So Richard gave you all the facts of the event, but I wanted to add my own two cents . . . two words:

Super fun!

When we walked in we were shocked at how many people were there.  At first we saw lots of people that we didn’t know, but looked very familiar  - possibly other artists that we don’t know, customers or craft fans.  Then all the crafty peeps we know started to appear.  It was nice to chat with people and talk about creativity.  Richard and I passed out a ton of biz cards.  It was so crowded that I lost Richard and it took me a while to find him again, but I didn’t mind I had plenty of other folks to catch up with.  When I did find him he was making crafty love to a crowd of women (this is what he does).  I tried to make it through the crowd to visit with my friend Cathy Pitters.  She was working the craft table and was gocco-ing her little heart out with a crowd of people waiting for their turn to make a gocco print.  On two or three occasions I tried to make it over to her, but swarms of people around her and her project made it impossible.

Richard and I were there to see the happs and to promoting our new TV show concept that we are working on with Patrick Cummings. We found some great artists who we want to feature in future episodes.  One of them is Rachel of Lucky Looloo who also moonlights as an art therapist.  Here she is pictured with Richard Fox.

I had to leave early due to prior commitments, but when I did Richard makin’ crafty love to all the ladies again and passing out more cards.  He was in his element - all smiles and charm.  What a fun night!  As if it weren’t enough to see all the craft kids, talk about common goals with the I Heart Art group and generally just hanging out, I must say that beer that costs the price of  a smile was pretty rad too!  It sorta felt like a crafty gala or something.  Everyone was dressed in their crafty best.  I am looking forward to more opportunities to participate in these types of events.  I would say that not only was this a productive gathering, but the I Heart Art event was a good time was had by all!

by: Jen

There’s nothing like a good mixer, especially one with great people, interesting and dynamic content and free beer.  Did I just say that?

Jen and I attended I Heart Art: Portland, a collaborative effort between Etsy,  PNCA ( Pacific Northwest College of the Arts), Museum of Contemporary Craft, and the Portland Etsy Team on Friday, February 26th. This was a meet and greet affair introducing this collaboration to the denizens of the Portland Arts and Craft scene.

To me this seemed to be measurably different from many of these events.  You felt a strong sense that the goal was to bring together the myriad amount of makers that navigate in this creative and crazy city.  Many faces familiar to me were in attendance but so many that I had never met were also there.  It was a great excuse to break out of the box that we often find ourselves in our respective communities as well as a way to increase my growing business card collection.

I’d be hard pressed to shed any new light on their goals which include some amazing workshops at PNCA as well as more events yet to come.  Please spend a little time visiting their respective sites to find out more about this amazing collaboration.

Cheers,

Richard

When I am thinking about getting creative I try to set up my environment to allow me to be at my best creatively.  I am a very left handed, right-brained person who can live in a fairly high level of chaos for short periods of time without getting too freaked out.  But, I am finding as I get older that the problem is that high levels of clutter and disorder can be distracting to the creative process. I am not a neatnik by any means, but there are certain areas of my life that I try really hard to stay on top of so that I can have more time for creativity, calm and general happiness.

One way that I have found to set up a regular routine, which allows me to have a handle on my home life is by regularly managing the food in my house.  I used to spend hours every week trying to figure out what to make, looking up recipes, shopping for a handful of items a few times a week only to then throw away much of the food I bought because it had gone bad before I could use it.  My husband and I who are both creative people were feeling overwhelmed at dinner time because we didn’t have a plan.  I have always been someone who likes to solve a problem so I thought, there has to be a better way . . .

I started to realized that there were some things that I wanted to change with our grocery shopping and cooking style so that I could have more time to do what we want.  Here is what I did, I found this pdf, which is a menu and grocery list all in one and it has made my life easier at dinner time.  Here is how it works . . . every Sunday or occasionally if I am running behind, on a Monday, I sit down with my husband and son and we make a menu for the week.  In my house we like to have at least three I-don’t-have-to-think-about-it meals a week and three “actual meals”.  With our new system we try to make one big menu item on Sunday, sometimes we cook a whole chicken, or some other thing that we can add to other menus over the course of the week, so that all that we make gets eaten.  We try to think of ways to use everything.  If we buy a chicken we save the carcass, wrapped in plastic wrap so that we can turn it into a broth for soup, then we add some of the leftover meat and other ingredients.  We go out to eat one time per week and I only shop one time a week. Here’s an example of dinner items that we have this week on our menu.

