Idle hands are the devil's workshop.

List Friday, courtesy of Pomegranates and Paper

This week's list: Craft Confessions

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• I spent nine summers at sleepaway camp. How did they think up those camp crafts - lanyards, etched glass, embossed tin, leather stuff like keychains and belts – I remember how yummy that leather smelled!
  
  
• Cotton ball chicks in Easter grass and a cracked eggshell, under plastic drink glasses
  
  
• I took watercolor classes and embroidery classes at the local library during the summer. I was woefully horrible at both, but hey, at least it was air-conditioned!
  
  
• Gum wrapper chains – both the silver parts and the colored paper parts. I once made one that stretched for several yards. (I never would have remembered these if not for Blackbird!)
  
  
• Friendship bracelets – those woven embroidery thread ones? I had some really complicated ones but only ever progressed to making striped ones.
  
  
• And those silly ribbon barettes, with beads on the ends.
  
  
• Does tying the ends of the shoelaces of your Blucher moccasins into those twirly knots count? Because I spent an inordinate amount of time in junior high doing just that.
  
  
• If you glue cutouts from greeting cards into old eyeglass lenses – it looks just like cloisonné. No, really! I swear.
  
  
• We made quilted Christmas balls by pushing little scraps of fabric into Styrofoam balls with a nail file. Very festive. Topped with holly and red ribbon , who wouldn’t want one on their Christmas tree?
  
  
• I went thru a mild cross-stitch phase with my next-door neighbor when I was about ten. I completed an alphabet sampler and haven’t touched cross-stitch since.
  
  
• A few years ago I learned pysanky, the art of making Ukrainian Easter eggs. I still have all the equipment and loved doing it but it really requires more patience than I possess.
  
  
• I took a stained-glass class last year. I loved that. We worked on restoring windows at an old church near my house. We learned how to take them apart, clean the glass, restore and rebuild them - cutting and replacing glass as necessary, and then seal and solder on braces. Great fun!
  
  
• I do quilt – slowly and not necessarily well, but I do enjoy it. As I have said before, its utilitarian nature appeals to the child-of-Depression-era parents part of me.
  
  
• I was a theatre design major in college – everyday was craft day! Scale models, life sketching, painting furniture to look like faux marble or woodgrain. Then I worked for ten years as a scenic artist in theatre. Again, all kinds of “crafts.” I especially remembering constructing an entire, full-sized bar out of pasta, beads, buttons, and hot glue, for the set of “Fifty Million Frenchmen.”