Etsy has gone to the faeries!

New faerie houses and scenes added to our etsy! You must check them out, and look for more soon!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/thegreengriffin

Kiva

I am adding a Kiva banner to the blog, but I thought i should make a post about what it is also. Kiva is a great microcredit loaning system, where people can lend as little as $25 to budding entrepreneurs to help them achieve their next business goal. Basically if someone in Africa needs a small loan to purchase stock at the beginning of a season, they will apply on kiva and if you choose to lend to them, your $25 (or more) will add together with other people's money to give them the funds they need. It is a loan however, and they will pay you back as they make their profit. It is a great way to help women and other underprivileged groups become self-sufficient. I encourage everyone to at least look at the site, if not loan (only $25...and you get it back!)

http://www.kiva.org/


Here are the profiles of two women I have lent money too currently. I put in $50 years ago and have just been recycling it as soon as it gets paid back.

http://www.kiva.org/lend/195670

http://www.kiva.org/lend/195661

So lets be honest with ourselves; this is a way to give charity, without losing anything yourself. Check it out!


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Our First Tutorial...sort of

I decided to do our first tutorial on here as something I just wanted to try. I found this tutorial for a recycled t-shirt bag based on the design of plastic grape bags. I wanted to try it with a thin sweater, so I decided to take pictures of the whole process and post them on here. And I did. Except then the pictures got lost in cyberspace. They weren’t on my camera or computer...I don’t know where they went, but I can’t find them.

Anyways, here’s a link to the t-shirt version tutorial, and a picture (retaken later) of the finished product of the bag I made.

http://pm-betweenthelines.blogspot.com/2010/03/quick-fix-grocery-bag-tutorial.html

The only differences between doing this project with a t-shirt versus a sweater, is that if your sweater buttons up the front, you have to sew the button part closed. I also added a little fold over closure on the top to further make use of the buttons.





I think I cut the slits too large and I might play around with doing loose zigzag over them to close it up more. I also could’ve left the collar on, it just would’ve made the opening a little smaller.

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Winder next Saturday

We will be in Winder GA at the Spring Craft Fair at First Methodist Church next Saturday, May 29, from 10-5

http://www.winderfumc.com/springcraftfair.htm

We hope to see lots of you there. Last chance to get graduation matchboxes before most graduations!

Scrap Bag Kitty

Looks comfortable. Wish I could fit in there. --Lorena

Burning Matches

When you fill matchboxes for a living (or partial living), what do you do with all of the matches? Aline has filled several hundred matchboxes, meaning she has emptied several times 3200 matches. After a few mixing bowls have been filled, it begins to seem like a fire hazard, and so we staged a bonfire. With great fanfare and ceremony, we lit the matches outside on a rock and then jumped back. All in all, it was a very satisfying blaze.

Athens Farmer's Market

So here's a picture of our great colorful booth at the Athens Farmer's Market! It was a ton of fun and we did pretty well selling wise. My favorite sale was trading a matchbox for baklava!