Hand-made paper calendar

I mentioned before that I've been on a paper-making kick. My first project was a few months ago, before Christmas. I was trying to make all of my gifts by hand, and there were a few people on my list that I thought would appreciate a calendar, of my design and printed on hand-made paper. Here's how it turned out:

I'm really happy with it. (Sorry about the photo quality – I must get a nice camera soon!) I only did an edition of eight prints, so I think I'll reuse the design of the kite-flyers for something else. Maybe it would be a good greeting card, with some kind of nice message (instead of the year) written with the tails.

It was so easy and CHEAP! You literally use your junk mail or old computer printouts or whatever is lying around. I learned how to do it from this great tutorial on Etsy. I won't even try to do a better job of explaining the process. But when I get more into paper-casting (that's making 3-D sculpture out of paper pulp), I'll fill you in on the details. I expect that to be a bit more complicated.

Paper casting

After yesterday's long philosophical post about the environment, I figure you guys deserve some eye candy:

Don't you just love these cast-paper sculpture wall art pieces? They are so emotional to me somehow! (Or maybe that's just my mood :-) ) Well, they are undeniably nostalgic at least.

I'm probably going to be doing a few posts in the next several days about hand-made paper arts. It's been my latest phase, and I hope to get several paper goods ready for my shop. (Still not decided on the opening date yet, whether to delay it because of our move...)

The above picture is something I ran across in a Google image search a while back, but when I tried to follow the link, it was broken. I had no idea where it came from for the longest time. Which somehow made me feel better about filing it away to copy later! (With my own spin of course...) But, yesterday I did some heavy-duty sleuthing and found that the image was originally posted on some old paper arts website. Now I know the artists name, but not much else. If you're familiar with Cynthia Thompson, please tell me what you know!

Crafting and the three (four?) R’s

Sometime before Christmas my friend Gina showed me an article that just blew my mind. It was all about how recycling is a big corporate conspiracy that's actually ruining the environment. If you don't have time to read the whole thing, I'll sum up what I took away from it:

Of the three R's (as in "reduce, reuse, recycle"), recycling has the least positive impact on the environment because it requires resources and produces waste. It also happens to be the easiest of the R's to adopt, because you don't really have to start doing anything, or stop doing anything. You just throw your trash a different bin, and pull items from a different shelf in the store.

The article posits that corporations have latched onto recycling as a marketing tool to help them sell more stuff: They can offer people a way to feel like they're doing something for environment, but in actuality they're just buying more stuff. So we're using more energy and resources to create (in the end) even more waste. And the companies get richer, while coming off as "environmentally conscious."

Now, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but, this sounds pretty convincing to me, especially with the statistics the article cites.

So where does crafting fit in with all of this?

Well, when I decided to begin selling my own "recycled" goods, I had to think twice about the morality of it. But, I was quickly able to console myself with the fact that pretty much everything I do falls under what I consider the Fourth R, repurpose.* Here's the basic method behind my crafting: I collect random cool things, take them all apart, and put them back together in a different way, to make even cooler things. For example, I may go to the thrift store and buy a wool sweater with holes in it and an old belt with a stain on it. I unravel the sweater into yarn, knit it into a pouch, and turn it into felt. I then cut the belt on either side of the stain, and sew the two good peices onto either side of the felt pouch. Voila! A purse.

Now this may sound a lot like recycling, but the distinction I draw is this: all the energy comes from me, so there is no pollution, besides my own carbon footprint which is going to exist regardless. Another difference is that, while only some things can be recycled, with enough creativity and effort you can repurpose just about anything! And (like the Native Americans famously did when they killed a buffalo) I try to use every part in some way, with zero waste.

(You could also say the process sounds a bit like reusing, but it's more fun and interesting!)

So, I toil on, in guilt-free anticipation of my Eleventy store opening! (Which may be postponed a few weeks; as it turns out, we're moving next month. I'll keep you posted.)


*Or, maybe "repurpose" is the Fifth R: the article I referred to had its own idea of adding "repair."

Home-made "iRubberBand" iPhone case

This is a fun little personal project I did a couple of years ago when I got my first iPhone, Gertrude, may she rest in peace. I made her a case out completely out of rubber bands!

I really wish I'd taken better pictures of the thing. Apparently my digital camera was out of commission or something, because I took the pictures with the actual iPhone camera, requiring a goofy set-up with two mirrors, and me in the background. Talk about kluging! Alas, at the time I didn't know I'd be starting a blog about handmade design... Anyway, that one and this one are the only two I have:

...but I think you get the idea. Maybe I'll make a new one for my current iPhone, Harold.

