Martha Stewart's in my craft room

I know, I know – real art doesn’t come from the craft store. But hey, good products, er, CAN. I admit it, I like the Martha Stewart craft products at Michael’s. They are good quality, beautifully designed, and I think they’re interesting, too. Who else would come up with brown satin photo corners? Fabric tab sets that come with horizontal and vertical letters, numbers, symbols, and the months for like $4.00! Even her bone folder is special. I love my little glue pen – I use it to seal my mini-envelopes. It’s nice to hold. It doesn’t get crusty between uses. The cap hasn’t split. And I’ve been using it for a lot longer than I ever expected it to last.

Sometimes I’m at home with a cold, or junior is, or it snows (in Albuquerque, half an hour of snow gets you a two-hour delay every time!). The first thing I do is turn on the craft shows. (Have you noticed, they seem to be pushing them farther back into mid-morning/early afternoon?) Anyway, I’ve seen every Carol Duvall episode at least twice. I don’t care for the scrapbooking projects, much – they’re a bit harder for me to translate into something I’d do.

Some of the new craft shows drive me crazy. It’s all about young, instant, funky, and frankly, not too skillful, although I l do love the guest artists on the show with the gay guy and the redhead. Or is it the younger woman with the occasional Southern accent? Oy, I’m confused. The woman from Wisconsin who wears the homemade belt buckles is the worst! I emailed that show once, begging them to tell her to take off her big jewelry and tie back her hair when she’s using power tools for crissakes, she’s setting a bad example. I don’t mind funky so much, but the camera picks up every blobby booboo and I just cringe when they mush glue around with their fingers.

So here I am, longing for a show for the …“careful” crafter (hey -- I refuse to call it anal retentive or OCD – it’s actually called good craftsmanship, folks) who is willing to spend more than an hour on a project, and along comes Martha, out of jail and ready to make just-so keepsakes for the Westport crowd. Her projects involve generic tools and materials, as far as I can tell, and unlike some of the other shows, they aren’t blatant promotions for her or anybody else’s company although she’ll tell you where to get stuff. They are actually handmade. Hand painted, hand sewn, ok, hand hot glue gunned. They’re involved. Warning: You might actually need to measure. Here are the episodes, in case you don’t believe me:

http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/shows_dmsc/
(You have to click the projects at the bottom of the text. In my browser, they don’t show up as links…)

Hehe, I can’t believe I’m promoting Martha Stewart. But there you go. No, I won’t say it. I won’t! But it is…