Our mall is periodically overrun with craft shows - kiosks of kuntry krap as far as the eye can see!! And the first weekend of May is the Fernandina Shrimp Festival which is a hugh art/craft/flea market/entertainment event. I enjoy the paintings and pottery, but any booth with lace or fake flowers gets wide berth.
Genie, I’m in the Missouri Ozarks, but I have seen the timeout dolls all over the Midwest. I think that one of the reasons that they are a ubiquitous craft show item is that they are fairly economical to make; all one has to do is raid your real kids outgrown clothes, and buy a bit of cheap pine lumber, and you’re ready to craft a shoppe of little horrors.
One of my most frightening recollections of timeout dolls was during a spring festival that was ended abruptly by a thunderstorm. I have a pretty good sense of how long it is safe to stay set up in iffy weather, so I had all my jewelry packed in the car when the first fat raindrops fell. Therefore, I had a little time to help other vendors pack up. The folks next to me had an enormous array of timeout dolls, and when the husband pulled up his van, I helped hand them to the wife. As the rain fell harder, she started throwing the poor faceless babes into the back of the van haphazardly. They landed atop one another with a sickening thud, punctuated by deafening thunder.
::shakes head to dislodge the memory::
:eek:
Speaking of yard “glitch” (that’s what my hubby calls it), what’s up with the gazing ball on a pedestal thing? I’ve never seen the Timeout Kid thing, and hope I never do…
Another craft item I don’t get is the banana hanger. I’m anal enough to be annoyed by not being able to hang up the last banana in the bunch, so why bother with it in the first place?
Banana hangers are the best! They aren’t for show, rather they keep the naners from getting all bruised and mushy on the bottom from the pressure of their own weight.
My stepfather’s ex wife makes decorative bird houses for a living. Her entire yard looks like Mary Englebert’s grandmother lives there.
I personally avoid anything that could be described as quaint.
Scary trend, isn’t it? And there’s websites like this one out there to fuel the creative fires.
Ummmm…no, thanks. 
Those fucking “door snakes” or whatever they are that go by the bottom of the door are hideous as well. I mean, don’t they just get kicked away each time you use the door?
Definitely the corner babies, although around here I’ve heard them called Pouting Patties, etc, and they are often situated to look like they’re having a pout rather than being punished.
Heh. Because THAT is much better.
I see a lot of the granny knickers things around here, as well as those black shadow cutouts of a man leaning against a tree. Those always scare the crap out of me when I catch sight of them out of the corner of my eye.
However. I LIKE my my gazing ball! It’s not shiny, though…it’s plum-colored blown glass, and I put it in a short pot rather than a pedestal. My grandma had one of the shiny metallic ones, and I always thought that good witches came from them when I was small.
Bodypoet, I love handblown glass gazing balls! There is an artist I’ve run across at the craft shows that makes incredible ones with dichroic glass, etc. I wish I could afford one. If I owned one, it would not be in the garden, though. We get too damned many hailstorms here.
It’s the unusual pedestals that get me.
One front yard in my town has a “bowling ball tree” of sorts; the balls have all been spraypainted shiny metallic colors, and are poised on the end of cast iron branches which appear to be writhing up out of the ground. I think there are five bowling balls in all. I think they are supposed to look like gazing balls. I chuckle every time I see it. But I’m glad it isn’t in my neighborhood.
My aunt & uncle had one of those vacuum cleaner covers specially made to LOOK JUST LIKE ME. One late night I came home (by myself) and almost shot it to death. I’m not kidding.
It now resides folded up in a black trashbag in my attic.
Quoting willy-nilly without formating…
>> Scary trend, isn’t it? And there’s websites like this one out there to fuel the creative fires.
The wine bottles turned into a bird bath is bad enough, but you’ve got to be a soulless fucktard with a life limited to watching shopping channels and eating at Denny’s to want to plant a spring from a '65 Impala in the garden and put a damn bowling ball on it.
>> Those fucking “door snakes” or whatever they are that go by the bottom of the door are hideous as well. I mean, don’t they just get kicked away each time you use the door?