Sunday -  Pork and rice (My husband made a lot of pork for the week)
Monday -  Pork tacos
Tuesday - Pork sliders with cole slaw and salad
Wednesday - Teryaki chicken (from Trader Joe’s frozen section) *
Thursday - Nachos *
Friday - Out to eat
Saturday - Burgers and salad *

* all of these items are the I-don’t-want-to-think-about-it meals

Having this list accomplishes so many goals for our family:
1. SAVES TIME - We are able to do all the shopping, planning and even cooking in 6 hours or less a week, which is about half the time we use to spend on these things.  I have more time for creativity and for family/friends.
2. SAVES MONEY - We have cut our food budget in half.   We throw away almost no food.  We used to spend around $1200 a month going out to eat and buying groceries (half of which we ended up throwing out).
3. LOWERS STRESS - We have a sense of order to our lives and in our home.  This is huge!!!  My husband and I are able to work together at managing the food in our house.  We usually write the list together, I do the shopping, then he does most of the cooking.  He doesn’t mind cooking as much as me most of the time, but never liked coming up with the ideas of what to make and didn’t want to shop at the end of the day and cook.  Now he can come home, look at the list, which lives on our fridge and get to cookin’.  Sometimes we aren’t in the mood for a particular menu item on a given night, so we just cook and eat another meal from a different night.  We also do this if we are too busy one night to make an actual meal and want to use an I-don’t-want-to-think-about-it meal from a different night. Doing this list has really reduced the chaos in our home at dinner time.  The stress level is much lower and we have so much less waste in our lives - food, money, time, etc.
4. INCREASES SHARING - It is something that all members of the house share in.  My husband and I share doing the workload in an efficient way and our son has a way of looking ahead to see what we will be eating later in the week.  This gives him a feeling of order and structure.  He loves to look at the new menu for the week and gets excited about particular menu selections and likes to suggest items for the week when we are planning menus.

Menu - Grocery List

Here are a few tips for setting up your own menu/grocery list for the first time:

-  I found it helpful to collect a handful of menu ideas and recipes in a spreadsheet before we started making the menu/shopping list, but you could write them on a piece of paper too.  When I was first making menus/grocery lists I would refer to my master list a lot, but now it’s old hat and we can build a menu/grocery list in 10-15 minutes.
-  I find it useful to check the fridge and pantry before I start building my list to see what we already have.  If we have lots of pasta I will get sauce or buy fixin’s to make sauce.  If we have frozen peas, I try to work them into a meal, etc.  It’s a great way to use what you have, save money and lower the consumption level in your home, which is very stress relieving.
- I save all of my menu/grocery lists and on a really busy week I reuse older ones and simply add or cross out grocery items as needed for the current week.
- For my family we only focus on the dinners we want to cook, because we eat the leftovers for lunch and usually have simple things for breakfast, like cereal or oatmeal.

I hope you find this post helpful.  This is just one small way that you can create order and routine in your home.  It has made such a difference the lives of my family.  I started doing this for one reason: to make more time, and found that I got so many other things out of it.  Happy menu/grocery listing and now that you have created more time, go forth and create!

by Jen Neitzel

In the years I ran the DIY Lounge classroom spaces I always found that this time of year - January through early April - is the busy time for art and craft classes.  This year I have decided that it’s my turn to learn some new things . . . I have been sewing since I was 7 years old and designing reconstructed, knit and crocheted clothes for 7 years now, under the label Knot Ugly Designs.  For those who don’t know what reconstructed clothing is, it’s a style of clothing construction where you take an already existing garment that isn’t spectacular and reconstruct it into another garment.  I mostly work with high quality natural fiber, recycled sweaters, which is a great way to keep these items out of the landfills and a way to make something weird into something lovable.  Almost every thing I know about apparel design is self taught so this year I have decided that it’s time to learn some new things.  I became fascinated with knit fabrics years ago, probably because that is what I like to wear (a little stretch is a good thing), but working with knit fabrics can be very tricky.  I have all sorts of tricks that I have developed over the years for working with knits and now I am ready to learn all of the “official” techniques to sewing with knit fabrics.  I recently purchased Sew U Home Stretch which is part of the Built by Wendy book series.  I am very impressed with this book.  Such clear instructions and patterns.  I am not a beginning sewer so some of the techniques I already know, but it’s still good to see all of the little details laid out so clearly.  I am definitely picking up some new techniques.  I like it when a book can be useful to a wide range of skill levels and I would definitely say this is one of those books.  I highly recommend checking this book out.  More than anything this book is giving me inspiration.  I feel a knit dress in my future . . .
by: Jen Neitzel

According to the Chinese Five Elements Astrology Calendar, 2010 is the Year of the White (Metal) Tiger. The color White is used to represent Metal in Chinese Astrology and often Gold is used as a related symbol as well.

