"crafts" news and stories

Corks are one of the classiest pieces of garbage that can be made into something nice. Rather than throw them away, people fill ornate jars with them, make walls and bulletin boards with them, and even make trivets. But you can also make trays with them.

See, a friend of mine used to work in a restaurant, so he scored bag upon bag filled with corks for me, which were further compounded with the corks I was collecting myself. It bothered me to think of how many went in the trash, so I wanted to get crafty. My bright idea: Make cork trays. They're pretty, they've unique, and they provide a foodie double-service -- making the most of your waste while also making something new to present your food on.

What could be more appropriate for a wine and cheese gathering than cork trays?

Got a passel of hungry Druids coming over to sup? Let 'em feast on Carin Huber's Baconhenge. It's magickally delicious!

And why stop at miniaturized mystical monuments? The AntiCraft also offers instructions for making a felted bacon bracelet, a fetching pork tiara, a bacon scarf (suitable for vegans), a bacon angel and a small, embroidered bacon-shaped pouch into which one may place their most malevolent thoughts. Then again, with all that bacon around, who could possibly be anything but deliriously happy?

[via The AntiCraft]

Surely you already know of Etsy, the ebay for the crafty and craft-loving alike. But perhaps you've yet to hear of Vegan Etsy, the blog of a group of Etsy users whose online shops consist solely of vegan items.

The blog primarily features fun interviews with Etsy shop owners, whose products consist of about half baked goods and half vegan accessories (which are just as fun to peruse). There are also plenty of links to the shops, where you can buy vegan goodies to your heart's content. A sampling: blueberry muffins, lemony-glazed raspberry turnovers, pumpkin spice cupcakes...is your mouth watering yet?

In addition to being an awesome place to find new buyers and sellers, you can pick up some great tips from the Vegan Etsy crowd, like new recipes, helpful vegan websites, and gorgeous flickr pages. You can't really go wrong.

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Yesterday, as I hunted through Flickr for a picture of a Chinese take-out box for the post about weekly meal patterns, stumbled across the image you see above. It is a crocheted take-out box, complete with handmade shrimp and noodles. The little red pagoda is embroidered on in nearly spot-on likeness. I am boggled by the level of detail that this crafter put into this project.

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I think it's pretty safe to say that we wouldn't have this big crafts/home & garden/cooking industry that we have if it wasn't for Martha Stewart. Sure, there were people doing it before her, but not in such a big way. Her 1982 bestseller Entertaining really paved the way for everything we have today.

Stewart is going to be celebrating those 25 years on her show tomorrow. Besides giving her audience a first edition of the book, she's also going to talk with Alan Mirken, the former Clarkson/Potter president who discovered Stewart) and other execs and employees Stewart has worked with over the years.

In other Martha news, PBS will launch a new show titled Everyday Baking, a spinoff of the Everyday Food show, which is based on the magazine of the same name.