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July 4, 2009

Fireworks Animation by PES

Just in time for the 4th, here's an adorable fireworks animation by PES.

Posted by Becky Stern | Jul 4, 2009 12:00 PM
Arts, Holiday projects | Permalink | Comments (0) | Suggest a Site

Fireworks Johncurley
Happy 4th of July! Our friends at Photojo have 11 tips for sparkling fireworks photos so you can snap some beautiful images tonight, like this one at the San Francisco Ferry Building by Flickr user john curley.

How-To: Repair Burns on Carpet

If you have cigarette burns, soldering iron burns, or other spot-based burns on your carpet, instructables user west49rules has a solution!

How-To: Make Independence Day Paper Swag Banners

Crafty Chica Kathy Cano-Murillo shows how to do this super fast 4th of July paper swag banners using patriotic scrapbook papers.

Visit Iceland

CRAFT: Crafty Travels

In 2007 my husband and I traveled to Iceland. It's a country that he has always wanted to visit, but I was less than convinced. I was thinking Fiji, or Hawaii, right? I couldn't have been more wrong. It was the best time of my life, and I did not want to leave. Our trip included hot springs, sheep, music, graffiti, wool, fashion, art galleries, and night clubs.

Craft and art are massive parts of the culture in Iceland, and so is wool. Downtown Reykjavik's tourist shops are packed with hand and machine-knit 100% Icelandic wool sweaters, scarves, socks, hats, blankets and more. Practically every other shop window in the heart of the the city features handcrafted fiber arts. Craft supply stores and art galleries are staffed with people who love wool and who love to knit. And these aren't bland, boring products for the average tourist — they are spectacular cutting-edge knitting designs from amazing designers.

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4th of July Snack Cups

Fourthofjulysnackcups-1
Cindy of Skip to My Lou has a downloadable template to make these 4th of July snack cups. Check out her other 4th of July projects too!

Twitter Giveaway: Follow Us and Win a CRAFT T-Shirt!

Just a reminder about our Twitter Giveaway that's going on this week. Three lucky CRAFT Twitter followers will win a CRAFT T-Shirt. Start following us here @craft.

We'll announce the winner next Monday, July 6th. Good luck!

Circuit Board Candy

Here's some circuit board candy Collin @ MAKE found in the MAKE Flickr pool. It's based off of the iPhone circuit board and has some innovations I haven't seen before including a sour straw ribbon cable. Nice!

Spaghetti and Meatballs Cake

For me, this almost falls into the kitty litter and/or thorax cake category; it's amazing to look at, but could I actually eat it?

But then, discovering that the meatballs are some sort of chocolate truffle goodness, and seeing a piece of the cake sliced to expose a moist, banana cake center, and my inhibitions melt away! Read all about it and lots of other yummy dishes on the tasty Ciao Chow Linda blog. (Thanks, Diane!)

How-To: Make 4th of July Ric Rac Flowers

Vickie Howell shows how to bring a little crafty nostalgia to your 4th of July table with these dandy little ric rac flowers.

Wind-Powered Knitting Machine

This rad wind-powered knitting machine knits a long tube while the wind blows. It uses a vintage sock knitting machine. I love it as a visualization of how windy it's been in the last few hours/days. Via knitgrrl.

Finger Knittin' Good

CRAFT Summer Camp

Finger Knittin' Good
By Vickie Howell

Fingerknittingmain
In the past, I've had little luck getting my sons interested in learning to knit. Even when presented with jazz hands, in their eyes, my needles make much better swords than crafty tools. Alas. When summer vacation hits, however, a mom has to get creative in order to keep the kids busy. It's time to approach the situation from a different angle: keep the knitting, but ditch the needles!

Finger knitting is a great way to keep little hands busy, while creating long cords in a flash! Kids dig it because it's faster and less cumbersome than traditional knitting. Once knitted, the cords can be made into things like googly-eyed snakes, purse handles, gift ribbons, or my son Tanner's favorite project du jour, the Twisty Scarf, which we'll show you how to knit. Hey, don't just sit there, let your fingers do the knitting!

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Wishing Well Redux

We've always got plenty of things to do around our house, from scrubbing the fireplace stones that have been gathering soot since 1949 or thereabouts, to pulling weeds in various flower beds around our yard plus a quarter acre or more of hillside that the thistle and blackberries are fond of. The mudroom walls really need repainting, it's been 10 years since we said we were going to grout an exposed tile edge in the living room, and it's high time for a purging session in both the boys' rooms.

So, obviously, last weekend I decided that I really, really had to paint an old wooden wishing well that's been fading in our yard for several years.

My 6-year-old Arlo heard the word paint and signed on immediately. This means that he played outside while I, the mom, set up the work space (tarps, a ladder, and a table), gathered the materials, washed the dirt and spider webs off the well, and sanded the flaking paint and splintery wood to a semi-smooth condition. The DH removed the bucket from the inside to reduce the temptation to swing it at wet, newly painted sides, and then the redheaded tyke was ready to help.

