Freddies handmade jewellery

Thursday 1 October 2015

The 17 crafts that made me who I am today

Growing up, I spent every other weekend at my grandparents' house. My parents had divorced when I was a baby and Mum worked very long hours so it gave her a break, and there was always something fun planned for us to do. My brother was into video games so spent most of his time upstairs with the uncles, I'd mostly stay downstairs and craft or bake with my Nan.

I was thinking about it at Stitching, Sewing and Hobbycrafts Exeter a lot; if it wasn't for these craft weekends, I most certainly wouldn't have grown up into the avid crafter I am today. But I'm not sure anyone is still doing most of the crafts I did back then! Here they are.

1. Scraperfoils

A photo posted by Marta Pawelak (@maartit.a) on
These are sheets of firm cardboard covered with a brass or silver coloured foil which is then overlaid with a black waxy substance. You scrape away a printed design with a special scraper tool that comes with them to reveal a shiny design, usually animals. You end up with black scrapings everywhere but they look amazing!

2. Seed Art

Photo from http://img3.etsystatic.com/il_fullxfull.213876759.jpg
This is interesting because I've actually made this above design. We used to send off for kits to a lady who designed them herself, there would be an outline for you to fill in with a certain seed type in an instructed pattern and then when the glue dried we'd varnish over the top with clear nail polish. They looked amazing but kits are incredibly hard to come by now.

3. Quilling

We weren't very good at this one if I remember rightly. Had all the gadgety tools to shape pre-cut paper strips before glueing them side-on to cards. You can create some amazing designs really easily.

4. Hama Beads


A photo posted by Lili (@2doigtsdidee) on
I miss these SO much and tried to use them in my art therapy work a few years back (they transpired to be a huge choke hazard so it didn't last). You arrange coloured plastic beads on a pegboard before melting them all together using an iron over some special greaseproof paper. Unsurprisingly my favourite beads were the clear glittery ones and the glow-in-the-dark beads. Hours of fun.

5. Bead Loom

Image from museumofplay.org

Another one that was a touch too fiddly for me, I wasn't very good at it but definitely had a go at a good few rows of bead looming, a combination of weaving and beading using sewing thread and a very small needle.

6. Flower Loom

 

One of the many knitting kits I ended up with contained one of these cool flower looms. They were great fun to make but did end up looking tatty quite quickly so I don't think I have any left. Surely someone out there is still making these?


7. Fimo


Fimo is one of the best craft inventions ever IMO. I'll still be using it to make my wedding cake topper when the day comes but at age 8 I'm pretty sure my repertoire only included fridge magnets and card toppers.

8. Transfer Foils 

A photo posted by @elisalani on
We found these being demonstrated at a craft show at Syon Park and I remember being really excited about the shiny finish so we picked up a kit and took it home. You use a glue pen to draw out a design which dries sticky but clear, before rubbing a tranfer foil over the top in your chosen colour. When you remove the foil, the design remains. Great stuff. I think you can even still get them.

9. Long Stitch

The good thing with long stitch is that it's easy. It's one stitch, it just involves 'painting by numbers' with your stitches to fill all the painted-on outlines on a mesh fabric until the design is completed. They were OK but I didn't love the finish so I won't be going back to them.

10. Plaster Of Paris


Picture from AngelicaScalliwags.com
I don't physically know how we did this because as I've got older I've developed a huge aversion to touching anything chalky (it could even have come from this, actually). We did this one a LOT when I was reaaaaallly little. I vividly remember filling a noddy mould with plaster of paris mixture, revealing the hardened noddy and painting him in with poster paints. There were some Beatrix Potter characters too, I'm sure.

11. Punch Embroidery

Picture from webstercraft.co.uk
I've never come accross anyone who knew what I was talking about when I talked about this. You use a long pen-like tool with a hollow needle, thread yarn through the middle of the needle and punch holes through to the reverse of the fabric where you leave a loop of yarn behind as you resurface. The finished effect is like a towelling, raised area on the reverse of where you're working which is the side you show everyone when you've finished.

