Summer is HERE, ya’ll! It’s time to fire up the grill, tend to the garden, and of course it’s time to get your summery DIY on! Here are some crafty projects for your cookout and for your garden. Have you been working on any summer crafts? I’d love to hear about them in [...]]]>

Summer is HERE, ya’ll! It’s time to fire up the grill, tend to the garden, and of course it’s time to get your summery DIY on! Here are some crafty projects for your cookout and for your garden. Have you been working on any summer crafts? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

1. How cute are The Creative Place’s upcycled cocktail umbrellas?
2. I’ve been admiring this recycled six pack cookout caddy from Design*Sponge for years. It’s so simple and sweet!
3. I am in love with these firefly candles from Urban Sherp. Wouldn’t they be lovely for some summer evening porch-sitting?
4. Spruce up your summer garden with a simple set of clothespin plant markers!
5. You’d be the queen of Saturday if you showed up at a cookout with a batch of TINY PIES from Explore the Cabin!

So spill it, crafty peeps! What have you been making during this scorcher of a summer?

Related Posts:

• What does green mean?
• IF: Summer Indie Craft Experience
• Friday Roundup: Summer Shade

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Post tags: crafty garden, Crafty Pals, DIY, Friday Roundup, garden, handmade, inspiration board, Inspiration Friday, reuse, Roundups, summer, summer crafts, summer DIY, upcycling

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The Summer Indie Craft Experience (ICE) is only a week away, and I’m already getting excited about checking out my fellow vendors’ booths. I’ve been sewing like crazy to restock Cupcaprons, Lunch Kits, Snack Sleeves and Cup Gloves for the show, and all of that marathon crafting can be a little bit [...]]]>

The Summer Indie Craft Experience (ICE) is only a week away, and I’m already getting excited about checking out my fellow vendors’ booths. I’ve been sewing like crazy to restock Cupcaprons, Lunch Kits, Snack Sleeves and Cup Gloves for the show, and all of that marathon crafting can be a little bit exhausting. When I start to get a little weary it really helps me to peruse other folks’ crafts to give me an energy boost to keep on sewing.

There are some really amazing crafters participating in the summer ICE, and what’s more inspirational than checking out beautiful handmade goodies, right? For your daydreaming and shopping pleasure:

1. Freaking adorable amigurimi from NeedleNoodles
2. Fancy seasoned salts from beautiful briny sea
3. The ever-fabulous Missy Kulik and Raoul de la Cruz
4. Delicious, all natural scented soaps from Mama
5. Beautiful ceramics from Jeanette Zeis
6. A sweet succulent terrarium from A View of the Woods

I have lots of sewing left to do to get my own booth together, and I can’t wait for next weekend! ICE is my favorite Atlanta show, hands down, and I always leave there feeling inspired and wanting to make, make, make!

I hope to see you locals out at the show on June 11-12 from 11am-6pm at Ambient+ Photo Studio in Atlanta!

Related Posts:

• IF: Summer Crafts!
• IF: The Indie Craft Experience! Again!
• IF: DIY for the Kitchen

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Post tags: Atlanta, Atlanta craft market, craft market, Crafty Pals, DIY, ICE, Indie Craft Experience, inspiration board, Inspiration Friday, Roundups

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Do you guys have a junk drawer? We’ve got a couple of them in our house, and I think a solution like this would go a long way in keeping things more organized. Rather than just tossing things into the drawer, you’d have to shamefully write what you added on the front with chalk.

The plants out front have been doing so well that we’ve expanded our food-growing adventures to the back! Here’s how you can build your [...]]]> Remember that herb spiral from last week’s IF post? Well, Dave and I made one, and it was so much fun that we made a second one!

The plants out front have been doing so well that we’ve expanded our food-growing adventures to the back! Here’s how you can build your very own spiral herb garden.

