The Japanese craft books, Sock and Glove presents thirteen delightful softy projects that are quick to make, and certain to amuse and delight. Full of individuality and mischief, these stuffed creations are all pieced together from ordinary socks, gloves, and mittens. Step-by-step illustrations and instructions make it easy to craft and dress a whole menagerie, including monkeys, elephants, piglets, bunnies, and fish.

Don’t let the projects fool you. The projects are addictive, fun, cheap to make; and they are full of personality and easy to customize. The book even has a gentle little story that weaves the reader through the menagerie of characters, far beyond your average sock monkey.

You will find that these stuffed buddies are easy to make and even easier to love.  Charming to adults and children alike, these unusual creatures make perfect gifts and inspiring companions. There is no way you can go wrong giving away these delightful beauties.

Sock and Glove is a winner in the eyes of many parents because it provides ideas for stuffed animal projects that are sure to be a big plus with the kids. Even Teachers and Bible School Instructors can benefit from having a copy of Sock and Glove.

Don’t hesitate to add this to your craft project book shelf. You will not be sorry. Now you really can so something with all those socks whose mates just disappeared.

Are you gaining the benefits of marketing your craft business online?  If you have a craft business, you may have taken a traditional route in your marketing efforts, such as selling your items at craft shows.  If you haven’t tried marketing your craft business online, you should give it some thought.

The following are just a few of the benefits to marketing your craft business over the internet:

First and foremost, marketing your craft business online will allow you to reach new customers, from all around the globe. If you’ve been marketing your business in a traditional manner, your customers may be limited to our own location.

In order to reach new customers traditionally, a craft business owner would participate in the craft fair circuit, sometimes traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

Marketing your crafts over the internet will allow you to get your business in front of many new people, all from the comfort of your own home. Even if you happen to enjoy traveling to various craft shows, you can still use the internet to market your crafts between events.

When you sell your crafts online through your own website or through an online marketplace such as www.Etsy.com, you can receive orders anytime, day or night. You can literally wake up in the morning to find that you received several new orders while you slept. This creates an almost passive income element to your craft business.

Many people who market their business through craft shows enjoy meeting their customers and the other craft vendors and establishing relationships with them. While nothing may beat that actual face to face interaction, the internet offers the second best thing with social networking sites.

Social networking sites, which include websites such as MySpace.com, Facebook.com, and Twitter.com allow you to meet and interact with others. These sites can help you find new customers but more importantly, it can help you meet other business owners.

Forming relationships with other business owners can lead to advertising swaps, blog swaps, joint venture projects and more.

Marketing a craft business online helps bring many new opportunities. This doesn’t mean you have to give up craft fairs or other traditional routes of selling your crafts. Combining online and offline marketing will help you cover all of your bases and insure you are making the most of your business.

In fact, I’ve got a little freebie for you here too: http://www.indiebizchicks.com/craft-biz-marketing-report.pdf

For more tips on marketing a craft business online, join in on a special seminar this Thursday, November 20 at 9pm Eastern. For more info, visit:  Special Teleseminar: Learn How To Market Your Craft Business Online…. Without Going Broke!

photo credit: runneralan2004

Are you a camp director or Sunday School teacher seeking a craft idea for childrens enrichment? Perhaps you feel like you are just not the creative type, and you struggle with coming up with craft projects. It is true that some people just have a knack for finding or even inventing craft ideas, but your creativity can be improved. There are ways to make it easier to find a craft idea for childrens needs.

First, set aside any perfectionism. Locking yourself into thinking there is only one right way to do something makes every decision harder. Regardless of the kid program you are helping with, there are always plenty suitable craft ideas out there. Don’t worry about picking the wrong one! If you’ve taken into consideration the age and skill levels of the kids involved, your choice will be fine.

Next, consider your budget. When picking a craft idea for childrens programs, you have to be aware that some of them are expensive. Prepackaged kits to make a fun foam picture frame or a craft stick cross are affordable for a few kids, but if you are needing to do a craft with a lot of kids, these kits might cost too much. It’s often easy to do almost exactly the same project by just looking at the craft kit components and buying the same materials in bulk at the discount store. You may have to do some preparation, like cutting out shapes ahead of time, or at least making cardboard patterns for the kids to use in cutting out their own. The savings will be worth it, however.

Something else to take into account – in spite of years of indoctrination from women’s libbers, the fact remains that boys and girls prefer different sorts of crafts! If the craft appears a little girly, don’t use it at boys’ camp. Stick with lace-up leather billfolds, Indian artifacts, dinosaur art, and similar projects. Girls will like beads and anything that’s pink or purple. For a craft idea for kid camp where there are kids of both sexes, keep it on the boyish side and provide some pink materials to keep the girls happy.

One craft idea that I’ve found to be very popular with both girls and boys is face painting. They just like different designs
face paintings
face painting instructions
simple face painting designs
These article with give you lots of tips ad advice on face painting.

