By SUSAN DROMEY HEETER, Joyful Musings

It’s time for Corona Crafts!  And, lucky for you, I’ve got a McCalls magazine from the 1970s which is a veritable potpourri of ideas and creativity! 

Our first craft project is “Glamour Trees.”  According to McCalls’ Christmas Make It Ideas – “Glamour Trees – tall or tiny exciting table trees – the pets of Christmas decor – are easy to make.”  The PETS of Christmas decor!  And some of the ingredients to make these “resplendent three-sided trees” include: buttons, peach pits, miniature marshmallows, and my favorite: macaroni.

Is it not time to bring back crafts involving macaroni? Glamour Trees, necklaces, pins – but wait, let’s not make “pins” with macaroni, let’s make brooches.  

Oh, the possibilities are endless.

In this same edition of McCalls, there is a pattern for a “Clown Puppet.” The pattern includes the jacket, the shoe and the BACK HAIR.  What kind of Clown Puppet has BACK HAIR? Well, this one does.

  When you’re doing your Corona Craft Clown Puppet with BACK HAIR, you’ll be sure to provide hours and hours of entertainment to those with whom you are housebound.  Or, perhaps, you’ll simply provide hours and hours of, well, a clown with BACK HAIR. Let the terror begin.

Another craft is the Easy to Make Sheriff’s Set so you can “protect the range with pride when you wear the sheriff’s holster and star badge.”  Equipment and materials you’ll need include ruler, pencil, scissors, plastic fabric softener bottle and an ICE PICK.  

If you’ve got a clown with BACK HAIR and an ICE PICK, let us celebrate both crafting and social distancing.

And while it may be warming up outside, it’ll be cool again come next holiday season – so it’s time for “Gifts from Santa’s Hat Box!” There are several patterns to choose from in two categories: “Fun Caps and Helmets” and “Glamour Hats.”  I’ll be making the hand crocheted hood from “Glamour Hats” as I’m hoping the fall trend will be “Medieval.”

Finally, on page 149 of my McCalls Make-It Ideas, there is a place where you can write for even MORE craft ideas: a magazine called, “PACK-O-FUN.”  I am enticed by their promise of the “beautiful gifts you can make from egg cartons.”

  I am entranced by the Decorator Hanging Lamp – made completely from egg cartons.  And THEN there is the “Gorgeous Peacock Wall Plaque” also made from those containers I have in my fridge.  Oh, who knew?!?

Oh, I muse joyfully on crafting but particularly on those 70s crafts resplendent with terms like styrofoam, crochet, doilies, egg cartons, BACK HAIR, ICE PICK.

May you, Joyful Musers, enjoy Corona Crafting, enjoy this time of creativity, of wonderful use of those materials you have laying around your casa.  Prep for the holiday season while inside, while quarantined.

 And lonely?  Do make that Clown Puppet, surround him with Glamour Trees – but be sure to wear your Sheriff Set – with that ICE PICK in your plastic bottle holster.