The metal year should bode well for new financial endeavors and a rise in personal fortune but the White Tiger isn’t all fun and games. Many Chinese believe the White Tiger to be a symbol of the jinx and predict it to be a poor year for those born in the Year of the Tiger. It does look as though it’s going to be an especially fruitful year for those born in the Year of the Horse and Dragon, close friends of the Tiger.

In order to make this year as fruitful as possible you have to be vigilant and keep your temper to a minimum. Realize that this year is going to be full of unpredictability but I’ve always said, what’s wrong with that? Amazing things often come when you are least expecting them.

I am personally taking this opportunity to expand my endeavors and work hard on new projects. With a keen eye and direct focus we should be able to leave the toil of the Year of the Ox (2009) far behind us.

It’s a great time to blow the dust off those knitting needles, replace that dry bottle of glue or post some new items to Etsy. Who knows, maybe that White Tiger will roar some of that good gold luck in your direction.

Yours in Crafty Goodness,

Richard

Most of the time when you make a Valentine it ends up in a drawer some where.  I really like functional, useful art/crafts, so when I decided to make something for my son for Valentine’s Day, I decided I would like to make him heart shaped tacks for his bulletin board and a name plate to put on his bulletin board.  I chose this simple fast project, since Valentines day is only a few days away!

Below you will find step by step instructions with images of how I made this.

Here’s are the supplies I used:

wool felt
tacks (with a flat head)
fabric glue
card stock
felt marker
old small paint brush
scissors
corrugated cardboard
black thick marker

Cut out small heart shapes that are slightly larger than the size of the tack. Cut 5 small hearts. This is will be used inside the fabric heart to stabilize it.  Cut out a slightly larger shaped heart (maybe a ¼ to a 1/16 of an inch wider all the way around.) Cut one to use as a template for felt.

Trace larger heart onto felt fabric with a felt marker. Cut out 10 felt hearts or twice as many hearts as the number of felt tacks you want.

Push one of the small sized hearts onto the tack. Then put fabric glue on the back of the felt heart. Now push the tack through the felt heart with the glue side up.  Next take another felt heart and place it on top of the glued heart. Then trim up the two glued together hearts. Make 5 felt heart tacks or as many pins as you would to make.

Now using a piece of corrugated cardboard, cut out a rectangular piece to use as a name plate. Write a name in black marker. Then use felt hearts to embellish.  Here is the completed project in my son’s room.  I used one of the heart tacks to hang up a piece of his art work.

by: Jen Neitzel

What is Wordstock?

Wordstock is Portland’s Book & Literary Festival
Wordstock is an annual festival of books, writers, and storytelling in Portland, Oregon. To date it has hosted over 550 writers, who have read and performed for nearly 55,000 people at past festivals. Wordstock features ten author stages, a book fair with over 150 exhibitors, a special children’s area and children’s literature stage, a series of workshops for writers and for K-12 teachers, a special broadcast of Live Wire!, the popular public radio variety show, featuring writers from the festival, and more.

Wordstock events take place October 3rd, 6th, 10th and 11th.  Visit Wordstock for a schedule of the events.

DIY Lounge teacher Addie Kay Boswell will be reading at the Oregon Convention Center’s “Target Children’s Stage”
Sat, Oct. 1oth: 12:00
Sun, Oct. 11th: 1:00

Below are a few selected photos from Megan Klepp’s mosaic classes.  Klepp currently teaches Beginning Mosaic, Grout and Finish Your Mosaics and Scrap Glass Mosaic House Signs at DIY Lounge at collage.

Above is a photo from Addie Boswell’s Paper Cuts class.  In this class students learned how to make finely rendered paper cuts in black and white and three-color.  These designs could be created from a favorite photograph or a simple drawing and mounted on white board or glass to display at home.  These were great techniques to learn for making works of art or creating your own children’s book designs. 

This class doesn’t have any future times scheduled.  But, you can let us know if this sounds like a fun class and we’ll work to get it listed again in the coming months!

Pain Has an Element of Blank by Lorna Nakell

DIY Lounge teacher, Lorna Nakell, will be giving an artist talk about her exhibition Flying at Night on Saturday, July 18th.

Where: Beppu Wiarda Gallery
319 NW 9th Ave.
Portland, OR
When: 11:00am
Cost: FREE

Nakell teaches the upcoming class Affirmations and Aspirations: Collage on Canvas, July 25th from 10:30am-2:30pm.