2014 Etsy Craft Party

Every year, thousands of crafters across the world get their craft on, together, at the annual Etsy Craft Party. This year's theme was Recapture: bring new meaning to your photographs.  

My local party was hosted by the SC Etsy Team, and was held at Due South Coffee located at Taylors Mill Properties in Taylors, SC.  

photos courtesy of Plate of View, Town, Molly Waits, Sweet to the Soul

I'd brought along some photos of my mom, not really knowing what exactly we would be doing with our photos.  Turns out the project involved embroidering our photos.  After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided  just couldn't do that to these photos.  While I love the idea of adding some spunk to old photos, these just mean too much to me.  Luckily, our hosts provided an alternative project; decorating coffee mugs with paint pens.  

I absolutely can't draw, but I can doodle. Here's my finished mug. 

My friend, Sarah, was wise enough to bring some old candids she found in an antique shop, and her finished project was really great!  Here she is, stitching away on a photo that has been the topic of much discussion about it's subjects.  Who were they?  Best friends?  Sisters?  What happened to them? Are they still alive?  Did they remain friends?

Our fellow Etsians/crafters stitching away. 

The mill where the coffee shop is located, is home to many local artists' studios, and so they host a First Friday on the first Friday of every month. This one coincided with the craft party.  Many of the First Friday attendees stopped by the coffee house, and I was pleasantly surprised at the number of them who came up to the various (craft) tables, curious about what we were doing. It was nice to see that there's such a big interest in the crafting movement.  

I really had a great time at the party.  I met some new people, and I fell in love with a coffee shop located in an old Southern mill.  I can't wait for next year!

Until next time...

Story Stones

A few weeks ago, a page I follow (The Artful Parent), shared a post on story stones.  I knew immediately we would be doing something like this.  I'm a big believer in creative play, and besides that, we have thousands of river rocks in our backyard (they were being used in the front flower beds when we moved in).  
Story stones are great for introducing little ones to creative thinking by using their imaginations and language skills for storytelling. For smaller ones, like Zoe, who is just over 2, they're great for object identification or grouping games.  Zoe loves to just play with hers, putting them in her dollhouses and toy cars, talking to them, letting them talk to each other, etc.  

There are a a lot of ways to make them.  You can do as we did, and paint them with acrylic paints, or you can mod podge stickers and cut out images onto the stones.  Getting a child involved in the making of the stones will really amp up the experience, and encourage them even more to play with the stones. Let them choose a few packs of stickers from the store or go through magazines, or thrifted children's books for images they'd like to use.  Here's Zoe helping big sis with her story stones.  

*Please make sure to supervise smaller children with story stones that are small enough to be a choking hazard.




Other Resources:
Informed Mama has a good many suggestions on ways to use the stones.
Children's Book Daily also has some good ideas for stone play.


If you're not up for making your own, there are plenty of Etsy shops that have some really great sets for sale. This one has some of my favorite sets including this adorable The Very Hungry Caterpillar set.

Until next time...





Linking these to:
Creative Collectionn @ Craft-o-Maniac

Weekend Garden Craft Party

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!  I sure did!

On Saturday, I hosted a garden craft themed craft party, and it was really a lot of fun!  We ended up making mosaic stepping stones, and considering none of us had made stones before, I think we did a pretty good job!  

I started thrifting for items to use for molds and for the mosaics about a month ago.  I also ordered some really pretty scrap glass from Etsy.  Until that morning, when I set all of supplies out together, I didn't realize just how much stuff I'd collected.

While we sat around the table, eating yummy food, there was a lot of discussion about breaking some of the nicer dishes.  All along, I'd thought I'd have a hard time breaking perfectly good dishes, but I was wrong.  It was fun!!

While some of us were doing the fun part, Sarah and Amy graciously prepared the concrete and molds.  I read that it's important to use cooking spray if you're using cake pans as molds.  It's supposed to make it easier to get the stone out of the mold, but I can't verify that yet since ours are still curing.  We have to wait 5 days!  Seriously, that is such a long time to a crafter.  I think most of us are definitely instant gratification type gals so 5 days is like 5 months in craft time.

I was still working away on mine when most everyone left so I never stopped to take photos of their stones, but here's mine.  I used some of the pretty china I'd been collecting.  I figured using it to make something pretty was better than just having it stacked on some shelf, where it isn't being seen.

When I was planning this party, I pinned all kinds of gorgeous mosaic stones, thinking I'd do some crazy elaborate piece.  Well, I found out that it's not that easy.  It took me forever to cut up my pieces.  It's really hard to fussy-cut glass!  In the whole time that everyone else made at least 2 stones, I was still cutting!  I know now that I should have all of my pieces cut out in advance.  By the time I started placing my pieces in the cement, it had already started setting so I wasn't able to push my pieces down as much as I'd have liked.  I'm planning to go back over the piece with grout to help cover up some of the sharp edges. I'm still pleased with how it looks so far though, and I can't wait to make more.

Have any of you ever done mosaics?  Do you have any tips to share?  I'd love to know some better ways for cutting china.  


Until next time...