Craft Corner Deathmatch. Has anyone seen this show on the Style network?
I think people are celebrating it as Martha Stewart Living meets Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome, American Gladiator, and the Iron Chef. In fact, this, from their website: "...home ec as extreme sport...and someone's about to get the craft kicked out of them." Well, with a slogan like that you know you are in for a solid half hour of entertaining TV time.
And it is just that.
I am not going to sit here and review all the dynamics of the show. It's rather game-shjow formulaic in that you have two contestants (in this case, two fist-pumping DIYers), a panel of judges (craft "experts"!), a gothic and solemn "Vanna White", a charismatic host (yum, more on him later!), and a rowdy audience that gets a lot of airtime (they are jeering and cheering and enclosed behind a fence to, you know, shield them from a flying glue gun, mobile, or paper airplane). Really. You either get the picture or you are living under a rock. Seriously, get thee to the show immediately! You won't regret a single moment.
I like the show for two reasons. I like crafting and I like boys. Let me explain.
First, I am a crafter myself. I have been cross-stitching, quilting, purse-making, doodling, knitting, decoupaging, glue-gunning, duct-taping, etc. for years. Here is a walk down "crafting" memory lane.
The first time I got creative with scissors was with Barbie. First, it started with cutting hair. I had the Donnie and Marie dolls and, well, they weren't Barbie. So I cut Marie's hair. In a bob. Then my sister and I each got a Ballerina Barbie, so we agreed we could make one "ugly." We cut her hair too. Then Donnie we just made gay. Because he had the purple nut-hugging outfit. Then we had a Darcy doll. And, well, she wasn't Barbie either - and she was bigger, more voluptous. So she was the sexy Mom. Who stole all her daughters' Kens.
Then I started cutting up old clothes and vintage (gasp!) aprons to make Barbie clothes. I was a Barbie fashion designer. I made wraps. I'd put on snaps. I would overlay fabrics. Playing With Barbie became Designing For Barbie. This carried on into high school when I met my bestest friend, Martini. But not with Barbie. No, we were dressing and designing ourselves. We canvassed the thrift stores weekly. Great days were "Bag Days", when you got a hodgepodge of goods. You never knew what gem would be in your bag. Then we would reconstruct the clothes. One time I made a green blue and red paisly long-sleeve shirt into a skirt. Sigh. This was back in the late-80's before thrifting became so trendy and marked-up.
I remember a time in high school, going to a party and meeting Schmitty. Schmitty was an odd duck (seriously, think Duckie from Pretty In Pink). He was just sitting at this party where lots of beer-drinking and acid-dropping occurred. What drew me to Schmitty was the fact that he was just sitting there.....knitting. So I got him to get his lesbian mom to teach me how to knit.
I remember taking a quilting class in high school. Then I became competitive with some other girl in my class to see who could crank out the most "Quilt-In-A-Day" quilts in the year. I made six but I think she won. But that's ok, because I got the boy. We were an early day Craft Corner Deathmatch.
In college, I had Saran Man. Saran Man was inspired by my friend, Katie. Katie took some wire hangers and fashioned a "little man." Then wrapped him up in your favorite color of saran wrap. We all had one sitting in the back seat of our cars because one time Katie's Saran Man got her out of a speeding ticket. Seriously, the cop was not the least bit creeped out or weirded out by a "little man" just hanging in the back seat. So he left her off for her "creativity." Who knew? So, Saran Man then served as our guardian angels.
I watch HGTV. I like craft shows. I could spend a lazy Sunday watching nothing but. Which is ironic if you think about it. If I like crafting so much, shouldn't I be spending that lazy Sunday doing so? Sometimes I do. But I like watching other people's ideas too. The traditional craft shows are so sweater-tied-around-the-neck, this-is-how-my-grandma-did-it, whiskers-on-kittens, blah-di-blah. So rote. But Craft Corner Deathmatch is a craft show that doesn't take itself too seriously. I like to see how two different people approach something as outlandish as making shoes out of wallpaper, boxes out of cards, or pins out of candy.
But let's get to the real meat of this. Should I be embarrased to admit that I have a crush on the host? Yes, people, Jason Jones is kind of hot. He's a blisteringly-animated, overly-anxious, smack-talking, trouble-raising, shrieking maniac! He's as menacing as my purring two-toothed cat who runs from the vacuum. And when he did that V formation with his arms right at unit level, with the slightest thrust, when he was talking about "kahunas." Well, I might be a little in love with him.
So, in the end, I got no point. But I got a message: Competitive Crafting is the new crack. And I'm admitting it here: "I'm addicted."
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