I’ve confessed already about my tragic history killing plants, but an iCal reminder to water my containers three times a week and my husband’s kindness in sharing his organic plant food have made a big difference. The containers out front are doing really well, and I decided to push myself with some food plants out back, too!

When my friend Brian showed us this spiral herb garden, my husband and I were smitten. Our yard has been chock full of bricks since we moved in for whatever reason. Really, you can’t dig out there without finding at least a few bricks, and we’d been stockpiling them in an area that we dubbed “the garden center.” This was a perfect project to use up some of the bricks, and we loved the results so much that I headed back to the store for more straw after we finished so that we could build a second one!

How to Build an Herb Spiral

We basically followed the directions from the Nature Learning Center, but we decided to use some rocks from another yard stockpile at the bottom of our spiral to give it better drainage and help us use a little bit less hay. Here’s how it went down:

1. Level out the ground where you’re placing the spiral, spread out some compost, and cover the area with cardboard.

2. Build the spiral. Lay out the bricks in the spiral shape, then add layers of bricks until it’s the height you want. We started each new layer of bricks 3 in from the end of the spiral’s “tail.” The weight of the bricks will hold things in place for the most part, but if you have any that are wobbly, you can use straw or mulch to help even them out. I noticed that things got wobblier as we got closer to the top, but it feels quite sturdy now that it’s done.

3. Add the rocks. Fill the spiral about 1/3 full with rocks for drainage, preferably ones you’ve got on hand. It also means buying less straw, which is nice.

4. Add the straw. It takes 2-4 bales of straw to fill up your herb spirals, depending on how big they are. If you’re going really big, it could take even more. You’ll want to fill your herb spiral with straw almost all the way to the top.

5. Top with compost. Our bin is still not broken down, thanks to chilly temperatures, so we picked up a bag of mushroom compost to use.

6. Place plants. We found that the best way to add the plants was to place them on top of the compost, then fill in with potting soil.

7. Mulch. I was too pooped to take pictures at this point, but I promise that we used cedar mulch around the outside perimeter of each spiral to hide the cardboard and help it break down.

It looks so great!! A very kind woman at the garden store helped us pick plants. Here’s what’s in there:

• cayenne pepper
• purslane
• rosemary
• pineapple sage
• oregano
• cilantro
• parsley
• onion chives

Growing your own food? I’d love to hear about it! You can comment here, drop a line through the Eat Drink Better contact page, or email me directly at becky@importantmedia.org.

This was a cross-post from Eat Drink Better, a site that I edit that looks at the environmental, social, and health impacts of our food system.

Related Posts:

• What does green mean?
• IF: Summer Crafts!
• Spotted: Chalkboard Paint Drawers

© Becky for Glue and Glitter, 2011. | Permalink | Comment
Post tags: build a spiral garden, build and herb garden, Crafty Pals, DIY, garden, growing food, herb garden, repurposed, reuse

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Since this week was sort of about refocusing my blog on the joys of cooking and crafting, I thought there was no better way to finish out the week than with a food-related DIY-themed Inspiration Friday (IF)! Yay!

Here are some fun crafty projects to deck out your kitchen in DIY style!

Honestly, I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to interview Julie! She’s a fellow writer over at Crafting a Green World and a super awesome crafty mama. I’ve been a fan of her handmade goodies and her writing for a long time and am so happy that she was able to [...]]]>

Honestly, I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to interview Julie! She’s a fellow writer over at Crafting a Green World and a super awesome crafty mama. I’ve been a fan of her handmade goodies and her writing for a long time and am so happy that she was able to take some time to answer the 5 questions!

1. Tell me about how you got started crafting.
After I gave birth to my first daughter, I wanted to wear her in a ring sling, but I couldn’t find one that I could afford and that wasn’t ugly (They make cute ones now, but I still can’t afford them!). I did, however, have a second-hand sewing machine that I had never used, so I bought some great flannel on sale, a couple of steel rings from the hardware store, and I stitched the life out of that thing and constructed a ring sling as my very first sewing project. My second project was another ring sling in a print that my partner liked better. My third project was the most elaborate baby book ever created. And then I discovered Craftster, and the rest is history!

