, where shoppers can purchase handmade holiday gifts from some of the region’s most creative people.
The shows also offer ideas for crafters seeking inspiration for new projects.
Several vendors at the Spokane Community College Arts and Crafts Show, held Nov. 10 and 11, generously shared with the HomeMaker directions for some of the items they had for sale. Enjoy this roundup of those projects.
Hey, cupcake
If visions of sugarplums are dancing through your head, why not decorate your Christmas tree with some sweet treats, like these faux cupcake ornaments?
Crafter Kathy Skomer, of Spokane, makes them by placing a piece of Styrofoam in a paper cupcake holder. Using a long needle, she threads a piece of ribbon from the bottom of the cupcake holder through the Styrofoam, so that the ornament can hang from a tree once the project is complete.
Skomer then pipes a generous amount of royal icing, which dries hard, atop the Styrofoam and tops it with a red bead to simulate a cherry.
Reclaim it, renew it
Barbara Shrader is always on the lookout for great finds, even if it means taking home furniture left on the side of a road.
“I like finding old architectural pieces, old windows, and recycling them,” says the Spokane crafter.
At the SCC Craft Show she had a kitchen table for sale that she’d painted black. Then, Shrader tore out pages from an old YWCA cookbook – another one of her found treasures – and placed them around the perimeter of the table’s top. She covered the table, including the recipes, with polyurethane, sealing the pages to the wood so the surface can easily be wiped clean. Wouldn’t this be fun to do using your family’s favorite recipes? Or maybe a child’s art table could forever display his best drawings?
Shrader also found a clever use for old kitchen cabinet doors. She paints the outer molding a punchy color, then covers the door’s inside panel with chalkboard paint and ties a piece of chalk to the door’s handle. What a simple way to create a message board and recycle something otherwise headed for the landfill.
Garden art
Debi LeBaron proves that it’s never too early to be thinking about next year’s garden. Among the hundreds of crafts for sale at her Country Critters booth were vegetable identification stakes.
LeBaron cuts the stakes with a pointed tip at the bottom, so they can easily dig into the earth, then paints the words and images by hand.
The mother of nine says she sometimes logs 40 hours a week being crafty.
“It’s a passion thing,” LeBaron says.
Brag books
Among the items made by Spokane crafter Marsha Sundberg are small “brag books” that parents, grandparents, or anyone can keep on hand to show off photos of their loved ones.
She folds a long piece of paper into triangles (squares would work just as well) to create the book’s accordion-style inside. Sundberg then affixes a heavier-stock paper to the front and back pages to create covers.
The recipient then can paste photos inside. Sundberg suggests making these for the guests of honor at bridal or baby showers. The brag book can contain photos of the bride and groom or mom and dad when they were young, and shower guests can write words of wisdom for the newlyweds or expecting parents inside.
Sundberg uses paper from a company called Stampin’ Up ( www.stampinup.com).