use it up, wear it out, make it do...

After my workshop Saturday, I signed some books and actually stopped to look inside one again, a beautiful scrapbook of my creative life at home c.1999. This beloved dollhouse project is a creation that always draws me back in and I can see that the Tinsel Trading candy house was another version of my old stand-by specialty: trash crafts. There is really no end of imaginative things that can be crafted from cardboard, cans, bottles, rags, thrown-away bits. Mo and I made this dollhouse from a cardboard box found at the curb on recycling day. Turned on its side with a divider, it provided two floors of colorful doll-living and we added a third with - what else? - more cardboard. She was about ten, the glory days of our mother-daughter crafting years.

The window Mo is peeking through while we papier-mached the house looks alot like the door shape I often use, and it's there too in the candy house design. One of the workshop participants put a school picture of her daughter behind a cut-out window- so her face was peeking through. I loved that. I remembered Mo, winking through the window, the smile in her blue eye, her hands in a bowl full of papier mache paste. Something extraordinary from nearly nothing. Such delightful, homemade fun- gluey fingers, wild ideas, invention and excitement wrapping us up in memories and bonds that the heart never breaks. And it's so easy to do- really, just look in the trash, find some overlooked box and hold it up. What else can it be? Could be a dollhouse, a rocket ship, a cardholder, a keepsake- tomorrow it might be the most magnificent, cherished object in the world. As the saying goes...use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. Just make it do. That's so, so much sweeter.  xoC

Comments

[dede]

This is a sweetheart of a memory. We have a few of that type of trash to treasure here at my house, too ... some made by Charlotte! Prized possessions.
Oh, and I think the last line to the rhyme is "or THROW IT OUT!"
But we'll never abide, will we?
Love,
D

[kariandkijsa]

What a fabulous memory! A true prized possession!
blessings,
kari & kijsa

[julie (jane's apron)]

One of my earliest "crafty" memories is making a purse out of a cereal box...I couldn't have been more than 5 years old. I've been a trash craft girl ever since.

[Julie]

Charming doll house! I love your approach to making things. It sort of gives the projects more "soul" when they're made in this way, I think.

When my sister's kids were small the family was really strapped for cash. My sister, being incredibly talented, would make the most extraordinary things out of boxes and such. When her daughter was in high school and things were no longer tough for them financially, she was sharing with a friend at school what wonderful things they used to make as mother and daughter when they were broke. The friend commented that she wished she grew up poor, too! It sounded like so much fun! :) I loved that!

[*Heidi*]

I love that book of yours! I just got it the end of last year and I have done so many projects! My two girls are grown up, but now I'm finding out they have learned crafting from me, making do with what they have to make their lives and surroundings beautiful and inspiring.

[Ellie]

I love this project so much. As always, your work is so inspiring and thoughtful.

[carolyn]

That so reminds me of making dolls hoses with the kids when they were little, it was such fun.

[Sally]

I'm catching up on your posts. :)

This one is so sweet Charlotte. I love that you and your daughter made this charming house from a box found on the curb. Especially timely and inspiring these days, when we are challenged to consume less and discard less. Wonderful things can truly spring from the most humble of places, just sprinkle with love and creativity.

[suzi finer]

That house: inspired! I so wish that I could jet across the country to get in on those Tinsel Trading dealios...mmmmmm.
love.

[Emine]

oh my god, I so want to learn how to make that. So out of the world CUTE...

tfs
Emine