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For the past four years I’ve attended the Faerieworlds summer event near Eugene, Oregon (http://www.faerieworlds.com). It’s a fantastic festival experience for the whole family featuring music, crafts and— my favorite— magnificently imaginative costumes. Thus far I’ve been incapable of wearing the same costume twice, mostly due to the fact that we leave the festival brimming with new ideas for next year, and, as a result, I have a surplus of costumes and accessories and not a lot of free closet space.
Last year, my daughter and I designed our costumes around the idea that we were miniature flower faeries made big (think Disney fairies zapped with a growth ray, you’ll get the idea) and so our accessories were designed to be large versions of little items. One of these items was a thimble. After the festival, I was so pleased with the finished product that I decided to use it to hold all of my straight edges in the craftroom. It’s really the perfect functional accessory for any craftroom and can be made with a handful of everyday items.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- A plastic bathroom wastebasket, the kind usually found in stores like Target and Walmart or places like your college dorm or your brother’s apartment.
- An old broken belt (in this case, actually procured from my brother).
- A string of plastic beads— childhood leftover, perhaps?— or a snip off of that old beaded Christmas garland.
- A plastic net— the kind typically used to package vegetables or bath toys.
- An old rubber hose (I stole this from my dad’s garage).
- Spray paint, silver metallic and black.
- Hot glue and, of course, a glue gun.
I’m not sure how necessary it was, but I did pre-paint the netting silver. I then pulled the net over the bottom of the wastebasket and glued the belt over the net near the top to secure it, trimming the belt above and below with the beaded garland. Depending on whether your net is closed on the bottom of the bucket or open, you may want to touch up with glue (I cut the end off of my net because otherwise there would have been a big lump on the bottom of my thimble). I slit the rubber hose lengthwise and glued it in place along the top edge of the bucket to give the appearance of a thicker edge. I then sprayed the whole thing with silver paint, touching it up with a light dusting of the black here and there to give it a more aged appearance.
Voila! You’ve got a giant thimble for your craftroom to be used in any number of ways! Oh, and if you decide to take a turn around the house pretending it’s a helmet, I won’t think less of you ^_^
(Source: the-art-of-revolution)
Inspiration can be found in the unlikeliest of places. Keeping in line with our goal to incorporate found objects in our designs, this noteworthy necklace is an excellent example of how looking at things from a fresh perspective can be refreshingly rewarding.
Double the divine inspiration, wear angels on both shoulders!
Now it may take longer than expected and it most certainly won’t happen all at once but, inevitably, you grow up. To what degree is entirely up to you (ideally, not too much), but there comes a point when you’re organizing your overflowing closet for the umpteenth time that you realize it looks like a wheatgrass guzzling fortuneteller fell madly in love with Edward Scissorhands and the resulting lovechild was your wardrobe.
Donating items in good condition is always a good option and there are plenty of charitable organizations out there that would be grateful for your contributions.
But what about those pieces you’re just not able to part with? You know the ones I’m talking about. Upon rediscovery, you enthusiastically vow to wear them at the next available opportunity— which never quite comes. Instead, they steadily make their way down the line until once again relegated to the back wall, buried behind off-season favorites and special occasions and looked upon rarely with equal measures of wistful yearning and guilty conscience. You’ve tried them on but they (you) never quite feel the same as once upon a time and you’d donate them but who in the world would appreciate that brown skirt, with its mustard tie-dye and rainbow batik bubbles, as much as you? What to do?
There’s something to be said for a good accessory and these items, begging to be worn again, are perfect for the job. All it takes is a little imagination and some steely resolve to make that first cut and soon that old favorite will greet you from its rightful place at the front of the closet. And perhaps next time when you’re out and about in seach of a new accessory, you’ll stop off at the thrift store and try your hand at recycling.
(Source: the-art-of-revolution)
One of my many distractions… my favorite one, by far ♥
Therefore, I have not mastered the art of juggling…
Which is why it’s a good thing this project is called The Art of Revolution. *tongue firmly wedged in cheek*
New updates coming very soon!
A true blue classic.
Aren’t we all works in progress? Though I can really only speak for myself, I think that we are in a constant state of internal renovation, redesign, reinvention. We jump from island to island of time and though the horizon grows hazy with distance, it has brought us to this point and will carry us on, sometimes forward, sometimes wayward. Part of growing is recognizing when you have outgrown something— be it person, place or thing— and letting go. I’ve struggled with this lesson all of my life, I still struggle with this lesson. My latest little project speaks to that.
To make space in the house for my little creative endeavor (I’m still not comfortable calling it a “business”), there’s been a great deal of sorting, organizing and, especially, purging. It’s been a harsh reality check. I hang onto a lot of stuff. Too much stuff. Old treasures from childhood that couldn’t possibly mean as much to someone else as they do to me. But what good is treasure that sits in a box, taking up space, choking out new opportunities? The answer to that was obvious. No good at all. So there was a lot of donating, a lot of recycling, and a few keepsakes brought out from their boxes and into the light. One of these keepsakes was a necklace I had as a little girl. Now, it’s funny because it’s not a necklace I’ve always liked. There’s nothing particularly valuable about it, it’s just a string of blue squarish plastic beads, but it was mine and that seemed to mean something. There was no way that I could wear it now. There was no sense in closing it up in a jewelry box to be taken out and put back at odd times. With my new mindset, there was really only one option.
80’s remake in progress.
(Source: theartofrevolution.etsy.com)
Not for the faint of heart.
