It might look like I haven’t been doing much of anything crafty in the last few months, but that’s not entirely true. (It’s not entirely false either though.)

I’ve been pretty busy at work in the last few months, and the only crafting I did for awhile was participating in craft group meeting projects or making mini envelopes for my eBay auctions. That changed last month though, after a huge Halloween crafting project developed.

So, I haven’t dressed up for Halloween much in the last decade or so, and certainly not at work. However, when I found out that it’s a big deal at my new job, especially within my group, I thought I’d at least give it a try. My team talked about dressing up in a common theme, and eventually we (mostly) agreed upon one theme. One of my co-workers and I took this project on fully, and started coming up with rough sketches and even creating a prototype costume to see if it would actually work out.

After the first version worked well enough and the whole team seemed to like it, we went shopping and set up a few sewing sessions with the team. Ultimately, it was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun (with only occasional frustrations ), and in the end we made 6 whole costumes from scratch and helped put together a 7th costume from purchased items. Here are a few photos of the final result:

I hadn’t sewn for awhile, but I am definitely thinking about doing a bit more. But may after I recover from these, and hopefully not with any ironing board fabric or much felt!

YUZEN wooden clothes pins
Originally uploaded by karaku*

Aren’t these gorgeous?

You can buy these and other handmade items from the creator at her Etsy store.

Sadly, there’s still not much crafting going on around these parts. At most, I’ve occasionally making up batches of little envelopes for my eBay auctions, and looking through the occasional craft magazine, but I haven’t been feeling much motivation to actually come up with a new project.

I’m ok with it, for the most part, though I’m aware that this blog is collecting quite a bit of dust in the process. I’ve had some occasional “pokes” for more posts, though in more indirect ways than that sounds. I get the occasional “tag” with some topic to post about, but it’s usually on personal stuff, like weird things about myself. I’ve never really wanted to post that sort of thing here, though I’m sorry to disappoint them.

I guess I’m more drawn to doing things in person now, whether it’s talking about myself (oh, the weirdness) or crafting (if I ever do that). Which is why I end up crafting only when I go to craft group meetings or am invited to a craft day at a friend’s apartment. I was actually talking to someone at work about arranging a crafting night for a few colleagues, though I still need to find out if anyone would mind us using a conference room for that.

Speaking of craft meetings, the September meeting of the South Bay Craft Group is coming up next Wednesday, and we’re going to make lip balm, as taught by one of our regular members. I remember wanting to try that at some point, but never did get around to it. That’s probably a good thing, just from the amount of supplies it involves, and I’ve spent plenty of money on other craft supplies as it is. Anyway, if you’re in or near the San Jose area, please stop by.

The workshop for this month’s South Bay Craft Group meeting was making shrines, and you could either use a wooden box or a paper one, including making your own matchboxes. I didn’t really know what to put inside of mine, so instead I focused on making and decorating a matchbox, similar to the ones I’ve done before.

I used a scrap of cardstock to create the box, and then covered it with some origami paper I happened to have with me (for making envelopes, of course). I made the lid from a cardstock tag, then wrapped a piece of a Japanese map, more cardstock, and a bit of sparkly fiber around it.

I couldn’t decide what should go inside it, so I just brought it home in that state. Unfortunately, the box is coming undone on one end, so it might need a bit of fixing before I use it. It would be perfect for a Japanese matchbox swap though. (Not that I’ve been participating in any swaps recently.)

Speaking of Japanese designs, I went to a Japanese/Asian-themed craft fair this morning. It’s a regular event to raise money for a local Japanese-American senior fund, and pretty much everything sold there is Japanese, Hawaiian, or Asian in theme. Hanko Designs was there again, and I ended up buying a few packs of yuzen washi paper, as if I need more of that. Most of the other items being sold were handmade purses and art and things like that, but nothing really stood out at me as something to have.

I did happen to see a colleague of mine at one of the tables, as she was helping her mother sell rubber stamps. She just moved here from Hawaii and illustrates some of the rubber stamp designs, which are in Hawaiian and Asian themes. You can check them out and buy them at the Mari & Me web site.

My crafting hasn’t really progressed much since my last post. I’ve been wanting to work on something, but then I can’t think of something that I really want to work on. At most I’ve made a few envelopes, but that’s not quite as creative as other things.

Envelopes are always something to fall back on when I can’t come up with something else to work on. I don’t go overboard with them, so it’s just about picking the right papers and template, and then cutting and assembling each one. It’s nice to at least have a straightforward process that doesn’t require much thinking for each item.

I’ve mostly been making tiny envelopes lately, for my eBay sales (I include loose stickers inside a handmade envelope, as an extra gift), as well as a few that I’ve listed on my Etsy store. We’ll see how the latter go, especially with how little promotion I do for my store.

Until I’m swept up into a new project, I’ve also been reorganizing my craft room a bit. I have way too much stuff in there, so I’ve been sorting through just about everything and purging as much as I can. I think it started with the realization that I’m really drawn to crafting with paper, moreso than with fabric or yarn or whatever else. So I started picking out fabrics and yarns and other non-papery things that I figured I probably wouldn’t use. The next step was weeding out the paper crafting items I wasn’t as into anymore.

Parts of my craft room look a bit better for now, like my bookcase and under my desk, but now I’ve made a bigger mess with all the extras to get rid of. I’m hoping to bring some to the next South Bay Craft Group meeting, but there’s way too much to do in one pass.

So, as I’ve done before, I’d like to offer the extras to anyone reading this. If you want a Priority Mail flat rate box full of as much scrapbook paper as I can fit, let me know. I have enough paper to ship several of those, and I can also do one with yarn and maybe another with miscellaneous stuff. I only ask that you pay for the postage to ship it to you (about $9).