It's been much longer than I thought since I posted last. Working on our new house prompted the creation of a second blog, my method of keeping family informed on our progress. My efforts to keep track of whom I had told what made me realize I needed an easier method than email. Most of my energy has gone into hovering over contractors, driving my son to school and back (21 miles each way in Southern California traffic - ugh) and frantically trying to help him get caught up on his required-to-graduate senior project that was JUST approved (other students' projects were approved in October and November). The requirements and deadlines remain the same. O.M.G.
In order to squeeze in some art time, I am happy to be working with his girlfriend as her mentor on her senior project, creating and stocking an Etsy shop. The problem is that she lives quite a distance away and I've got to teach her how to make whatever she wants to make. We went from, "Wouldn't it be fun to learn how to quilt?" or "Want to learn how to make neat stuff with Friendly Plastic?" to "OMG, what you can whip up quickly that doesn't require costly supplies or challenges in shippin that we can get online before the deadline?!?" And still have fun. And have the project meet the requirement of "a stretch," something that the school leaves us to figure out by means of ESP or osmosis or anything other than just telling us.
So I started out teaching her the basics of sewing. She made a small stuffed figure that she has started to paint. OK, that's not going to work. If it takes two weekend get-togethers to get this far, we are definitely going to run out of time. We decided to just crash a Michael's craft store and brainstorm. They no longer carried the materials to make the charm like the one I made that was published in Cloth Paper Scissors (darn!), and the other materials were way too expensive. Then we spotted the hemp rope, and then the coloured nylon cord. I remembered learning to macrame in my elective class in middle school in the Philippines, and I still remember how! So we're going to craft up some bracelets, some with colored or dyed cord, some with simple beads, some with just one lovely glass bead...it will be fun, and I'll get some artsy time. They are very popular with the teens these days and we know a lot of people are making them, but desperate times and all that rot.
It makes me happy that my young mentee still wants to learn a lot of the crafts that I know, and I will be delighted to share studio space and teach her. That is the most fun part for me.