I brought out a dozen or so cans of leftover paint from various projects over the years, and Arlo and I picked dark blue and yellow as the colors. My husband respectfully suggested that this was too reminiscent of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese packaging, so we added a muted green and a hot coral to the mix.

The painting was surprisingly fun and mess-free! First, we painted the roof, which was very satisfying since it had completely faded. Then Arlo and I decided that the top and bottom borders of the body should also be blue, so we painted those next. I added the yellow paint to the triangle sides of the roof while Arlo looked on and shot at aliens lurking in the forest. Then I added the green to the support rails, and Arlo decided he was ready to help paint the sides with the coral. I followed closely behind him, smoothing out his paint strokes and wiping away his drips onto our freshly painted blue border. Throughout the project, he frequently proclaimed, "I love painting, and I'm good at it! And it's hard work."

I added a second coat to all surfaces the next day, and got a little crazy when I decided to paint the bar that the bucket hangs off of, as well as contrasting colors on the handle. My husband made me stop when I considered painting the bucket, each slat a different color.

And happily, we're all quite thrilled with the outcome. I've decided it looks very Lego-esque, which is appropriate in our yard since our basement has 3 cabinets full of Lego bricks and the monthly arrival of the latest Lego catalog becomes an hour-long page-by-page discussion over dinner.

In retrospect, I would have painted more of the inside of the well, probably first, and would have saved the dark blue trim until the very end. But since this particular art piece will be sitting in our yard and gazed upon from afar, the messy edges and meeting points between colors won't be scrutinized very closely. Plus, I can always say my 6-year-old painted it, and it was hard to do!

San Francisco Zine Fest: August 22 + 23

If you're in the Bay Area in August and are interested in homemade zines, be sure to put this event on your radar. The annual SF Zine Fest is a "free two-day conference for independent and underground publishing. Exhibitors come from all over the West Coast, and while the focus is on zines, all walks of DIY life are represented — comics, arts and crafts, literary presses, and more." Their special guest this year is Xeric Award-winning cartoonist Andy Hartzell. If you've got something you want to share as an exhibitor, now's the time to get your application in. Everything you need to know is on their site.

Coffee-Rubbed Cheeseburgers with Texas Barbecue Sauce

Coffeecheeseburgers
If you can't live without your coffee, you can now get your fix via your cheeseburger. Grill up these Coffee-Rubbed Cheeseburgers with Texas Barbecue Sauce from Bon Appétit, as featured on Epicurious.com.

From the recipe:

Freshly ground coffee adds a depth to the spice rub and brings out the flavor of the meat. Be sure to keep the rub recipe handy. The spice rub would also be great on steaks and chicken.

Also, don't miss the Independence Day Party Planner on Epicurious.com that's filled with menus, drinks, and table decoration ideas.

Felt Playstation iPhone Case

So classy and so classic is this Playstation iPhone case, via BBG.

Child's Travel Pillow

Childtravelpillow
Make this child's travel pillow by maya*made complete with handle and pocket for storing bedtime buddies. It's a great quick sewing project and perfect for kids use this summer while traveling.

Maya writes:

Everyone needs something soft and familiar to rest their weary heads upon... especially our children when they're far from home. This little travel pillow has a built in handle for easy toting or to clip onto a backpack when heading off to camp, a sleep over, or some other summer adventure.

How-To: Make a Kid's T-Shirt Tote

This kids t-shirt tote from The Object Project is super simple and super practical. It's a great way to use up seasonal shirts that no longer fit your kiddos, and it's a great way to introduce them to re-purposing fashion items!

Crafty Home Etsy Video

Tara Young at Etsy writes:

Three years ago, Alice Saunders, a.k.a. Forestbound, and Francesca Zmetra, a.k.a. Thirteen Eighty-Five, became roommates in an old house in Jamaica Plain, MA. They didn't know each other at the time but because of their similar styles, they bonded instantly and became close as friends and creative colleagues. Alice's aesthetic tends toward old military Americana with a collection of canvas bags, found bones, birch bark, vintage lace and postcards. Francesca's taste is more feminine, influenced by wartime beauty parlors and apothecaries.

Check out more about these two lovely ladies.

Needle-Felted Jabba The Hut

Kit Lane created this fantastic needle-felted Jabba the Hut (The Early Years) for the Stitch Wars exhibit at Bear and Bird Boutique in Lauderhill, Florida. The show is a collection of handmade goods celebrating Star Wars.

Jabba is 100% wool with the exception of two beads, two glass eyes and quite tightly needle felted. He's not at all delicate and will only get better the more he's handled.

Jabba was the character that attracted me most from the Star Wars series. Even though he's quite a bad guy I imagined what he must have been like as a wee snot of a slug. You dont get to be a such a great naughty creature without some sort of trauma, his being a lover of his squeezly "bunnybear". The unmerciless taunting by his slime mates over his compulsion for plushies I suspect caused him to turn his back on a normal upbringing, turning instead to a life of crime.

You can see more pictures of the needle-felted Jabba the Hut in Kit's Flickr Stream.

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