The story is, I got this phone the day they came out, and at that time they didn't have the huge selection of cases and cozies that they have now. I had to protect "my precious," and of the three or four designs on the market that seemed really protective, I wasn't happy with the design.

My solution was to wrap the whole thing in rubber bands. I left open the places that I needed to access (the entire screen, the speaker and microphone, all the buttons and switches, and the camera lens). It took some engineering, but in the end, I could drop the thing, and it would bounce. And, the look was definitely my style: hand-made.

I've given some thought to marketing these things, but it's complicated because it pretty much has to be constructed on the phone. And who's going to mail me their iPhone for a week? The key would be to design it so it can be popped on and off in one piece. Maybe if there was some kind of elastic glue or gel... I could make a cast of my phone (scary!!), and for each case: wrap the cast in the rubber bands, glue all the bands together and maybe even coat it in the glue, let it dry, and then pop it off. Anyone have any suggestions? Silicon glue?? It would have to be really elastic though...

DIY officially enters the mainstream!

I'm sitting here watching the Oscars, taking notes for the obligatory fashion design best-and-worst post (which I can't wait to write!) and I am surprised to discover, in the first five minutes of the show, enough material for an entire post. Did you catch that opening number? These things are always cheesy, self-indulgent, and absolutely hilarious, and this year's was no exception. But what impressed me was the set-design theme, which seemed to be "handmade design," the exact theme of this blog!



My favorite thing to have come out of the Economapocalypse is that the DIY trend which began a few years ago has experienced a major surge. And many people seem to be adopting it on more that just a superficial level. And (more importantly), since most DIY projects involve reusing materials that might otherwise end up in a landfill, the environment benefits most.

Of course that doesn't apply in this particular case, which was obviously manufactured from all-new materials, and not even, in fact, very DIY at all but likely outsourced as usual. But that's okay by me. I'm just happy to see the idea advanced in any way!

Communication design: The Crisis of Credit Visualized

This post is a wee bit off topic in that it isn't strictly about traditional handmade design ... If that fact causes you great anxiety, I advise you to please to take it up with the manager, thank you. ;-)

When I went to school for art direction, the name of the program I studied in (and the wording on my Bachelor of Arts diploma) was "Communication Design." I really like that terminology, and the approach behind it. It can be summed up like this: The idea must always be central. Every decision made while creating the piece must either extend from the idea, extend the idea further, or both. I try to be idea-centric in all my artistic pursuits, commercial or otherwise. It's still probably most pronounced in the work I do in advertising; but, I try to be idea-centric in my crafting, too. The idea just might be something like "fuzziness," or "fluidity." Or, on occasion, " bacon". (I don't do much fine art, but the fine artists that I am drawn to tend to be somewhat cerebral as well, for example, the most genius artist of all time.)

So...

When my friend Sara showed me this excellent specimen of Communication Design, I absolutely had to share, even though it isn't technically "handmade design." (I suppose that it was made by hand if you consider the right hand of the animator, which must have been glued to his mouse for days – or months – to pull this thing out!)


[link]

I've been in the kitchen, bacon cookies!

It's almost Mardi Gras, and in honor of the coming Day of Fat, I'd like to share a project involving the fattiest savory treat of them all: BACON!

A few weeks ago, on that other holiday of excess, Super Bowl Sunday, we went to a pigskin-themed party. Everyone had to bring a dish using bacon. My mind, and sweet tooth, immediately went to the abominable possibility that there would be no dessert,* and I decided to make bacon cookies.

I quickly determined that using bacon in the cookies, while novel, would not produce the tastiest party dish. So I decided to just make regular butter cookies that look like bacon. I downloaded many bacon reference photos, and after some study, I came up with a process that I'm pretty sure is similar to how God made bacon: create a big slab with layers of fat and meat, that can then be sliced up into strips of greasy deliciousness.

I started with the ingredients from a regular butter cookie recipe – any one would work, as long as it's the kind where you refrigerate the dough and then make shapes with a cookie cutter or by slicing it (which is what we'll be doing).

I mixed up the dough, and then used different proportions of yellow, red, and black food coloring to make up three different colors: a large ball of yellowish-beige dough approximating bacon fat, another large one in pink to look like fatty bacon meat, and a smaller dark red ball the color of the lean bacon meat.


