Thanks, Mom!

 A few posts back I promised you a picture of the birthday gift from my mom, the talented and generous Becky Hatch Glezen.  Here is the basket, woven from pine needles and incorporating shells from her beloved Sanibel Island, Florida.  She took a pine needle basket class down there this winter and wove this while sitting on the beach.  Ahhhhh.

 Here is another gift from mom's hand. This, a Nantucket Lightship Basket woven over a glass liner so it can hold water. I get sad when I see the knock-offs of these baskets for sale at Christmas Tree Shops, because I know the hours and hours that go into making the "real deal" in the traditional style. The sailors aboard the lightships off Nantucket used to weave these baskets over wooden molds while they were at sea back in the 1800's.  Yup, it'll kill a hundred hours of idle time, I'd say. You can see another, more traditional example of her lightship baskets in Monday's post.

 But this post has got to celebrate the all-time, number 1 item that my mom found at her local recycling facility in our hometown of Glastonbury, Connecticut years ago and gave to ME! The "dump" takes her recycling but also has the wondrous "Put-and-Take" area which my mom checks each week after sorting her recycling.  Some crafty person, with 200+ Miller High Life Pop top cans (remember when the pull tabs actually came off?), hand cut each can and wired the ends together in four places, arranged them artfully and created this incredible piece of kitsch:

I think it is amazing and I have used it at dozens of craft shows to display my wares. I have had people admire it and others offer me cash for it. Thanks, Mom, for spotting this cool thing and for giving it to me. You really taught me to see the beauty in the things around me.

I could list dozens of items she has crafted, or salvaged, or repurposed, but I will refrain, and simply tell her I love her.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! Now will somebody please fill that glass of hers?

Recipe for a Field Trip

 Take one 65 Degree spring day, add one excited second grader, dress her in a costume collected at the Barn of Opportunity, pack a lunch( 1900 style) and send her off to school where she will attend a one room schoolhouse for the day somewhere near Auburn, Maine.  Enjoy the results at dinner as you hear all the details.

Details about the ingredients for this particular recipe:

 A pair of size large floral pants at the Barn last week.  I cut the leg seems apart and sewed it up to make a skirt. A tuck in the waistband and a drawstring helped make it into a kid's size 10.

 Thank you to whoever made this beautiful apron and bonnet and put them in the Barn TWO YEARS AGO!!!  My husband thought I was crazy but I knew that our little girl would need these in second grade (as all Bowdoinham Community School girls do) and so I saved them all this time.

Spices:
The basket was made by my Mom 20 years ago, and the linen napkin was sewn and tatted by Bowdoinham's own Denham sisters who lived on Abbagadassett Rd.  The shawl was given to me by an old college beau and the blouse was a hand-me-down from a cousin.
















There you have it. A happy girl and a lucky, thankful (and resourceful) mom.


NOTE:  First mother of an upcoming second grader to post a comment here gets the whole outfit!

Bin Diving with Brigid

I am lucky to have a friend like Brigid.  She does what a good friend should: listens to me vent, brainstorms with me to solve problems, laughs at my jokes, shares a beer and a good cry about whatever hardship I'm working through at the moment.  But Brigid and I also share a love for the Barn of Opportunity and we know that there is a special depth of our friendship because of that.  We like to say "You hold my ankles, I'll hold yours",  and by that we mean, when one of us is treasure diving into the bin at the Barn, the other will make sure they don't fall in.

 We tested that last Saturday when I told B. that she and I were going to make a wreath out of little kid's plastic toys like the one I had just seen on the web. She trusted me, while admitting "I don't have a visual on this project!" She immediately collected (and washed and dried) a bunch of small plastic junk items from Bin #4.  We each went home and collected more. And today we fired up our hot glue guns out on my back deck and started gluing junk to a Styrofoam wreath that B. found. And soon it took shape. Upcycling at its finest.

Isn't that amazingly cute? Not bad for an hour and a half's work, a few glue sticks and only one burned fingertip.  If you want to see it in all it's plastic glory, it will grace the entrance to the 11th Annual Giant Rummage Sale at Bowdoinham Town Hall on Friday May 27 and Saturday May 28 which benefits our elementary school. Brigid donates a ton of time to running the sale every year.  So if you want to make your own wreath, she reminded me that bags full of toys at the the sale are always $2. If you miss the sale, then head to the barn, bring a friend and hold her ankles while she yells "I think I see the perfect Batman figurine!"

If you would like some nice detail shots and more commentary on the wreath-making, check out Brigid's blog post here.

