This was really fun to make. I’ve been wanting an advent calendar for a while now. (Here’s an old post about an earlier abortive attempt.) Finally everything just clicked for this one. I’m super happy with it. Plus, I made it completely of supplies I already had, including some washi paper I got in Japan that I’d been hoarding. I glued a band of washi around each box, plus another strip to cover the ends and line the inside. Then I poked a hole in the end, threaded through some waxed twine, and tied a knot to secure it. I wrote numbers on wooden beads to thread on the twine hanger. Once we get our Christmas tree up, they will hang on the tree.

So, what’s inside? Each day has a slip of quilling paper with a craft supply/idea I can use to make an ornament. Hopefully by Christmas, I’ll have 24 new ornaments. We’ll see how many I actually do. I’ll post each day’s idea if you want to play along at home.

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I bought the bump chenille stems a long time ago meaning to make these, but only finally did it while playing with my niece this weekend. The Marthadex failed me when I tried to search for the instructions in the magazine, but luckily the pattern’s up on her website. I used bits of yellow pipecleaner for the middle instead of the called for fake flower pips. It was my niece’s idea to add the leaves.

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My niece and I had some quality crafting time over Thanksgiving. What we did:

1. pipe cleaner candy cane
2. ornaments made from drawings. She drew a picture on fabric with some markers, which I sewed to a backing. Turn inside out, stuff, then sew the hole and add a hanger. My mom still has a couple like this that I made when I was little.
3. embroidery. She drew a picture on fabric with water-cleanup markers, then outlined it with a running stitch. The star is her first one! The dog’s still in progress. Once it’s done, you can rinse out the marker so just the embroidery remains.

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Moki had a good idea for a swap. Everybody carves a stamp and stamps 20 papers and 20 other things with it. Then you get back 20 different ones from all the participants. Should be fun. I carved a little artichoke stamp for my contribution. I stamped 10 of these little bouquet garni bags I picked up at a kitchen store somewhere:

and 10 stickers, made wih a 1 inch punch and my Xyron sticker maker:

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We just painted our living room (“Doeskin”). I got these napkins in the fun vintage swap I did back in October, and the background color in the napkins really matched the walls nicely. So, I mounted them on stretchers according to Martha’s instructions from her old, useful show. I got the stretchers pretty cheap from fineartstore. They’re both 15 inches square.

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As a clever reader spotted on one of my posts, I’m a reader of McSweeney’s. The Quarterly ususally focuses on short fiction, but they throw all sorts of stuff in there. (Also, if you ever get a chance, make sure to visit their pirate supply store in San Francisco and the superhero supply in Brooklyn, which are actually writing outreach centers in disguise.) Besides the writing, which is often very good (and often needlessly obtuse, it can take me a while to completely read an issue), the design is fantastic. The covers are always brilliant, my favorite lately being the Icelandic issue:

I also liked the last issue, which came in several pockets in a folding bookboard case covered in tree-print bookcloth. And came with a comb for some unknown reason. But *this* issue, this one takes the cake. It’s a stack of mail. You get to open all the letters, and look through the bizarro sales circulars, and read the latest issue of Yeti Researcher. I’m really enjoying it.

One of the envelopes (helpfully labeled “Envelope”) was particularly great to open because it contained 13 prints from various artists, including these two I particularly like by Camille Rose Garcia

and Mark Ryden

They are going up pronto in the craft room. What is even more exciting is that Envelope may become a regular offering if they get enough interest. Unfortunately, the advertised website doesn’t seem to work, but I’m posting the address here so you can write to be added to the mailing list if you’re interested:

Envelope
c/o 826LA
685 Venice Blvd
Venice, CA

Also, speaking of Camille Rose Garcia, Mark Ryden, and artists kind of like them, I just found this neat book at the library, Weirdo Deluxe: The Wild World of Pop Surrealism & Lowbrow Art, by Matt Dukes Jordan. It introduced me to a bunch of neat artists that I hadn’t run across before. Each artist gets several pages, too.

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Finally! Amazon.jp has started adding page excerpts on their listings. For example, here are some pages from two of the cuta zakka books. It doesn’t seem to be hugely common yet, but there are definitely pages for listings that didn’t have them the last time I would’ve looked.

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We went to see Nine Inch Nails last night, sort of an early birthday present to myself (my birthday’s in a week). I’ve seen nin now 4X live, first time ~1994. Last time was in 1996 maybe, when he was touring with David Bowie. He’s still got it. The show last night was incredible. We had general admission tickets, which was pretty exciting. Got pretty close, and only fell over and almost got crushed once. Also got kicked in the face by a crowd surfer and bent my glasses. Great fun.

Anyway, it reminded me of a mural Mark and I painted back in college. As of last year, it was still up. We based it off a giant poster I had. The poster was a black and white photo, so we taped together a bunch of sheets of tracing paper and traced the main contrasty parts. We taped the tracing paper to the wall with sheets of carbon paper behind it and traced the whole thing again to transfer it to the wall. Then we painted it all in. It’s in a narrow hallway bit, so I couldn’t get a picture straight on, but you get the gist.

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