My kids and some crafty friends got together for an afternoon of making stuff for this year’s Youth Craft Fair at our local library. They really want to top last year’s big profits ($7 each)! Here’s the equation:
Five boys + one afternoon + basic supplies (paper, glue stick, Fimo, magnet tape, duct tape, felt) =
Angry bird magnets!
Darth Paper (a la Origami Yoda)
Fimo (polymer clay) aliens
Wacky Package magnets
More elfin houses . . . for this one I drew floorplans that fit inside a matchbox.
If you take a childlike pleasure in coloring, or if you happen to have an actual child who likes to color (and has excellent fine motor skills), I made tiny coloring pages so you can make your own matchbox house.
The exterior wraps around a standard matchbox. Interior is supposed to fit the inside tray but may need some judicious trimming. I used Sharpies for saturated color and generous amounts of glue stick (after failed attempts with other sticky substances) to adhere. Enjoy! And send me pix, please.
I’m not sure how best to describe these: whitewashed Monopoly houses scattered on an oversized board game? Typewritten pages folded into paper houses? Stencilled with bits of poems from Emily Dickinson and tossed about the village of Deerfield, Massachusetts, the houses are the creation of Peter Krasznekewicz, who is currently a junior at Deerfield Academy. (You can see a slideshow of the project here.)
If you live near Boston, it’s worth the field trip to visit and wander around. But if you don’t catch the installation this fall, the Little White House Project will move to the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Mass. in the spring, and maybe to the Boston Children’s Museum. After that, the houses will have a second life: the artist plans to “up-cycle” the structures as material to be used in the construction of a Habitat for Humanity house.
Is there a support group for people with a pillow problem? I made more. I confess. But I couldn’t help it. Inspired by Brigit’s post about Jessica Jones’s Outside Oslo fabric line, I ordered a couple of yards (but I chose her Amusement Park line instead). You can buy the fabric at JCaroline Home. Or, better yet, you can order a chair cover made of Jessica Jones fabric that fits the IKEA Poang chair. Which seriously tempts me. Even though I’ve sworn off IKEA after its insidious circular floor plan left me on the brink of psychological breakdown. So no Poang for me! Even with the nifty chair cover.
This past weekend, we visited the glass house–as in Philip Johnson’s 1949 little gem, not Billy Joel’s album circa sixth grade. Johnson lived to be nearly 100 (he died in 2005) and the house and its grounds have just been opened to tours this year by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Located in New Canaan, CT, it’s a great architectural field trip from New York, or if you happen to be heading that way.
Johnson’s other building experiments on the property aren’t as impressive–but he was a friend of Frank Stella, and so am I (figuratively, in my case).
Although the McMansions of the super rich have mostly devoured the town, there are still about 90 modern houses sprinkled about. Visit the Irwin Pool House (designed in 1960 by Landis Gores) in lovely Irwin Park for a complete survey of the modern homes in the area.
homemadecity.com 