My boyfriend and I created the NYC subway map art with map pins. We traced the NYC subway map onto tracing paper and then put the pins along the paper into the fiber board. We selected the colors to match in accordance with streets and parks. We live in NYC so what better way to show our appreciation for the city than with a homemade piece of art! Hunched over for hours, the knee and muscle pain from the production of this piece was worth it!

I found these old computer keys stashed away in our house from my father's computer company in the 80's and 90's as we sold my childhood home. I purchased some fiberboard and used wire and glue to affix them horizontally. I wanted to create a wall sculpture that is approaching the viewer and entering into your space. I love the nostalgia involved in the computer keys and the modern look of it!

acrylic paint, glitter and sequins on aluminum oven burner cover.

"Little Shop Audrey II Biting a Finger"

Materials- 2-8 1/2" X 11" glossy laser print paper, copper wire, glue stick.

Process- designed card using MS Word- printed on glossy stock. Cut out and glued together.

Purpose- gift for the director of a Staten Island production of "Little Shop of Horrors" Summer, 2009

Cost- about $6 in materials for prototypes and final piece. Image shows a late prototype. Gift piece had better articulation of lower jaw.

Gal pal Judi and I made this ginger bread village using stuff we got at the bodega next to my house. Note our use of Nerds, sour tape and gum balls to decorate our commune homes. Pretzel rods serve at sign post pillars and coconut sprinkled on the ground makes a fine layer of snow. We melted hard candies to make stained glass windows in out gingerbread geodesic dome. The marsh-mellow snow men are the only ones left standing as our ginger bread hippies hippies lay passed out in the show.
Sugar Canyon Ranch is in short a look at the dark side of hippie life.
Happy Holidays!
Megan

The sound of good old fashioned wind isn't good enough for you?
Too bad!!
I ransacked the bathroom for materials- cotton balls, an empty tampon box and felt that used to be a Kleenex cozy (sorry Aunt Phyllis) to create my absolutely silent Wind Chime.
I refuse to enable your contribution to noise pollution and I took a whole thirty minutes out of my unemployment to make this gift. So please, shut up and have a Silent Night for once in your life.

For my daughter's bat mitzvah, we used branches from the park and added origami plums blossoms using different colored papers. We used crinkled clear plastic bags to hold in place. Total cost $6 per vase for papers, pipe cleaners and brown floral tape.

A ready made frame ($5) from A.C.Moore+ five sets of nylon scourers (from One Dollar Store )+ a couple of nylon cable ties of different length and color.

'Algo' means 'Something'.
These 'Algos' are sewn scrap material stuffed with scrap material, labeled with found collage material from 1940's Life Magazines and a print of the Consumer's Victory Pledge (1942)
purchased: plastic sleeves for packaging

Thanks!
ericaharris.org

I used small pillar candles and pressed flowers, ferns and leaves from my garden. The 6 inch candles were about $3 each and the pressed flowers were free.

Arrange the foliage in a pleasing pattern and fasten to the candle using a bit of white glue such as Elmer's glue to hold it in place.

Melt paraffin in the top of a double boiler or in any pan set in boiling water. The candle is then dipped in melted paraffin which coats the candle with a thin wax coating and seals in the foliage.

A Gift for Baby. PICKLED PET. Instructions: Sterilize pint-size mason jar, lid, and stuffed animal in boiling water. Wait 15 minutes. Turn off heat and let cool overnight. Shove cooled stuffed animal into place, making sure the face is clearly visible. Boil again, affix lid, and label. Lid will seal hermetically. Pickled Pet should preserve for the entire lifespan of the child.

A Gift for My 10-Year-Old Nephew: THE ULTIMATE PUNCHLINE MAGNET SET.

Instructions:
1. Take cap off beer.
2. Drink beer.
3. Paint cap.
4. Tell nephews' favorite joke.
5: Write punchline on cap.
6. Repeat until funny.

The Fruit Cake Brick
'from an ole family recipe'

Fruitcakes are known to take on lives of their own, passing from one person to the next, sometimes lingering long enough to carbon-date. Now introducing 'The Fruit Cake Brick'. It’s festive, it’s traditional, it weighs five pounds, and it’s inedible — just like the real thing. All you need to create this holiday fixture is a brick, paint, cardboard, ribbon, and shrink wrap. I've given these as gifts for years...people use them as doorstops and paper weights, or take to holiday parties. After a enough 'holiday spirit', guests will tear into one of these bad boys only to learn that it's petrified. Perfect 'hand me down' and/or re-gift.

My twenty month old woke up at 6AM babbling, "I want doggy." I pilfered some scraps of wood from the building basement, pulled out a piece old jute twine. A few bits, screws and such from the tool box. Someone had given me a huge box of of little wooden wheels they were getting rid of and people are always chucking those spiral spines to make booklets (the tail). I used those thick rubber bands we save from broccoli to give the wheels tread. And, voila, a doggy she can pull about when I don't feel like walking the neighbor's dog to satisfy her fixation. Didn't cost 10cents much less $10-

This is a hand-sewn daffodil bag inspired from the book "Omiyage, Handmade Gifts from Fabric in the Japanese Tradition" by Kumiko Sudo. It is made from fabric scraps, ribbon and beads that I collect.

Inspired by my 13 yr old daughter's passion for saving the enviornment I figured out that you can crochet lace out of clear drycleaning bags. This came in handy when we made 120 "doily" type headcoverings for her Bat-Mitzvah. That crocheting endeavor has led to the creation of totebags, like the Picasso one you see, made entirely out of recycled plastice bags. Dry cleaning for the white, New York Times bags for the blue, the Post provided the red, the yellow was Shopright and the green was imported from Israel(we haven't found any bright green locally). The total cost of this project was $0 since all of the materials were aquired for free, except for the crochet hook which was purchased for previous projects.

This is a crafty little snowglobe using an empty salsa jar that I reclaimed from my recycling bin. I bought the cowboy & cowgirl at a dime store in Hastings-on-Hudson for 75 cents each. The glitter was left over from another project and the glycerin (super hard to find) was purchased on-line for $3.99 I used silicone glue which cost around 6 bucks but I have tons of this left over and could make a hundred more. I gladly make you one too!

Squirral Pajamas. I had a bunch of old cheap felt and 4 old pillows that were going to go in the trash. My husband asked for some new PJs for xmas….He also likes squirrels. The tail is removable and doubles as a pillow. It’s a win win for everyone! :)

Made a clip board out of old cash register mother board prototype.
Clip a few bucks, rivits and a cutter.

A baby night light, made from a mini computer board and a reconfigured 7watt night light purchased for $5. bucks.

It glows at night helping to guide the dreams of your baby right.