Tag: craft

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More Handmade Gifts (this time for me!)

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My girls made Christmas gifts for me this past year as well. An adorable little wooden TARDIS – the door really open and everything. I’m trying to decide what to keep in there. And the cute black cat keychain. The cat has green eyes just like our Meeko kitty. I’m undecided where to keep that one too. The bag I use the most is also black and I’m afraid it won’t show up well. So I suppose it would be best on my small purple purse. The downside is that I don’t use it as much, but maybe that would make me worry less, because if I break it I would be super sad.
These kids have leveled up in a major way this year in their crafting skills. I’m just so – Wow! about these.

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The Magician’s Nephew, craft project – rings and pocket.

Kara Hartz1 Comment

I co-host a kid’s book club. One of my responsibilities is to come up with an activity and/or craft that goes along with our book of the month. Sometimes I’ve found great idea from a simple Google search. After all, we’ve generally stuck to the classics, or books that are commonly taught in classrooms. I’m actually more surprised when I can’t find anything good. It goes to show how spoiled the internet has made me. I expect it to plan everything for me. 
When recently, I didn’t find anything I liked for the book “The Magician’s Nephew” by CS Lewis, I needed to come up with my own craft idea. I decided, since I take so many ideas from other blogs, I should share what I came up with. Only fair.
What I decided to do was to have the kids make their own green and gold rings. First, I thought we’d make them from air drying clay, but the selection at my local craft shop was disappointing. So I wandered into the jewelry making section, and found this neat wire. Even thought I expected it to be more difficult to work with, it would also look way cooler, and that counts for something.
I’ve learned it is always a good idea to test out a project before doing it with a group of kids, so my girls and I tried making rings the night before our book meeting. It was much more difficult than I’d expected. My hat off to jewelry makers who use this stuff. I’d picked a think wire, 16 gauge I think it was. I thought we’d just measure the little fingers, use wire cutters, and pliers to bend. But the pliers also stripped all the beautiful color off the wire, defeating the whole point. So I ended up wrapping the wire around this peg, and precutting the rings, then just passing them out and letting the kids stretch or smoosh them to a good personal fit. 

Now, in the book it is clear that you shouldn’t touch the rings when you don’t want to go into another world, so we needed a pouch or pocket to keep them in. I like felt for kid sewing projects because it is inexpensive, colorful, and super easy to work with. You can leave raw edges without worry. For my sample I sewed a lion on the front of the pouch for decoration, but brought along fabric glue as well, which turned out to be what most of the kids chose to use to add embellishments to their pouches. 
I did need to call on other mom reinforcements when a lot of the kids all needed help threading their needles all at the same time, but otherwise the project went well, and the kids seemed to enjoy their little treasures.
I told them that when they read a book, any book, it is like they are going into another world, so they should put on their outgoing ring (the gold one if I remember correctly). When they’re all done reading and ready to return to our world, they can put on their green ring.
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Starting Over – Again

Kara Hartz3 Comments

I’ve started my novel over. From the beginning. When I wrote my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, I did it in true NaNo style. That is, fast, and without a lot of deep thought. I had an idea about the sort of story I was trying to tell, so I didn’t try to outline or do much planning. You see, Id actually written this same story once before – back in 2005 when I first started writing again. Then it was a 7000 word short story. It was dreadful. The first helpful review I got was from a fellow called Bob over at Writing.com who explained this writing idea to me of showing vs. telling. Yep, that version was 7000 words of telling. *shudders*

It was Bob’s review and advice that started me on my way seeking out more information about the craft of writing. Before that, I though writing was some sort of talent. It was so exciting to learn that there were some very powerful techniques that I could learn that would help me improve my writing.

I defiantly feel that version 2 of this story – the 2010 NaNoWriMo version was much, much better than the 2005, short story version. Yet, 60,000 words in, I could see it wasn’t working well, but I’m not so experienced that I could easily see a way to fix it. The I watched the video by Dan Wells about the 7 point story structure and tried to plug my novel into that structure. That showed me that my ending didn’t make any sense. Actually, more than that, it showed me I didn’t really have an ending. Using the 7 point structure, though, I quickly came up with an ending, and a middle, and some sub-plots that all made the story fit together so much better. I was so happy! Now, I told myself, I have something to work with.

Last night, the downside of all these insights hit me as it came time to stop playing with outlines ans structure and get writing again. That was, I had to start all over again. To create the structure I wanted, I had to make some really fundamental changes to the story I already had. Mainly in the characters. The characters are completely different now. Better, but different. Beyond a revision. Have to start over. When I look at all the work I already had, this made me a little sad.

I wondered why I even want to keep trying with this story. Why not scrap it and start over with something new? I hope that since I’m still interested in this story enough to keep writing it (again) that’s a sign that it may be interesting enough for other people to enjoy reading if I can ever get a draft finished. That’s my hope, because I really do want to keep writing it. That almost amazes me more than anything else.

So, my fellow writers out there. What would you do in my shoes. Start over, or start something new?

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My Favorite Writing Podcasts

Kara Hartz5 Comments

Several of the podcast I listen to (and I listen to a LOT) have said that if their listeners (like me) want to offer support they should blog about them. While I have also donated financially in the past to some of my favorite podcasts too, it isn’t something I can do regularly, and certainly not as much as I know these people deserve. So, bogging it is then!

