jane's apron

she is me

Student questions...

"Where did you get these?"  I made them.

"Are those lunch bags?" Yes.

"Where did you get the paper?"  I have some at home and found some at school.

"You have a hole punch that makes a fork?"  Yes, yes I do.

I have written something about desperate or hurried crafting at least 30 times on this blog.  It is how i get almost everything done.  When I suddenly needed cards to thank our lunch helpers and room mothers at school...well, you know...tag books with a binder clip and cards made from lunch bags suddenly happened.  The glue was still wet when I snapped this picture.  

Have you seen this commercial?  She is me. Is she you too?

 

thirty-one days {30}

Ellen and her new loom knitter are a pretty good match.  So far, Penny has a new scarf and plans for a dog sweater are in the works.

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It's a birthday day here...my built-in deadline for getting my Christmas tree down.  I'm always just as happy to see it come down as I am when I put it up.  Always ready to move on.  

I like to keep a few "winter" things around so I will keep this cup of enchanted pinecones.  Enchanted only means that they have glitter on them.  They are the result of another craft gone bad but I like them and I finally used the pretty German glass gllitter I've had waiting for something.  Just dip some pinecones in glue and then into glitter...totally fancy.

thirty-one days {17}

I still have these rankin-bass trees that Ellen and I made when she was just a little kindergartener.  Super easy and super cute...this one is two trees stacked on each other to make the top one tippy.  Simple instructions are here in case you want to make a forest of your own. 

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I stood on the top of a too rickety ladder in my too crowded garage a couple of weeks ago and pulled down every vintage screen I could safely get my hands on.  The plan is to make one of these like the crazy-talented Amy.  In the mean time, I am using it to hold a scrappy garland I made.  

You can totally make a scrappy garland.  Gather some of the bits and pieces you have in your crafty "someday" pile.  Tie them all to another item from your "someday" pile.  Mine is vintage ball fringe.  I added tags, Anthropology packaging, skeleton keys, super-clearance ornaments from Target past, ribbon.  And there's room for lots more.  

Then you can rush home from school while there's still a sliver a daylight, attempt to take photos, fail, drag the whole thing outside in view of the roofers next door, and try again.  And then realize that they look kind of pretty.  And completely capture the mood of the season...a little dark, a little cold, the sun just about the set, and the reflection from the Christmas tree lights in the window.  Breathe.

thirty-one days {2}

Ellen and I went to the new two-story Michaels.  I'm not a big fan but any store is better with an escaltor.  Did you know you can get Michaels coupons on your phone?  They just scan it from the screen.  It's like Christmas magic.

thirty-one days {1}

Today is December and I'm doing a little reset on my blog; ignoring the small (mostly technical) issues that keep me from posting more regularly.  I always have ideas, bits of craft, pretties, and thriftiness to share.  

At least for the next 31 days, I'm letting go of the idea of a "good" photo and going with what I have at hand each day...my phone is never far out of my reach and the little square photos I make with it tell a pretty good story.  

Today, it's an ornament for an exchange with my irish-crazy cousins tonight.  I made it this afternoon (because, at heart, I am a hurried crafter and do best on severe time/resource constraints) and am sharing it here this afternoon.  Real life, right now, glitter-covered.  

 

upcycled aldi

I had a much-needed day off on Friday.  I didn't think about school, didn't leave my house, didn't clean (much).

I did add pretty paper bits to the lids of some pasta sauce jars from Aldi that I had saved.  Upcycled...and then instagrammed (don't you just love using new verbs that get flagged by spell checkers?).

I followed the directions from pinterest (just looked at the picture).  They were a little plain so I added a couple of hearts and some faux stitching on the yellow flower paper.  

...and added some of my vintage spools of thread (vintage buttons would be good too).  Just about anything would look prettier in these jars.  I plan to make a few holiday ones now...looks like we'll be eating a lot of stuff that needs pasta sauce.  

pumpkin stories

This is what I made with some of the pages of my Standard Fairy Tales book.  I tore out Cinderella but I was too conflicted to mess with a story that I might want to read and might want to use for another project.  So I used pages from The Invisible Prince.  I didn't read it but saw lots of words go by as I worked...damsel, rubbies, sly girl, rescued her. Pretty good words for a story.

I got the idea from pinterest and the pumpkin at Michael's.  It's a foam pumpkin but not one of the standard (kind of expensive) ones.  This one was with the cheaper fall gourds but I liked it more...better shape and a way better stem.  If you try one, be sure to make the paper flexible with glue and water so it wraps around easily.  Tell your own pumpkin story.

 

book covers

Kraft paper is my new favorite thing.  It keeps showing up everywhere or maybe I am just noticing it more.  I bought a lifetime-supply roll of it and have it at school...just seeing it everyday makes me happy (in the same way that my lifetime-supply spools of baker's twine do).

I thought for sure my students would love to make old-school book covers.  They just weren't that into it in spite of (or because of?) my own covered books.  

When August turned to September, I even used the page of my big calendar from Paper Source to cover another book.  Those kids don't know what they are missing with their new, stretchy book covers.