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This Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 from 9pm to midnight at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!

Project: VALENTINES!!!

$2 CraftNight Stimulus Fund Donation, please

SPECIAL TREAT for any of you wearing any type of self-realized Valentine Outfit! (Lots of red, pink, white, purple, doilie, sparkly love-inspired attire.)

Okay Okay I KNOW how may of you feel about Valentine’s Day: It causes a lot of pressure, it’s just another holiday created by Hallmark to make us buy stuff, It’s a waste of paper, it makes people feel lonely who don’t have sweethearts, it’s cheezy and outdated and trite, every day should be Valentines day why make a big deal out of it, blah blah blah SNORE ZZZZZZZZZ…..

These are old mothball chestnut excuses from the boring unenlightened commercial materialist blowhards, pedantic axioms that contribute to the colorless, lazy doldrums of an uninspired existence. If you wanna believe the hype, that’s cool man, but you’ve been warned, because we’re celebrating LOVE at CraftNight, and you will not be spared our good tidings and hugs, no sireee!

You have the power to redefine and build your OWN meaning for Valentine’s Day! It is up to YOU, dear crafter, to extract as much joy out of the situation as possible. The power of love, is a curious thing, make a one man weep and another man sing. Change a hawk to a little white dove, more than a feeling, that’s the power of love.

At CraftNight, we’re making old-fashioned Valentines out of scraps, like we do every year! We shall celebrate LOVE for EVERYBODY, love positivity for society as a whole, embracing the world and stepping outside ourselves to reach out and tend to each other with handmade magic keepsakes made in our trademark atmosphere of bohemia and great cordiality.

Dionne sang it well “What the world needs now, is love, sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of” she’s totally right. Get in here and lose the cool facade, be dorky and glue some stuff together for someone you care about, make a card for grandma, make a doilie ensemble for your wall, build a pipe-cleaner toy for your cat. As per usual, we’ll give you a valentine bag, and you will have the opportunity to make valentines for crafters you don’t even know!

And honestly, chalky candy hearts, strange mylar balloons, ratty stuffed bears dressed in vinyl cupid outfits and even edible underwear surreptitiously molded into the shape of a rose has fantastic camp value, so don’t dismiss these seasonal favorites at your local 7-11.

See you at the Craft Table,

JP Craft Captain

CraftNight’s Website

Akbar’s Website

This Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 from 9-ish till midnight, at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!
Project: Postcards and Letters
$2 processing fee, please

I read something extremely distressing: The POST OFFICE IS IN TROUBLE!!! The postal service has reportedly lost an astonishing SEVEN POINT NINE BILLION DOLLARS in the past 2 years! Postmaster General John Potter says there was more than a 4% decline in mail volume last year. It hasn’t been this bad since 1775, the service asked Congress last week to cut down its delivery days from six to five days a week.
It’s true that we don’t need paper for everything anymore, which is great for trees and fuel and your pocketbook… but there is still a place for traditional mail in the electronic world, and in our hearts.
The handwritten letter is a dying art, it has the power to make someone’s day, it’s a treasure for the recipient, letters are by nature romantic, poetic, sensual and epicurean.
I just got a postcard from Montreal the other day, and I loved seeing the frayed edges from its travels, the expertly scrawled sentences from the friends I miss, and their obvervations, and the COOL stamp from Canada! It was at once this amazing time-warp-like exotic item that had indeed traveled through snow and sleet and gloom of night, from my postal carrier’s swift completion of his appointed round! And I thought “Gee, let’s tell the post office we love it, and make letters to people we love at CraftNight!”
One of the coolest things about the United States of America is our postal service, it lets you send love tokens to your kin for pennies on the dollar, an extraordinary value in today’s economy!
So that’s what we’re doing, making drawings, doodles, notes, letters, poems, pictures, bits of esoteric ephemera, etc. putting them in envelopes and SENDING THEM!
I will bring postcards, envelopes and paper. Bring your addresses, send correspondence to the homes of friends and relatives, people you know and love who want to see your handwriting.

And as of now, we’re starting a special snail mail campaign!

