Out in front, behind the scenes.

Six. That's how many blog entries I wrote last year. It's an all time low. Let's see if I can do a little better this year. It's not that I wasn't doing anything blog-worthy. In fact, 2013 will go down in my mind as one of my better years, though there's little evidence of this on my blog. This year I learned that sometimes it's best to work behind the scenes.

In years past, this blog has traced the evolution of kokoleo - essentially, the things I make and sometimes sell online or in shops or at craft shows. I used to spend hours putting together detailed step-by-step tutorials in the hopes they would get featured on the well-known D.I.Y. websites or reblogged with a link and shoutout by some better-known crafter. These were the little victories  cherished in my effort to "build my brand", though they were rarely lucrative. More often than not, I was ripped off by people (some who I thought were friends in the craft community) with the same goal - to get featured, reblogged, recognized, published, etc. It's disheartening to see something you shared slightly repackaged by a fellow crafter or worse, reprinted word for word on a for-profit site with no credit given. It was enough to make me second guess sharing my ideas in the first place. So I stopped. Consequently my blog became barren and boring and "building my brand" got put on the back burner.

 As many hours as I used to spend crafting my online presence, in 2013 I spent it carving out a place for myself in my immediate community. I became the PTO secretary at my kids school and helped pull off a 30-act talent show. I taught a Mother Goose preschool class and Nature craft camp at the community center. I joined my Homeowners Association board and designed a neighborhood newsletter. I started attending city forums and neighborhood planning meetings and began to speak up for things I thought would benefit my neighborhood. I met repeatedly with city officials and developed a financially sustainable business model - a fee based program where the teacher (me) earns a living wage and the city shares in the profits - to convert an abandoned city building into a successful after school program - Club Teasdale. Four months into the program, and we're still going strong. There was a story about us in the newspaper and we were featured, along with the mayor, on the cover of the city services guide that goes out to every household in the city.

All this means little to anyone outside our city. There are no blog badges, page hits, or number of "likes" I can look to for validity. This is what life must have been like before the internet, when the impact you made among your neighbors was all that mattered. What a novel concept!

Recapping the past 3 months

No post since January? Sheesh. Where has the time gone? There used to be a time where I documented nearly everything I made. Lately though, a lot of what I do soon disappears into the world like it never even happened. It's time I record a few creations for posterity's sake, lest I forget them forever.

One of my recent creations that I'm most proud of is this:

 

Well, not necessarily the banner (which was bright and sparkly and probably my biggest kokoleo banner yet) but the show itself. Several of my PTO mom friends and I organized a talent show at our kids' school. No one could remember the last time there had been one at the school so we were starting from scratch. It was a success! We had 32 acts and over 300 people showed up. I was in charge of the stage crew and got to see the look of pride (and relief) on the kids' faces as they walked off stage. Sage and McKenna did a comedy routine called "the BIG-un-ATOR 2000" where McKenna hid inside the "machine" and Sage put small items in one side, it shook and made machine noises, and larger versions came out the other. In the end he put a doll in and McKenna popped out.

It's funny how some of the most significant and rewarding projects I do are the ones I do for free. Still, I gotta make a buck somehow, so I've been teaching craft classes at local schools for a non-profit company called Eastside Enrichment.

Puppet-making, cartooning, egg-art, jewelry making, puffball creatures, mobiles, etc. - these are the activities we've explored over the weeks. I'm even busting out crafts I learned at summer camp 25 years ago. Anyone remember these?

I'm also teaching a "Learning with Mother Goose Class" at the community center and it's a hit! Every month it's filled to capacity and sometimes even has a waiting list. I've spent a lot of time this year creating a curriculum - researching Mother Goose rhymes, organizing them into themes, and coming up with a craft for each class. I hope to continue this class next year with a new gaggle of preschoolers. I rarely remember to take pictures in these classes, but here are a couple. I'll try to share a few of our projects on my blog in the future.

I haven't forsaken kokoleo though (however neglected my Etsy shop may seem). I'm still taking commissions and doing occasional seamstress work. I'll share my latest personalized pieces tomorrow, but here are some recent special-order outfits I made:

A baby gift for a "surfer family that likes funky stuff", and this outfit for a birthday gift for one of McKenna's friends:

The party was a "Monster High" theme so I made a skull applique of the logo and made a fringy skirt to match. The patch is the invitation that I printed onto fabric and sewed onto the skirt. A kokoleo-meets-Monster-High original.

One of my most important projects though, is top secret. I've seen a need in my neighborhood and am making an effort to enact change for the good of my community. It's a project I've been dreaming about for years but just recently joined forces with the right people to possibly make it happen. I don't want to say too much for fear of jinxing it, but hopefully I'll have good news to share someday soon. Fingers crossed!

Summer Games and Baby Names

Oooo the summer is flying by. I haven't posted since April! Sheesh. Where does the time go? For me it's gone into entertaining the kids, organizing a neighborhood bike parade and picnic, gathering materials for a community mosaic in our park, and teaching a craft class at happy delusions every Thursday:

I've also been busy with a steady stream of personalized pillow orders lately. Here are some pics of the ones I've done in the last few months:

 

 

Such great names!

