Just a heads-up that the book club will “meet” to discuss the Big Bad Ass Book of Crafts on Sept 3rd. If you are one of the Flickr people (whoa, there’s already 20 of you), I will use whatever images you add to the group pool for mosaics on the blog page. Alternatively, you can also email me your pictures at craftydaisies(at)gmail(dot)com. If you can’t make that deadline, I’ll probably put together another mosaic to post later in the week; so don’t fret.

Also, if you already wrote a critique discussing the book, either post it as a discussion in the Flickr pool, or with your picture description, or email it to craftydaisies (at) gmail (dot) com. I will include your discussion in the main blog article. If it’s not done by the 3rd, you can always add it in the comment section.

Things that should be in your critique:
* Make one project out of the book that is due for the next book club meet-up
* Explain why you chose that project
* Discuss the clarity of the instructions, the layout of the book, the illustrations, other projects in the book, and whether you liked the book or not
* Suggest one book for the next book club

If you weren’t able to participate in this round, but have a book you’d like to suggest for discussion, please submit the title and author. If we have a clear majority for one book, we’ll discuss that. If there isn’t one specific preference, I will randomly select the book taking into consideration acquisition costs and availability.

Further, if you have any feedback regarding the administration of the book club, please let me know. This is our first round and any suggestions to improve this “gathering” are welcome.

By the way, thank you to Lisa of U-handbag for spreading the news about the Wordle, which created the cloud above.

As you may have noticed by now, we are a Pokemon household. So when my daughter’s teacher specified a zippered, soft pencil case as part of the school supply list, we obviously couldn’t just buy one. What do you think about our cooperative effort?

Materials

To make this pencil case you need:

For the applique:

• an Image
• Transfer Paper
• White Fabric
• Fusible Web
• Fabric Markers

For the pouch:

• 2 10″x 6″ pieces of fabric, I used denim remnants from another upcycling project
• a Zipper
• optional: 2 9″x 5″ pieces of heavyweight fusible interfacing, 2 10″x6″ pieces of lining fabric.

Because the denim felt a little floppy, I used fusible interfacing to give it more body and added a lining.

Creating the Applique

To do it the right way, i.e. not the way I ended up doing it, cut the fusible web to approximately the size of the applique you want to make. Iron it to the left side of the white fabric. Leave the second backing of the fusible web on for now. Then transfer your image to the right side of the fabric and color it with fabric markers. Cut out your applique and set it aside.

Preparing the Fabric

If you are using fusible interfacing, follow the manufacturers instructions and iron it onto the left sides of the outer shell fabric.

Turn the fabric around. Remove the paper backing from your applique and iron it onto the right side of the fabric. Using the zigzag setting on your sewing machine, stitch all around the image. I set the width to 0.5 and the length to 2, but play around with it until you get the effect you like.

Inserting the Zipper

If you are not using a lining, switch to your zipper foot, align the right side of the zipper with the right side of the top of one of the fabric pieces and sew it together on the left side. Repeat this with the other side of the zipper and the second piece of fabric. If your zipper is longer than your fabric, just let the bottom end stick out. On the right side of the fabric sew a top stitch along both sides of the zipper.

If you are using a lining and have never done this before, take a look at Lisa’s Sewing zippers in bags tutorial at U-Handblog starting with Step 4. She has great instructions and is my crafting hero.

Here it goes:

As Lisa puts it, you make a sandwich. This is the order when the right side of your outer fabric faces up: right side up outer fabric–wrong side up zipper–wrong side up lining.  (My picture ended up being the reverse of Lisa’s, so if you are looking at both tutorials, you are thoroughly confused by now.) Put the sandwich together and sew along the top edge through the lining, zipper, and outer shell fabric. If you unfold the whole thing, it should look like this:

Repeat with the other side.

Sew a top stitch alongside the zipper on the right side of the outer fabric through the fabric, zipper and lining. Repeat on the other side.

Putting It All Together

Very Important: Open the zipper at least halfway.

If you are not using a lining, put the right sides of the fabric together and on the left side of the fabric, sew the sides and the bottom of the pouch together. If you wish, you can square the bottom of the pouch using these instructions. Turn the whole thing right side out. Phew, you are done.

If you are using a lining, remember to open the zipper at least halfway. Put the right sides of the lining together and the right sides of the outer fabric. Pin the whole contraption together and leave an opening at the bottom of the lining. Start at the beginning of the opening in the lining and sew all around the side of the lining, outer fabric, other side of the lining, ending at the other end of the opening in the lining. Again, if you want to square the bottom of the fabric and lining, you can do that now following these instructions.

Then, turn the whole thing right side out through the opening in the lining. (By the way, if you didn’t keep the zipper open, you are now saying some not so very nice words.) With everything turned right side out, close the opening in the lining, stuff the lining inside the pouch, close the zipper, and you are done. Yay!

