After a couple of arid weeks, I'm back at it. Last weekend, I found clockworks at a Hobby Lobby in Mundelein--just happened to be passing through. And this past weekend, I made this little gem out of 12,000 Girl Scouts Sing America's National Favorites. It's an album of 12,000 Girl Scouts singing in Farragut, Idaho in 1965. The record itself is someplace in my mother's house, but the cover is gloriously silly. It now has a place of honor on my living room wall, and I now know what time it is from the comfort of my living room sofa. I actually needed this.This is truly crafting for idiots. Find the exact center of something you like that can have a hole poked through it. Poke hole. Insert clockworks. Insert battery. Set clock. Hang on wall. Ta daa. You're done.
I banged out the hole using a Phillips head screwdriver and a hammer, then widened it just a little by twirling the blades of a closed pair of scissors around in the hole, just a little. Didn't want to overdo and get too big of a hole. Just twirl and test, twirl and test, until the clockworks fits through.
And this little honey of a clock is the easy result. It's fun to craft things that you actually need. Fun to craft the decorative, silly stuff, too. But this gives me an extra shot of feeling, not only creative, but also self sufficient and DIY-esque. I didn't just run out to Kmart and get a dime-a-dozen, made-in-China-at-some-hugely-polluting-factory-by-exploited-workers, chintzy clock. I made my own chintzy clock. The only one of its kind in the entire universe. I guarantee it. That's the best part of being a crafter.
(Okay. Granted. The clockworks I used were made in China. but at least I'm a little closer to the means of production, and Kmart didn't get any of my money.)
