Friday, April 23, 2010

Not As Green As Cabbage Looking

I remember when being "green" meant that you were a novice, new to something, or perhaps just plain naive. There was also a book published in 1970 entitled "The Greening of America" by Charles A. Reich. Neither reference has anything to do with recycling, whereas, to me, "crafts" has always had everything to do with it.

My first craft project memory was making dolls from my dad's pipe cleaners and fairy boats from walnut shells. I also remember my parents making a doll house for me and using matchsticks to create window panes. Matchboxes were doll beds (for the same tiny dolls that floated around the puddles in their walnut shell boats). To sum it up, we used what we had to create - we recycled. I remember my parents used to buy supplies to make the most exquisite and realistic crêpe paper flowers, but it wasn't until I was living in Germany in the 1960s that I actually discovered craft supplies other than paint, watercolor pencils, etc. In the 70s I found a Lee Wards catalog and suddenly found myself in craft heaven. I still used things from around the house however, depending on what I had decided to make - to me, this was crafting creativity at its best.

I've never made any bones about the fact that I am a crafter at heart and, for me, "scrapbooking" was just another way of being creative. I was definitely not an archival scrapbooker and used all kinds of things on my pages long before they were "hip". I was really in my element when in November 2005 Fiskars asked designers who worked with their tools to create projects for a display at the trade show being held in February 2006. The parameters were that we could only use supplies found around the house. These were my projects - sorry the photos aren't that great - I committed the cardinal sin and forgot to photograph them before sending to Fiskars, so I had to be content with taking photos at the show through glass.





CHALLENGE:

How many things from around the house can you see in these projects? Bear in mind that I used Fiskars products, but they didn't have paper and stickers at that time, so it was mainly tools. So here's a small challenge for you. Look at both of the small projects (Romeo and the Boy on the Rocking Horse) and see how many supplies you can identify. I will send the person who identifies them all an iTop from Imaginisce. Check it out at www.imaginisce.com. The deadline for this is May 1st. If there is more than one winner, there will be a drawing. I will list the supplies here after the drawing. You don't have to identify the tools used. Good Luck!

Yours truly,
Julie :)

6 comments:

  1. Very "green" projects you've created. Here's my list of items I think you've used: brown grocery bag, pull tabs from pop cans, cardboard from some type of box (ie cereal), aluminum from a can for the letter squares, staples, a mesh bag with some of the fibers removed, plastic shopping bags, a stick, washers,and small thumbtacks. Thanks for the challenge.
    Amy E

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  2. Upholstery tacks, corrugated cardboard, brown plastic bags, washers, soda cans, soda pop pop-up thingies, wooden stick, cardstock, staples, fiber mesh, paint.

    It is very interesting how you used the inside of the soda pop cans and even the pop up thingies. Very creative! My can email me at otano33@hotmail.com

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  3. Well, love the challenge, not sure if this is where to post or not. But in the first photo I found Pop Tabs, nails, tin, aluminum, corrugated tin/cardboard, canvas, brads, staples, net, and the back board. On the second I see Pop Tabs, corn husk, stick, washers & brads, paper bag, corrugated cardboard

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  4. Looks like Pam did a great job naming everything already, but is that a cinnamon stick it's hanging on?

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  5. These remind me of 1 small poject I did too using supposedly scrap materials for our photos: http://singtatter-corner.blogspot.com/2009/08/another-tatted-gift-crafting-and-atc.html

    Everything in your projects look like things from around the house, except for the photos and the brads, which I consider as scrapbooking supplies, although some may have them as part of their stationery. So brads, cardboard from the back of something or ceral boxes, corrugated cardboard from packing boxes, Pop tabs in both photos. Staples, net, brown paper bag and including the handle, tin foil from the top of milk powder can (the foil under the lid), and perhaps wrapping paper which went through the corrugated machine. For the 2nd photo, corn husk and tree branch too, maybe brown paper bag that went through the corrugation machine. In fact the 2nd photo looks like printed on a cardboard too.

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  6. I missed the contest but I LOVED identifying the things in your projects. These are THE best crafts (I think) but some of our new fangled things make life (crafting) easier . Thanks for sharing!

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