Help needed to go "Around the World in 80 days - Steampunk style"

[jasperkitty.livejournal.com]

Hey all you brilliant crafters and imaginative dreamers,

I'm going to be hosting a women's retreat weekend in a few weeks and while we have the theme picked out, the day's itinerary planned, and decorations figured out, I and my partners in crime are struggling with figuring out what to put in the goodie bags and what to do for a couple of the crafts/activities. So I thought I'd ask here to see if anyone had some brainstorming ideas I could use.

The theme is "Around the World in 80 days - Steampunk style" and we'll be going with the concept of Victorian/Steampunk world adventurers/travelers. We'll spend the day out along the Wharf area of San Francisco and back to my place for dinner, dessert and crafts/activities.

Each guest will get a goodie bag, a passport to be stamped off at the various "countries", travel vouchers, and whatever crafts they make.

I'm looking for ideas of things to go into the goodie bags, and ideas for the craft/activities part of the evening. I'm already going to give everyone tea and a steampunk pendant but the bags are looking kind of wimpy.

The evening's craft/activities section we've got ideas for so far: bellydancing and Mendi for India, Asian coin charms for China, Origami for Japan, Tea and dessert for England, and Trivia quesitons for New York.

But we're clueless for crafts/activities for France, Morocco, and Africa.

Other requirements -
Free or disgustingly cheap is preferred
Quick and easy to make (I'm filling between 12 and 18 bags and am a full time college student)
Things with a Goth or Steampunk bent are highly preferred.
Because of the number of dietary requirements several of the attendees have, I'd like to avoid food items.

The Crystal Forest (and a Panda)

[darks-nightsky.livejournal.com]

And I'm back with the promised trees! =)

A project I've been working on during my spring break :3

A full dozen mini-mini trees, they average about 26mm diameter circles, for a very glittery forest of my own. The trees are all made of copper wiring and crystals. (I made the panda too but that's slightly irrelevant xD)



A larger/higher resolution of the same image here~

Enjoy <3

A couple questions

[aprilvalentine.livejournal.com]

Hi all. I know it's been a while since I posted and shared any crafts, but I have a couple quick questions on a repair job that a co-worker asked me to do. It's a long, paisley cotton skirt that buttons down the front. She tried to fix a couple of places already and didn't do such a great job at it. It looks as though two or three of the buttons pulled or tore at the fabric around knee level. She attempted to sew them back on, but for some reason, she sewed the buttons to the side with the button holes, effectively sewing the button holes closed, and there are actual holes where the fabric ripped in those areas, on both sides. I am not even sure where to start, since after cutting off the buttons, I can see how much worse the fabric is torn than it seemed to be at first glance. If it were me, I'd just get rid of the skirt, or cut it up to use the fabric, but she really seems to like it and wants it fixed. It can't be cut off to a shorter length because there's a border pattern at the bottom.

I don't think anything I do will actually repair the rips invisibly. I have thought of using the facing, which is the same fabric, to patch the holes, which are about the size of a nickel at least. I also have some (slightly heavier) fabric which is in the same shade of purple as the paisely, and could be used to replace the facing (one reason the buttons seem to have caused tears). Does this sound workable? Can you think of any other ways to fix this? Most of what I'm thinking seems like it will be rather time-consuming and I don't want to spend more time on it than it's worth. she's offered to pay me and I told her it would take a some time and that I'd have to let her know how much it would be once I got a good look at it and figured out what to do, but realisitically, she won't want to pay a lot for it.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

ETA: ( drawings of skirt )