Apparently you’ve never lived anywhere cold in a house with drafty doors. The snake goes against the bottom of the closed door to help block the cold wind from blowing in. Very functional, but no, they don’'t need to be ugly.
Well, if you are in a freezing-ass drafty house in Maine, your choice is a door snake or a wadded up towel. Or maybe the ski sweater of the person who didn’t chop their fair share of firewood but is sleeping in the room with the big, well vented fireplace and a big ol’ stack of wood.
Holy crap, that’s funny! Scary, but funny.
Speaking of scary, I found an image of one of those shadow men that Bodypoet mentioned. My dad had a pattern for those at one time. He lives way up in Wisconsin, and shipping them is too costly (they are life-sized). That’s what saved me from having to accept some as gifts. Whew! Before my parents moved into senior housing in another town, he had a whole bunch of these dudes leaning all over the yard. Now he makes smaller wood goodies and donates them to fundraisers. He’s helped raise lots of money for charities this way.
<grins>That’s my Pop-- loveable rogue with a jigsaw and lots of time on his hands.
As housewarming presents I crocheted a toilet paper cosy (a relatively restrained, untacky one, actually) and a doll that, I kid you not, goes on top of a Renuzit (or whatever you call those air freshener thingies.) The TP cosy was at my friend’s request; the freeeky Renuzit doll came from a whooooole book of Renuzit-doll patterns that I got in a grab bag, and I just had to make it. They appreciated Miss Renuzit for her kitsch value, but last time I visited, the bathroom was no longer graced by her presence. How mysterious!
So, yes, I admit, I sometimes use my crafting skills for evil.
But I still draw the line. For me, that line is putting the words “elegant” and “plastic canvas” in the same sentence.
That wine-bottle thing gives me the urge to start a game of cutthroat lawn bocci. evil grin
Just chiming in my support of “door snakes” (mine was labeled “draft dodger”) Perhaps Kalhoun is only bothered by the needlessly decorative ones. I live in an apartment built by someone with no other building experience. That the door even closes is a miracle so I deal with the 3" gap with a fabric sleeve full of beans. I am more than happy to concede that this useful item does not require a face or any ruffles to perform it’s function perfectly.
Setting aside the sheer oddity of the whole notion, those time out kids are oddly proportioned and never look quite right anyway.
Magically Delicious I also enjoy cross-stitch but get hives from anything too cutesy. I get sampler patterns with specialty stitches, and some interesting designs from www.nordicneedle.com.
Why is dip mix a craft item all of a sudden? Even if it does come in a pretty bag, hand tied with a hand stamped tag and costs $4 I’m not gonna like it any more than I like dip made from Lipton onion soup.
I’ve never heard of the Time-out dolls and I have to say it’s really disturbing.
But I can almost (almost, not quite, but almost) understand the logic of them. Not so with nearly everything at Disturbing Auctions (which includes commercial stuff) If anyone knows why things like the Ram’s Head Snuff Mull (on wheels), the Drunken Monkey, or the Dean Martin Hand Puppet get made, I simply don’t want to know. I not only don’t ‘get’ them, I am very glad that I never will.
I don’t “get” these Barbed Wire Earrings! Scroll down to the bottom of the page. I see a lot of “decorative” barbed wire crafts when I’m out on the road at the shows; I never thought I’d see any jewelry made from it…but I did! A vendor at one of the spring shows had a few pairs of earrings similar to these made up. I think they were selling for him, too.
Call me old-fashioned, but I try to make jewelry that will not inflict pain on my customers, or potentially poke the eye out of someone who should hug them. Ouchies!
I have several door snake type dealies laying around my house. When you live in an old Victorian, they are very handy. Our heating bills would have been way worse than they were this winter if we had not used the draft excluders.
Did somebody call? 
Okay, okay…I live in a 100+ year old house, too. But we put weather stripping under the door because the snakes get kicked aside when you’re on the other side of the door and then they can’t do their job. Plus, they’re ugly. Not as ugly as the STUPID remote control pocket thingy that holds the remotes (and has a gingham fucking kitty on the top of it). I love kitties and organized remotes, but not at the same time. I keep my remotes in a small basket (plain, wicker basket).