This Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 from 9(ish) to 12(ish) at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!
Project: THREE choices!
$2 processing fee, please
I know I know, there’s no picture this week, isn’t that weird? I thought I’d try it. I don’t think I like it very much. This won’t happen next week.
Anyway, I have THREE different projects. What are they? Hmmm… hope I peaked your curiosity!
JP Craft Captain
TONIGHT! This Wednesday, February 16th, 2011 from 9pm until midnight (or later?) at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Yarn-n-beer bottles
$2 processing fee, please
$4 cosmopolitans >>> YUM!
I have A LOT of yarn. I don’t mean two shopping bags full, I mean TONS. I mean… why the hell haven’t we done anything with this yarn yet?!? It’s time. I propose that you get yourself a bottled beer of your choice, and glue pretty yarn colors around the bottle, wrapping the bottle and obscuring the label completely and voila: a handsome candle vase.
If you don’t want to drink a beer, than it’s time you explored the fabulous world of yarn mosaics, where you can use yarn to build the likeness of ANYTHING you want! It’s very time-consuming and as intricate or non-intricate as you like.
It’s up to you. However it turns out, it’s more fun than dipping your clam in the punch bowl, so you should come in and give it a whirl.
See you at the Craft Table,
JP Craft Captain
This Wednesday, February 9th, 2011 at Akbar from 9pm until 12 (or later) it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Valentines • $2 Processing fee, please
Drink Special: $4 cosmopolitans
If you read to the end of this post, and come to CraftNight and tell me a bit of the secret phrase, I will give you a special prize.
We’re making valentines at CraftNight this week, and oh god, I can already HEAR your eyes rolling, they are rolling so loudly, it is making a sonic impression through my monitor. It’s so very fashionable to dread Valentine’s Day.
Here are the top 5 (yawn, snore) excuses for not celebrating Valentine’s Day:
1.) I don’t have a lover or spouse
2.) I hate doilies, roses, chocolates, stuffed bears.
3.) Valentine’s Day was invented by Hallmark
4.) I was dumped and love is dumb
5.) Everyday is Valentine’s Day, why should I celebrate it?
I shall not dissuade the authenticity of the feelings above, go ahead and knock yourself out feeling the way you feel, and then prepare for some TOUGH CRAFTNIGHT LOVE. Ready? Okay.
The kingdom inside your skull needs to get over itself, and think outside the lacey doily.
You can be too cool for school and stuff your enthusiasm for the only life you have into purchasing and wearing a new hat that the majority of the population finds in poor taste (which will eventually be appropriated by mainstream culture, only to be rejected, eventually worn as a joke, and then taken seriously again at some point). You can show us your stylish best and remain safe and aloof.
OR.
You could stop being a namby pamby ninny about the ONE thing this silly spinning marble needs most: LOVE. Love is enigmatic and multi-faceted, with more hairpin turns and dizzying heights than anything any of us ever experience. How could we expect love to be epitomized with such a limited list of mass marketed external signifiers? You don’t need a lover or a life partner to have love in your life. You don’t need to buy into the mumbo jumbo, the roses and the stuffed bears and the licorice-flavored underwear, if you believe such things, no wonder you don’t like Valentine’s Day!
There are more than 3,583,294,001,285 ways to experience love. Here are just a few:
1.) Send a postcard to a long lost pal or relative
2.) Leave a cookie on a pillow for yourself to eat later.
3.) Stow the good intentions and DO that nice thing you were wanting to do for someone.
4.) Look outside your own heartache and help someone else with theirs
5.) Get a kid or an adult a FREE ice cream cone: WOOOOOO!
6.) See if you can be generous to someone you can’t stand, even if it’s just for 5 minutes (not always fun, but
sometimes oddly productive in very surprising ways)
7.) Hold the door open for someone who least expects it.
8.) Write a poem and sing it to the sky.
9.) Do the dishes even if it’s not your turn.
10.) Give the cat some tuna instead of the usual dry kibbles.
