I am a crafter from way back. As a teenager, I spent all of my money on paper, sparkles and beads. In university, I was the girl to see if you needed help making a Halloween costume. Now, I'm revisiting what I know about sewing, teaching myself to knit and crafting my way through a new apartment and a New Year's Eve wedding. Come back often to see what I'm up to and tell me what you're doing, too!
Today is December 17th. I couldn’t tell you where the year went. People who are not as crazy as I am (finished holiday decor weeks ago) are busy busy busy decorating their houses for the season and I got an interesting email this week:
Christmas Crafts = I need your help!!!
I have an old artificial xmas tree but don’t want to throw it out. Tips
on how to create decorations out of it?
This is a great question, really, because artificial trees do start to wear after years of being packed and unpacked from that box, gathering dust for 11 months of the year, so I started to brainstorm.
I think you could pull the tree apart fairly easy (or at least with the help of some heavy duty wire cutters). I’m not sure I’d have a use for the stand, so it might be the part of the tree that has to hit the curb, but the evergreen part could definitely be given new life.
*If you want to keep the branches in tact, I would suggest writing a few together to make a length of evergreen. Weave a set of lights and some ribbon through and you have a garland perfect for a mantle or sideboard. It won’t be very pliable at all, so not ideal for winding around banisters, but for a flat surface it would work quite well.
*I would also consider setting a few of the branches in a large vase – probably silver – with some sparkly branches and berries. No one needs to know the evergreens aren’t real. And if evergreens as a table-centre aren’t your thing, spray-paint those branches snow-white and go for white branches anchored in a vase with gold Christmas balls.
* If you’re happy to cut the branches apart, you could make smaller tufts of evergreen. Cut a large circle with a hole in the centre from sturdy cardboard and puncture the cardboard in rows. Press the tips of the tufts into the cardboard, filling up the space, until you have a wreath. I’d also use a dot of glue in each dot to secure the branches, and I’d probably glue a piece of canvas to the back to lessen the chances of scraping myself when I tried to put it up or store it.
Those are a few ideas off the top of my head. Suggestions, anyone?
I had the wonderful opportunity a couple of weeks ago to meet with Caroline Le Bel, a demonstrator from Stampin’ Up. Stampin’ Up is a rubber stamp/scrapbooking supplies/crafty doohickee retailer that sells both online and through demonstrators like Caroline, and I try not to make direct eye contact with their catalogue for fear of draining my bank account. Nevertheless, it was a delightful morning, and I learned to make this card:
It was actually very easy and not at all labour intensive! I loved the layered effect — you can totally do this if you’re making your own cards — to make it a little more special. Caroline also used small round sponges to do the antique finish by brushing ink across the cardstock. Love love love it.
Caroline brought a few other projects to show me. See below for inspiration!
More handmade cards!
A sparkly ho ho ho to hang from the mantle.
A larger version of the sparkly ho ho ho!
This post should actually be called ‘Crafter of November’ because I should have put it up on Monday! It’s been a little busy — we’re in the middle of production for our February issue — so I apologize for the delay!
November’s COTM is Lisa Pijuan-Nomura. Lisa sent me an email a few weeks back and pitched herself as a possible subject for this post, so, if you’re crafty and you’re out there reading, send me a note! Lisa is a multidisciplinary artist (basically you name the creative outlet and she’s done it — dance, performance art, visual art and so on) and is the owner of a company called GirlCanCreate. I caught up with her last week to ask her a few questions.
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1. I see from your website that you’ve been a performance artist for a long time. What prompted the addition or transition to more material arts?
As a multidisciplinary artist, I have always used visual art in my creative process. When creating my one woman shows, I would often paint, collage and sketch out the world that I was exploring. For many years, I was a curator of an event of RED: A Night of Live Performance. A bi-monthly cabaret of artists from every discipline, after 5 years and 500 artists, I found that I was pretty burned out. I started creating collages, keeping an art journal and did almost every other craft I could think of. As long as I could be quiet and be making I was happy. Two years later, I now spend a bit more than half of my year teaching, performing, creating new shows and being a creativity coach. The rest of the year (about 5 months) I am creating visual art to sell online, at shows, and in Spring of 2010 at Toronto’s One of a Kind Show. I am ALWAYS thinking about collage.
2. What is your favourite medium?
I am a collage junkie. As a teenager I would cut up all of my TeenBeat magazines of Michael Jackson and Duran Duran and create badly composed collages. As I got older, I became intrigued with the world of paper and photos from long ago. I now create collages on paper and wood using original papers from as far back as 1881 to about 1960. My studio is packed to the ceiling with papers, glues and scissors. What fun! I believe that each piece I create tells the stories of either the people in the photos, or the people of those times. In everything I do — be it dance, puppetry or collage — I am a storyteller.
3. How did you start your business? What work to you do the most through GirlCanCreate?
When it became clear that I wasn’t your run of the mill actor, and that I was someone who did many things, I realized that I perhaps needed an umbrella company for all of my work. Once when I was asked what I did, a stranger said, “Girl, you sure can create!” He walked away, in awe, perhaps a bit overwhelmed and uttered, “Girl can create!” And it stuck!
As I have mentioned, I still do a lot of performance along with mixed media art. I also teach and facilitate workshops in creativity, collage, storytelling and artist cards.
I am also in the process of building my creativity coaching clientele. I have studied with some of the finest, most creative people, and now am interested in helping others. Because of my extensive experience with a wide range of art forms, I can offer coaching to people and really empathize with the creative process and what they are going through. Most of my clients are either professional artists who happen to be stuck in their work, or emerging artists, who feel that a coach is a good way to help them get things done!
Some people might read this, and become tired by the end of this answer by all that I do but I do believe that one things feeds the next which feeds the next. I started creating visual art because I was burned out from performing and organizing events. And then, I find that when I am making too much i get a bit lonesome. So, it all works out for the best.
4. Have you always been creative and crafty? Who encouraged you to pursue the creative arts?
I started taking acting classes when I was 13 and I said that I would work in performance for my life. I have books of poetry that I kept as a teen, and little sketch books of bad art, and as far back as I can remember I have been fascinated by any book that had anything to do about creativity. I now have a very large library thanks to years of part time work in bookstores.
My parents neither encouraged or discouraged me in art. They simple stated that they wanted to do what ever made me happy. They might have been happier if being a school teacher made me happy, but they are very proud of me and all that I have done.
There have been a few teachers and friends, who have always always been so very supportive of me. When I was 15, I had one teacher who told me that i could do whatever I wanted to do. I remember that often when I get paralyzed by fear around the next new project or venture. My very wise grandfather told me once to “Defend your life with all of your strength” (Defiende tu vida con todas tus fuerzas was the Spanish original), and I think of that almost every day.
5. What technique would you like to learn to add to your resume?
One day I would like to tap dance. And I am also intrigued by the work of Joseph Cornell so I would like to do assemblage.