I’m going to break my favorite podcasts into categories. Today is writing podcasts. After about a year and a half of podcast listening, these are the ones that have continued to earn their spot in my over-filled ipod. These are mainly fiction writing podcasts, by the way.

I Should Be Writing – Mur Lafferty talks about her own writing journey, interviews professional authors, and answers listener questions. She is very frank, open, but still encouraging. I like that she doen’t attempt to be perfect, but will talk about trying to write while sick, or discouraged, and other parts of the process that may suck. But her message is always: you get through it, and you keep writing.

Writing Excuses – By Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler. These are all professional writers who discuss an aspect of the craft of writing each episode. Sometimes they have guests, but often it’s just the three of them. The topics they cover are very focused, and often something I didn’t even know I didn’t know. If you know what I mean. They are also nice short podcasts, usually under 20 min each.

Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing – Pretty much what the title says, although they talk to a lot of fantasy authors too. They have some really terrific interviews, and news of what’s going on in publishing.

The Writing Show – I just learned that this podcast is scaling way back on what they are putting out, but the back episodes are still really worth listening to. They cover all kinds of writing topics, and the guests are so enthusiastic, I even enjoyed episodes that were on topics I didn’t think I had any interest in, like memoir, comics, and screenwriting.

Pen On Fire – Another author interview podcast. Some talk about the craft of writing, some talk more about their books, but all are fun to listen too. My complaint about this one is that it makes me want to read every book they talk about, and I already have more to read than I have time for!

Dead Robot Society – A group of aspiring writers discuss the craft and business of writing and trying to break in. They are also mainly Sci-Fi/Fantasy writers. I occasionally disagree with some of their advice, but they often disagree with one another as well. They can have some interesting discussions and it’s a nice reminder that different writers will have different ways of approaching their writing. They can wander off topic, and get a little silly, but that’s fun to listen to too.

Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing – Again, this one is what it says. These are super short, usually about 5 to 7 min long. Some strange grammar rules are explained very clearly.

If you have a favorite writing podcast that I didn’t mention, leave it in the comments section. If it isn’t one I’ve already heard, I’ll add it to my feed!

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The Twelve Days of Crochet

Kara Hartz3 Comments

With a little less than 2 weeks until Christmas, I got it into my head to make some Amigurumi dolls for my kids. By some, I mean 4. I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea, or that I’d be able to do it in the time I had available (which was late at night so they didn’t see me working). But I did. Maybe it was to fight some of the icky feeling I get when I spend too much time in malls and superstores. Maybe it was left over NaNoWriMo, I-can-do-anything feelings, Maybe it was just getting home from the hospital with my kiddo that had her appendix out and feeling all maternal and protective. Making cute things from yarn helps with those types of feeling, you know.

So, anyway, I didn’t finish in time. In fact, I’m still not finished, but the last one is almost done. For my oldest, I made a Pokemon with a poke ball. For the younger kiddo, I wanted a Scooby Doo, but could only find a knitting pattern, so I went with Little Red Riding Hood and wolf instead.

For the Mew Pokemon and poke ball amigurumi, I found both patterns at the WolfDreamer: Off the Hook blog. She has a ton of free Pokemon amigurumi patterns as well as some Mario Brothers ones and other cute characters. She also has a WolfDreamer Zibbet shop.

The wolf I found at the Lion Yarn website. They have some free patterns too, but you have to sign up for a free account to get access to them. Yes, I know he doesn’t look exactly like a wolf. Something went wrong with the ears I think. So far, most people think he’s an aardvark or a mouse. Some see him as a sort of generic quadruped and one could argue convincingly that he is any number of little creatures. Even so, I still think he’s cute, darn it! And I believe when he is standing next to a Little red Riding Hood doll, it will be clear he is a wolf. It’s all about the context.

I broke down a bought a pattern for Little Red Riding Hood, since the free ones I found weren’t quite what I was looking for. That’s the one I don’t have finished yet, although she is coming along nicely and I’ll post my finished doll here when I get done. (Which, if my wrist holds out will be very soon.) To see what she will hopefully look like, the pattern is here.

Hope everyone had a great holiday, and is ready for 2011 to get here.

Go make something!

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My Best Kid Party Idea To Date.

Kara Hartz1 Comment

At my daughter’s last birthday (turning 2) we were going to end up having a lot more grown-up guests than kids. It was mainly family. So I wanted a fun activity for the adults. Since the kiddo’s favorite phrase at the time was “I do my own!” we had a DIY theme for the party.

I saw some darling dolls from GooseGrease on Etsy.

And I also noticed that they sold kits, and blank dolls that you can paint yourself. Now, my kiddo’s love the old wooden “Little People” dolls that my parents saved from when I was a kid. The have named each of the dolls for people in our family. I thought, How cool would it be to make them a set of dolls that really looked like our family?

So I bought a blank set of dolls, and had each person at the party paint themselves as a gift to the Birthday Girl. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and the dolls are played with almost daily. It really made the day extra special, as cheesy as that sounds.