A Little Bit About My Sister and a Lot About Old Ideas Becoming Re-freshed

Before I begin here's the Scrabblebuff update~~~ My baby sister is doing incredibly well for a gal who leaks continually. No...it's not what you think. ( And she'll get me for that, of course, but I don't care, I'm just glad that her kidney transplant has gone so well that she'll soon have the energy to get me!) She has a bit of a fluid discharge from her incision that is proving rather annoying and preventing her from gallivanting all over Washington DC. But she'll soon be drying up. Who knows, maybe she'll even do a blog about it?

Thank you for all the good wishes and prayers for her. She has a couple of months of recovery ahead of her so please keep the lines open.


We now return you to today's Blog already in progress...

Fresh Ideas ?

How amazing is it to discover I’ve been with it for more than 50 years!

I love crafting but I was afraid I was getting outdated and old fashioned.

You see, I’ve been doing the same sorts of items since I was a Brownie. Then, our leaders told us we were being thrifty by Scrap Crafting. They found projects for us to do using mundane throw-away items in Pack O’Fun magazine. These were remakes of Depression Era Make Overs from their mothers’ old Aunt Martha's Workbasket magazines.

Later in college Art Methods and Materials in the late 60s, I was using Beautiful Junque. I even used hundreds of Kleenex carnations to hide the scaffolding they put up in the church two days before my wedding! (they promised it wouldn’t be brought in until Monday! We left them the flowers!)

Down the road, my Cub Scout sons made tie slides and Mother’s day gifts from Cast Offs. My sons and their dad built an entire Space city from discarded styrofoam packing and toothpaste caps, blister packages, and broken 8 track tapes etc. over the course of a winter.

During the Washington days I used Recycled Materials to create items such as dried flower arrangements in milk glass or cobalt blue cold cream jars. The items Scrabblebuff and I sold at craft fairs were about 60% Eco Friendly.

Thrift store crochet threads provided the stuff for the Genuine Victorian Style Cell Phone Covers and Water Bottle Holders I made while working as a Schoolmarm at Columbia State park.

As a doll house miniaturist, I created lamps and canisters and perfume bottles from beads purchased at yard sales. I traded squares of silk gleaned from blouses stuffed into the church’s $1.00 a bag sale, for other wonderful Found Treasures.

I have taught generations of children how to make mommy a shopping pad from a cereal box, magazine pictures, scrap paper, and glue. I can do them in my sleep. Once they were Scrap Craft, Now they are Green Gifts. What’s more they can even be red or blue or purple but still be Green!

I was pretty content in my green rut. I had gotten over my dismay in discovering( just as I finally got some things that matched) that the banged up furniture, with the worn paint, my kids had lived with all their lives was actually Shabby Chic!

But now there’s a new wrinkle! I have discovered Up-cycling! This means you take something old you were about to donate or throw out and turn it into something new-and very expensive! My sister-in-law is making wonderful funky ( am I still allowed to say funky? ) pillows for dorm rooma out of sweaters. Fab Grandma introduced me to Etsy Stores and I love them. What a way to stimulate your own economic package.

Finally, I have a use for all those vintage crochet patterns for scarves, cowls, collars and hats that I’ve been collecting for years. Patterns from the 40s,30s and even older are new again. By using new yarns and threads, I can make things I wouldn’t have been caught dead in when I was a young teen because it was so old fashioned and today the kids go nuts for it! I haven’t opened my store yet but I’m busy making things. Now if I can just keep them away from my granddaughters!

Jim is glad I’ve discovered these things since I have way too much yarn for someone who lives full-time in a 32” Winnebago! I admit I do tend to save a bit more craft material then I need right now. But heck, As my dad always says to justify his barn and sheds stuffed with valuable stuff, “I may need it one of these days.”

I just wish somebody had told me about felting back when I was shrinking all those wool sweaters and getting in trouble for it with Mom. I‘d love to try that next. Of course, they do sell wool sweaters at thrift shops…

See ya down the road,
Yarntangler