Lexacat's Crafts

2009-04-27T19:35:00.000-07:00

Seed Bombs

2009-04-16T20:27:00.001-07:00

Scarabs

2009-04-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

Marble Magnets

2009-04-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

Diskette Notebooks

2009-04-16T20:08:00.001-07:00

Coffee Filter Roses

2009-04-16T20:07:00.000-07:00

Monstah

2009-04-16T20:06:00.000-07:00

more pics

2009-03-17T11:17:00.000-07:00

Craft photos

2009-03-17T11:09:00.000-07:00

Some more new-ish jewelry

2008-08-01T16:22:00.000-07:00

Bake Sale Cookies- Thank you mom!

2008-06-06T23:04:00.001-07:00

My incredible mom made the super-delish peanut butter brownie cookies, and she and I made the oatmeal-chocolate chunk-pecan-dried cherry ones today! It was so much fun. I made the button flowers, and we both made the tags. I hope they like them at the bake sale! Thank you so much mom.

Clematis with bee- I love June!

2008-06-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

Some recent paintings

2008-06-06T20:49:00.001-07:00

Some jewelry I made this spring

2008-06-06T20:25:00.000-07:00

Diskette Notebooks

2008-04-08T20:35:00.000-07:00

Quick and cute! Cheap and, well, cheap! Easy and recycle-y!
Believe it or not, this was made with the scraps left over from the paper stars last week. That's how recycle-y I am! (Ok, or how pack-ratty. Or how much of a slob I am that the offcuts were still lingering a week later. We will speak of it no more, for the scraps have been transformed.)
Supplies
2 (dead or useless) disks per notebook.
Scissors.
Scrap paper cut to size.
Hole Puncher.
Ruler and pencil if you feel fancy and all precise.
2 small metal key-rings (the junky kind that the mechanics use on those paper tags).

Cut paper! Punch holes! Attach keyrings!
Voila! C'est magnifique! ^.^

Metamorphosis ideas

2008-04-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

Ok! It's a bunch- from me, from the manual, from everywhere! Chaos rules.

For each week's theme (and two weeks where I had to come up with original themes - Change Your Perspective and Change the World - our summer is long, baby) I'm listing a few ideas, and a rough guide to the pros, cons, and COST of each idea. Also, linking to inspiration/tutorials/previous posts, etc. If something is listed more than once, it's because I think it applies to more than one theme, and could be plugged in whenever it suits best.

Don't Bug Me, I'm Reading

Insect Origami
-Would need origami paper

Beaded Spiders
-A sign-up would be helpful to determine supplies necessary

Paper butterflies and butterfly mini-notebooks
-No sign-up necessary (Supplies are only paper, photocopies, wire and yarn)
- Brings in nature and metamorphosis with the butterflies
-Paper Butterflies to decorate Teen Area

Change Your Outside

Henna body art
-Temporary Henna tattoos, might need henna artist/volunteer
- definitely need at least one other person to help apply the henna to teens
- not something they can do on themselves, and probably need parent permission slips.

Zombie/Vampire makeup party
-Would need Halloween makeup, maybe a cape,
-use a camera to take pics when they are fully made up, and email to teens or print them later
-a volunteer with makeup experience would be helpful

Change Your Inside

Meditation
- change your inside and find inner zen
- would need volunteer to lead (unless you have confidence in leading it yourself!)

Change Your Things

T-Shirt Surgery
-Sign-up would be necessary to ensure having enough supplies
-This was a big hit last summer for me
-It cost about $35.00 though- ouch.

Jeans into Tote Bags
-would need to pre-collect and sew bottom edge of bag
-would need sign-up to ensure enough supplies
-sounds like a fun, recyling-focused program

Hardware Jewelry
-make modern, fun jewelry using washers and nuts from the hardware store
-Could ask people for bits and pieces from their toolboxes too

Duct Tape Wallets
– Transform humble Duct Tape into a useful and funky wallet
-Would need lots of Duct Tape

Shrinking Plastic
– Shrinky Dinks or #6 Recyclable plastic
-Sign up would be necessary to ensure having enough supplies
-Would need to use oven– fumes?
-Shrinky Dinks = expensive, #6 Recyclable plastic = free
- Guess which one I'll be doing?
-Guess which one gives more reliable and predictable results? ;)

Changing Technology
Diskette notebooks
– Turn pieces of obsolete technology and scrap paper into funky notebooks
- No sign-up necessary
- Brings in recycling and transforming 'discards' into usable and cool things.

