Author Archives: craft captain

This Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 from 9pm until 12 or so, at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT! First CraftNight of the YEAR! Wooooo!

Project: DIY “Stained Glass”

$2 Processing fee, please!

Welcome back! Hope you’re ready for the year of the WHITE METAL TIGER, I’m going to try to sneak in some tiger crafts all year long! Don’t panic there will also be seasonal favorites, best-loved crafts from the archival selection and NEW and auspicious projects in the months to come!

I’m not bringing lead or actual glass into CraftNight this week, I shall instead be greeting you with construction paper, tissue paper and CON-TACT®Brand clear vinyl film with pressure-sensitive adhesive! From these glorious supplies, you will fashion a faux stained glass design fit to hang in your home, or someone else’s home, or anywhere with a window facing the sun! This is one of those crafts where you can be as minimal or complex as you like, spending hours or minutes on what strikes your fancy. It is a very hands-on kind of project, and before you let that “crafter’s block” creep up on you, here are some ideas:

1.) An ice-skating pickle (complete with snowflake beanie)

2.) Your little sister’s plumber’s cousin’s new baby’s initials

3.) An endearing fluffy-eared critter licking a rainbow

4.) Abstract cubist representation of a pine tree in Iowa

5.) The Official Flag of Sturm and Drang

6.) One of your New Year resolutions

7.) Funky Maloon Goodness with a pink Pegasus clogging the watusi on  the head of a pin with three angels

8.) John Henry or Paul Bunyan or BOTH

9.) Half an Apple

10.) Demons eating popsicles

These are just to get you started, you might think you know what you’re going to make, but that could change after a cocktail, or listening to music, or meeting new people with staggeringly unbelievably WACKY ideas you want to try. Gonna find out? You better, it’s a new year, time to bring it!

See you at the 2010 Craft Table,

JP Craft Captain

CraftNight’s Website

Akbar’s Website

This Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 from 9pm until 12-ish, at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!

Project: Ornaments

$2 processing fee, please!

We’re having our annual Ye Olde CraftNighte Craft Faire, where you can support some of your favorite local artists and makers of awesome things, and select unique items for the season. Come in and get some cool stuff! This is also the LAST CraftNight of 2009, so if anything, just pop in to say hello before our double zeros are done and 2010 begins.

It is the holiday season, many of you are dashing from party to party, eating lots of exotic and dynamic appetizers, making enough small talk to form an advanced masters degree in peppy quotidian frivolity. Last but not least, some of you will be fabricating love tokens for those close to you. It is here that I will share the most important craft knowledge I have, in order to help you save energy and give yourself the gift of sanity this year. Are you ready? When all else fails and the stress and pressure of social-function-family-freakout crawls into your cerebral cortex, here’s how to fight the doubt and cold sweats:

Step 1 – Add macaroni

Step 2 – Spray paint gold

Step 3 – Roll in glitter

You cannot go wrong with this holiday formula, it is fool-proof. It seems too simple to be true, but trust me. This advanced schematic has everything to do with finding the lost paradise within and offering for someone a spirited home made creation that is part of the heart, not WalMart.

See you at the Craft Table! And if not, see you next YEAR!

JP Craft Captain (who wrote/directed/is starring in a puppet show you should see this weekend…)

CraftNight’s Site

Akbar’s Site

There will be no CraftNight this week, as I’m preparing for the upcoming

SPARKLY WINTER CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY HANUKKAH NOGSTYLE CHRISTMAS SHOW!!!

I know I know! I thought about having a substitute, but I’m being super selfish because I want you all to myself next week for making ornaments, it’s just too fun. We’ll  be back next week, but please come see my show that I’ve produced and procured for the holiday season.

Get tickets HERE

Find out about our lovely venue, the Velaslavasay Panorama, HERE.

And now for our exciting show description:

Take advantage of festive holiday value and attend The Sparkly Winter Christmas Holiday Hanukkah Nogstyle Christmas Show! This spirited spectacle will bring immediate pleasure and years of fond memories to all!

This all ages show is a fast-paced, high-intensity, heart-warming experience involving two messiahs, corny jokes, glitter, spontaneous songs, live music, puppets, eggnog, goldfish crackers and who knows what the heck else, don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Written and directed by Moira MacDonald and Julianna (JP) Parr and performed by a motley crew of notorious ne’re-do-wells, the adventure begins with the Los Angeles DASH bus and concludes with a stupendous cataclysmic show-stopping seasonal scenario that defies all reasoning. We really think you should see it.

Friday, December 11 – 8  pm
Saturday, December 12 – 8 pm & 10 pm
Sunday, December 13 – 7 pm

Friday, December 18 – 8 pm & 10 pm
Saturday, December 19 – 8 pm & 10 pm
Sunday, December 20 – 7 pm
-at-
THE VELASLAVASAY PANORAMA
1122 WEST 24TH STREET
Los Angeles, California 90007
(213) 746-2166

See you next week at the Craft Table!

JP Craft Captain

Craftnight’s Site

Akbar’s Site

This Wednesday December 2nd, 2009 from 9pm till midnight at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!

Project: Crazy Holiday Origami

$2 processing fee, please!

ALSO: Ticket GIVEAWAY for “Arias with a Twist” at the RedCat! Even if you don’t win a ticket, you should go buy one, if you like drag, puppets and fiery creatures… that’s only three reasons of zillions for why you need to check it out. See this post for my previous write-up about this fabulous show!

ALSO: The “YE OLDE CRAFTNIGHTE HOLIDAY FAIRE” is coming up! Contact me if you want to sell, and for you buyers out there, get ready! December 16th! The last CraftNight of 2009!!!

Because of the very wonderful generosity of the  Keri & Joshua Esguia Origami Library Preservation Society, we’ll be folding exquisite holiday selections from “Christmas Origami Volumes 1-4” as well as non-holiday selections from “Origami Volumes 2 – 8.” Origami, or “The Kama Sutra of paper folding” involves making representations of objects OR actual objects without ANY gluing or cutting! Obviously we love glue and scissors a little too much at CraftNight to banish them from even a SINGLE Wednesday night, and rules were meant to be broken. You’re welcome to go holiday or non-holiday, and you’re welcome to glue and cut or not glue and cut: build your own zen! (Gawd, that sounds rilly cheezy, bear with me) You might come up with some crazy maniacal diabolical incredible paper creation that astounds and beguiles even the most staunch origami traditionalist! Come in and explore!

See you at the Craft Table! Eeeeee!

JP Craft Captain

CraftNight’s Site

Akbar’s Site

NO CRAFTS TONIGHT!

CraftNight has the week off, and Akbar is here to knock your yams off! Grab yer giblets and dance ’til you drop, it’s pre-turkey cardio CRAZY tonight! We’ll see you next week, here’s a little note of thanks:

THANKS:

For our neighborhood oasis, Akbar, where no matter how you’re feeling or what you’re doing, there is always a welcome spot for you among good company in tough times and good times.

For the $4 cosmos so strong that make you feel so dense, light actually bends around you.

For Crafters bold and brazen, shy and demure, ribald and wild!

Thank you for googly eyes, pipe cleaners, glue, glitter, glitter glue, scissors and all manner of sparkly doo-dads!

Thanks for you, who are reading this, because you’ve decided to read it!

And thanks for everything ELSE I’m not putting in here, because if I don’t send it out soon, there are going to be a lot of confused crafters at Akbar! Go DANCE! Cast your fate to the wind, let LOOSE!

xoxo,

See you next week at the Craft Table,

JP Craft Captain

CraftNight’s Site

Akbar’s Site