Every Single Kitschy Stuffed Chicken

Why do I have so many stuffed chickens in my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop?

Ask a weird question, and you're going to get a weird answer!

When my Girl Scout troop wanted to participate in a craft fair (spoiler alert: I DO NOT recommend this as a troop fundraiser. The kids had fun, but we cleared the minimum amount that we were hoping to, and it was a LOT OF WORK. Like, A LOT OF WORK. Hold a garage sale instead!), Syd made ornaments, Will made fire starters, and I wanted to make something, too.

I wanted something that I could sew with all of the various fabrics that I have on hand.

I wanted something that I could sew in small batches, as the holiday craft fair season is a VERY busy time of year when you've got a kid dancing in the Nutcracker.

I wanted something that I could sew a lot of, because the girls wanted to make a lot of money!

I wanted something not too uniquely to my taste, because, as I learned selling at craft fairs many years ago, the things that make me go "YAAAASSSS!!!!" generally make the average citizen smile nervously and back away while maintaining eye contact in case I make any sudden moves.

While I was thinking about those craft fairs of years past, I remembered the year that the grumpy old ladies set up a table with an umbrella at a craft fair that I'd been selling at for months. They were rude to me, had bad craft fair etiquette in general, and gave me a bad case of sour grapes because people were seriously shoving past my quilts and necklaces and record bowls in order to mob around their little table and buy their...

STUFFED CHICKENS!

Kitschy stuffed chickens sewn from mismatched fabric!

Kitschy stuffed chickens easy to sew in batches!

Kitschy stuffed chickens that, while they're still not exactly to my taste, are now at least in the realm of ironically hanging out in the vicinity of my taste, on account of how many actual, literal chickens I now have and how much I foolishly love them.

Friends, I sewed a lot of chickens. They didn't exactly sell like hotcakes, because apparently rural Indiana is over stuffed chickens and is now super into fence posts or banisters or whatever painted to look like Santa Claus, but that's how it goes with craft fairs--as soon as you make something just kitschy enough to have sold last year, somebody else has figured out something even kitschier to sell this year.

And that's the long answer for why I have so many stuffed chickens in my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop! The Halloween and Christmas stuffies are already gone, but here are some other fine, feathered, favorites:

This chicken has polka dots. 

You can't buy this chicken, because I'm keeping her for myself. I have officially jumped the shark in my own home, but damn it if she doesn't, indeed, make me smile!

This chicken is made of a vintage blue flowered sheet. It's the absolute last bit of the same vintage sheets that I once sewed my girls and I matching outfits from, because I used to be that cool. 

This chicken is made of mottled grey quilting cotton. 

This chicken is upcycled from brown courderoy that used to be a skirt. The rest of that brown courderoy is part of the couch slipcovers that I'm sewing. 

This is my fancy Independence Day chicken. 

This is my fancy Valentine's Day chicken. 

This chicken is sewn from a beautiful batik print leftover from the fabric that I used to sew my bedroom curtains back in our previous house. I wish it was still being made so that I could sew even more curtains from it for our current house!

This chicken is actually a giant tapestry that hangs in my bedroom right now. This is part of the margins that I trimmed away before I mounted it.

This is my other fancy Independence Day chicken!

This is my other fancy Valentine's Day chicken!

 And here are all the chickens looking at you and judging you for what's in your heart:

Hey. If you've got a secret tip for what might be THE hot kitschy craft of the 2019 holiday season, whisper it into my ear--I'd love to finally be in the know for once!

DIY Photo Business Cards

Business cards are the bane of my... business, I guess. I bought a set of business cards the first time I needed them--Moo cards, back when they were brand-new!--and I did love them, but they just seemed like such an easy thing to DIY that I couldn't bring myself to buy them again. My tiny business is profitable enough for my purposes, but only if I don't add a bunch of extra little expenses, you know?

So for over a decade now I've made all of my business cards, and it is a tedious, boring activity. To keep myself entertained sometimes I'll purposefully try to thing of something new to do to make them--check out all these tutorials that I've written on this very topic:

• business cards with Perler bead embellishments
• business cards sewn from recycled papers
• mixed-media business cards with recycled papers and scrap fabric
• business cards embellished with strung beads
• decoupaged paper business cards

--bus mostly I make them out of old cardboard or record album covers or other recycled cardboard. They turn out cute, but, again. Boring to make. Tedious.

