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CraftNight LOVE-IN!!! • February 11th, 2015

February 09

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This Wednesday, February 11th, 2015 from 9pm until midnight (or later) at Akbar, it’s The CRAFTNIGHT LOVE-IN!!!
Project: Valentine-O-Rama!!! 
$3 Processing fee, please
$4 Drink specials, for the love o’ cocktails! 

If you like Valentine’s Day, see you this Wednesday.
And if you hate Valentine’s Day, see you this Wednesday.

I’m serious.

You can blame retail, or the system, or cupid, or your ex, but blaming external factors is just another way to naval gaze one’s mind into wasting precious time and resources. If you’re going to be bitter, at least have the sense to be bitter in good company, with fabulous people, and a beverage in your hand.
In the words of Mama Cass “Make your own kind of music. Sing your own special song. Make your own kind of music, even if nobody else sings along.”
The world needs more love all the time and while romantic love is just fine, we also need stuff like friends giving each other cookies, dogs getting extra walks, Grandpas receiving flowers, we need stuff like compliments, hugs, encouragement and support.
Could you use stuff like that? Well we have some just for YOU!
Prepared for you this Wednesday:

• LOVE RAFFLE (Mad mad prize baskets)!
• “The Apple” film on the AKBAR JUMBOTRON!
• GUARANTEED Valentine from Craft Captain!
• SNACKS (sweet AND savory!)!
• Limited Edition magnet BADGE(while supplies last!)
• Delicious Cocktails!
• Fancy Music!
• Cute Friends!
• Hot Strangers!

Make horrible OR wonderful Valentines from the CraftNight vault’s special scrap collection! Paper, markers, glue and glitter GALORE!
I’m working my butt off making special scrap packets for each and every crafter. The ephemera I’ve gathered covers an inventive plethora of emotive card-making choices for today’s lovers, meta-modernists, pervs, and sardonic skeptics.
Your neighborhood needs love, your city needs love, your local gay bar needs LOVE!
If your heart is healing and you want to wallow, we shall wallow with you.
If you’re all about making something wonderful for a special someone, we can help with that.
If you just want to win awesome prizes and watch “The Apple” while having snacks, it’s ON. And on that note, if you’ve never seen “The Apple” I’m aghast. Everyone must see it. EVERYONE.
Here’s the FB invite, RSVP and tell me you’ll be there.

See you at the Craft Table,
JP Craft Captain

www.crafthead.com
www.akbarsilverlake.com

 

Posted by on February 9, 2015 in Scrapping/Coloring Craft

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Rectangular Frame with Heart • February 4th, 2015

February 04

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TONIGHT! February 4th, 2015 from 9pm until midnight (or later) at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Frame with Heart
$3 Processing fee, please
$4 Drink specials, The Lyla, and sometimes other delicacies to whet your whistle. 

It’s a frame, a wooden frame, and it’s rectangular. On the left side is carved a heart, where you would presumably put a photo, or a drawing, or some such other visual keepsake. On the right, there is solid space for you to paint or decorate however you wish. Maybe you want to put a haiku or a poem or cut out the pieces of a gnome out of felt, sitting on a rock or a dotted mushroom.

If you’re not a person who is “into” the heart shape, don’t worry, I understand. That darn ideograph has been the official symbol of romantic love since the 15th century. In the 16th century it was all the rage (fads were slower back then.) If it makes you feel better, the heart shape used to be more of a “leaf” thing, a shape found in nature, just kind of hangin’ around not meaning much of anything. This means, as per usual, that you can take or leave heart meanings and do things your way.

I mean, you’ve seen an actual heart before, a human heart, it’s full of ventricles and blowy pipes and veiny stuff. Aristotle thought your heart was your brain, and that the curly gray matter in your head was just a handy radiator. Hearts are crazy looking, they are indeed responsible for your life pulse, but in no way do they resemble the streamlined, simplistic graphic we’ve all learned to associate with candy boxes and video game lives.

Anyway, you could showcase a photo of your kitty in this frame, and it would be a great success. You could put the first dollar bill your business ever made in this frame, and it would also be a success. It’s February, you’re about to be bombarded with hearts of all shapes and sizes, and we’re here to help ease you into the season of doilies and chalky candy with this heart-y frame (haha yuk yuk, chortle) and cocktails and crafts.

See you at the Craft Table,
JP Craft Captain

www.crafthead.com
www.akbarsilverlake.com

 

 

Posted by on February 4, 2015 in Multi-Variety Craft

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Paint-A-Snowflake • January 28th, 2015

January 28

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TONIGHT! January 28th, 2015 from 9pm until midnight (or later) at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Paint-a-Snowflake
$3 Processing fee, please
$4 Drink specials, sometimes it’s The Lyla, other times, it’s something else, only your bartender knows for sure!

Winter’s little messengers,
Gently floating from above,
Tiny white medallions pure,
Manifest to you… sort of…

Each so perfect, icy cold,
Beautifying Winter’s face
But not in LA, please behold
This city brings no single trace.

