How many stars can you count from where you live?

Growing up in St. Louis, there were a few constellations that we could pick out in the night sky. It wasn't until I started going to Girl Scout camp that I realized how many more stars there were in the sky. The Girl Scout camps I attended were out "in the country," which really meant maybe an hour or so from where we lived. Still, it was far enough from the bright lights and pollution of the city that you could actually see the stars at night.

When I moved away for college, I moved to a fairly rural area. The university still had enough light to make the stars a little hard to see, but you could get outside of town and see plenty of stars. The town I moved to for graduate school was a little bigger than where I did my undergrad, but again, there were plenty of rural areas nearby where the stars were clear.

I'm not sure that I've seen the stars since we moved to Seattle. Every once in a while, the clouds break for long enough to see the night sky. But we're not too far from downtown Seattle, and there's just so much light and pollution in a city of this size. Maybe the pollution isn't quite as bad as it could be in a city of this size, but pollution seems to go hand in hand with city living.

What does this have to do with anything? Counting Stars is my new Etsy shop. I still have ScaryWhiteGirl as well, but I'm basically separating out the contents of each shop between things that are crocheted, and things that are made from upcycled, repurposed, or otherwise environmentally friendly materials. This is not to say that my crocheted stuff can't be environmentally friendly as well, but I'm putting the emphasis on Counting Stars for environmentally friendly items.

So there you'll find things made from manufactured items which have reached the end of their lifespan in their original purpose. You'll find things made from thrift store finds. You'll find tags made from thin cardboard, attached with scraps of ribbon. You'll basically find things made from as much upcycled and repurposed materials as is possible.

And it may not have a huge impact on the environment, but every little bit helps. And maybe, just maybe, as more and more people buy and create upcycled/repurposed items, there can be a few more stars to count in the night sky...

The newest line for my Etsy shop!

I made myself an apron to use at shows a while back, and I've discovered that it's really handy. I can have my change, my receipt book, a pen, my cell phone, and anything else I might want close at hand all in my apron. What's even better is that the apron itself is upcycled from an old pair of jean shorts!

After making some modifications to my original prototype, I've got upcycled aprons in my Etsy shop now! These are constructed from old jeans or jean shorts, embellished with upcycled dress shirts and a little bit of trim that I have on hand. This is a lot of fun, and surprising to see what I can come up with out of my own clothes that either no longer fits or isn't quite my style any more. (And so little of what I own is IN style, that it makes better sense to convert these items than donate them.)

There will definitely be more to come, including some in children's sizes (made just from shirts, thus far). I spent most of Sunday working on the first batch, and I've got more stuff on hand to make additional ones! :)

Weekend projects!

So I managed to complete a couple of crafty projects this weekend. I have pictures of one, but not the other. This is partially because I was thinking that the latter project wasn't quite done, but now I'm thinking it is, and partially because I never can take decent pictures of myself.

Project uno was a board from which to hang my necklaces and display my ACEOs. This was a project inspired by both Emma, who made a board from which to hang necklaces, and Kinichi River, who made a bulletin board for her craft room to hold ACEOs.



Mine does both. :) It's made from photo mat board, styrofoam insulation, 25 cent ribbon, staples, thumbtacks, and cup hooks. The only thing I bought for this project? The ribbon. All I had in the apartment was black ribbon, and I wanted to make this black and green, as that goes with two of the ACEOs I wanted to display. Now, of course, I need more ACEOs in that color scheme. :)

(And I know there's at least two people reading this blog who will recognize something that's on display now. Yay! :) )

Project dos was a skirt, made from 3 fat quarters and some shiny fabric that I had lying around. Now, you would think that 24 inches of fabric would make a relatively short skirt, especially when you take into account things like hems and waistbands and such, right? Wrong, at least for me. The skirt ended up about TWICE as long as I wanted it, once I put the 9 inch ruffle of shiny-ness on the bottom. So I messed around with the skirt for a while, trying to figure out if I should cut it off into the mini-skirt I wanted, or leave it long. I eventually just put it back into my sewing stuff, since I didn't have elastic to finish it anyway. I'm glad I did leave it alone, though, because I figured out a way to have it as a short or long skirt, and it doesn't even need elastic. It will also fit me until my waistline doubles. :)

So yeah, I now have two skirt "patterns" that use fat quarters. Somehow, this makes me insanely happy, even though I'm probably paying just as much to buy my fat quarters as I would for a real piece of fabric. :)

The Land of Oz

The EtsyRain Creative Challenge #5 is on a Wizard of Oz theme, so of course I had to give it a shot. Of course, I will be making more than one Wizard of Oz inspired piece, this is just the first.



It's an 8x10 collage, the biggest one I've ever made (at least within my adult life). The description on Etsy tells you about what the different images represent, but I gotta tell you about actually putting the thing together. :)

I had a basic idea in my head to begin with, about the structure of the piece overall. I wanted the central piece to be the Yellow Brick Road, and I started out with GRAND plans for it. We received an art supply catalog in the mail many months ago, and I've been hanging on to it for use in collages. When the art supply catalog shows off the assorted colors of paint that are available, they show what look like tiny bricks of color. So the yellow brick road is pieced together out of many many many little "paint samples." :)

The other pictures mainly came from a combination of archaeology magazines, kids magazines, and fashion magazines. It's funny to realize that, but when you're making collages, there are quite a few ways you can work with pretty much anything you have available. It's all about looking beyond the original composition of a fashion ad, for example, and picking out the pieces that work for your collage.

I think my main obsession with collages is that I can pretty much just use stuff that otherwise would need to be recycled or trashed. Even the base for this collage was "trash"--it was the piece of cardboard that came inside of a thermal shirt package. It's a perfectly nice piece of cardboard, and now it's even nicer with a Wizard of Oz collage attached to it! :)

Blog Action Day!

So for those who have not heard, today is Blog Action Day - a day for blogs around the world to focus on the same topic: the environment.

One of my favorite things about moving to Seattle has been the fact that we now have two dumpsters for recycling on the parking lot of our apartment building (and another one for yard waste / pizza boxes). This is a drastic change from Carbondale, where I'm pretty sure the only way to recycle was either to drive all of your stuff to a recycling bin or pay for the privilege of having your recyclables hauled away.

It's been a bit of a change from what we're used to, of course. I still have to refer to the list that I stuck to the fridge to check whether some things can be recycled or not. But it's becoming more of a habit, which is a good thing. I've been in favor of recycling since high school, when I was into so many environmentally conscious bands that it couldn't help but rub off on me. I've just never really been in much of a position to implement it as a large part of my lifestyle till now.

Of course, I also try to keep this in mind when I'm working on crafts as well. I've got quite a few things in my Etsy shop that are "upcycled," or made from repurposed materials. It's a lot of fun to take apart old sweaters and reuse the yarn to crochet with. And when I've outgrown a pair of jeans, they turn into some lovely purses. I also have done quite a bit with reusing paper, whether it's the scraps from another project, or collages made of magazine clippings and junk mail.

While I know that a lot of crafters prefer to work with all new materials, there is a lot that can be done with repurposed materials as well. And, if nothing else, crafters can donate their unwanted objects to GoodWill, where other crafters (like myself) will pick them up for materials! :)