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Flower Power Recipe Holder • May 7th, 2014

This Wednesday, May 7th, 2014 from 9pm until midnight (or later) at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Flower Power Recipe Holders
$2 Processing fee, please
$4 Drink Special: “The Lyla” • For fast fast fast relief!

Mother’s Day is around the corner! This craft is highly malleable, you can give it to Mom or whoever sang “Itsy Bitsy Spider” to you 40,000 times when you were small and requested it endlessly. Or give it to whoever kept you from eating the second caterpillar. Or give this gift to whoever picked you up at the party and didn’t say a word, just got you home safe while your mind tried to comprehend how making a typewriter out of leaves and mud isn’t practical. This flower power recipe holder is a way to say “Thank You” to that person, a person who has had your back for a long time, knows who you are and, like many people: enjoys cooking and eating.

Because what bonds us like FOOD? That whole “breaking bread” thing is super real, food and love are linked, like it or not. Sharing and social exchange was born out of our ancestors having an abundance of food from hunting and farming, and sharing it. This repeated sharing had our bodies harboring a gut-brain connection (hormones, hippocampus, memory) connecting our last really good meal with survival. And this is why even TODAY when you smell “HillBilly Surprise” if that was a specialty made for you when you were little and you loved it, you STILL respond to it like it was yesterday and you want it, no matter how many people are like “REALLY?” It means survival, it means love. Look at your favorite meal, look at someone you love and your dopamine levels rise, it’s crazy.

Index cards will be on hand to write some recipes, then you clip it to the recipe holder you just made and BLAM-O, instant fabulous gift. For instance, you could pack a jar full of dried beans and spices and then give the recipe for what to do with all of it (chili? drunken beans? BBQ beans?) and tie the recipe holder thinger to it and it’s a pretty cool gift. This little kit is super simple to assemble, and if you don’t like the whole “recipe holder” thing, it can also hold a photo, a note, a name card, you name it!

See you at the Craft Table,

JP Craft Captain

www.akbarsilverlake.com
www.crafthead.com

Posted by jp on May 6, 2014 in Uncategorized

March 28th, 2012 • Craft Stick Flowers and MORE!

March 26

This Wednesday March 28th, 2012 from 9pm until 12-ish at Akbar, it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Craft Stick Flowers and MORE!
$2 Processing fee, please
$4 Cosmo Drink Special – Fill it to the rim with whim!

We were very “painty” last week to foster your inner painter, and this week we’re getting “buildy” so you can nurture your inner architect.

At the beginning of the CraftNight weekly brainstorm, I found someone’s internet plan about how to make super adorable flowers out of popsicle sticks (or “craft sticks” as the lingo goes).
But it seemed very limiting to only make flowers at CraftNight, when popsicle sticks are so versatile! Craft sticks are like tinkertoys in their diversity, you can build a box, a godseye (yes, I’ll bring some yarn!), a planter for a tiny plant, a pencil cup, a recipe holder, a birdhouse, a frame, a valet for your keys and wallet, a sign, an ornamental decoration, the plethora of items you can make is mind-bogglingly vast!

The other thing is, these little sticks, that have been holding up the nation’s popsicles since the early 1900s are made from birch wood. I don’t know if you know about glassine paper… commonly used in the wonderful crinkly translucent envelopes the post office used to package any stamps you may have purchased. Martha Stewart likes to make a big deal out of glassine envelopes and why not, they have an unmatched texture and sheen. Anyway, glassine paper is made not from any ol’ wood but from birch wood. Birch wood finds a way to make life lovely on many different levels, and so we send a hefty salute to it’s usefulness at the month’s end.

See you at the Craft Table!
JP Craft Captain

Akbar’s Site

CraftNight’s Site

Posted by jp on March 26, 2012 in Uncategorized

January 25th, 2012 • Beaded Flower Clip

January 24

This Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 from 9pm until midnight at Akbar it’s CRAFTNIGHT!!!
Project: Beaded Flower Clip
$2 Processing fee, please!
$4 Cosmopolitans! Think with a pink drink!

If you’re procrastinating on the internet, I’m glad the series of tubes brought you here to the CraftNight site, where we’re going to be REALLY INTO BEADS this week. Bring your procrastinating self over to Akbar, and use our activity as a gentle distraction from whatever ELSE you’re “supposed to be doing.”
CraftNight endorses a bit of vagueness, confusion and fuzzy-mindedness.
Enhanced clarity isn’t everything.
You see, I have news for you: You’re never going to catch up. There will always be more paper, people, pineapples and peanuts to deal with in the course of your lifetime. Levels of efficiency and quality will always be part of the great cyclical whirlwind of stuff that permeates the daily joys of existence. It’s not about cutting out the fun, it’s about balancing the drudgery with the funnery in a way that makes you throw your hat in the air like Mary Tyler Moore on the Mary Tyler Moore show.

I’m not saying “Don’t plan things” since, as we all know, taking 10 t0 12 minutes to plan one’s day saves the average planner 100 to 120 minutes! I’m saying maybe “Don’t plan things ALL THE TIME and HAVE SOME FUN” since, as we all know, sticking to the plan all the time is kind of boring, and routines are meant to be broken.

Besides, I have an important task for you, it’s so important, you’ll have a burning desire to start and finish it, which will kickstart your endorphins into overdrive and get you addicted to starting and finishing other things! It’s called a beaded flower clip, it involves (duh) beads, and you can either string’em together into the awesome shape of a flower, or just get crazy and make whatever you want out of the materials!

Make a necklace make a key fob make a dangling groovy handle for your backpack zipper!
Give it to your friend, give it to your lover, give it to the butcher the baker the candlestick maker!
This flower is going to start you on the road toward ultimate productivity, but ONLY if you STOP productivity NOW to procrastinate on your projects in order to come join us and play with this project.

Taxes can wait.
The cat can wait.
Your boss can wait wait wait.
You’ll have such a positive experience making this flowery thing, you’ll have guaranteed results!
Develop the habits of success! Make a beaded flower clip! Come to CraftNight and be a winner! Wooooooooo!

See you at the Craft Table,
JP Craft Captain

Akbar’s Site

CraftNight’s Site

Posted by jp on January 24, 2012 in Uncategorized