Top 10: Crafting Essentials Lists - stuff you didn’t know you needed

I run across lists all the time of things that help me in crafting, whether it’s raw materials, essentials lists, tips for bloggers, or whatever. Here’s a random sampling of ones I’ve used.

10. Here’s a list of essential cross stitch tools from About.com. Make sure to read the comments, too!

9. Here’s an unusual list - how to make your own common supplies, like sidewalk chalk, finger paint and cinnamon clay. Much of this is great for kids, or grown-up kids!

8. Here’s a list that tells you where to buy all kinds of chemicals, both organic and inorganic. Aren’t you just curious what you can get?

7. Since many crafters are bloggers, I’m including a couple of lists of resources for bloggers. There’s the 101 Essential Blogging Resources and because I’m a Mac nerd, Problogger’s 5 Essential OSX Blogging Tools.

6. As it happens, Ebay has a pretty good basic guide for choosing beading supplies and tips. Gives information about it that you might not otherwise realize, like how many beads per string.

5. When I was looking around for stuff to read when I started crocheting, I tried some of the books on this forum that asks readers for good crochet resources at Crochetville.

4. Lists of craft fairs - for going to see or sell - including an events listing from Etsy, one list for the west and California, one for New England, one for all over from Sunshine Artist magazine, and one for Texas from the Texas Commission on the Arts. There are many for individual states if you search for “list craft fairs” + your state.

3. A list of stuff you’ve got to have for soap-making. And just because I’m nice, a list of suppliers and resources for the professional soapmaker as well.

2. Lisa Lam at U-Handbag has a list of tools she can’t live without when making bags. It’s a great list, and she must have the right stuff because she makes great bags. Scroll down - the list is on the left in the sidebar called “My bag-making essentials.”

1. Cameo Rose has a great basic sewing kit - and everything in it is easily packed away in a little box for taking with you or neat storage. This great, painstaking list includes pictures of everything so you can figure out what she means or take it to the store and show someone. If you want to get crazy, make your own essentials sewing box out of old magazines by following this technique I’ve been seeing all over lately.

Weekly Top 10 - fave Central Texas Craft Enterprises

Upcoming! I mentioned yesterday that I would be doing something about making beer. What I neglected to mention is that my dad has continued to document this process daily at his house while I am away, and calls to give me “beer reports.” I will be trekking back down to Houston this weekend to witness and participate in the priming of beer bottles and the bottling of beer. This Sunday I will begin a daily post of the process (on a one-week delay). Exciting! I like this beer-making thing.

Top Ten! This week I’ve decided to highlight some of my favorite Central Texas craft enterprises. Austin has a long, distinguished history of people making stuff and selling stuff. Here in Austin we even have a movement of sorts, an effort to support local businesses is called Keep Austin Weird. There is also a site dedicated to supporting local business called Go Texan. Check it out!

10. Stitch Austin - I think of this (possibly correctly) as Austin Fashion Week for Indie Designers. Lots of crafters. The official billing is as a “Fashion Show and Guerilla Craft Bazaar.” I didn’t know about it last time it happened, but you can find a recap of it on the Craft mag website. This November I will definitely be in attendance! So many times I think “how cool that event would be if it weren’t in Brooklyn” (or somewhere) - and now between this and the Austin Maker Faire in October, I’m going to be in craft heaven this fall!

9. OK - technically this isn’t a singular enterprise, but just the sheer number of vintage stores existing in Austin needs a mention. We loves us some vintage. The Insider Pages tell me 85 listings alone around here! Some near me I like include Flashback, the Family Thrift Store on Oltorf and the late lamented Rue’s Antiques. Oh, heck, if you’re from here I’m obviously a South Austinite, so just check out this SoCo Guide to Antique/Thrift Shopping.

8. Food Pick: I first came across the Chipotle Saltburst spice when at the South Austin Farmers Market. There’s nothing better than the food and spices to be found at craft fairs. The folks from Spiceburst Gourmet Spices who make it can be found at a whole variety of craft fairs in the Texas Hill Country, and I recently spied their wares at Central Market. Handy! You can find a glowing review at the Hot Sauce Blog.

7. This may be stretching the definition of “craft enterprise,” but I give the Dorkbot-Austin group a lot of points for sheer originality. My husband describes them as doing crafty stuff with technology. As a blogger and technology-lover, I don’t feel I can pass them over. The May meeting mentioned “colloids and immersive systems and Satanic anti-war song-cycles. Oh my!!” Wow.

6. Tie! Live Oak Brewing Company in Austin and Real Ale Brewing Company in Blanco, Texas. Both microbreweries. Real Ale is a little bigger - you can actually buy bottled beer from them, whereas with Live Oak you have to get a draft from somewhere. They’re both awesome examples of Texans Who Love Beer (like me!). I’ve included them both because my fave is Live Oak Big Bark in winter and the Live Oak Hefeweizen in summer, whereas my husband is absolutely nuts about the Real Ale Fireman’s No. 4.