If you would like to receive a special letter from CraftNight and crafters, send your snail mail address to:

CRAFTNIGHT AT AKBAR
4356 Sunset Blvd.
Silverlake, CA.
90029

Got a sick friend? Need a cheer-up? Relatives overseas or in the service? CraftNight and/or crafters will send a postcard(s), all you have to do is tell us where to send it.
DO NOT e-mail me your address, ONLY requests made via post or in person will be honored, we’re being all ol’ fashioned about this.

See you at the Craft Table!
JP Craft Captain
ps- Though I am feeling fine and not contagious, I have laryngitis, so I won’t be able to talk much. I’ll have an instructional hand-out explaining the evening’s activities.
pps- We were going to be doing kaleidescopes this week, and for the last-minute change, apologies… but CraftNight is having some economic difficulties itself! Don’t worry, CraftNight won’t be going anywhere, but certain projects will be subject to change based on availability of materials, thank you for your understanding.

www.crafthead.com
www.akbarsilverlake.com

This Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 from 9pm(ish) till Midnight at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!
Project: CHINESE NEW YEAR Fortune Cookies and Red Packets!
$2 per craft kit, please!

Hey, it’s going to be Chinese New Year on the 26th!
CraftNight wishes you an OXpicious year of the OX! (Ugh, bad pun, couldn’t resist.)
We’re making felt fortune cookies, and traditional red packets!
Nobody does the new year like the Chinese, FIFTEEN DAYS of celebration, welcoming in the deities of the heavens and earth, visiting with relatives, meditating and thinking about introspective stuff and having alone time, paying respect to the dead, lighting fireworks, celebrating everyone getting a year older, drinking tea, frying lots of food, tasting sweet dishes for a sweet year ahead, and finally, guiding the spirits home with candles.
Phew! We’re just doing day One, but if you want to do all fifteen, be our guest!
And what does it mean to be in the Year of the EARTH OX?
Experts have been consulted, and they say:
We have hard work to do, like a cow in a field. But often, hard work pays off, cows are resilient, yet one should expect a few cow pies here and there, but you know, seriously speaking, it’s all about exercising our stability. Go slow, dude, one step at a time and don’t cut corners or take short-cuts. Get practical, get down-to-earth, check the small print, slow and steady wins the race.
This nation has recently inherited a rather large pile of manure… and we’re going to have to shovel it one scoop at a time. So roll them sleeves up, and get ready to endure a bit of economic difficulty for a bit.
Bringing us back around to why you should come to CraftNight, because for 2 dollars, you can have a zillion dollar experience!
Come on down, we’ll be here with the crafts, just like all those usual Wednesdays.
JP Craft Captain
CraftNight Website
Akbar Website

This Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 from 9pm until midnight, at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Inauguration Crafts
$2 for the first button (the general CraftNight donation request) and 50 cents per button thereafter!

Oh yeah, I’ve got the BUTTON MACHINE. It makes teeny tiny buttons, like only about an inch or so, but you can make ANYTHING YOU WANT, and I’ll turn it into a button for you. So cool.
And in honor of the inauguration, there will be some donkeys to color, maybe you can make a donkey button, since donkeys are happy these days. Come on over, bring your ideas, tiny photos, little drawings… make buttons!
See you at the Craft Table!
JP Craft Captain
Craftnight’s Site
Akbar’s Site

This Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 from 9pm until midnight at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!
$2 processing fee, please

Ah, it’s been a wonderful holiday break, but now it’s time to get back to it.
Perhaps you’ve kind of bamboozled yourself into some kind of New Year’s resolutions or lack thereof, something to do with mind, body, heart or soul… or biscuits, I dunno.
If you’re blazing a trail of success with your goals and aspirations, more power to you, and if it’s otherwise and your flourish is flattened, I can’t think of a better way to fluff it up then to drag your fine frame in here and fuse some plastic beads together, melt some colorful stuff, and save the world with one small craft.
Small steps are where it’s at, cat, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was CraftNight! Pat yourself on the back, you are just the kind of patron that makes configuring crafts worthwhile, we salute you!
Fusion beads are an action-packed project involving small plastic beads, tiny plastic spike bead holders, magic paper and a searingly hot iron: always a bad idea, therefore, we have to do it!
Looking forward to seeing you!
JP Craft Captain

CraftNight’s Site

Akbar’s Site