Digital metamorphosis
– using the module at MyPopStudio, use a computer lab or laptop cart to look at before-and-afters in pictures that have been professionally retouched. Then maybe take a photo of each teen and have then try to manipulate it in Photoshop?
-Would need sign-up for lab use/computer use
-Would need a helper to take the photos and get them loaded onto the computers

Changing Times

Jeopardy game
-every question could be about pop culture in the 20th c US - eg. "This hip-swinging musician became an American icon in which conservative decade?" (screen would show a picture of Elvis) answer: The Fifties

Decade Costume Party
- Invite teens to dress up in the styles of different eras
- have some kind of prizes?
-maybe food from different times (eg. Jello mold salad and PopTarts?)

Changing Formats

Movie Night?
- How does a book transform when it becomes a movie?
- Expensive - $85 for film rights
- Could showcase a popular teen book that has been adapted for a movie.

Diskette notebooks
– Turn pieces of obsolete technology and scrap paper into funky notebooks
- No sign-up necessary
- Brings in recycling and transforming 'discards' into usable and cool things.

Metamorphosis Jeopardy
– Questions about teen books and movies that involve metamorphosis, coming of age, transformation, etc.

Changing Your Perspective

Soap carving
– transform a plain bar of soap into a sculpture
- No sign-up necessary

Re-View
- Found Art
-Make art from found pieces and recyclables
-might need signup to ensure enough suppies
-it would be great if other people could bring in 'junk drawer' items
-inexpensive 'shadow boxes' can be about $1.00 each

Altered Art Books
-Turn discarded board books into works of art
-Would need extensive prep work
- Would need to be a multiple session program
-Might need volunteer to lead multiple session program

Changing The World

Jeans into Tote Bags
-would need to pre-collect and sew bottom edge of bag-would need sign
-up to ensure enough supplies
-sounds like a fun, recyling-focused program

Diskette notebooks
– Turn pieces of obsolete technology and scrap paper into funky notebooks
- No sign-up necessary
- Brings in recycling and transforming 'discards' into usable and cool things.

Show An Inconvenient Truth
-- Expensive - $85 for film rights

OK, I promised more detailed pics/instructions for the paper stars, and here they are.

2008-04-01T21:40:00.001-07:00

Choose your paper- I decided to make this one a 6 pointed star, so I cut out 12 pattern pieces.

Fold the pieces, with the "pretty side" facing out, for all folds.

Glue the bottom parts of one pretty side to the bottom of another, and do that with all of your pairs of pattern pieces. Then, glue one folded over pretty side of one 'rabbit ear' to the folded over pretty side of another 'rabbit ear' pair. Repeat. Keep going until all of your pairs are glued together. At this point, it might be good to let the whole shebang dry a little bit depending on the glue you are using! ;) then, just take your two last unglued rabbit ear halves, and bring them together with glue!I used binder clips to hold that last bit together while the glue dried.

ta-daa! Done! And again, let me say that the idea, template, and whole goodness came from the clever, creative, and super-green ThisRecycledLife!

These are so super cute! And totally Metamorphosis-y!

2008-03-29T10:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, I officially love these!

Craftster Ralph has posted a tutorial for making incredibly cute little butterflies!

Paper stars came out nicely!

2008-03-25T19:27:00.000-07:00

These have been turning out good!
I tried: magazine pages + glue stick,
wallpaper samples + double sided tape and
catalog pages and double sided tape.
Very satisfying!
These are from the pattern I mentioned in the SRP Metamorphosis theme below, from ThisRecycledLife- you can just add in sections to make them with more points, like the 6 pointed wallpaper star.
One thing I have to say is that as pretty as the wallpaper one is, the pretty side of the paper is just a little too slick to hold the double sided tape nicely, and I am sure it would need some kind of clamping to get glue to set.
Best and easiest results were magazine pages with double sided tape.
Again, thanks Paulette for finding this one! It's a keeper!
ps. that is my very handsome cat Jellyroll Morton inspecting the catalog star up at the top. He is a curious beast.

Altered Art Book- hmph.

2008-03-25T18:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought this would be a good idea for summer, but now I'm thinking not so much.

I started with a discarded board book, because I read that the pages wouldn't ripple when gluing or painting on them, but then found out that you have to sand the pages first and then treat them with gesso. ($10.00 for a bottle of gesso!!!!)

Then cutting out a niche was a nasty enterprise involving X-acto knife action and a power drill- not exactly teen friendly! Also, it looks messy and I hate messy niches, oh yes I do. And it made me feel uncrafty and inept, which, ok, I'm not Martha, and I'm not Not Martha, but I can usually feel that whatever other skills I lack, I can be crafty and ept. With this, yeeeeah. No.

It took about 4 hours of work and about 20 hours of drying, fanned out and open, to reach this glorious point.

Yup.

If I ever touch it again, I'll be sure to post it!

Well, I made it blue. That took a few more hours, and then overnight drying.