I smooshed each ball into a disc, wrapped them in wax paper, and refrigerated for about an hour.

When they were cold enough to hold shape, I rolled them out into a series of different-sized logs:

The next step was to shape the logs according to how I wanted the patches of color to look on the final bacon slices. To do this, I had to think of what the cross-section of each log would look like from the side, and try to match the shapes on my reference photos, but across the entire log (as if it had been extruded from that shape). Here's what I mean...this pink log is for one of the paisley-like shapes of the pink fatty meat:

I did two of those. I noticed that the darkest red in lots of my photo reference was in two connected blobs, so I smooshed two dark logs together in the middle:

I saved out a yellow log to leave round, and flattened the rest of them to make the more ribbony shapes.

Then they all needed to go in the freezer for a few minutes so I could handle them again. (All the shaping had made them too soft.)

Next began the layering process. I layed the round fatty piece in the middle of the joined lean-meat pieces.

I covered those in a thin layer of the flattened fat.

I continued building layer upon layer, using the photo reference as a guide to where the shapes needed to go.

In the end, I had a slab of uncut bacon, made of cookie dough! I froze it again, and cut it down the middle to see how it turned out:

Pretty bacony! The final step was to, as they say on the commercials, "just slice and bake!"

I put the unbaked cookies on parchment paper so it would be easier to transfer each batch to and from my baking stone. (But a regular cookie sheet would work just fine.) Also, I found that it helped to very slightly "flute" the sides of each slice in places, as you would a pie crust, to make the shape less regular and more like cooked bacon.

For my final presentation I thought it would be a hoot (dare I say, an oink?) to bring the cookies to the party in a good old fashioned cast-iron skillet:

And, they were deee-licious!

How's that for some Fat Tuesday inspiration?

*The premise that there would be no dessert without bacon cookies turned out to be misguided: someone actually brought chocolate-covered bacon.

Disclaimer: No pigs were harmed in the baking of these cookies. Though somewhere along the way a couple cows had to be milked, and some eggs were stolen from a poor, unsuspecting hen.

Kluging: The Cowboy Way is the Crafter's Way

I love a good kluge. My favorite projects almost always end up involving some bit of makeshifting or improvising. Sometimes the project itself a kluge: when I don't have access to a particular tool or piece of equipment, I'll just try to make my own. It makes me feel like an inventor, or like one of those guys on Apollo 13 who had to create a contraption to save the astronauts using only what was available on the ship:



Doesn't every crafter feel like this at one time or another (minus the pressure of someone's life on the line)?

I was ruminating about my romance with the kluge this morning, and I decided to do a little bit of research on the word itself. Partly I wanted to determine if my understanding of the definition was complete or ... well, klugey! I was trying to get a sense of whether the word is intrinsically positive or pejorative, or just neutral. Apparently, it can be any of those. Here are several different definitions.

This disparity could be due to the word's confused origins. (It can either be traced back to "klug," the German word for "clever," or "kludge," the Scottish word for public toilet!)

Or, I think more meaningfully, it could come down to one of those "two kinds of people in this world" notions. Some people like things done they way they're supposed to be done. And others (like me) get a kick out of re-appropriating whatever they happen to get their hands on. It's a puzzle; a game. But I guess some people don't really like puzzles or games, so there you go!

So, fellow crafters, next time you find yourself improvising a workaround that ends up taking you the long way around, and someone sensibly points out to you that "they make a tool for that" (or something similar), embrace your love of the kluge, and reply "That might be the easy way, but it wouldn't be the crafty way!"

Ready, Set, Pounce!

One of my favorite things to do on the internet is Pounce on Etsy.

First of all, if you've never been to Etsy, you have to check it out. It's an online marketplace where craftspeople sell handmade goods, and where you can sidestep big retail, find amazing one-of-a-kind objects, and support independent artists. It's a good deal all around.

Etsy does a great job of really pushing the internet's capabilities to bring you a whole bunch of different ways to shop. One of my favorites is called Pouncing. Etsy offers two ways to Pounce: you can look through items from undiscovered shops that haven't sold anything yet, or from established shops that just had a sale. I like to look at the "undiscovereds," probably because I'm just getting my own Etsy shop off the ground, and I like to think that people will be looking for me on Pounce :-)

I thought it would be fun to do a series of posts (maybe one or two every month), where I simply do some Pouncing and post my favorite findings. Of course, you could just Pounce away on your own (and you should!), but it can be nice to have things come your way every once in a while when you weren't looking for them.

