crafts
Crafts Hacks for makers; a digital vision board with clever tips, ideas, techniques and materials for DIY creations.
The Milk Bottle Dove Project
May I invite you to consider some different approaches to answer the question of ‘what to make?’ In generations past, hand-crafting skills were honed by necessity. Textiles were expensive so clothes were mended and worn–out clothes were recycled into quilts and rugs. Buttons and zips were unstitched and used in a new dress. Socks were darned, trousers were patched and Dad could fix almost anything around the house with the tools in his shed and the bits and bobs collected and stored in jam jars over the years. A lot of time and energy was devoted to mending and fixing items around the home, not because these jobs were a thrilling creative outlet for the adults of the household, but because they needed to be done.
By Lara Jane Townsend5 years ago in Lifehack
Fabric Scrap Project Idea: How to Turn Tiny Scraps Into a Laminate Pouch
I love sewing and often end up with tiny fabric scraps that I hate to throw away to become trash in landfills. I'm always thinking up project ideas to use with fabric scraps. This laminate pouch using iron-on vinyl and fabric scraps turned out better than I imagined. I use mine for traveling to prevent my toiletries from spilling in my luggage but you can use it for any occasion. Today I'll be going over the materials needed and how to make a pouch of your own.
By Mad For Fabric5 years ago in Lifehack
From Make Believe to a Passion: Textile History
I don’t know about you, but when I was young I loved to play make-believe. Perhaps that was the beginning of my love for acting and writing, but that is a topic for another time. I distinctly remember grabbing my bedsheets, blankets, and scarves and wrapping them about myself, trying to dress up like a queen of a far off land, or the protective fairy of a glenn. I used knots, string, safety pins, and whatever else I could use to make the sheets and blankets stay in place and drape into a makeshift ball gown or cape. I would have mounds of material on my bed as I sorted through what would make the best material for the costume I had in mind. Such childhood fantasy grew a lot of future habits, but the one that came as a shock was my interest in sewing and textile work.
By Olivia Lang5 years ago in Lifehack
How Dollar Stores Enabled the Crafter/Decorator in Me
Years ago, when I was beginning to get the decorating bug, I began subscribing to a couple of those types of magazines. I longed to have my home mirror the beautiful rooms depicted within those glossy pages.
By Marlene Alexander5 years ago in Lifehack
Making is My Must!
Even after teaching for 15 years, I am always looking for new ways to make Art with unexpected materials, usually for an art lesson for my middle school students. This passion was set in motion in the mid 2000's when I was a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Kent State University. A graduate level 3 Dimensional weaving course perpetually pushed us to consider making woven textiles out of wire, natural fibers, paper and "Plarn". Plarn, Plastic yarn, is created by cutting a continuous spiral into an ordinary grocery bag.
By Dawn Blattel5 years ago in Lifehack
Crunch Time Crafts
I've always been a dabbler. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, whatever new trend caught my attention growing up. I started crafting because I wanted to decorate my room like the ones I saw in the magazines. I learned how to do several crafty things, from helping my mom decorate for social occasions in our small town. However, crafting took on epic proportions when my friend Joan, signed us up as crafters who could do any type of craft project. As she put it, "How hard could it be?"
By Mary Haynes5 years ago in Lifehack
A Collage of Cat Houses and Love
This all started when my husband and I discovered my cat’s box fetish. Last Halloween, we noticed that Imo, my youngest cat, had a thing for boxes all thanks to an empty cake box that accidentally fell on the floor. I recall hearing the box fall and before I could even get up to see where it was, Imo had already beat me to it and was stepping inside. I took a quick picture with my phone because I thought it was funny and went back to looking up ideas on how to transform my apartment into the mummy’s tomb. Hours went by and when I looked, Imo was still in the box.
By Andrilisa Read-Iglesias Lopes5 years ago in Lifehack
Magazine Manifesting Magic
If you've ever seen the 2006 movie "The Last Holiday" in-depth, you probably know exactly where I'm going with this ideal. In the film, Queen Latifah plays a shy and talented cookwares saleswoman named "Georgia Byrd" who finds out that she only has three weeks left to live after hitting her head at work and getting a faulty diagnosis. Right before quitting her job, there is a scene where Miss Byrd is at home sobbing and drinking away her regrets with an entire bottle of wine while flipping through her infamous "Book of Possibilities." Her dialogue while perusing her book included things such as "I should have eaten that," and "Now I'll never get to meet you!"
By Douglas Henry Lewis, Jr 5 years ago in Lifehack
Living in a Crafter's Paradise
I am a multimedia artist. Because why do one craft, when you can do all the crafts? My art has grown out of the long-held love of all things artistic. Let’s start with a background on the young artist from when she was little. I grew up with creative parents who encouraged, indulged, and participated in all my creative endeavors. My father is a photographer, sketch artist, and go-to handyman. (He made a wooden carrying case for my rock collection when I was 11 and taught me watercolor and drawing). My mother is a writer, painter, seamstress, and all-around crafter. We made Christmas ornaments together when I was 13 and we still hang those ornaments on the tree every year. This was also the year we started making jewelry together, taking exciting trips to Michael’s and Joann Fabrics to search for findings, beads, and charms. (Or to find fabric for one of the many dresses she made me, including my prom dress). If that wasn't enough, we traveled down to Office Depot where she bought a set of business cards to help me launch my first foray into entrepreneurship. My best friend and I had started to make hand stamped stationery and chocolates, which we took to school and sold to classmates. And so it began.
By Angelita Hampton5 years ago in Lifehack
Discarded Masks of Creativity
I have a lot of time for walks these days. I was unfortunately laid off late last year due to the pandemic and, well, so have a lot of others. This means a lot of other competition on the job market; a lot of lost souls wandering my residential neighbourhood as well. I don’t always see these vagabonds, these shadows in the night. But the marking is always there. Well, masking might be the better word.
By Leif Conti-Groome5 years ago in Lifehack