5. Hill Country Weavers is an establishment around here. People who like yarn (and basketweaving!) all over Central Texas know about that place. It’s the kind of place where you go in, give them your entire paycheck, and just play for a while. Conveniently, you can even go stay and knit there, too.

4. There are a couple of interesting places around here that specialize in being craft spaces - places you can go craft. My favorite is Craft-O-Rama, a relatively new establishment that is the dreamchild of the very nice owner and sewing teacher Hayley. It’s a craft lounge, really, with a group of sofas and bunches of tables.

What was really spiffarific about going in there was the feeling of “walking into the internet.” Being an internet person myself, I’ve been on the rounds of websites and seen the cool Amy Butler patterns and Vickie Howell yarn - but never been able to look at them personally without purchase. Most craft stores don’t carry these sorts of items for the hipsters among us. And here they were! Such a nice find.

3. I would be drug out into the street and… anyway, when talking about Craft and Austin one cannot forget OR avoid the Austin Craft Mafia. Go ahead, do a Google search for Austin Craft and see what you get. These women have turned crafting into not only a business, but a way of life, too. In addition to being home-town craft heroes, they also host shows on the DIY network like Knitty Gritty and Stylelicious. The goal? Lifestyle craft: making crafting hip and edgy.

2. The Mafia is definitely growing to be a home-town pride and joy, but the 23rd Street Renaissance Market has been a favorite for generations. Down on the Drag across from the University of Texas’ campus, a little courtyard is dedicated to artisans. You can find them there selling their wares amidst the murals most every day, all day. They’re often sitting making their crafts right there. It’s your guess as to what will appear today, but everything from jewelry to leather to ceramics has appeared in the past.

1. I am a soapmaker and really interested in biochemistry (that’s kind of a chicken-and-egg set of interests there) thanks to my biochemist dad. In that capacity, I both really love the use of herbs and sometimes minerals and I’m really against using tallow in soap. Ew!!

So I had to save this for last - the Austin Natural Soap Company. They have their own Top Ten Reasons why their soap is better, and you can believe it! It’s all vegetable oil soap with essential oils and various other stuff in ‘em. My favorite (today) is the Lemon Scrub for Cooks and Gardeners. Austinites will recognize soaps named after Hippie Hollow and Barton Springs, too!

There you go - my craft windup in Austin. If you happen by and have something you like or want to add, please do! I’m always looking for new trouble to get into around here, and maybe my memory is just imitating Swiss cheese today and I forgot something really Austinish or important.

Cheers!

Weekly Top 10 for June 20, 2007

This week’s subject is: the best recycled materials for craft projects.

What I’ve found looking around, what I’ve wondered about using myself, what catches my fancy or makes me laugh, what I’m thinking of using myself. This stuff is the fun stuff.

10. Wine Corks! I have a large collection myself that I have yet to do something with, and I have lately found that you can purchase more online should you have the urge to make a bulletin board or coasters or a chair.

9. This was new. I hadn’t thought about making things out of brass keys before. I have no ideas about what to do with them, though.

8. If you can still find them, old record jackets are great for decorating things. The art is big, they have all sorts of topics on ‘em, and oh the possibilities for evocative memories.

7. Cheap, used glassware is easily accessible and fun! - first breaking it apart and then putting it back together again as part of a collage or something else. I once had a friend who really loved the breaking apart process. I understand some of it can also be remelted, but that’s way beyond me!

6. Can’t forget the industrial - there must be a million uses for scrap metal. Not that all of us know how to work with it, but if you can, consider scrap metal instruments or this book looks promising.

5. Terra cotta shards. A long time ago I learned from my mom that there must always be broken terra cotta pots around. So surely they can be used for something other than lining the bottoms of new plants? A mosaic, or perhaps a larger painted shard as a candle holder? Hmmm…

4. Im a big fan of making soap from scratch - lye, oils, etc. But in fact you can take that little scrap of lavendar soap you have left from the gourmet bar and turn it into something else, as illustrated in this lovely article the subject.

3. Jeans. Jeans are one of my favorite material because the fabric is tough and the color is blue. Rugs, bags, more clothing, more sewing, more crocheting - it’s very versatile. This bag is one of my favorites, but that’s tame. Check out In a minute ago’s 65 Things You Can Do With Denim.

2. The most classic example of a recycled material used for crafts is empty food cans, jars and bottles. The throwaways of the kitchen are staples of doing recycled crafting with kids. I still have examples from my childhood. But in adulthood they make great, creative storage containers in addition to many other things. I just saw an episode of Design Remix on HGTV that made a chandelier out of cans. A guest punched out the word peace in Arabic to shine out through the can.

1. The absolute best is this Dukes of Hazzard vintage bedsheet. So cheesy! So retro! Maybe it’s me, but for a girl raised in the South in the 80s, it just doesn’t get better than this. Unless, of course, you can find me an A-Team bedsheet.