Author Archives: jp

This Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 from 9pm (ish) – midnight (or later) at Akbar it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: RAINBOW Wind Chime! 
$2 Processing fee, please
$4 Cosmopolitans! M’m! M’m! Good!

You can’t beat this Rainbow Wind Chime for quality, superior value, and melodious tones! It involves sun catcher paint, we haven’t used sun catcher paint in like… three years! This is the easiest painting in the world, the plastic borders pretty much ensure that colors go where you want them to, nowhere else! Come in and make one, you’ll be so happy!

While not entirely symphonic in a grand way, this wind chime craft (featuring a plastic rainbow and ecstatic sunshine face beaming right at you… yes, directly at you) makes a striking visual statement that will be sure to grab attention even when the chimes are silent.

I’m not going to go as far as saying this is the Stradivarius of wind chimes, but I will say that it’s quadral soprano micro harmonies could add a mildly demented, if not pleasing sound to your garden, pato or entryway.

I like to fantacize that the frequencies at which the different little chime tubes vibrate are related to one another by simple whole-number ratios, but I think I might be getting ahead of myself. Instead, let’s say they are the sound of summer, the sound of gentle lazy winds, lemonade in a glass … and a good book.

See you at the Craft Table,

JP Craft Captain

Akbar’s Site

CraftNight’s Site

This Saturday, August 20th, 2011 from 5 to 7pm at The Community Room at The Armory in Pasadena it’s CRAFTNIGHT!
Project: Bicycle Spoke Cards and Bicycle License Plates
$2 Processing Fee, please

CraftNight is Proud to Celebrate Bike It: Portraits of my Bicipandilla by Kelly Marie Martin
This wonderful exhibit features black-and-white photographic portraits, taken with a 4×5 camera, of riders in her “bicipandilla,” or bicycle gang, with their bikes.

The laminator will be hot hot hot, I hope to have the lil’ portable record player playing old records, we’re going to collage, and tape, and glue, and draw, and punch holes in stuff! It’s going to be a blast, come and have fun with us this weekend!
This event is family friendly, all ages welcome!

While you’re at it, check out these other upcoming events happening for Bike It!
Friday, September 23, 2011, 5-9pm:
Spoke(n) Art Ride through Pasadena, co-sponsored by Cyclists Inciting Change through Live Exchange (CICLE).
Sunday, October 2, 2011, 2-6pm:
Closing ride, led by The City of Angels Ladies’ Bicycling Association (a.k.a. The Whirly Girls) and celebration with afternoon tea at the Armory.

The Armory Center for the Arts is located in Old Town Pasadena:
145 North Raymond Avenue
Pasadena, California 91103
626.792.5101
626.449.0139 (fax)
information@armoryarts.org

See you at the Craft Table,
JP Craft Captain
www.crafthead.com

This Wednesday, August 17h, 2011 from 9pm (ish) – midnight (or later) at Akbar it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Monkey Magnets
$2 Processing fee, please
$4 Cosmopolitans! How do you spell relief? C-O-S-M-O!

Calling all you hairy magnetic beasts! Its time to get your craft on with no better way than CLOTHESPIN MONKEY MAGNETS! Keep your notes tidy while running complicated errands, let your mind wander knowing your papers are in place! Your foam and chenille pipe cleaner monkey will do the work for you! If you need more inspiration, order a cosmopolitan from the bar!

See you at the Craft Table,

JP Craft Captain

PS – CraftNight wishes Kate Gilbert a Happy Happy Birthday!

Akbar’s Site

CraftNight’s Site

This Wednesday, August 10th, 2011 from 9pm (ish) – midnight (or later) at Akbar it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Ice Cream Cone Bead Fob
$2 Processing fee, please
$4 Cosmopolitans! Good to the last drop!

Rain or shine, Dow or no Dow, Standard and Poo whatever: CRAFTNIGHT and AKBAR ARE HERE FOR YOU.

We’re invested in offering you a sexily frugal way to enjoy the company of awesome and friendly people, connect with your creative side, enjoy delicious cocktails and snacks and still have plenty of bones in the bank to spend on sex toys, car repairs and dog biscuits (at your discretion, and not necessarily in that order.)

6 Ways to keep your Pecker up when the Dow is Down

1.) Get a PBR or a Cosmo at Akbar, sit right down and make yourself a beaded ice cream cone fob this Wednesday! It can be hooked to your belt loop, your suitcase, your attaché case, your rearview mirror. It’s bright, it’s attractive, it shows you’ve got sass, and it shows that you know how to have a good time.

