Getting Crafty

The BIG Crafty drops into Pack Place this Sunday, December 6th from 12-6pm.
The Asheville Art Museum hosts!

They have great local crafts by many, many artists plus holiday music, cupcakes and beer, fancy decor, and a lot of people! Don't miss the Asheville Art Museum's shop where the Holiday Market has been extended with more homemade goodies from area artists!

Because the Asheville Art Museum is hosting the Big Crafty in Pack Place, we all got a little excited and decided to do some crafts of our own! For an afternoon, we walked away from our computers, pushed up our sleeves, and made our way to the Studio where the Education Staff led us in a Paste Paper making session. It is so easy and fun to do- so read the recipe below and get crafty in celebration of this weekend's great local craft fair!

Basic Paste Paper Recipe:
Set 6 cups of water to boil in large saucepan. Meanwhile, mix 3/4 cup white rice flour (available in bulk foods) and ¾ cup white wheat f lour (cake flour is great) with 1 ½ cups of cold water. (You can use plain white wheat flour for the whole shebang if you want to.) Add water to the flour slowly, trying to make the paste as smooth as possible, you will thank yourself later. When your water is boiling add the cold-water paste mixture to the boiling water stirring constantly with a whisk. The paste will thicken immediately and turn somewhat translucent. As soon as it does this, remove the paste from the heat and let in cool. Once paste is no longer boiling hot, add 1tsp of glycerin (drug store) and 1tsp. of Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap though any liquid soap will do the job. If the paste is lumpy use a blender to smooth things out. Mix the paste with water soluble paints like acrylic but tempera is fine if you are working with kids.

BE CRAFTY: Get a piece of blank, clean paper. Water it with a sponge (all of it- all the way to the corners) so it is wet but not soaking wet. Drop a few drops of colored paste onto the paper and spread it around with your fingers( too many colors will make it brown so be careful!). Use fun tools like old legos, rubber stamps, whatever to make cool designs... When finished- spread them out to dry for a day- and then iron from the back side to make them flat. They are excellent as homemade cards, wrapping paper, etc. It can get messy! So make sure that you have plenty of water and that you do this in an area you can clean up afterwards (studio, kitchen, e.g.) Wash off the table every time you start a new piece of paper and HAVE FUN!