So here's today's picks.

From Nostalgiclink's shop, opened September 2008:

Lego Vintage 50s Scrabble Light Tile Bookmark Felt Silver Paper Clip, $5. While I think the title could be a wee bit wordsmithed :-) the object is quite neat. The proportions of the little toy gun and the badge graphic are so cute, and then they are displayed in such an official-looking way! Nice touch that the block they are mounted to is a Scrabble tile.

From raawjewelry's shop, opened February 2009:

Gold Wrap, $120. J'adore!! My neck needs this very much. I just love the simple composition, and the contrast of the blocky raw gold stalks with the delicate wire. I even love the chain. Sigh.

From zencrafter's shop, opened February, 2009:

Surf Bench by Zencrafter, $1295. What an interesting piece! It doesn't really match with my personal furniture taste, but I can see it being a striking conversation piece in someone else's home (or, as the description suggests, an upscale sushi bar perhaps).

So there you go, three things I never would have thought to look for, ranging from five dollars to over a thousand. Hope you've had fun!

All the President's Women

I wanted to feature something relevant for Presidents' Day, and I tried to find this cool painting I saw one time of all the US Presidents together. But, Googling "painting I saw one time of the presidents" didn't really produce accurate results. However, I did run across something cool.


Photographer Sherrie Levine, a prominent artist of the 1970s-80s, did an awesome series of photo collages featuring magazine images cut into silhouettes of US presidents.


Apparently there were some with JFK's silhouette as well, but I couldn't find images of those. (If you have one please send it to me and I'll post it!)

This is an earlier one in the series. It seems like she may have had a shift later on in her choice of magazine images, to more objectifying portrayals of women.


In the later ones (pictured first) with the fashion imagery, the juxtaposition with the idea of the President is greater, and the more awkward cropping reinforces that juxtaposition. It seems to comment on how women are used simply to display whatever is considered sexy and desirable in the fashion-of-the-moment, and the symbolization of more stately, revered, and lasting values is reserved for men. By contrast, the way the Victorian woman and child are framed within Lincoln's silhouette, they almost look like they belong there, as if he's protecting them. In this way, while the suggestion could still be that they are in some way subjugated, it's a much more subtle reference.

A website dedicated to the art of Sherrie Levine and contemporaries Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger has an analysis of the series.

The images in this post are from (in order) MoMA, the Met, and Carriage Trade gallery.

Okay, this is possibly the ultimate Valentine.

This guy knows what he's doing. Put down the scissors and glue, and hire a plane:


Spotted while walking my dog, Venice, CA, 1:19 PM.

(It says "Your Mio" – by the time he finished the 'o', the "your" was beginning to blow away.)

p.s. In all fairness, I love me a scissors and glue Valentine. I admit, I just said that for dramatic effect.

The only thing better than a Valentine made by hand...

...is one made by the Universe.

Like the one that was waiting for me in my fruit bowl this morning!

Happy Valentine's Day!

A picture is worth a thousand tiny pieces of yarn.

I think I have decided what my next kick is going to be: latch-hooking! I did a couple of hooked rugs and pillows when I was in middle-school, and I remember it being super easy, fun, and relaxing. If you're not familiar with the craft, here's a quick overview: You start with a piece of open-weave mesh (with big holes), and you use this special thing called a latch-hook to pull little bits of yarn through the mesh. The latch-hook ties each piece of yarn to the mesh on its way through, and you end up with what basically amounts to shag carpeting. It was pretty popular in the 1970s. Here's an example of one:


Of course, you can do any image or pattern you want, but what excites me is the potential to experiment with materials, and really push the texture aspect of the medium. Imagine using several different yarns of similar color, but of all different thicknesses and textures. (Great way to use leftover bits of yarn, since the lengths can be short!) What I really want to do is throw in some other materials instead of the yarn. I've got a few old t-shirts laying around that could probably be cut into tiny swatches in the course of one episode of Lost. Old worn-in tees sure would make a soft pillow.

I bet you can hook anything that can be made into little strips. What could you make out of rubber bands? A shaggy potholder?? (The grip would be nice and firm, but I need to experiment with the heat-resistance!)

Well, I guess it's time to see if I still have my old hook somewhere...

The Make-It Book

Welcome to Eleventy, a new blog dedicated to handmade design. Since this is the first post, I'd like to invite you to read more about the blog and about me, and also to subscribe to email updates if you're interested.