2. What draws you to eco-friendly materials?
I love the Earth as much as anybody, but quite frankly, it’s the cost benefit. I am, by choice, a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom, and I simply can’t afford to go out to the local quilt shop and pick out a bunch of fabric to make myself a quilt. I can, however, stalk the thrift stores for fabric to repurpose–there is a crazy amount of yardage in a woman’s skirt, for instance. There is no way that I’d pay $60 for a vintage band tee-inspired dress from that rock-’n-roll children’s boutique at the mall, especially when I can make my own children’s clothes from real vintage band tees. Recycled materials just happen to be way cheaper than new ones, and if they’ve already been used and they still look good, then chances are they’re sturdy enough for our hard living. Natural materials can cost a lot more, if you’re the type who’s really into wool felt or soy crayons, for instance (I’m not), but the activities that I enjoy, such as making my own soap, and my own bread, and even our own play dough, save so much money that the natural ingredients that go into them are actually quite affordable.

3. What inspires you?
My interests, my partner’s interests, and my girls’ interests always inspire me to make cool stuff that we will love. I do stuff with vinyl record albums and old books because I love to read and collect vinyl; I do stuff with comic books all the time now that my partner’s gotten me really into them; the Star Wars log-cabin T-shirt quilt that I’m working on right now is for my partner because he loves Star Wars; and every single stuffed dinosaur, felt dinosaur play set, dinosaur T-shirt quilt, etc., has been inspired by my daughter’s love of dinosaurs. Duplicate all that for the second daughter, but her loves are ponies and rainbows.

Since I’ve started homeschooling with my girls, I’ve also started getting really into creating educational fun stuff with them, out of natural or recycled materials. We’ve made our own peace flags after a terrific field trip to the Tibetan Cultural Center here, and the most elaborate rainbow layer cake ever, with the order of colors absolutely perfect, and a Greek and Latin dinosaur name game so crazy that probably nobody but us would ever want to play it.

Just lately, my younger daughter’s very specific and ahead-of-her-time fashion ethic has inspired me to stretch my boundaries in clothing construction, so look out.

4. Who are your crafty heroes?
I admire pretty much everyone who’s hands-on and handmade, especially when they welcome their kids to jump in with them. My favorites are 5 Orange Potatoes, with their love of nature craft and educational craft, radical unschoolers Ordinary Life Magic, Waldorf family The Magic Onions, clothing designer Lil Blue Boo, and homechooler and seamster Angry Chicken.

I love nothing better than a really great blogger, and when I discover a blogger whose style I love, I go back to the beginning of their blog and read them all the way through, like a novel.

5. Where can folks find your work?
My Pumpkinbear etsy shop is the best place to find the larger runs of my stuff, felt playsets and pinback buttons and the like, while my Imagekind shop is the best place to find my photography. I drag my family to several craft fairs each year, too, most often Strange Folk in St. Louis and Bazaar Bizarre in Cleveland, and there I show off my large runs and my one-of-a-kind items, like my quilts and stuff made from vintage fabrics, and I test new products there, too. I keep all my process-work and my efforts to survive the daily hijinks of my handmade, homeschooling life at my Craft Knife blog, and I post regularly at Crafting a Green World, as well.

Related Posts:

• Handmade Finds: Almond Goodness!
• IF: Beach Vacation with Team Eco Etsy
• IF: Summer Crafts!

© Becky for Glue and Glitter, 2011. | Permalink | One comment
Post tags: Crafty Pals, Etsy, green crafter, handmade, interview, Julie Finn, Pumpkinbear

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I’ve been a busy bee getting ready for the Summer Shade festival! The show is this very Saturday and Sunday in lovely Grant Park. I hope you locals can make it out for some shopping, sunshine, and great music!

