Three Halloween Arts and Craft Project for Kids

As Halloween nears, young minds drift toward costumes and candy, and parents often find themselves at wit’s end in the attempt to calm those young enthusiasts into near-normalcy. Directing their attention and energy into Halloween arts and craft activities can help both young and old alike. This year, steer their imaginations and energies toward fun and creative pastimes that have a Halloween theme.
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Craft Show Jewelry Ideas for Kids

Kids love to wear (and make) jewelry just as much as grownups do – and a cool product name can make more sales of children’s jewelry items!

Here are some products kids can make, either from kits you’ve put together ahead of time, or by choosing their own supplies from a selection. (However, be warned – whenever you let people choose their own components, they often take a VERY long time to make their choices!)

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Whirlwind Hat Pattern

Finished Size
18” Circumference and 8” tall.
Yarn:
Approximately 50g of worsted weight wool yarn;
Examples knit in Malabrigo Worsted Taureg Blue & Mint.
Needles:
Sizes US 6 (4.0mm) & US 8 (5.0mm): 16: circular (cir). Size US 8 (5.0mm): set of double-pointed (dpn)
Notions:
Marker (m); cable needle (cn); Tapestry needle.
Gauge:
18 sts = 4” (10 cm) in patt from chart using larger needles.





This pattern is available as a downloadable pdf file.
$5.00 USD

Here is a link to the pattern in Ravelry.

Featured Crafter: Maddylane from Miycreations.com

In today’s edition of Featured Crafter, we interview an inspired at-home crafter, Maddylane (Madeleine Langlois). She specializes in creating “Make it yourself” (Miy) craft projects for kids, teens and the whole family. The Miy mantra is to make things naturally simple, and have fun with recycling! She showcases great projects to make and decorate all year round, including Easter, Christmas, Halloween, St Patrick’s and more.

Continue reading to learn about Miycreations, and Maddylane’s projects and inspiration!
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Reborn Dolls

I recently stumbled on a very unique craft niche for making “reborn dolls”. If you haven’t yet discovered this art, it is the process of making a typical baby doll into a life-like clone of a human baby. When I first looked at the pictures I truly thought I was looking at real baby pictures. That did creep me out a bit, but the hobby is quite fascinating.

I browsed further on the web and now realized the craft is a bit of a hidden giant and there are hundreds if not thousands of crafters making and selling Dolls. There seems to be more buyers than sellers, so it really is an unusual and interesting art with a big following.

Take a look at Deborah King, one of the Top UK reborn artists, and you’ll get an idea of what’s its all about.

www.reborn-baby.com

Supporting Crafters Around the World

Oprah Winfrey may have broken the hearts of many fans recently when she announced the end of her daytime show. However, I’m glad that some of her other ventures will continue – especially her support of crafters in South Africa.

Oprah contributes to their communities by selling beautiful handmade items from local beaders and basket weavers in her online store. These items are amazing with their intricate details, high-quality aesthetics and mainstream appeal.

Especially impressive (and my favorite items!) are the beaded animals, which take you on a hand-crafted safari of lions, cheetahs, giraffes and elephants. The process for creating the animals involves a team of artists that manually shape galvanized steel wire into sturdy three-dimensional frames. Afterward, thousands upon thousands of tiny, colourful glass seed beads are hand-strung onto strands of wire and securely fastened to the frames in a process called plastering or weaving. I can only imagine the effort and skill that goes into planning and executing these wonderful pieces.

To browse through various linens, photo frames, jewelry, beaded animals, african baskets, bowls and more, check out the African Crafts store. The inspiration is there for the taking, as is the opportunity to support a great cause!

The Cuttlebug: A Simple Solution for Embossing and Die Cuts

The Cuttlebug Machine released by Provo Craft provides a low tech solution to die cutting and embossing. The Cuttlebug is a cutting system designed specifically to help you make die cuts and embossings for your paper crafts and scrapbook designs. It takes a lot of the work out of hand cutting shapes and letters, and it also does the whole job without any computer or electricity! It’s like a low tech version of the Cricut Expression machine.
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Craft Fair Displays

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Top Sellers on Etsy

Have you ever wondered who the top sellers on Etsy are? What categories do they sell in? I have compiled a list of the top 25 sellers on Etsy, including their store, how many sales they’ve had, and what category they sell in. The list is as of September 9, 2009.
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Featured Crafter: CJ from CircleLineStudio

In this Featured Crafter, we talk to CJ from the CircleLineStudio. Read on to learn about how this stay at home mom began crafting to add to her family’s income.
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