When I was thinking about how to kick off the blog, I began trying to remember what got me started making things in the first place. Of course I have to give the shout-out to mom and dad (and step-mom), who raised me to be creative, to see possibilities in everything, and to pursue any and all interests without fear of failure. But this post is about a particular object that has inspired me, from about as early as I can remember. (Most recently, you might notice, I chose to borrow heavily from it to create the color scheme for this blog!) It’s a book: The Make-It Book.


This book was a hand-me-down, I think from my dad. (It’s from 1961 – almost twenty years older than me!) If I remember correctly, my grandparents still had it from my dad’s childhood when I was little. I read it so many times on visits to their Hill Country home in Kingsland, TX, that they eventually sent it home with me.

The book photographed here is not my original copy, though it is the same edition. Once I began planning this post and thinking back on these memories, I had to do some research online and find a used one. When I got it in the mail it was such an experience to flip back through the pages that I hadn’t seen in decades. I remember every single illustration. Some things about it I forgot, or never quite realized when I was little: mainly, its incredible (and endearing) kitschiness. The book was first published in 1953, and the Fifties-period illustrations are priceless. It’s also amusing to appreciate the old-fashioned gender roles implicit in what types of crafts are geared toward little girls versus little boys. I had also completely forgotten that the book had anything to do with McCall’s, or the Golden Books series.

I love how the front and back inside covers are patterened in these adorable shapes and drawings:


I plan to steal a few for my next project! (Though only under fair-use, of course…heh heh.)

The table-of-contents spread gives you an idea of the different types of crafts in the book:


Birdhouse? Check. Clothespin People? Check. Pot Holders? Helicopter? Disguise Kit? Check, check, check. Four Good Toss Games? Two Kinds of Stilts? Check-check-check-check, check-check! Chemical Garden…? You got it!

This must be what ignited my inner-typographer’s flame:



Another key spread in my childhood development:


This is a project I specifically remember doing:


I totally made that moustache! (And yes it, it was kind of gross to stick the little bits up into your nose.)

I also find it hilarious that they have fairly advanced (for children) woodworking projects, complete with sawing, hammering, and other activities involving sharp objects, and yet none of the text includes a word of warning about safety.


They don’t even suggest that you have an adult around when you’re wielding these tools capable of removing small appendages. We’ve come a long way in our over-litigious society! (Counterpoint.)

Thanks for tripping down memory lane with me on my first Eleventy blog post, this eleventh day of February! I’d love to hear what got you started on your creative passions early on – post about it in the comments section below if you like. And don’t forget to subscribe if you want to receive email updates.

About me

I'm Naomi Duckworth. I've always had a passion for making things, mostly useful things (clothing, household objects, food), and always with an eye toward good design. I sell my work at eleventy.etsy.com.

My professional background is in advertising, and I work days as a freelance art director. You can see some of my work at my portfolio site. I currently live in San Francisco with my husband and the world's best dog and cat.

About this blog

I make things. It’s something I’ve always done – always needed to do: I make, therefore I am.

I like making all different types of things, mostly useful things (clothing, household objects, food), and always with an eye toward good design. My favorite things to make are things I’ve never made before: the best part for me is figuring out the process of how something is made. (I loved the segments on Mister Rogers where they would visit a factory and show how something, like a crayon, is created from start to finish. It always made me want to make my own; though, alas, I lacked any of the necessary factory equipment...) This tendency often results in me choosing a new hobby, getting together all the equipment, learning enough to make one or two successful projects, and then moving on to something else.

This blog is an attempt to document and share my processes, partly to lend some worth to all the up-front time that I put in each time I decide to explore a new type of project. When, just as I get good enough at something to be efficient and productive, I inevitably flit off to pursue my next craft-du-jur, at least I can leave behind some online tutorials!

I will also post things that inspire me: interesting potential raw materials, other hand-made objects I wish I had made, notable examples of good design, striking artwork, particularly nicely-shaped tree limbs… Basically, anything I think is cool.

The other facet of handmade design I plan to explore is the business side. I, like everyone, would love to think I can turn my reason for living into a means for living. More than that, though, I’ve become enamored with the idea of this new economy that the internet has brought us, where skilled individuals can connect directly to the people who need their goods and services. Specifically, I'm excited about how handmade design is able to thrive in such a world, most notably in the online marketplace Etsy. On this blog, you can follow the ups and downs of my own commercial endeavors in handmade design at my Etsy shop, and hopefully share some of your own wisdom.

Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope you find something in it that you enjoy.