I bought a craft magazine

Better Homes and Gardens Make It Yourself, Spring/Summer 2017

I picked up a new BHG craft magazine, and decided to make the most of it. The price was (C)$7.99 plus tax, so if I can find 16 different ways to use this issue, then I figure fifty cents an idea is a good bargain. Helpful tips and cool products count too.

1. Cover idea: "Grown-Up Craft Camp." That's awesome! Why don't we do that at church? How about a Charlotte Mason moms' handicraft / nature day? Everybody knows somebody who could take this idea and make it the most fun ever.

2. Cover promotion:  "A Free Cross-Stitch Pattern Every Month." I can't see myself downloading the August flipflop pattern, but the June jam jar is nice. Related thoughts: I am just an occasional stitcher, so small and simple projects are best.

3. For the book list: Care Packages, by Michelle Mackintosh. Related thoughts: maybe some of the craft ideas would be nice in a care package or a gift basket.

4. For those of us noted for our black thumbs: several ways to produce artistic-looking fake houseplants from materials such as crepe paper and river rocks. Here's one of the designer's websites.

5. I especially liked the rock cacti idea. Here's the original tutorial on Salt and Pepper Mom.

6. Handmade books, using Coptic stitching for binding. (I've seen this called Japanese stitching too.) Similar instructions.

7. Another crafty stuff book to look for: Connect with Nature, by Anna Carlile.

8. This would be fun for a tea party: turning small red paper honeycomb balls (the poofy things for parties) into strawberry shapes, just by recutting the paper backing shape (the part you stick together) and adding a green top.

9. A good site for me and my "evil sewing machine": BHG's how to sew site. [link broken]

10. "I could do that": 1/2-inch diameter rope, hot-glued in a spiral to a cardboard circle. What it's for: party placemats, especially if you can find colourful rope. Sounds like a good way to use up a stash of ancient macrame leftovers. (These can't be washed, so they're for one-time events or at least for non-messy parties. Or you could reserve them for centrepieces.)

11. Maybe for that grown-up craft party: white cotton napkins, dyed in ombre patterns. (Think Easter eggs.) Related thoughts: not everything hand-dyed has to be bright and tie-dyed. Especially if you're using natural dyes, you can come up with softer-coloured options.

12. I like the photograph of a living-room table holding large fern fronds in a glass vase. Mr. Fixit is fragrance-sensitive, so in addition to the houseplants we don't have, we also keep cut flowers to a minimum. But some green leafy stuff would be okay.

13. Another photo I liked: jars filled with felt "canned" peaches, cucumbers, and tomatoes, which I assumed were needle-felted or something complicated like that. Actually they are simple shapes with a bit of added embroidery. What makes them look not-like-kids'-crafts is that you use wool felt, the "real" stuff, not the synthetic version from the chain store craft aisle. Also, I think, the appeal is in the grouping. Not one tomato slice, but seven. Not just tomatoes, but peaches and cucumbers. It's the same with the handmade cacti: one is okay, but a small grouping of different types makes it less random and more interesting.

14. Again, sometimes it's how you put things together. Case in point: a party table with rope placemats under the plates, and hand-dyed napkins on the plates, and stand-up placecards on top of those. Plus paper flowers and a handmade banner. For a special party, even just a rope-placemats kind of occasion, turn the celebration dial up full blast. It doesn't have to cost much.

15. There's an almost-hidden bonus in that party photograph: a purchased table runner with a white stencilled lace pattern on each end. Not hard to do that. I can imagine using the same fabric-paint technique on a thrifted tablecloth, or a fabric remnant.

16. But I cannot ever see myself being desperate enough to cover a flower vase with cut-off plastic spoons.

17. Bonus way to use the magazine: pass the issue on to a crafty friend who's been under the weather.

Homeschool things to do for Tuesday: Robert Frost's poetry

In the that-was-easy department:   We will be reading the 51 poems in Robert Frost's You Come Too: Favorite Poems for Young Readers.


(Warning: there are extremely rude comments below this video.)

We own the 80-page junior biography Robert Frost: America's Poet, by Doris Faber.  What do you do with a junior biography, a sixth grader, and a homeschool curriculum based mostly around just reading the poems?

Taking a leaf from the Ordo Amoris tree, I think the best way to include things like this is to put them in a "Morning Time."  A gathering where maybe you don't always have to stick to the regular books.  Even if you are homeschooling just one, you can make a habit of getting together for some reading, maybe singing or memory work, close to the start of school or at another time that works well--maybe even at tea-time, if you have a regular time for that.  We have gotten out of tea-time in recent years, but what I remember was that by that time of the day, the Squirrelings were often impatient if I tried to thrust yet another book on them.  Individual poems, yes, but not whole chapters--they were ready to go and play.  So I guess it depends.

So Faber's book can go into some kind of a "Morning Time" reading basket.

What else can you do with poems beside read them, memorize them, copy them out, sometimes sing them?  Ruth Beechick has lots of ideas:  experimenting with word choice, changing verse into prose, and so on.  We also have a copy of Rose, where did you get that red? Teaching Great Poetry to Children, by Kenneth Koch, which has some good writing suggestions based on poems by Wallace Stevens, John Donne, African tribal poems, and more.

You can illustrate them.  We recently acquired several volumes in Scholastic's Graphic Poetry series, in which each book takes one or two poems by one author, and sets them up in what's basically picture book format--but for older readers, not little ones.  I think this would be a fun project in combination with the simpler book-binding and booklet-making ideas in Erin Zamrzla's At Home with Handmade Books.  Is that art, literature, handicrafts, or what?  Does it matter?  We'll work it in to an afternoon time.