diy
Do it Yourself; Tips and ideas for DIY projects to give a gift that your significant other won't return.
(Un)consciously Creating
The process of making paper can be very gentle, tactile, and soothing. It requires you to really feel the fibers of the materials you're working with, from tearing up sheets of compressed fiber into postage sized stamps, to beating up your pulp, and to hand-stirring the pool of pulp sitting in your vat. It requires you to form a relationship with your materials, so you can know when they’re ready to do what you want them to. After pressing sheets of pulp onto pellon, you have to give it all the time it needs to dry thoroughly. If you don’t, you risk destroying the sheets when you attempt to peel them off. However, if you patiently follow through the process of forming sheets, the possibilities are endless, depending on the tools you have available to you. A pair of scissors may seem like the most basic, ordinary crafting tool you can own. However, the act of cutting up your materials is more transformative than you may think! Once you cut up your paper into your desired shapes, you can collage, sew, glue, weave, and/or sculpt them together. You can create cutouts and layer materials together, or leave cutouts as they are. The possibilities are endless!
By Rania Abdalla3 years ago in Humans
Craft Therapy
The first time I used scissors to do a craft project I was 4 and I cut off my ponytail. I stuck my head out of the 2nd floor window and cut off one of my 2 side ponytails. Since then I have been crafting as a form of therapy (a de-stress method) for the next 50 years. I learned about hand-cut paper flowers from a super sweet creator Vee = Vanessa Cruz from San Antonio. She has a very successful paper flower business and a large following in her home state of Texas as well as all of the social media outlets. I didn’t follow her because of what she was making but because of her slogan which I have since borrowed. She always says Community over Competition. While she does make her living with her craft business; it's more important that she positively influence another human than get a few dollars from them. This is why I craft, not for myself necessarily but to share that with others. In my real life, I am a corporate trainer so I have it in me to share my knowledge with others.
By Felicia Fandrey3 years ago in Humans
From the Love of Scissors
Once upon a time there was a small little girl around the age of four whose name was Riley. Riley was always trying to break the rules and get into everything she shouldn’t. It was around Christmas time and all Riley wanted was a pair of scissors. Naturally being four, Riley was not allowed to have scissors but this one Christmas her Aunty came up to her and handed her this strange looking box.
By Riley Jane3 years ago in Humans
The Good Scissors
“Not those ones!” she shouted from across the small room. My little kid hands had reached towards the shiniest pair of scissors hanging on the wall. Little did I know, these were my grandma’s “good” scissors—only to be used for fabric, not for paper and glue-filled activities like the decoupage monstrosity I was working on. It was around Easter time, and I was decorating old coffee tins with bunny cut-outs and a pile of home-brewed Mod Podge. As the crafty kid of the family, my grandma had tasked me with creating Easter baskets to give her neighbors and friends springtime gifts.
By Briley L Lewis3 years ago in Humans
The Bunny Dresser
Whether I’m starting a sewing, woodworking, crafting or painting project, I always begin by sketching out some concept art in my journal. Scrapbooking and storyboarding helps me gather my thoughts and ideas before they escape forever from my head. Pinterest is good and all, but nothing beats marking your ideas onto something tangible, something that can be manipulated – cut, shaped, beat up and pasted. I often flip back to old pages of my journal and it sparks so much more joy than looking through old “pins” – seeing the visualizations of my past thoughts helps inspire new ones. The only way to control my racing thoughts sometimes is to get them on paper and have them run a marathon across the pages. I love seeing the marks from my pencil smudge across the paper. Seeing text on a screen does nothing for my creative mind – I need the tactile feedback of a physical medium. The sound of scissors going cleanly through paper or fabric is music to my ears. Sometimes I start off a project with the intent of painting something and I end up at my sewing machine. Sometimes I start with a small idea and it expands and grows into a huge piece. Jumping from medium to medium and project to project is my exercise.
By Kayla Carrier3 years ago in Humans
Patchwork Girl
As a twenty-three year old who grew up loving dinosaurs and rolling around in the mud, quilting would perhaps be the farthest thing from your mind as an activity that I adore. Quilting was one of those things that I used to think only “old people” and “old timey people” did because they were bored out of their minds and trapped within the societal and gender roles assigned to them. Or, I used to think that it was too “girly” to do something like that, as it was mainly old women that I saw still doing it, and since I was a self-proclaimed tomboy, it didn’t fit my “style.” It certainly wasn’t something that I thought had any place among the iPhones and television screens of the twenty-first century. I didn’t show any particular affection for fabrics as a child (I was more of a pencil and paper sort of kid), nor was there any particular familial or generational connection to the practice. It was one of those impactful accidents, where something you figured you’d try once grows into a passion project that continues to this day.
By Robin Laurinec3 years ago in Humans
The 'wonder' of going back to basics and handmade....
I describe it as working to the bone, hand sewing often comes with scratches and pin pricks but the effort is worth it. Two things of anything you make that’s handmade are never the same. There’s always something that slightly different about it. I make collections of brooches, stylised embroidery hoops and sewn pictures as part of my work but I do other things as well. All my crafts require cutting, stitching, and a lot more time than sewing on a machine.
By Ruvini De Alwis3 years ago in Humans
Pied Piper of Passion for Arts and Crafts
For 37 years I taught hundreds and hundreds of children from Kindergarten through Grade 12. Language Arts, Literature, and French is what I loved to teach, share and spread to all the students within my reach. Especially in this age of technology and media that robs children of imagination, it is so important to broaden their horizons with arts and crafts. To express yourself through the use of creativity builds self esteem and confidence. Creating arts and creativity promotes critical thinking, comprehension, good mental health and the ability to think out of the box.
By Catherine Webb3 years ago in Humans