So much for a Los Angeles snow poem, the slopes are open up in Mammoth, Bear Mountain, and Mt. Baldy’s got 2 out of 4 lifts open, but only on weekends. Down here in the city we’ve got the most chintzy little winter reminders, everyone out in Boston thinks we’re the biggest winter weenies they’ve ever seen! While the east is getting all the snowflakes, I thought we’d show some snow love and make some out here to keep us company.

I’ll give you some tape and some time. Make a snowflake with the tape, paint over it with wintry colors, peel off the tape and WOW you have a snowflake! Make tiny ones, big ones, however many you want! We’ve never done this before, I’m excited to see what flakes shall take form.

See you at the Craft Table,
JP Craft Captain

www.crafthead.com
www.akbarsilverlake.com

 

Posted by on January 28, 2015 in Painting Craft

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Jumbo Clothspin • January 21st, 2015

January 21

chipz

TONIGHT! January 21st, 2015 from 9pm until midnight at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Jumbo Clothespin
$3 Processing fee, please
$4 Drink Special >>>> There’s mud in your eye-la, have a Lyla! (ginger beer and whiskey)
NEXT WEEK: Tuesday January 27th *** 8pm -10pm *** Bet Yer Bottom Bingo!

This week’s craft is a long time coming, I’ve ALWAYS wanted to do a jumbo clothespin craft, but jumbo clothespins are not cheap! Many times I’d lament the price and go “Ho Hum… someday.” Well SOMEDAY IS NOW!!!

CraftNight Lieutenant Vero LeBron and I found a shopping cart FULL of the things at discount prices in FOUR different colors! Such a thing is not likely to happen for quite some time, it’s not easy to find reasonably priced jumbo clothespins in the wild.

So what the heck do you do with these things? Well you decorate them! Then you keep stuff clipped together with them, like notes or cards or whatever. Some people get all crazy and actually mount the things upside down on a wooden bar on the wall so that they have a handy place to hang office papers or paintings that need to dry. Makes a very attractive photo holder also, sits on a table nicely!

You can cut letters out of felt and glue them onto your jumbo clothespin, you can stick gems and baubles to it, make pretty shapes from fabric or paper, or just draw all over it with permanent marker. As a bonus, you can use the jumbo clothespin to hang up any jumbo laundry you have around the house.

See you at the Craft Table,

JP Craft Captain

www.akbarsilverlake.com

www.crafthead.com

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Posted by on January 21, 2015 in Assembly Craft

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Abstract Paint-by-Number Panels • January 14th, 2015

January 12

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This Wednesday January 14th, 2015 from 9pm to midnight (or later) at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT! [Santa Anas Edition] 
Project: Abstract Paint-by-Number Panels
$3 processing fee, please
$4 Drink special: Ginger Beer and Whiskey! The Lyla – Unleash the Queen. 

This week’s project is a celebrated CraftNight classic. Paint-by-number projects are divided up into small panels, bottles of numbered paint that don’t correspond to the packaged paint-by-number paint order, and voila: you will make your very own abstract painting. You are given little blue numbered borders on these chip board paint-by-numbers, and contrary to the instructions, you are encouraged to do what you like with the borders. This project is CraftNight’s medication on creative limits.

I see people wrestling with creative limits all the time at CraftNight. I’ve heard such declarations:

  • Crafts aren’t practical
  • Art is only for experts or crazy people
  • Making things is hard
  • Nobody wants to talk to me
  • Leisure time is useless
  • My craft will look like a baby made it

These limits are as true or false as you wish to experience them.
Maybe what you make at CraftNight will look like a baby made it… is that so bad?
Every human builds a tiny “self-imposed captivity” for their sanity based on existing in the uncontainable size of the world and the even more endless reach of outer space.
Self-imposed limits can keep you from licking the elbow of a stranger in the checkstand at the grocery store, not bad!
But sometimes, limits can get fixed or extreme, causing us to curl inward, forgetting to be spontaneous, helpful, and kind. The latter form of extreme limitations means you stop calling old friends because it “takes too long”, or you don’t look at the sunset because it’s a “waste of time.”

That’s why there will be no paint-by-number police at CraftNight this Wednesday. Ignore the lines, the numbers, the sequence of colors, GO FOR IT! As you careen out of control or merely color in the borders of each outlined mini canvas, enjoy the liberation of unbridled expression and exploration. Some limits are great, some are hogwash, the thing is to inspect your limits regularly and do maintenance according to your life. Regular check-ins on your personal limitations can help avoid stagnant restrictions on your psyche as well as “boring and crotchety” syndrome.

See you at the Craft Table,

JP Craft Captain

*** UPCOMING JANUARY 7th at AKBAR ***
BET YER BOTTOM BINGO
8pm to 10pm
50 Cents a Card
Girls, Boys, Balls, Numbers, PRIZES!!!

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Posted by on January 12, 2015 in Painting Craft

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