You could do nothing, it’s normal to do nothing, it’s easy to do nothing. But then again, you could do SOMETHING to help prove that the world has love in it. Valentine’s Day is a way to show generosity of spirit while having a good time.
It’s SO NOT COOL to like Valentine’s day. It’s NOT COOL! This means, if you’re any kind of trend-setter or trend-follower, you need to start embracing Valentine’s Day right now. Make your own list, make one you like, make one for me!
You can invent a way to celebrate love that works for YOU!
By all means, you don’t have to overanalyze love, but please do have some.
There will be a lot of it for you at this week’s CraftNight!
xoxo,
JP Craft Captain
Secret Phrase: Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you. But when roses are wilted and violets are dead, sugar is lumpy… and so is your head.
This Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011 from 9pm until midnight, at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Groundhog Paper Dolls AND Craft Captain Birthday
$2 Processing fee
$4 Cosmopolitans
It is my Jack Benny year.
Jack Benny claimed to be 39 for more than 40 years.
39 is 40 save one.
Amelia Earhart went missing at age 39.
The Blue and Gold Fleet’s bay cruises leave from Pier 39 in San Francisco.
There are 39 prohibited activities in the Mishna Shabbat.
“39” is a song by Queen.
Seems to me that 39 is all about innovation, and general trouble-making fun. I’m looking forward to it.
It is my birthday on February 2nd, 2011
Usually I slink away for my birthday and go do something fun, like take public transportation all day to places unknown, or hop on rocks in parks. But it seems that if one’s birthday actually falls on a CraftNight, there is but one thing to do, and that is CELEBRATE. February 2nd is also Groundhog Day, and we will be making our annual Groundhog Paper dolls, designed by yours truly. This is an annual CraftNight tradition, making Groundhog paper dolls, it’s a cut and color craft. I’ve illustrated many little outfits for this creature, from a Cupid outfit for Valentine’s Day, to football attire for the Superbowl.
Whether you feel like coloring or not, it would give me great pleasure to have you walk in and see me on my birthday, it makes a birthday feel special. There will be the usual music, and cocktails, and yes, this Wednesday, there will be groundhogs. I have no guarantee, however, if there will be shadows.
See you at the Craft Table,
JP Craft Captain
This Wednesday, January 26th, 2011 from 9pm until midnight, at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!
Project: Laminating stuff with the laminator
$2 processing fee, please
I’ve got the laminator, and I’m not afraid to use it. This is the VERY FIRST time we’ve done this heat-based craft, whereupon, you draw or collage something neat-0, and we preserve it for all eternity between two sheets of plastic. We’ve done cold lamination, but this is going to be EVEN MORE INTENSE.
Here are just some of the exciting things you could do at CraftNight this Wednesday:
1.) Preserved guide maps that lead one to fictional places like Narnia, Treasure Island, Azkaban, Bali Ha’i, Vice City and other compelling constructed worlds.
2.)”Homemade Behavior Chart” with columns for each behavior you want to modify. Maybe you want a behavior chart that helps you eat less Swiss cheese, or one that helps you sing opera solos more often.
3.) Flash cards of different kinds of little poofy sheep… to remind you that there is a place in this world for such beings.
4.) A diploma for a friend who has graduated to “totally awesome friend” that lists all of their amazing merits.
5.) Drivers license for the cat (out of state, of course.)
6.) Laminated “Backstage Pass” for an actual event you are trying to sneak into… maybe it will work.
7.) Naughty version of the time-honored game of “Concentration.”
8.) Laminated paper doll with fashionable and positionable laminated clothing.
9.) Your very own board game, with game pieces that look like YOU.
10.) ANYTHING FLAT! (Or can be flattened easily)
Interesting items to laminate: Lock of hair, ticket from Air Supply concert, taco bell bag, scraps of fabric, photos, excerpts from ancient paperbacks, doodles from high school, pictures those who are far and near and missed.
There will be some stuff to laminate, but bring some of your own if you want to laminate something specific, like an AREA 51 Identification Card.
See you at the Craft Table,
JP Craft Captain
