"Making Stuff"

   My family has always 'made stuff'. That's what we called it. I suppose now days it's 'crafting'. I know people who say they 'craft' make some amazing things,but I hate that word. It makes me think of really crappy cheap junk. I like to think of the stuff my Grama made as folk art. Mom drew, and sewed. She also built things from wood. She built herself a nick nack rack once, and she built me a bench for the playhouse my dad was supposed to build. It sits at my dining room table.

Fuzzy and Emma sitting on Mom's bench,at the table for Ivy's first birthday party,2000. 

  Mom wanted a 'baby cradle book rack' she saw in a catalog so badly that she made herself one. It's a magazine rack really, but that's what she called it. You might have seen it in my post on my Christmas photos.
 

That's it next to me in the photo. It was still unstained at this point. It's stained a medium brown now. I still have it. I keep records in it.

  My grama, mom's mom, made something out of anything. She used crayons to colour strange faces on oval shaped rocks she used as door stops. They were wonderful and exotic looking. As kids we all loved looking at them. 

She gave one to my cousin once when he was little. Considering that he's the dufus you read about HERE, who I referred to as 'Mindless Follower', who didn't even come to his mother's funeral, I'm pretty sure he doesn't still have it. In my attic somewhere I still have the rat Grama made out of a rat shaped dried sweet potato. He even has a bead nose, and string whiskers. Grama also made pigs and wind thingies out of bleach bottles...

That's what those things are, hanging from Grama's porch in the background of this picture of my cousin,(left), and me.

 She made a whole flock of flamingos out of English walnut shell halves,which I still have. The shells are the bodies.She made their heads out of some of the boatload of sea shells she brought back from,as she called it, 'Flordy' when she went to visit my uncles. She made their legs out of pipe cleaners, (The flamingos' legs,not my uncles'.),and glued them to rocks so they stand up. She made a tiny chair,slightly bigger than 1/12 scale,out of pipe cleaners with woven thread for the back and seat. I still have that too,but I haven't had it out for a while. It sat out for years and was looking a little dingy, so I put it away where it wouldn't collect dust. She taught me how to made blown egg people. She poked a hole in  the ends of an egg, and then blew the contents out. The shell was rinsed, and we made people out of them. I still have a bunch of them. When I was a kid I kept them in a big, hard 1950's purse we had, so they have survived pretty well. They would have survived better if I hadn't played with them! But they're pretty whole still. The clothes helped hold them together! The kids and I tried it out a few years ago.

I did this speckly freckly egg. He's still hanging around waiting for a torso.

  If Grama had had access to the glue and things people have now, she could have done some wondrous things that weren't as likely to fall apart with age. Grama also sewed and crocheted. She made the most amazing dried apple people. I wanted one so badly, but she never gave me one. You know I would still have it if she had! I clearly remember the little old man she made. She sewed him a navy blue suit. She made him a wife that I have less memory of, and they sat in her china cabinet.
  My sister was always making things. She made most of the doll clothes we had as kids. She drew all the time. I have some tiny houses she made out of paper. They're fully decorated, and furnished with paper furniture. There's a tiny paper lamp on a tiny paper table. I'll have to bring them down from the attic sometime and photograph them. One of my favourite things she ever made is something I somehow don't still have. She made a quilt type sleeping bag for dolls out of paper towels. That sounds pretty tacky, but it was so pretty. The paper towels were several layers thick, to give it some quiltedness. It was taped along the edges with masking tape, but it was 'quilted' with magic markers. She drew the squares with various coloured markers. (We had plenty of those. My dad brought them home from work by the box.) Each square had a picture. I can't remember any of it specifically. I just have a vague image in my head. But I loved that thing. It was so cute. My mom must have thrown it out somewhere along the line. I know I had it for years. My sister always wanted to be an art teacher. In her late 40's or 50's she finally put herself through art school.
  I made stuff as a kid too. I made egg people with Grama. I made a lot of animals and people out of clay and Playdough. I drew a lot, but I was never as good as my sister. I made things out of bits and pieces of things I found. I wanted to learn to carve, but Dad was so afraid I'd hurt myself that the knife he sold me, (Dad was superstitious about giving someone a knife. He said it 'cut love'. So he made me pay him a penny. When Ivy gave me the miniature knife for Christmas a few years back I gave her a penny.),was so dull I could barely get it to scrape soft wood. My main 'making stuff' thing as a kid though, was writing. I wrote a lot of stories. The school we went to used to let the kids give plays for the class occasionally. There was no reason. It wasn't an assignment. Nobody got any credit for them. If you had written something, or wanted to perform for the class, when there was extra time, up you went. I didn't realize that wasn't normal for schools until I changed schools when I was 12. Until then I was writing and performing plays for the class. That went up to 6th grade. I don't remember any plays after that, but I was still writing. I still write a story now and then. I wrote a few for the kids when they were little. I came across "Ivy and the Magic Flying Sheep" in Ivy's bookcase when I was doing her room. Maybe I'll share it someday, if there's any interest.
  As an older kid and a teenager and adult  I made stuff out of clay, paper mache', (I made Death Star and Slimer pinatas for a couple of birthday parties.

Fuzzy's Slimer pinata. That's Fuzz just below it.

  I started to specialize in things for the kids after I had them. I never really sewed, but I started making doll clothes, and furniture. I made a couch and chairs for Emma's dollhouse. I made her 'Emma the Doll' a vintage style caped coat with matching hat and muff to match the set Emma had. I never really baked much, but I started making character birthday cakes. Some of them were better than others!

Fuzzy's Ghostbuster's cake.

Emma's Beast cake. (As in,"Beauty and the...".)

  We'll get into the doll stuff the kids and I made this week. There was a lot of it! It never would have happened if my family hadn't been into 'making stuff'.