2.) Stick a photo of Tina Turner, Dolly Parton, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill or Franklin D. Roosevelt somewhere in the house. If none of these work for you, then someone who overcame some serious crap: someone inspiring. I mean, whatever, if you’re inspired by a photo of a slice of pizza, or a certain body part, anything goes…

3.) Don’t be watching Dancer in the Dark, Requiem for a Dream, Pan’s Labrynth or any other film that makes you feel like you need to be in a fetal position in the corner for three hours after watching it. I’m not saying it’s Cannes, I’m saying it’s your living room, and sometimes you gotta take a break: Billy Eliot, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, SHANE.

4.) I cannot recommend this enough: For 12 bucks, you can go work out with Richard Simmons, who will work your bod and make you see god with enough butt lifts to kiss the sky three times over. Check it out. I’m not kidding, Richard Simmons is a national treasure. It’s not just fitness, it’s a crash course in mega-inspiration. If you can’t afford Richard, try any of THESE. And take lots of water. And a friend. And a snack.

5.) BEANS. Do you know how ridiculously good beans are, and how amazingly cheap they are? It’s as low as 50 cents a pound some places. Beans can be used in countless dishes – burritos, casseroles, side salads, soups, and even breakfast.There’s also a substantial variety in bean flavor and texture, so it only has to be repetitive if you let it get repetitive. And, okay, beans aren’t for everyone, so here’s something else.

6.) We’ve got a hell of a Happy Hour at Akbar from 4 – 8pm, with $2 PBRs, $4 well drinks a $5 specialty cocktail drink menu!

I’m also going to add that I don’t always get these little ditties typed out all pretty by every Monday. If that ever happens, and you want to know what Craft is coming up, check out the Crafthead.com site, it’s got the next FIVE CraftNights in a row listed on the right hand side of the site, and you can click on the Calendar tab at the top to find out EVEN MORE dates.

Okay, that’s a lot of typing, thanks for reading, see you at the Craft Table,
JP Craft Captain

Akbar’s Site

CraftNight’s Site

This Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 from 9pm (ish) – midnight (or later) at Akbar it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Hand Puppets
$2 Processing fee, please
$4 Cosmopolitans! Come to where the flavor is!

These are very interesting little blank canvas puppets, they are not socks, but they have been sewn in a “sock style” shape, suitable for hand puppeting. All you have to do is design it, and boy am I excited to see what you come up with THIS WEEK! I’m going to put out the weird craft supplies, the stuff I just don’t know what to do with, the bizarre, the strange, the oddball craft supplies!

As a kid I used to make puppets and put on shows, and I remember making this blue dog out of styrofoam, felt and fur. I regarded this dog with a certain level of disdain, I thought “Well, this isn’t a real puppet, the ones I see on TV are real puppets, this thing falls apart too much when I fling it around, it’s not durable enough.” I was seven years old, and already a legend in my own mind and being very hard on myself about this blue dog puppet.

Fast forward years later to my job working for Jim Henson Productions, at Raleigh Studios, STAGE 6 (aka The Muppet Workshop) gazing at all the muppets and going “Oh my god, everything falls apart all the time!” If only my 7-year-old self had a team of puppet makers to fix every broken puppet I’d ever made growing up, then I would’ve probably been a calmer kid… or maybe a nightmare of a kid?!?

You should know that, while Muppets look great on the screen, they totally break down, lose eyeballs, have funky mechanisms that need adjustment, and they have duplicates. Yes! Duplicates! The constant care and detail in taking care of all the various Muppets in existence is extremely rigorous.

The point is, I want you to come in here and make puppets and know that they are real, and know that if you fling ’em around and make ’em eat cookies or answer the phone or chase people or spray alcohol on one and set it on fire: it will fall apart! And all you have to do is sew the hair back on, find another eyeball, put a different shirt on it, and it’ll be just fine. Make a puppet and you have a friend for life.

You can say things with puppets that cannot be said. While puppets are looked down upon for having masters who control them, the dynamic between puppet and puppeteer is far more complex. Puppets are ancient and powerful, it never fails to surprise me that even the most jaded or nervous individuals can be moved or fascinated by inanimate objects come to life. We humans are also rather ancient, and even though we are surrounded by all of our advanced technology, we still dig a bonfire and a talking sock once in awhile, it’s just natural.

I find such things reassuring in this day and age.

See you at the Craft Table!

JP Craft Captain

CraftNight’s Site

Akbar’s Site