We experimented with different fabrics, including my Uncle's old postman shirts. Thanks, Bob!

12. Glass Painting

I vivdly remember the first of two variations of stained-glass craft I had fun with growing up. I went over to my dad's flat (I couldn't have been older than 5-6) and we did a kit that started as a metal outline of a giraffe. We filled the outline with beads of coloured 'glass' on a baking tray, and then baked it in the oven. The beads then melted to fill the spaces, and we hung them up to catch the light.

Then years later, (more like age 11) Nan gave me a colouring-in style translucent parrott to paint using those Pebeo glass paints, which stink. That was more like the picture you see above and had lovely deep rich blues and greens.

13. Sewing Cards

Picture from imnop.com.au
There definitely weren't any needles involved with this one. I remember doing them using a shoelace with a child minder when I was about 4 or 5 years old. I eremember having a panda shape and I think a dinosaur may also have been involved.

14. French Knitting

I don't really remember what we did with the finished stretches of knitted cord that we made. I think we made some place mats at some point. It used to grow magically after I went to be, and before I got up in the morning. We called it 'the knitting fairy'. I still go on to teach people how to do this now and am always shocked that people haven't tried it before!!

I also tried finger knitting but between you and me, it's rubbish. Just makes long lengths of tangled yarn. Not a fan.

15. Pinflair



This was another one from the Syon House craft shows and shops which are now all gone (I think). I didn't know anyone else ever did this, but they caught my eye in Exeter and I ended up buying 5 kits for Christmas decorations. The kits contain a dense polystyrene shape which you then pin sequins and beads to in the instructed pattern. Over the years Nan and I also made sequinned spider decorations and Fabrege eggs (and both those kits are still available today, much to my joy!).

 When Nan underwent a double-amputation some years ago, many of the items we'd crafted together were lost, as she was rapidly forced to move from her family home of many years to a smaller, wheelchair-accessible flat. I bought these kits so I can make her some new ones as we're both very nostalgic about our crafting time and I honestly think she'll love them. Cross fingers!

16. Pom Poms

Pom poms to me as an adult are utterly pointless EXCEPT for use in embellishing handknits including the all-important wardrobe staple, the bobble hat. But we spent many a Saturday morning making the hugest pom poms known to man and they were very pleasing to the touch. We tried stripes, shapes and allsorts. Using only rings of cardboard and oddments of yarn.

OK now comes the big one so drumroll please....

17. KNITTING

A photo posted by Germs!!! (@gilbertbean) on

>Mum taught me to knit in between night shifts so I'd stop playing with her complex 80's Intarsia projects while she was asleep. You can imagine the mess. But Nan translated knitting patterns for me so that I could learn to make toys, and boy did I make toys. I insisted on making toys for everyone I knew. At age 12 I knitted one of the Jean Greenhowe nurses you see above for my grandfather who had, at the time succumbed to Asbestosis. But this was just one of at least 50 other toys (mainly Jean Greenhowe and Woman's Weekly/Alan Dart) I made and gave away, I very rarely kept any for myself. I didn't want them.

They took AGES back then. Where now I can happily whip out a toy in a week or two, back in the day they'd take several trips to Nan and Granddad's which added up to months and months on end. I'd take my knitting bag on long car drives to visit relatives, trips to the Isle of Wight and stays with childminders and aupairs.

Once I knitted so hard on Christmas Eve (10 hours I think it was, solid) to get gifts done that my right hand just ceased to work, and went on strike.

It was all worth it though and now I can call myself a pro knitter, with all of the above random crafts safely stored in my skull for when I want to come back to them. I often do. At the moment I'm big on cross stitch and beading but I'm sure it's not long before I flitter back to one of the others on the list.

Keep crafting, remember it is good for you and a great bonding experience for you and your loved ones. Look at all the memories it's made for me.

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