In related news, the kids were recently cleaning the walk-in closet where we store our homeschool supplies, open-ended materials, and random bits and bobs for projects (this sounds amazing of them, but they were only doing it because in the week prior they'd made such a ridiculous mess of it that I couldn't even walk on the floor in there), and they discovered a packet of photographs that I'd surely taken a decade ago, at least, back when I was still doing craft fairs. I think that I was considering making postcards or greeting cards, but when I saw the printed photos I didn't really think they'd suit, and so I put them back with my other stash supplies, and then, goodness gracious, I must have MOVED them at some point instead of simply tossing them in the recycling like a normal person, and then just shoved them into this closet with all my other junk.

Is it worth it to store something for a decade instead of tossing it into the waste stream if you eventually find a use for it?

Apparently you know how *I* would answer!

It turns out that these photographs are super easy to make into large-format business cards. Another option, of course, would be to simply fussy cut them to make them the standard size, but I'm using these solely to go out with Pumpkin+Bear orders, so I have the space to add this larger card.

All you have to do is find some stash scrapbooking or colored paper--anything that has a plain, solid-colored back--and trim it so that it's about 2" wider than the photograph for both length and width. If you're using printer paper and 4" x 6" photographs, you can get two of these from every page:

Next, center the photograph on the paper backing, and adhere with acid-free double-sided tape:

I have a customizable self-inking stamp that has been working perfectly for me as long as I've been making my own business cards, so it's easy to stamp my business card info on the back of each card. There's plenty of room to write your information by hand, however, or at least to add embellishments with paint pens, washi tape, or stickers. That's a good way, by the way, for an artsy kid to fill her time if she's stuck with you at a meeting or an office. 

And now I have a good two dozen more business cards made from stash! I also have some motivation to go through more of my old photos, too, in case I find more fodder for making these quick and easy business cards.

In case you're looking for even more DIY business card inspiration, here are some examples that I've collected over the years to inspire ME!

• business cards with a small treat taped to them
• novelty-punched business cards
• business cards with inked edges
• scratch-off business cards
• business cards with a photo negative embellishment
• embroidered business cards

Look at My Mosaic Light Switch Cover

LOOK AT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You love it, right? I LOVE it. I am IN love with it.

I didn't make it, obviously. Syd helped me pick it out at a local craft fair from the bits&pieces booth. Its creator doesn't have an online presence, which is a bummer, because now I kind of feel like every one of my light switches should also be a mosaic?

These are the kinds of things that I love to buy at craft fairs. I can do most sewing projects, can figure out how to hack or DIY a lot of things myself, but pieces like these, pieces in which the crafter's artistry and expertise and 10,000x10,000 hours practicing her craft shine through, well, those are the pieces that I buy.

And then I start figuring that craft out for myself!

Well, not so much "figuring out" as playing with, I suppose--the kids and I have explored mosaic-making a fair amount, and while our pieces don't attain the artistry of my beautiful light switch cover, of course, mosaic-making is actually quite an accessible craft. Here are some of the mosaics that we've done:

colored bean mosaics in a clear CD case

This is a nice way to practice mosaic-making without having to worry about grout. If you'd like a larger color range, you can work with buttons instead.

sailor's valentine

Here's another one where you don't have to worry about grout, but using the little shells allows the mosaic to be more detailed and more of a test for one's fine motor skills.

concrete poured mosaic

This project gives you the finished look of a mosaic, but again without having to grout around tiles. Since you pour the concrete and then set the tiles, however, it is time sensitive, so I suggest first laying out the mosaic on a template, then simply transferring it, piece by piece, to the poured concrete in its mold.

mosaic tile coaster

Finally, here's a REAL mosaic project, grout and all! You can actually use any upcycled tile or sheet of wood as a base--our local Restore has LOADS of random tiles to be had on the cheap.

