Monday, March 10, 2008

This mug or that mug....

I love a good mug of coffee and the other mug (my mugshot) I made from an actual younger photo of me. It is just a scribble as it was my first attempt but I like the way it looks so I'm keeping it.
I am not an artist but I do play around with my Microsoft Digital Image 2006 program and came up with the little coffee mug.
I sketched my photo "mug shot" by placing it into a neat little program called ArtRage 2. I downloded the free version from
here.
Here is the original I used to make this sketch.

I consider myself a "crafty mug" because I've been making things most of my life and I've loved crafting as far back as I can remember.

I began sewing when I was 14 years old but my first memory of crafts is from the 1940's.

I was so young I don't remember how old I was but I was probably not much more than a toddler. I remember on a Saturday night, my daddy would have a few sips of his favorite "coffee lace" and I remember him making little tractors from wooden thread spools, a rubber band and crayons, for my siblings and me. The process would be that he would cut little notches all around the bottom and top edges of the spools with his pocket knife. Then he would run a small rubber band through the spool hole and attach a piece of broken crayon on one end and, I believe, a small stick or pencil on the other end. The detail of exactly what was on the other end is not in my memory very clear, but I remember the end with the crayon on it was wound very tightly so when it was set on the floor, it would act as a little gear, and the spool would roll on the floor like a little miniature tractor.
I remember my mother making soap. I don't remember how it was made except she made big batches in a tub outdoors and it wasn't the fragrant kind that the modern crafter of today make. I believe it was called "lye soap" and was used mostly for cleaning and doing laundry. I also remember her sewing, canning food, and quilting.

The little things that a brain can remember is amazing. These early memories of crafts are some of the first I can recall and they somehow linger in my mind.



Today I went searching the Internet just to see if I could find a wooden spool tractor. To my surprise, I did find more than one. You can see one here. It looks similar to the ones I remember. Here is another one. This one has full instructions and even has the notches that I remember. Each one is a little different but basically they all work the same.

I also searched for information about the lye soap. Here is a link to a page about making lye soap.

Ahhh...brings back some childhood memories that are heartwarming.


2 comments:

Ginger said...

What a fun toy for boys or girls to play with .Got to make one later today just to see it how it works.Looks fun ! thank you for showing us this was new page for me.
hugs ginger

Daisy Soap Girl said...

I was just reading this post and it brought back my similar memories. I also grew up learning how to craft as a child. I started sewing in home econom. classes in school because we didn't have money to buy the latest fashions. I knew there was a reason we like each others posts. Your work is really awesome.