Kokoleo Windows and Craft Camp

Well it seems I failed in that  that resolution to blog at least 10 times a month. I promise to better this month though. Oh wait, this month is already half over. Where does the time go?

Last month I spent a lot of my time preparing for this:

An all-kokoleo display in the windows of happy delusions in downtown Renton. That's the inside view, here it is from the outside:

I said windows plural because directly across from this is another huge window that I decorated as well:

And in the middle is another big window.

It was fun filling these spaces with my stuff. Mary, the owner of happy delusions, gave me free reign to do what I want with them. On the day I decorated them, McKenna didn't have preschool and I worried she would get restless but she was an awesome helper – handing me nails, clothes pins, and glue dots. She said, “Some day I'm going to work here. I'm going to sew things and sell them here like you do.” Since I technically don't have a real job, it was as close as a “Take Your Daughter to Work” day as I'll get.

The following night was "First Friday," a downtown art walk where some of the businesses stay open late and the community comes together to enjoy wine and cookies and art. My friend Dacia, who owns the Old Renton Book Exchange came and purchased this shirt for her boy Bo off my clothesline display. How cute is this kid?

To kick off my Spring Break Kids Craft Camp that I was going to be teaching at the store the following week, I offered to set up a table in front of the shop and let people make some of the projects I have planned for my class. 

 

The results were adorable. Here are just a few:

 

And here are some pics of last week's Craft Camp. Monday was Fun with Puppets:

 

Tuesday was Monster Mania:

Wednesday was Puffball Power:

Thursday was No-Sew Pillows and Totes:

And Friday was Arty Party:

Turnout was great and we're even thinking about doing it again this summer and possibly next winter break as well. Stay tuned!

These are some monsters we made. . .

Awww. I don't know what's cuter - the kids, or the monsters they created!

The Craft Caboose

What are you doing this weekend? Want to sit around and make stuff with me? Then stroll on over to All'Aboard Boutique in Atwater this Saturday and Sunday for the Craft Caboose!

We'll be making monsters, stuffing pillows, sewing totes, and appliqueing the crap outta everything. Stop by!

How to make happiness happen.

Sometimes all it takes is saying "yes" to an email and suddenly you find yourself volunteering to help pull off a major production. And when you're done, you're like, that was amazing.

A few weeks ago a woman from my L.A. Church of Craft forum posted that she was looking for volunteers to host a craft table at holiday party for several hundred kids and moms from various homeless shelters around the city. It was hosted by St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Studio City, a church I had been to once before for a Christmas Eve service and twice for Little Monster Market shows (blogged here and here) last year. Since it's close, I figured, why not? and volunteered to teach the recycled holiday ornament workshop I taught at last year's Felt Club and published as a tutorial in the Felt Club 2006 holiday program.

If you want to learn how to make these, there's a tutorial for it in the current issue #09 of Craft: magazine that my fellow Felt Clubber Cathy Calahan wrote. Why didn't I think of that? Silly me keeps showing people how to do it for free. Oh well, I didn't invent it. Years ago I saw a Christmas tree adorned with these in Savannah and came home and turned all our wedding cards into a mobile of geodesic balls. Ever since then it's been my go-to craft for the holiday season.

So this Saturday I got up bright and early and loaded with supplies I'd purchased that week, headed to the event. I also brought along the fixins for a candy cane reindeer craft, which I taught to another volunteer who later taught it to all the kids. (All those years of being a teacher has left me with projects to spare.)

The recycled holiday ornament craft is, I quickly realized, not for little ones. All the circle cutting, triangle folding, and gluing requires patience and a little skill.

Luckily, it was mostly tween and teenage girls and their moms and grandmas who were drawn to my table. A few of them joked with me that they didn't know what they were getting into when they sat down, but before too long, the pieces would merge into something beautiful and I could tell they were proud of what they had created. One mom remarked, "It's kind of like everything we do in life, isn't it? It's a labor of love." Indeed. Here's what some of them came up with:

Other craft tables had face painting, knitting, Santa letter writing (using up the envelopes left over from all our cards) and gingerbread house making.

There was even a hand massage table for the moms.

There were games outside, carolers inside, food and sweets galore, and the kids each got a gift bag full of brand new clothes. When the crafting wrapped up, I was sent to "Elf Training" and helped distribute these gifts to the kids.

from Santa.

I drove home exhausted, but uplifted in ways I didn't expect I would be. Before I got there, I worried that I wouldn't have much to talk about with the moms, but when I was there our conversations were like any I'd have with a group of crafters or moms at the playground. I thought, somewhat naiively, that I'd feel sorry for the kids. Instead, I was blown away by their enthusiasm and genuine gratitude when they were given something, or created something new and beautiful.

So that's what I realized the other day -- that you can make happiness happen by giving something, or creating something new and beautiful for someone else. Eventually, someone might even do it for you too.