I have visions of more involved mosaic projects, but those are pretty far back on my to-do list. Right now I'm focused on finishing up our World War 2 study and helping the older kid master all of her spelling bee words, and the kids are focused on Geomags and Perler beads. Our December dance card is full!

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Book Page Prints and a Lemonade Stand

a tutorial for crafting greeting cards using vintage book pages and bilateral symmetry

and a tutorial for making re-usable chalkboard signs

most particularly to use with the girls' now pimped-out lemonade stand

I'm not actually sure what they'll be selling--beaded necklaces, popcorn, and tries on their pegboard and metal screw Plinko game have all been considered--but they'll be open for business this weekend!

My Latest over at CAGW: Wooden Pallets and Sydney's Latest Moneymaker

My latest over at CAGW:

a round-up of DIY wooden pallet projects

and a way to store melted wax between uses

The kids had SO much fun with their melted wax play--scooping it, pouring it, melting crayons in it, spilling it, scraping it up--

You get the idea.

Sydney, my entrepreneurial child, had another idea, as well. With her sister's help, she set up "Sydney's Beeswax Crafts" on our front sidewalk, directly on the frequently walked and biked path to our neighborhood park:

Here's the first dollar that she earned:

She sold her hand-dipped beeswax candles and her poured beeswax shapes (still warm!), all for $1 each. Including the elderly gentleman who paid her $1 to go inside and go to bed that first evening--it was 8:30 pm, getting dark, and I had long ago despaired of getting the kid to come back inside, myself--my child earned eight dollars selling her beeswax crafts.

This is better than I have done at some craft fairs.

My Latest Over at Crafting a Green World: Business Cards and Business Cards

a tutorial for making business cards out of recycled papers, with stitching instead of glue

 and a tutorial for substituting fabric scraps for that recycled paper, and top stitching the business info on

Maker Faire Detroit 2011

That's where I've been!

Ostensibly, we went to Maker Faire Detroit primarily for this:

Really, though, by the time that I've made everything and we've lugged it all there and Matt's hauled everything inside and I've set it all up exactly as I want it, you pretty much only need one adult to sit there and smile and sell things.

Everyone else, well...

can swing on the water pump swings:

There's a motion sensor on the swing that stops the water right as you pass underneath it, but perhaps because the girls are so small, or their swings are so short, the makers were horrified and the girls were THRILLED to discover that this sensor did not always function accurately for them. My soaking wet girls went back time after time after time.

and build spinning things at the gears table:

Don't you love those wooden gears?

and admire the fire-breathing robot pony:

and work industriously on our scratch block:

I traced the girls' handprints overlapping the block (because I was too cheap to buy two of them), and then they decorated, proudly:

The iron pour was another entire amazing event in itself, but I'll have to show you our wonderful finished iron tile later, on account of I was too excited to take pictures. Here's our waste block, though, there in the middle:


The girls constructed marshmallow shooters:

I think they're kind of gross, and I really want to sanitize the pieces in the dishwasher, but the girls have discovered infinite ways to blow a mini marshmallow into another person's mouth, so there you go, physics

Don't worry, you fans of Matt, he got to get his fanboy on, too:

We also spent some time just tooling about in the Henry Ford Museum, which has a genuine Oscar Meyer Weinermobile!


Including a D.I.Y. hot dog station:

I did have a really cute video of Willow putting all the toppings on top of Sydney as she lay in the bun, but right in the middle of it, somebody walked by behind me and shouted out to my child, "Be still, wiener!".

Fortunately, heckling is quite welcome at the modified Power Wheel races:

I did not buy the buttery leather steampunk chic superhero mask that I REALLY wanted, but I did buy a chainmail and rubber gasket stretchy arm cuff, and the girls made themselves some superhero masks to go with it:

Will was a little disappointed that she didn't get chosen to operate the crank to start the giant Rube Goldberg machine:


(listen carefully--did you hear the windshield crunch?), but tell me if I'm wrong, but does it or does it not look like she has a future in driving an iron scrap fire-breathing jungle gym disco station dragon welded to the top of a dump truck?

Don't worry--it's not breathing fire at the moment!