Then I spent, oh, a few lifetimes cutting out scenes from some of my favorite children's books. My plan, should it ever get finished (looking unlikely) is to try to make each page reflect (this is so uber-geek I just might choke) what I read through the years, from Seuss and Eastman to Hodgson-Burnett and Streatfield to Plath and Salinger and Fitzgerald and so on, right through college and maybe up to now, except, bizarrely, I am right back full circle to reading picture books. Huh. Circle of life, baby. Circle of life.

Summer Reading Program 2008 - Metamorphosis!

2008-03-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

Some ideas for summer...

My Pop Studio has a great segment on how images are manipulated in media to create an unreal expectation of female beauty- Metamorphosis through Photoshop!

Do the My Pop Studio thing, and then maybe take a photo of each teen and have them try to shop it?

Butterfly notebooks from AnonymousContent at craftster

These are great, I thought. So cute and so different, and a way to bring in butterflies, which is always yay.

These fantastic paper stars made from old magazines are from MyRecycledLife- another great metamorphosis- junk mail into awesome room decor! Thanks so much to the amazing Paulette for finding this one!

These creepy-cool beaded spiders by Souldier at C raftster seem like they might be fun to try...

Memory Wire Bracelets

2008-03-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

This was my March project, and it went pretty well. We have a big coffee can of mixed seed beads, and I brought in a bunch of African glass beads, some cheesy cheerleader charms, and some wooden beads I knew I'd never use.

Difficulty: 1 out of 5. If a teen can slide a bead on to a wire, they're golden.

Cost: 3 out of 5- more if you need to get beads from scratch ( if you don't have some lying around and don't have time to thrift-hunt).

Supplies
$2.00
for 12 Memory Wire Bracelet Blanks

$2.00 for a pair of chain nose pliers, if you don't have any. You probably do.

Optional: cutting pliers (in case you have kids who run out of time but want their bracelet finished off where they are, if you know what I mean.)

$1.00 - $???? for beads. The thing with the beads is that if you have the $$$, getting some nice seed beads that can be matched with your bigger fancy beads, your teens will be able to quickly make beautiful bracelets. If not, they will either hunt and pick through your mixed up mess of seed beads to find matching colors, or they will give up on matching and make kind of fugly color mixes in order to try to finish their project in the hour.

Hints or tips- Well, most teens will have no problem at all with this project. The only difficulty I had was that 2 of my special needs teens weren't able to really handle the little seed beads and ended up making (very very quickly, too) bracelets entirely made of the big beautiful African glass beads I had brought in to be used as accent beads. This meant that these 2 girls rapidly decimated the supply of the 'fancy' beads, while teens who were trying to make the project as intended were left poking sadly through the coffee can in search of matching seed beads. Again, this is a project where although it is so simple, differences in skill level make for very different results. I must say that the teens who made the bracelets as they are meant to be made had really cool pieces that they loved, and that they thought it was totally fantastic, and the two girls who didn't really follow the plan loved the clunky chunky bracelets they made, so it was an overall success. Would definitely repeat. Even had two boys make bracelets for their sick sister! ^.^

Coffee Filter Roses

2008-02-08T12:20:00.000-08:00

This is an incredibly easy, cheap, and satisfying teen craft! Perfect for Valentine's Day.
I first saw this on craftster too, and then found a woman who appeared on the Martha Stewart Show demonstrating her technique for making the coffee filter roses. The craftster version is a little rough and ready, the Mommy Makes Roses version is a little obsessive, so I kind of combined both versions.
Link to original Craftster tutorial
Link to Mommy Makes Roses website and her Martha Stewart tutorial

Instead of using the round basket style filters, I used the cone shaped ones, and instead of painting them individually, I dipped them in watered down paint and dried them before cutting out the petal shapes. One other thing I did that worked well for me was I just wired on some leaves from silk flowers- I had used the flowers for a wreath a while ago but knew I'd have a use for the leaves at some point so kept them around- being a pack rat can have it's (admittedly small) rewards! But the leaves look nice and give the roses a little stability. Be warned- more adults are asking about the roses than teens- some I made in black and red were liked more by the goth girls. The library is even selling them as part of the Valentine's Booksale, and I used one to dress up a book display!

Difficulty: 3 out of 5. It's an easy project, but takes one or two tries to get the knack of it- clumsy teens might get frustrated (but will still be able to make something kind of reasonable looking).

Cost: 1 out of 5. Cheap cheap cheap. I am assuming that you have paint and scissors? Is that expecting too much?

Supplies
$2.00
Cone shaped coffee filters (or basket style if you need to go even cheaper.)

$1.00
wooden barbecue skewers

$1.50
paddle of 24 guage floral wire

$1.50
floral tape

Hints or tips- well, the tutorial is really good, but I think making it right on the skewer is easier and more efficient than the corsage-pin thing KaylaWTE does. If you felt like being finicky, gluing a bead to the end of the skewer would be a nice touch.

Alternative easier instructions for younger kids or teens without crafty skill!