#crafts&diys

[legbootlegit]

This is how you make something pretty, let me know if you have any questions

[africanmorning]

[mikeyyysol]

Here’s a quick and comprehensive video of how I made paper 📝

[iknityounot]

(Long post, sorry y'all)

A little more than two years ago now, my grandmother passed away. She and my grandpa had moved down to my home town a few years before so we could take care of them. I brought them groceries once a week, helped them write checks, fixed tvs, and found lost things. I was really close with my grandma.

In addition to her hilarious personality and dry wit, one of my favorite things about her was that she was a painter and a crafter like me! She used to crochet, and I took her to the craft store a couple of times so she could get more yarn and books on crochet. But her arthritis and the shaking in her hands kept getting worse, so she eventually had to stop.

She kept her most recent project, a granny square blanket, safely packed away in a plastic bin. She told all of us she was going to finish it one day.

Her hands never got better, and when she got sick, and we found out it was cancer, she rapidly deteriorated.

After she passed, I went to work helping my mom clean out my grandparents apartment so we could move my grandpa in with her. In our frantic cleaning, I found that bin again:

DOZENS of granny squares, dozens of half used skeins. I asked my mom what she wanted me to do with it, and she said she didn't care. I set it aside and later took it home.

Maybe a month later, that tumblr post about the Loose Ends Project was going around. It felt like a sign--I was never going to learn to crochet in order to finish my grandmother's blanket. But they might be able to help!

So I filled out the interest form. They got back to me SUPER quick. And maybe 2 weeks later, I was paired with volunteer in my state (only 2 hours away!) and the box of yarn, granny squares, and my grandmother's crochet hook were in the mail. That was at the end of January this year.

Over the next couple of months, my "finisher" emailed me regular updates on her progress, and asked me questions on my preferences for how she constructed the final blanket.

At the end of August, the blanket was done!

I had always intended the blanket to be a gift for my mother. So I cleaned it up, put it in the only bag I had big enough to fit it, and drove to my mom's. I gave the blanket to her and she was gobsmacked. I explained to her all about Loose Ends, and how someone volunteered to finish the piece for us. She was speechless. (I was quite pleased with this, because I am not the best at giving gifts, so this was a pretty exciting reaction!)

She said that it was the most thoughtful gift she had ever been given. She said "your grandma would love this". To which I replied, "yeah, I know she really wanted to finish it a couple of years ago". But that was when my mom dropped the bomb of a century on me--she told me that my grandma had started making those granny squares OVER 30 YEARS AGO. She had started the blanket when my grandpa was staying in the hospital, but that was back when my mom was younger than I am now! My grandma had packed them all away, planning on finishing it, when my grandpa was sent home from the hospital. Then it went from house to house, from condo in Chicago to their apartment in my hometown. All that time and my grandma had wanted to finish it, but couldn't. First because she was busy, then because she forgot how to do it, then because of her arthritis, and then because of the cancer. My mom said she had given up on expecting my grandma to finish it. 

She said I brought a piece of her childhood with her mom out of the past.

And really, all of this is to say, if you have seen or heard about the Loose Ends Project and have an uncompleted project or piece from a loved one who has passed away--these are your people. They were so kind and treated my project with such care. That box probably would have been found by my own grandkids one day if I hadn't heard about Loose Ends.

Five stars, absolutely worth it!

(From what I understand, you can sign up to volunteer too! If you have time to share, it might be worth checking out!)

[yuumei-art]

For those who missed it, I just opened an Etsy shop and I'm having a 20% OFF sale storewide :) there are 3 days left of the sale before prices return to normal.

Get them here YuumeiArts.Etsy.com

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

raising a baby white dragon, i.e. xiaobailong小白龙 by 跃然脂上

[buggachat]

youtuber/tiktoker/whatever-type-of-video-influencer marinette, where she makes crazy DIY and craft videos and debunks fake content-farm DIYs. she has a modest but loyal mass of followers that grow by the day as her crafts get increasingly intricate and cool. she catalogues all of her mistakes and is very earnest about the process. adrien falls asleep to videos of her sewing and making cool containers and explaining the mechanisms of the strange devices she makes

[handmade-by-jane]

[labgrownfemcel]

Idea: sew some cute little moths with scrap fabrics and sew them on holes you have on your clothes so you can keep wearing them :)

[oftlunarialmoon]

[legbootlegit]

How to make a bug kisser 😘🐛

I'm going to launch a Kickstarter for these, sign up to be notified

[johannesviii]

Someone on discord asked how I was making pins with bottle caps so here goes nothing

you need

bottle caps (the ones made of metal obv)

pliers

safety pins

paper

glue

optional acrylic paint

optional paint varnish (the kind you would spray on top of an acrylic painting)

I'm only saying "optional" because sometimes you just like what's already printed on the bottle cap. I mean look at this puffin, it's so cute. But you should probably spray the print with varnish anyway if you don't want it to disappear too quickly (that cap on the left was in my pocket for like 3 months and the print has already disappeared around the edge)

pinch the edge of the cap with the pliers and turn it slightly toward the top side of the cap. Continue to do so around the entire cap but don't try to flatten it all in one go cause it's kinda hard. It should only take two minutes or so anyway

almost there

there, it's flat now. If you want to paint or write something on it, add a couple of layers of acrylic paint on it before you paint/write what you actually want on the pins

I wanted skeleton parts on mine because I saw someone with pins like that and idk where they bought them

I drew them with a Pitt pen on top of 4 layers of white acrylic

spray a coat of varnish on them but PLEASE do that outside, you do NOT want to breathe that stuff. Then wait a few hours for it to dry

on the back, add 1) glue 2) one safety pin 3) a thin paper across the pin - squish the paper against the wet glue. When it's dry, add another layer of glue on top. Just drown the back of the pin in crystal glue otherwise it's gonna break too easily. Just make sure the safety pin can still open and close easily

let it dry until the next day just to be sure. Tug on the safety pin a bit to make sure it's glued correctly

congrats you've made pins with bottle caps

[blumineck]

How to make an archery target using recycled materials!

I’m still on the injury recovery bandwagon, but GOOD NEWS: there’s a massive stock of archery references available on my Patreon so you don’t have to miss out on watching me do cool stuff!

Edit: I found the spelling error, thanks everyone for being snarky about it 😉

[oarfishcouncil]

Get crafty for Oarfish Day! Share your creations by @ ing us and/or tagging #oarfishday and we'll share it!

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

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by 徐大花xudahua