This PartyBowl is a bowl for fruit or it can be hung on a wall. A wood plate or bowl, Mod Podge and a small bag of confetti are all you need. Brush the Mod Podge onto the bowl, sprinkle the confetti, and then reapply the Podge until you get a good build up. Party!

Gift for a music lover with long hair....
This is a barrette made out of used guitar strings. I don't play guitar but lots of my friends are musicians so I get the strings for free. The hair stick is made out of a dowel that I bought, sharpened with a pencil sharpener, and stained with wood stain.
The barrette in the picture is made from four strings. I based the pattern on a knot I learned from a book called "Crafts of the Sailor."

This is a pillow made from old clothing. Pockets originally part of an old pair of pants and a mate-less leather glove are incorporated to serve the useful function of storage for remote controls. This is an attractive and quirky way to keep track of those elusive remotes that seem to so frequently go missing.

Throw-away trash for some, treasures for me: discarded perfume tops, plastic parts, broken jewelry, paper clips, pen tops, toilet flush parts, price-tag anchors, razor handles, computer blobs.
The most expensive part was the glue to hold it all together ($3.95 and I still have most of it)

I had some 2" styrofoam balls left over from another project, and I'd been thinking about trying some ornaments. I started with the odds and ends of cotton string on hand, but I did have to buy more colors, as I got so hooked on these little "Clown-aments" that I kept making more. I have an extensive button collection (I also make button bracelets), and many of those otherwise odd single buttons made great hats. I added a jump ring and bent a wire hook to complete them. I eventually made more than two dozen of these, and the holiday is still a few weeks away....

I made this little twig chair for a friend out of sticks found outside my house. Cost $0. It is about a foot tall...just a little item to go on a shelf in her rustic home.

Hot glue + googly eyes + (insert found material here) = ADORABLE!

I call these little guys "Happy Caps." They are made with a wooden bead hot-glued onto a real acorn cap. I screwed an eyehook in for hanging. At Christmas, my extended family exchanges Dollar Gifts - meaning we have to make every person a gift for under a dollar. In the past, I have made bath salts, a perpetual calendar, deer trivets, and luggage tags. I think I will give out Happy Caps for my dollar gift this year.

Every Election Day, the Westbeth Artist Community in the West Village, holds a rummage sale in their basement. I like to pop in down there after I cast my ballot. This year I found a skein of chunky wool in slate blue for 25 cents. I went home and cast on 25 stitches on size 9 knitting needles and created this cozy for my water bottle. As I watched the returns that night, I held the hot water bottle to my head. It was the only comfort I could find.

This holiday ornament is made of found buttons plus and old ribbon I found in the attic.

I created a personalized ornament of Huntington, NY using Google Earth to view the Main Street area for me to render.

Divine Dance

I stopped dancing professionally but still wanted to express feelings of movement so I began drawing. However, drawing alone wasn't enough. I felt the need for a more dimensional expression. My first piece was crafted out of an old dress that was too lovely to throw away. It was a butterfly. Then I began going to thrift shops and art supply stores and buying paper on sale. With that paper I began putting together pieces I call 'Paper mosaics'. "Divine Dance" is one of those pieces.
Sharon Azar
Brooklyn, NY

An easy to make painting using found wooden planks, and paint.

A new paint-your-own pottery place opened up around the corner from me, and my husband and I have had our eyes on a ceramic piggy bank. We envisioned ourselves decorating the pig with the names and drawings of the items we'd be saving our coins for. Upon further investigation, we realized the ceramic painted pig bank would cost us more than the bank would even hold, so...I created this craft for poor people. Really poor people.

It's a (Leftover) Piggy Bank. It's a reusable Ziploc container. I cut a slit in the lid, and then wrote on it with Sharpies. The sides display the items we're saving for: That Vest from J.Crew, Cool Shoes, Classes, Plane Tickets, Tickets to Shows, and perhaps most pathetic...A Baby.

I spent $0. But, Oh, the Savings!!

This is a DISCO COW that we created for our "funky farm wedding." Instead of a typical disco ball, we wanted something fun to hang over the dancefloor, that would go along with our venue, which happened to be a cow farm. This will eventually be a mobile to hang in our kid's nursery in the future.

Materials:
- Cow-shaped pinata (don't fill)
- Old, recycled CDs cut into square pieces.
- Glitter (for face and feet)
- Beads (for eyes)
- Ribbon
- Small bell (preferably cow bell)
- Old disco ball motor (if you want the thing to spin around)
- Hot glue gun and glue

This is a catnip saxophone that I made for my cat (modeling). It is constructed from felt and thread and is stuffed with catnip and yarn. The catnip sax provides his nimble paws with endless fun. He also does a mean Wayne Shorter impersonation.

For Christmas one year, I crafted these doors hangers for my nieces (Emily, Sydney and Natalie). At the time Sydney had just taken up the trumpet in school, Emily loved insects, and Natalie loved her new kitten. The design was totally on my own. For the paint, I only got a few colors and mixed the rest to get the colors I wanted. Based on today’s prices, the total cost for one would be approximately $9.83. A few years back, it would have been cheaper. You can also buy the brushes in multiple packs, so you have them on hand for other projects once you are done. This goes for the glue and even the paint if you don’t use it all. I love doing crafts like these. I find it very therapeutic. See below for cost break down. As stated above, the glue, paint and brushes were already on hand from other projects – This brought the cost down. Wood Letters - $2.19 Wood Door Hangers - $1.00 Crafter's Acrylic for Crafts - $2.00 Gloss Varnish - $ 2.00 Elmer's - $1.23 Wood Characters - .75 Foam Brushes - .23 Paint Brush - .43 Thank you so much - Love you Leonard & Amy!

Winter Bird Magnet

Materials:
wooden bird shape from craft store
old felted wool sweater scraps
tiny self stick gem for eye
self stick magnetic tape
glue

My daughter Emily and I made these birds with her class as her winter birthday project.

How: Prep by washing an old wool sweater/skirt/coat/blanket in hot water and dry in the dryer. Trace the wooden bird and make a template. Cut the wool into the shape of your bird and cut a contrasting wing and little beak. Glue all the pieces to your wooden bird shape and stick on the gem for an eye. Lastly, cut a piece of the self stick magnetic tape and put a few pieces on the back of the bird. We like to put a few birds in a cute little box and wrap it up with a ribbon - they are irresistible!

I used 203 tops of Altoids (mostly Altoids Mints)cans and connected them with safety pins.I had to pay for the content of the cans but basically the tins are considered a recycled material.The cost of the safety pins in One Dollar Store is 1$for 100 pins.

To make a cheap- easy saving/ cash storage container. I used a plastic take out case. Some old paper and scotch tape found around the house.

total cost $0