Emily Jeffords, who paints landscapes and skies that make me audibly sigh, had recently put something on her Instagram feed that intrigued me more than usual. She often posts stuff about artists’ retreats that leave me dreaming — a recent one was even in France! — so to say I was more intrigued than usual is saying something. She was posting about a collaboration she was involved in with The Crafter’s Box. What was this intriguing new-to-me service?!
Well, The Crafter’s Box is a monthly subscription service that, should you sign up for the service, sends you craft supplies and tools and allows you to sign into its site to view a video instruction to learn how to do the craft-of-the-month. Emily was going to teach everyone how to do cyanotype, which sounded amazing, but I was too slow and had missed the deadline for her month.
So, I signed up for the next month’s box, which was going to be filled with beautiful rose gold scissors, crepe paper and access to instructions on how to make paper flowers. But. I was waitlisted. Story. Of. My. Life.
The good news? I didn’t have to write an essay or dig deep to tap into any latent charisma to get miraculously un-waitlisted! I, lifeandpuppies, was offered a box! I then did what any smart crafter does and I immediately tacked on the “add on” box, which would give me additional paper to make more of what I was sure was going to be amazing-looking flowers. $65 for the box. $18 for the add-on. Shipping costs included in that.
Tick tock tick tock tick tock. You see, you order the box by about mid-month of the month before its going to ship. And then it ships around the first week or so of the following month. But finding out you’re unwaitlisted only to have to WAIT to get this gem was like, well, waiting a long time. Something I’m not so good at. Anyway, I don’t remember when I got word that I was IN the club, but I know my box arrived at my door May 12. It’s forever etched in my memory. Just kidding. I just have a pic on my phone from that date.
Molly and I were both very excited.
We tore into this old gal.
This is really just a look at the paper work and the stuffing, but I love it none the less. Let’s get to the good stuff now, though.
So, the box came with the floral wire, floral tape, wire cutters, hoop for a wreath, the aforementioned rose gold scissors, a glue gun, glue for the gun, and beautiful crepe paper. Now, at $65 + $18 was it “worth” it? I don’t know. Sure, that’s pricy, but I figure that you’re really paying for a class, which could certainly cost that much and not include supplies. And I’d have to leave my house. Now, I didn’t need a new glue gun or wire cutters, probably, but it’s pretty neat to have the whole thing just ready to go. (I’m not even going to talk about needing the scissors because obviously I did.) And the video was amazing. It was great to be able to watch it, stop it, rewind it and do it all again. I mean, truly. This part was probably better than a class because I can keep going back. At least I think I can. Note to self: keep checking on this.
So, I’m not the best with hot glue, but I did what I could. Flower number one – the Icelandic poppy – turned out like this:
The center is a small piece of paper towel bundled up with crepe paper glued around it. For my second poppy, I improvised and used a small green felt ball I had instead. I liked it a little better as I had trouble making my ball as nice as I thought it should look.
I thought I had a little better luck, in general, with the peony. But I suppose I should let you judge that.
I really, really love this idea. If I were rich, I wouldn’t even hesitate to tell you how much I love it. I don’t think it’ll be sustainable to keep this going, but I hope it’ll be ok with The Crafter’s Box to start and stop subscriptions. At this point, they seem to suggest it is.
But, I let myself miss cancelling the June box so I’ll just *have* to try the wet-on-wet watercolor technique. Can’t wait.
life and puppies 