Craft Wars: Thanksgiving Crafts

Credit:  TLC.com

Craft Wars

Episode 10 (Air Date 8/21/12)

Thanksgiving Crafts

I can't believe it ... this is my LAST SUMMARY of Craft Wars Season 1.  To say I am excited to finish this task is an understatement.  When I started these summaries, I did it primarily book report style ... gradually I have come to add my own input and humor into the mix. I am blessed to have the editorial assistance of a great friend for the past few posts (THANK YOU LORI!).  So here it goes...  please comment below if you have read my Craft Wars posts, your comments make me SMILE!!!

The Contestants

Kathleen Francis
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
(web:  http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/; Twitter: @grosgrainfab)
Kathleen is a professional craft blogger, she sews clothes and offers free patterns on her blog.  She says she has an "eye for design".

Nikki McGonigal
Phoenixville, Pennsylvania
(web:  www.Nikkiinstiches.com; Twitter: @NikkiInStitches)
Nikki is a crafter of all mediums, she loves to sew!

Stephanie Baum
Chicago, Illinois
(web: http://steffbomb.tumblr.com/; Twitter: @SteffBomb)
Steff creates and sells plush toys, she also does art shows and craft fairs.  She admits that being the winner of Craft Wars would be awesome because she has never paid her rent on time.  {Talk about incentive to win!}

Pop Craft Challenge (1 hour timed)

This challenge involved creating a Thanksgiving wine rack using traditional Thanksgiving day items - including pie tins, turkey basters, silverware, footballs and aprons.

Kathleen decides to craft an interlocking circle display from pie tins and wires.  She cuts the pie tins and uses 3 tins along with a wire and covers them with a cream burlap.  She also uses bent forks as support on the sides of the display.

Nikki, meanwhile, is creating an innovative wine display that also functions as a chalkboard.  She uses the silverware (bent at 90 degrees) to hold the wine bottles by drilling it into a wooden board that she painted with chalkboard paint and framed with a fabric trim.  In my opinion, Nikki takes the award for best engineered.

Stephanie decides to create a hanging wine rack using turkey basters and the fabric from an apron.  The turkey basters are used as part of a clothesline-type rack with a sleeve of fabric wrapped around it which also provides a sleeve for a wine bottle.  Essentially, hanging wine pockets...  Are you nervous about it?  Me too.

The judges speak to Nikki's project and Judge Jo says the display is very creative and she has done a good job with drilling holes into the silverware.  Judge Erica likes it but wishes that Nikki had not covered the turkey baster (hooks) but rather she should have spray painted them.  Judge Stephen says its really great and her display came together well.

Next up is Kathleen - Judge Jo says the support of the 2 forks on the sides does not look like it will steady the display and is concerned it won't hold up.  Judge Erica says that she likes the burlap color but Kathleen should have trimmed the burlap (it is quite frayed and looks messy).  Judge Stephen says that this display looks like a wine leaner (ouch!) and it does not really hold a wine bottle, the circles are not the right size to hold a wine bottle.

For Stephanie, Judge Jo likes the use of the turkey baster and the aprons for the fabric, she thinks it's a great job.  Judge Erica says that Stephanie could have made the sleeves wider and is concerned that she did not use many challenge materials.  Judge Stephen says "Are the bottles really in there?" and then walks over to the display (yes, hold your breathe) and then says "what if your guest hits..." [the bottle] as he taps it and boom!!!  The empty bottle flies out of the sleeve and shatters.  Stephanie is also shattered ...  her dreams of paying the rent on time might have just gone up in smoke.

But in the end, Stephanie survives -- Kathleen is dismissed as her leaning wine tower is just not good enough!

Master Craft Challenge (5 hours timed)

The Master Craft Challenge is a good one --- create a Thanksgiving table and mantle using bathroom and plumbing supplies including toilet brushes, bath mats, shower curtains and plungers.

Stephanie is prepared to redeem herself, she is going to create an interactive kids table with a tree house feel.  (Ambitious much?)  She plans to put a hole in her table to have a tree emerging from the table and also to have an entire faux Thanksgiving meal on the table including using wrenches for turkey legs, a bath mat for cranberry mold and toilet paper holder for corn on the cobs.

Nikki is going to create an outdoor Thanksgiving with an arbor and chandelier.  She is going to create simple sewn place mats, a flower box as the centerpiece with rubber glove/toilet brush blooming flowers and on the mantle she will have subway art.  The entire display will be framed within an arbor with curtains that also suspends a rectangular chandelier.  The subway art project proves to be a challenge when the paint bleeds outside the stencil -- and Nikki channels her inner Tim Gunn and basically tells her team partner to "Make it work" by hand correcting the paint bleed.

The judges look at Stephanie's display and Judge Stephen likes the faux food that she has created, it is a good upcycle of the challenge materials.  Judge Erica loves all of her details.

As for Nikki, Judge Jo likes her use of the Cricut die cut machine for the stencils.  Judge Erica loves the rubber glove flowers and the wrench place card settings.  Judge Jo also says that the rubber glove flowers are genius, but the use of the fake flowers in the display was a cop out and the curtains on the arbor are too short (they were 3 feet or so short from hitting the ground).  Judge Stephen likes the chandelier and thinks the subway art is a good focal point of the display.

Stephanie's display is supposed to be for the young at heart.  Judge Jo says the she was worried when the hole in the table was cut but she loves the fireplace and the use of the rubber gloves to look like fire flames.  Judge Stephen says he is ok with cutting a hole in the table, but the stump looks like a telephone pole and another flaw is that the table looks medieval in color.  Judge Erica says she loves the corn on the cob and cranberry and her good use of the household items but that the table is not a kids table.  

Overall, Judge Jo comments that neither contestant painted the mantle and Judge Stephen says that both displays had good details.  But, in the end - there is only one winner - for this episode the winning display showed creativity, skills and superior vision.  The winner of Episode 10 is STEPHANIE!!!

Whew, I DID IT!!!  10 Episodes blogged, please comment below and let me know if you read some of the summaries and what you enjoyed about the posts.

Happy Scrapping (and {early} Thanksgiving!)

- Rina