So you may be thinking, "Yeah, that looks fun and all, but where's the big Vegas-style finale? And also, it doesn't look like you got sticky at all!"

Well, you know what?


We got sticky.

Countdown to Maker Faire Detroit!

Who has two thumbs and a Pumpkin+Bear booth at Maker Faire Detroit?!?

MATT!!! Because it's a sure bet that the girlies and I are going to make our Matt booth-sit for us so that we can spend our weekend doing this:

Craft Faire, inside Maker Faire, is hosted by Handmade Detroit, and I was super-bummed because I actually didn't get in at first, but thank you to whatever crafter did get in and then turned down their spot, and yay for me for apparently being high up on the waitlist, which is almost as good as getting in outright, because I got in anyway!

I am especially thrilled to be going because Maker Faire is one of those events that I have always really, really, REALLY wanted to go to anyway. Since I've written for MAKE magazine, I got free tickets to the Maker Faire Bay Area, and I was super bummed that I could not think of a single legitimate method to get us all on a plane to California without putting a second mortgage on the house.

Detroit, however, is vastly more do-able, and with a Pumpkin+Bear booth for Matt to sit at and vend handmade homeschool crafts for us, the girls and I will have a place to keep our water bottles and drop off our cardboard robots and personal hovercrafts and other awesome stuff that we've made.

And I'm not even going to start telling you about the Maker Mixer, or the Ignite session, or the marshmallow shooters that the girls are going to make, or the fire-breathing pony, or the dragon dump truck jungle gym, or the giant Rube Goldberg machines, or the Bellagio-style Coke and Mentos fountain show, or how I'm totally going to do the iron pour, and get my picture taken on the recumbent tricycle, and rock out to nerdcore...

A Fair of the Arts in June

I had a nice, long break for myself after last year's holiday markets, but on Saturday I celebrated my first craft fair of what will hopefully be a long and illustrious season:

It's nice and peaceful about a half-hour before the fair opens, when I've just about finished setting up. I had a prime location right by the fountain and miniature wading stream this month--I could sell my stuff and supervise the girls having a blast while getting wet.

Like my MUSIC sign? It's not backwards to the customers, you know! You can find my tutorial on vinyl record album stencils over at Crafting a Green World.

There's yet another craft fair application that I ought to be filling out this evening, but I'm tired, and the wren shouting at the cat outside the study window is driving me nuts, so I'm thinking that a beer and a re-read of HP1 is just the thing for tonight. Besides, what would a craft fair application be if it wasn't done at the last stinkin' minute?

It wouldn't be a craft fair application of mine, that's for sure!

Bazaar Bizarre Cleveland 2010

Whew!

Prepping for Bazaar Bizarre Cleveland added a CRAZY amount of pre-holiday stress to my pre-holiday stress, from trying to craft extra-large multiples of everything to figuring out how to cram all my stuff onto a table display to the 6.5-hour drive late at night, but it was so worth it.

The lights were customizable:

This allowed us to perfectly spotlight everything from the felted wool Christmas trees--

--to the crayon rocket pops:

And all that was left was to get a perfect picture with my sweet, sweetly-smiling little kids:

Oh, well.

While I sold my butt off and gossiped with my neighbor, JukeBoxArt, Matty and the kids hung out at the Great Lakes Science Center and the Children's Museum of Cleveland, and did a lot of swimming. They came back to Bizarre Bazaar to do a little shopping, since I had taken great care to instruct the children to tell their daddy that they really, really, REALLY wanted to buy a Christmas present for me at Bazaar Bizarre. Having kids is so great!

One thing that I love about big indie craft fairs is how awesome EVERYTHING is. Whenever Matt drops by, he'll watch the booth for a while so that I can stretch my legs, look around, and visit a little, and I swear, at every single table that I pass, I want to buy everything on that table. At one point, the organizer got on the intercom to announce that an item had been found in the women's restroom.

"If anyone lost a glass bracelet with the Seven Deadly Sins on it, please come to the information table," she said. And I swear, every single person at the craft fair (including me) stopped and was all, "Ooh! Seven Deadly Sins! Did she buy that here?"

I still want that bracelet, actually...