Enough already with the bags, Kate.

I'm still a bit obsessed with the multitude of plastic shopping bags in my life, and in our world.  I see the recycling bins at Hannaford and I know that lots of you are recycling these rascals at the retailer.  But look what one local crafter is doing. She crochets 60 bags into one great reusable tote and charges $5 to do it! Vera Heuer of Bowdoin says she takes about 6 hours to crochet one of these bags, and she truly enjoys doing it. If you provide the 60 bags needed, she'll charge you $5.  If you need her to collect the bags, then she charges $10.  A great deal either way.  She and I commiserated about how difficult it is to price handmade items, as charging by the hour would make items like this unaffordable for most people.  Call Vera at 353-2353 if you would like a bag.

Thank you to Katie Smith (on the Right.) for telling me about these bags and for modeling, along with Heidi Balboni on the Left,  how well the bags hold library books. "Vera Bags" no longer mean Bradley nor Wang to me.

Here are more bags crafted from shopping bags.  These were made by Bowdoinham's Deb Frizzle (who refused to pose for the picture!)  She has been making these for years and has played around with all sorts of designs and patterns. Love the bottle holder. She crochets with a double strand of "Plarn" or plastic yarn, to get this tight, strong weave in her bags.

And yes, this was the inspiration I needed to teach myself how to crochet.  I watched a handful of YouTube videos (is there a limit to what you can learn via YouTube?) and I jumped in to make this project using this free online pattern.  I ended up with a completely saggy bag but I will certainly carry it proudly to the farmers' market this summer. And I won't compare it to the professional's bags that inspired it!

Happy Earth Day!

 

We celebrated Earth Day in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and climbed Blackcap Mountain, preserved by State of New Hampshire and the Nature Conservancy.  A nice day (first sunburn of the year), good friends, and compliant kids. In the spirit of Earth Day we picked up over 50 cans and bottles on our decent and our walk along the roadside. Thanks to Gaylord Nelson, the senator from WI who founded Earth Day, for the beginning of a movement.

Vacation Fun this week

We’re on a trip this week and spent a lovely day with some old, dear friends in NH. 12 year old Talia is always up for a craft project when we are together. She has the magic combination of creative spirit, fearlessness and boundless energy.  Needless to say, when I visit her, we make stuff.  She was excited by my collection of newspaper bags so we tried weaving them together before fusing them (as seen in a previous post).  Zipped them into a tote bag on her mom’s sewing machine and she immediately packed it up with books and carried it off to school with her the very next day. She says she is going to try fusing some metallic bags she’s got…stay tuned.

Talia also showed me two things in her lunchbox that I wanted to share: a metal sandwich holder called a “lunchbot” and a reusable stainless steel straw.  One of my kids says he doesn’t use a straw at school for milk, but my other kid said she did. That’s 171 plastic straws per year we could save if I sent her to school with a reusable straw.   One straw can go in the lunchbox and maybe one should live in my glove compartment for the occasional milkshake at Richmond Dairy Treat?  Every little bit helps.

Our next stop on our vacation week tour was a visit to my mom and dad's home in Connecticut. Mom was getting her seeds started on the porch, in these nifty homemade pots made from newspaper.  Her "potmaker" pots go right into the ground and compost around her seedlings.

I'm also proud that her seedling labels were cut from old yogurt containers. Way to go, Mom.  And can I brag about her a bit more? We were together celebrating my birthday this week and she gave me an incredible basket that she wove from pine needles.(picture later!)  I come from a long line of crafty women and I feel very, very lucky to have learned many skills from them. Home in a few days to visit the Barn of Opportunity, and to start my own seedlings. Shouldn't our peas be in the ground already?

Another great barn

The girls of East Bowdoinham spent a lovely morning visiting Mini Mt Estates in Bowdoin.  Ramona Stinson (of Bowdoinham Recycling Barn fame) and her family hosted an Open House and showed us  a variety of animals, including Boer Goats. Some baby goats were only a day old.

Ramona has been telling me of the many ways she uses recycled materials found at the Barn of Opportunity. Here are my favorite examples: The baby crib turned into hay feeder.
(Actually there were bed rails and crib rails and headboards in almost every animal stall.) 

...and the kid's art easel turned into a kid's grain feeder. Nice thinking.

Ramona's daughter Amanda put together a great display with pictures and examples of many ways farmers are recyclers.  I loved her tutorial on turning a plastic vinegar bottle into a grain scoop.













 The highlight might just have been the goat meat chili. Yummers.
It was a great spring Sunday. Thanks, pals.