An aspect of creativity that the non-creative types don’t realize is that ideas spring from other ideas. That is, if you look over a book or website of craft ideas, perhaps none of them will appeal to you, but if you let them, they will spark an idea for a similar project. Use what you can and change what you must in the craft directions. For instance, the craft may have a slogan to be written across the front. If you need to change the slogan to fit your own needs, it’s perfectly OK.

A final suggestion is to realize that you don’t have to change the instructions or create something new to have a good craft idea for childrens use. Feel free to follow the instructions to the letter if that works better for you. The kids will have a lovely time either way. Just pick a craft idea, for kid creativity beats adult creativity everytime! The kids will make it creative, even if you have doubts about your own ability in this area.

A quick online search for “scrapbooking scissors” will give you a picture of how many different types of scissors and cutting tools there are for scrapbookers. Knowing the basics of these tools will help you know which scissors are the best choice for your needs. This can help you save time by not struggling with the wrong scissors, and save you money because you won’t buy anything you won’t use.

Exacto knife. Sure exacto knives aren’t exactly scissors, but they can be helpful when it comes to setting up your layouts. Exacto knives are useful for cutting thicker materials with more precision than scissors and getting sharp corners for shapes and lettering. Just be sure you have a cutting pad to protect your surfaces.

Edgers. We’ve all seen pinking shears and know they can add a fun touch to your scrapbooks, but now edgers do so much more. You can make waves, scallops, and zigzags. There are even special edgers made just for corners.

Be careful not to go overboard though. While that 30 piece edging set might seem great at the time, it’s a lot of money to spend when you can make patterns yourself by tracing. If you really must have all the different patterns, why not ask several friends to split the cost with you and share the scissors? This works even better if you live near each other or have scrapbooking parties.

Circle cutters. These are just what they sound like; they can cut a perfect circle every time. While many people prefer to just find something circular in their house and trace, these can save you time. Plus, depending on your cutting skills, you may have problems getting that circle looking just right. It may also be a challenge to find an object that’s the size you’re looking for. Circle cutters are an easy way to save you time and energy.

Trimmers. If you’re like me, you can’t cut a straight line to save your life. That’s why you need to get some kind of trimmer with a straight edge on it. They’re usually pretty easy to use, and once you get going, you’ll be able to precisely cut a straight edge every time.

Scissors. With all the fancy products out there, you will still be glad you have your good old regular scissors. No matter what great products you have, nothing will ever replace them. You should be sure to buy some quality scissors to keep only for scrapbooking. Other uses could damage or dull the scissors and ruin your results. It’s also best to buy specific scissors for paper and sewing scissors if you use fabrics. These will make sure you get the perfect cut every time.

If you aren’t really sure what scissors you want or need, just start small. Start with several good pairs of scissors, and a trimmer. Work your way up as you learn more and gain skill.

You have parties for birthdays, anniversaries, or even to check out the latest jewelry or other products. Why not get your friends together for a scrapbooking party? Besides having an excuse to have a party, there are some real benefits to having scrapbooking get-togethers with your friends.

New ideas. No matter how many sample layouts you look at or books you read, sometimes you just hit a wall and can’t come up with anything else. Having a scrapbooking party with your friends will let you see their ideas, and they can see what you’re working on and give you pointers. Sometimes a fresh perspective is enough to get you out of that slump and get you moving again.

New products. Let’s face it, as much as you would love to spend all your time online or at store checking out or testing new products, you’re just too busy. Having a scrapping get together is a great way to learn about, get opinions on, and even try out new supplies and tools. It not only saves you time, it can also save you money because you’ll end up not buying a product that doesn’t work well or that you just won’t use.

Sharing supplies. There are a lot of useful tools for scrapbookers that can produce great results but often aren’t worth the price for how often you use them. You can always trade tools with your friends, but it’s a lot easier when you have time to get together. If you get together with three friends, that’s four times the number of tools at your disposal. If 4 people are going to use it, it might make those novelty edgers, stamps, and punches worth the money.

Swapping extras. One of the biggest weaknesses in scrapbooking is buying more than you need. Stepping into a scrapbooking store is a great feeling, but it usually means you buy too much of something, or something that seems great at the time, but you never end up using. Plus, you always end up having extra scraps left over from layouts. If everyone brings their extras their not going to use, you can trade. They way you get new and different materials and you’re reducing waste at the same time.

Meeting new people. If you know a few people who scrapbook, but want to expand your circle, encourage each person to bring someone who doesn’t scrapbook to your next get together. You can share your assembled books, have them help you with layouts, and you might just convince them to start their own hobby.

Pure fun. Everyone needs time to unwind and relax with friends. You can just hang out while you’re scrapbooking, or have a bit more organized fun with design challenges and scrappbooking related games. The bonus is, if you’re all having fun, you’ll probably get the creative juices flowing and come up with some fantastic new ideas.

So what are you waiting for? Call your friends and start arranging your next great gathering.