crafty | Recent Entries

Today I came across some references to making hex quilts by starting with circles and folding the sides. This approach works great with hand-sewing.

Hex Quilts Video

Hexagons from Circles

Hexie’s From Circles

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Current Mood: busy

calzephyr

A note that ilea passed away in 2025.

I don't know if she was on DW, but she was a founder of the Craftgrrl community on LJ. You can read more about it here:

https://craftgrrl.livejournal.com/14313304.html

ysabetwordsmith

March is National Crafting Month Bingo over on

allbingo. Drop by the Meet and Greet to talk about what crafts you love and hate or make new crafty friends.

Crafting Bingo banner

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

My second garden craft today was making a mini-water garden. (See the House Yard and the Worm Bin.)

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

National Craft Month – March 2026

In March, it’s the end of winter and a great time to blossom outward into National Craft Month to show what you’ve been making by hand during the short, cold days of the season past.

Admittedly, the word “crafting” covers a whole lot of territory. At one time, the word “craft” was synonymous with “trade,” meaning skilled labor in a particular area, such as weaving, engine repair, carpentry, etc. It was not uncommon for guilds to be founded based upon a shared set of skills in these and other areas of production. But in current times we’ve come to understand that “crafting” refers to those skills practiced more creatively and with a vision unique to each artisan. Some examples are knitting and crocheting, scrapbooking, leatherworking, wood burning, fly tying, jewelry making, anything created by hand that has an artistic aspect to it but is not strictly “fine art.”

What are your craft plans for March? I've got several possibilities but haven't decided which to try next month.

allbingo will be running this fest in March:
[recurring]
National Craft Month Fest hosted by

nsfwords
This is a fest focusing on the myriad joys (and frustrations) of Crafting.
Posting will be March 1-30.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

My air plants arrived today. :D So I gathered materials to start assembling the lantern terrarium. (Start with Photos: Fairy Garden Lantern Deconstruction. Continue with Photos: Lantern Terrarium Assembly Part 2 Testing the Fit.)

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: accomplished

ladythmpr

Hi all!

October will be here in 2 DAYS! Since 2008, October for me has been National Craft Making Month, or NaCraMaMo for short. NaCraMaMo started as a community on LJ, and I started a new

nacramamo community on DreamWidth when I moved here in 2017.

In short, during National Craft Making Month in October, you work on a craft every day for a month and post pictures of your work daily in

nacramamo.

nacramamo is very free-form; you can work on the same project every day or work on different projects every day. Crafting is also very loosely defined; it's basically anything that you do with your hands that results in a tangible object. For example, I count baking as crafting, but I don't count making dinner as crafting (but you might!)

A lot of people use

nacramamo as a jumpstart for Halloween projects and Winter holiday gift making.

I'd love to have you join me, giving it your best shot.

ysabetwordsmith

This post covers planting the candy jar terrarium. Begin with Part 1: Setup.

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Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

Today I assembled the large candy jar terrarium. Continue with Part 2: Plants.

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Current Mood: accomplished

yourlibrarian

Do you make crafts? Do you like to look at crafts? Would you like to get (or give) advice about crafts? All crafts are welcome. Share photos, stories about projects in progress, and connect with other crafty folks.

You are welcome to make your own posts, and this community will also do a monthly call for people to share what they are working on, or what they've seen which may be inspiring them. Images of projects old or new, completed or in progress are welcome, as are questions, tutorials and advice.

If you have any questions, ask them here!

yourlibrarian

A relative of mine sent me a bunch of orphaned earrings a month ago, asking me to make her some necklaces with them. It was a fun challenge, since given their size the necklaces couldn't be that large. But I think I managed to avoid too much sameness.

An assortment of them are below ( Read more... )

ysabetwordsmith

Use a hair clip. It holds securely, doesn't damage yarn, molds to the shape of the ball, and tells you exactly where the end is.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today I started making liquid fertilizer from Russian comfrey. Begin with Part 1: Jugs. With those done, I harvested leaves.

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

Today I started making liquid fertilizer from Russian comfrey. This plant fills a lot of guild roles in permaculture including fertilizer, miner, mulcher, protector, attractor. I have been using it primarily as a bee plant that I can also slash-and-drop several times a season. I grow it under many of my trees and there's some in the prairie garden too.

There are various ways to make liquid fertilizer from comfrey. I will be testing two: 1) a small amount of comfrey leaves in a large amount of water, and 2) only comfrey leaves crammed tightly in a jug. (See Part 2: Leaves.)

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

I found this article about making a Mosquito Bucket of Doom.

1) Fill a bucket with water and put it outside.

2) Add a handful of grass to make carbon dioxide which will attract more mosquitoes.

3) There are two options to kill the resulting larvae.

-- Dump the bucket weekly and refresh the trap with new water and grass.

-- Add a mosquito dunk, which lasts about a month. Replace whenever it sinks or dissolves.

Also, make sure there are no other pockets of still water to attract mosquitoes elsewhere in your yard. Every bit that you can find and remove is one less mosquito nest.

Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

Today I planted the cookie jar terrarium. This fills "the green stuff" square in my 5-1-25 card for the Colors Fest bingo. See Part 1: Setup.

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Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

Today's project was filling a set of trough pots and securing them to the benches of the new picnic table. (This is from Tuesday, but it's after midnight so the date reads Wednesday. See some "before" pictures.) There are 6 troughs total, although one already had wild strawberries in it from earlier. Each bench holds 3 troughs. I got these and a bunch of other pots when Big Lots went out of business.

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Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

Today I made a tiny terrarium in a spice jar to hold some lichen-covered twigs. Earlier I was out walking and spotted some good ones. Then at lunch, I used the last of the pumpkin spice blend, so I put the fresh bottle in its place. Then I washed the new bottle and used it to make a tiny terrarium for the lichens.

I recently bought a big jar to make a terrarium. Spotting the twigs and spice jar reminded me of making terrariums out of random containers when I was little, usually using all found materials rather than purchased ones. Everything but the jar came from my yard. Total cost: $0. Technically the jar of pumpkin spice was $4.75 but since I bought it for the spice instead of the jar, that doesn't count. I didn't buy anything just for this project. You can do the same thing with a bigger jar if you like. Juice jars are often lovely, with a slightly wider mouth and sometimes decorative designs near the top.

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Current Mood: accomplished

ysabetwordsmith

Joann Fabrics closing all locations—including Illinois stores

Weeks after announcing the closure of 500 stores, Joann Fabrics announced it will be closing all of its 800+ locations.

I posted about this on my blog earlier, and it sparked a big conversation, so I figured I should pass the word in craft communities too.