Since I’ve got this show on the brain, I thought I’d round up a [...]]]>

I’ve been a busy bee getting ready for the Summer Shade festival! The show is this very Saturday and Sunday in lovely Grant Park. I hope you locals can make it out for some shopping, sunshine, and great music!

Since I’ve got this show on the brain, I thought I’d round up a few of the amazing crafters who are going to be there.

Clockwise from the top left, you’re lookin’ at:

• Squirrel card from Jane Hancock Papers
• A.J. Jacks’ Hopscotch Sundress
• Mixed media piece from Alex Leopold
• Soy Candles by mama (a fellow Beehiver!)

Are you guys going to make it out to the Summer Shade Festival? I think it’s going to be a lovely weekend!

Here’s a festival map to help you out:

Related Posts:

• IF: Summer Crafts!
• IF: Summer Indie Craft Experience
• Friday Roundup: Keep Cool Vintage Style

© Becky for Glue and Glitter, 2010. | Permalink | Comment
Post tags: Art, Atlanta, Crafty Pals, Friday Roundup, Grant Park, Inspiration Friday, Roundups, shows, summer, Summer Shade Festival

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A well stocked craft room makes it so much easier to dive into projects at a moment’s notice!

Just like stocking your kitchen with spices, condiments, and tools, a good crafty stash has certain essential components no matter what you’re making. Whether you’ve got a whole room dedicated to crafting or just a small [...]]]>

A well stocked craft room makes it so much easier to dive into projects at a moment’s notice!

Just like stocking your kitchen with spices, condiments, and tools, a good crafty stash has certain essential components no matter what you’re making. Whether you’ve got a whole room dedicated to crafting or just a small amount of space, these are some building blocks for any crafty space.
(. . .)
Click here to read on!

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Post tags: art and craft supplies, ats and crafts supplies, craft room essentials, craft supplies, crafting, crafting supplies, Crafty Pals, DIY, glue, scissors, Shop Talk

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You guys, I am excited to say that in just a few hours, I’ll be heading to the airport and then to Portland, Oregon for the Summit of Awesome!

The Summit is a three day event of crafty panels, demonstrations, and activities where crafters can learn and network. The organizers at

You guys, I am excited to say that in just a few hours, I’ll be heading to the airport and then to Portland, Oregon for the Summit of Awesome!

The Summit is a three day event of crafty panels, demonstrations, and activities where crafters can learn and network. The organizers at Hello Craft are some seriously amazing women, and I’m honored that they’re having me back to speak on a panel and do a Cup Glove demo!

Last week, I put together lots of info for the green crafting panel and assembled half-completed Cup Gloves for the demo. I realized that we won’t have access to any sewing machines, and we’ll have only limited numbers of irons and scissors, so for the sake of time I got the preliminary parts done. Here is the half-completed Cup Glove army:
(. . .)
Click here to read on!

© Becky for Glue and Glitter, 2010. | Permalink | One comment
Post tags: Crafty Pals, Hello Craft, Portland, Show of Awesome, Summit of Awesome

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My little sister of sushi cupcake fame is coming up from Fort Lauderdale to help me out and hang, [...]]]>

Members of the Chien Hong School of Kung Fu in the parade at last year's Wheelbarrow Festival.

I’ve been a busy bee getting ready for the 15th annual Reynoldstown Wheelbarrow Festival coming up this Saturday! There’s going to be tons of awesome food and music on top of a craft market!

My little sister of sushi cupcake fame is coming up from Fort Lauderdale to help me out and hang, so you’ve got double the reason to come by and say hello! If you ask real nice, we might even let you try the sangria we’re whipping up on Friday night to bring with us.

The festival runs from 11am-11pm and is right in the heart of Reynoldstown. It’s a quick walk or bike ride from the Reynoldstown MARTA station on the east line. Here’s a handy map to the fest:
(. . .)
Click here to read on!

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Post tags: Atlanta, craft markets, Crafty Pals, Reynoldstown, Wheelbarrow Festival

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