I’ve discovered a craft that is new to me, comes with all kinds of tools; because in the end it’s all about the toys; and is very pertinent to the beginning of the new school year, in short: the Bento Box.

It all started when I was looking for a Pokemon lunch box for my daughter. There are only about three things she likes to eat and one of them is rice. I thought that if I could make her lunch experience a little more fun, she’d actually eat her lunch and so on and so forth.  In the course of this quest I was surfing the Web and stumbled upon this:

Two Piplups and they are so cute. I showed this picture to my friend Megumi. Her comment was:”When do people get up in the morning to make this?!” (Dear Reader: Meg doth protest too much. She has a timer on her rice cooker and makes a proper bento box for her son’s school lunch.) She then forwarded me a link to this blog in which a mother chronicles her bento creations that she prepares for her seventeen-year-old son. According to my friend, this boy has begged his mother to restrain her need to express herself artistically as part of his lunch break. He even went so far as to call her loving creations abusive. This is her hysterical English response to his accusation.

In any event, I’m hooked. My daughter is now the proud owner of a two-tier bento box. I have since invested in little pig-shaped sauce containers for her soy sauce, heart- and flower-shaped rice shapers and silicon baking cups that separate the different foods from another. I’ve acquired the Nori, or seaweed, for dramatic decorating purposes, but I still need to feel inspired before I try that. Until then, I will peruse Flickr for ideas.

1. Opera House and Sydney Harbour, 2. Children’s Day bento lunch for preschooler, 3. Parasite pals, 4. Lunch, 5. Hello kitty & panda bento, 6. Charaben – my first time, 7. Sakura bento2, 8. DSCN3466, 9. three bears bento, 10. Halloween bento, 11. 2 rats bento, 12. Pluto Close-up, 13. Jack Skellington Lunch, 14. Kodama, 15. Cat Bento, 16. Brown Bear Bento

If you are inspired to look into the art of bento, check out these blogs:

• Lunch in a Box
• This Little Bento
•  Just Bento

So I thought we could have a virtual book club since I seem to have developed this craft book addiction.

How it Works

Every 4-6 weeks we “discuss” a craft book as follows:

• Make one project out of the book that is due for the next book club meet-up
• Explain why you chose that project
• Discuss the clarity of the instructions, the layout of the book, the illustrations, other projects in the book, and whether you liked the book or not
• Suggest one book for the next book club

You can submit your discussion either as a comment the day of the book club meet-up or by email (craftydaisies(at)gmail(dot)com). If you have pictures of your projects that you would like to share, email them to me or submit them to the Crafty Daisies Book Club Flickr group.

Finding the Book

As with any book club, this is not an endorsement of the featured book (of the ten or so books I read for my fiction book club I only liked three). If you already own the book under discussion, great, take a picture of your project and send me an email. If you think you want to join this endeavor, here are some ways to shop around for the book:

• See if a friend already owns it and lets you borrow the book
• Check with your local library (mine had three copies of this month’s book across the borough)
• Compare prices (I bought this month’s book at list price, but have since seen it significantly cheaper online)

In other words, I don’t want you to get mad at me in case you buy the book and take an extreme dislike to it.

First Meet-Up: 9/3/08

So, after all this preamble this is this month’s book:

The Big-Ass Book of Crafts by Mark Montano, ISBN-13:978-1-4169-3785-2, ISBN-10: 1-4169-3785-4. I selected it to kick off the club because it has a lot of different projects, it weighs in at 2 lbs 6 oz, and I figured it would appeal to a broad group of people.

The Crafty Daisies Book Club will virtually meet on

Wednesday, September 3rd

I’m looking forward to all of your discussions.

First of all, I owe a huge apology to My Big Mouth at mucky-fingers.blogspot.com. She generously gave me the Brilliante Weblog award. I think I had too many tabs open and got my blogs mixed up. At My Big Mouth you can find all kinds of interesting little tidbits covering the crafty life in California. The author has a penchant for vintage things and currently is discovering the fine art of cake decorating.

Today is my last full day on Cape Cod and it looks like it will actually be a beach day. My husband’s family gets together every year on Cape Cod. We generally average 22 people at dinner.  For these reunions I always pack a project bag with supplies for early morning crafting. My intent is to distract the kids from the seductive television set in the next room with a fun and creative alternative.

This year the bag was filled with: watercolors, markers, pencils, acrylics, oil pastels, crayons, drawing paper, construction paper, one sheet of watercolor paper, Mod Podge, Sculpey, Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book, the Usborne Book of Art Skills, clothespins, tape and other sundry things. And here are some of our works:

Invasion of the Sculpey Creatures and their accessories

A shell box to store the creatures

A shell pendant featuring this year’s beach find. To capture a shell, use the technique described here.

Our gallery

I’m definitely not ready to return yet. . .