And learning about Japan.

J-Krafty be takin’ his craft skillz into tha kitchen, yo. Check this out.

When youz in the middle of some hard craftin and you hungry between meals,  you may find yoself in need of a protien bar, well…don’t be buyin’ one of them prepakagized bars wit crazy addatives in that junk. Homie, if you crafty, you gots to make yoself home made DIY style protein bars. That way you don’t get no crunk ingredients that be messin’ wit yo insides.

Now first of alls, J-Krafty don’t steal intellectualized junk without givin’ props yo. This recipe is based on the dope chocolate protein bars from this here blog by Maria Peters. But as crafty as I be, I done modified that junk to make these here Crafty Bars.

The pictures at the bottom will show you exactly how J-Krafty be mad comfortable in the kitchen arts.

Delicious Crafty Bars — These have nut, soy and wheat ingredients.

Some dope cooking spray
1 C multi-grain hot cereal mix — unprocessed (check out the photo yo. I get most of my stuff at Trader Joe’s)
1 C multi-grain hot cereal mix — blended into flour (blend that whole grain mix up! I usually shake the blender a little — or use food processor)
12 scoops chocolate protein powder (TJs — this does have fructose in it.)
4 TB ground flaxseeds
1 C non-fat dry milk
10 TB natural almond butter (no oil, salt or sugar added)
1.5 tsp vanilla
1/2 C water
1/2 C soy milk
1/4 C dark chocolate mini-chips (optional)
1/4 C sliced almonds (mandatory, bitch–don’t test me)
tiny bit of butter, yo.

If you smart, you’ll do these up in a silicone pan. I know you homies be goin’ on about chemicals and such, but if you try these in a regular pan, you may have to chisel them out. Tru.

Spray yo bar mold / pan wit cooking spray. Get all up in those crevaces, yo.

Pre-heat oven to 250. Aint no thing.

In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients together. (This step be easy.)

Add almond butter & mix until crumbly. now what J-Krafty do, is I get a wooden spoon and a metal spatula (pastry knife be even better) and I like cover all the almond butter and then chop it and slice it until it’s even and there don’t be no big chunks. This take like 5 minutes. Don’t skimp hater.

Now is when you got to take yo sliced almonds and a little bit o’ butter and pan toast that junk. You could probably do without the butter, but I use just a tiny bit. Don’t burn it yo…keep a crafty eye on that until the almonds turn a nice light brown and got themselfs a nutty smell.

Now, add vanilla, water, soy milk, almonds and mini chocolate chips and stir that junk all up in there. This be a test of yo gangstsa strength yo. It Just keep mixing that junk until all of the dry ingredients be moistened and the liquid has been absorbed.

Now Maria Peters say to take that and just plain refrigerate, but I tried that and it was too gooey fo my own self. So I bake that junk at 250 fo’ 35 minutes, just so it firms up a little on the outside. No need fo long term bakin’ on that.

Enjoy homie. and when someone asks you what you be eatin’, say, “Hush up fool, don’t be talkin’ at me when I’m mackin’ on a Crafty Bar…hater!”

J-Krafty out.

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Somewheres around June in this year of craftiness, fellow gangstas, my friends The Motion Sick were  on the Neutral Uke Hotel tour –pretty gangsta of them to be playin madd Neutral Milk Hotel jams on the Ukelele (so check that out) — and they run into madd crafty person, Shannon McCarthy, aka Comfortably Lovely, aka creator of A Craft Thing, this totally indie Craft Festival near the Crafty city of Detroit MI. Micheal J. Epstien of course is wearing his crazy comfortable (and flexible) Crafty T-shirt and before long they are surfin’ on the interweb to find the dopest gangsta arts and crafts video in the whole wide web, yo — Crafty the Video, aka Digital Short: Craftygangsta.com.

So, Shannon McCrafty askes me, J-Krafty, if Craftygangsta.com will be a official sponsorizor of A Craft Thing, yo. Of course I was all like, yo, J-Krafty is a lone wolf. I craft by my own rules and mostly in my basement where other haters don’t be seein all my madd crafty ideas. But it turns out all they wanted was fo’ me to donate some T-shirts to they raffle y’alls. After thinking on that for a long while, like five minutes, I decide to sponsor the crap out of it. Plus they wants to be using my video to announce that A Craft Thing is gonna be all up in this Detroit, come December gansta. Boom, just like that, CraftGansta.com is an official sponsor of A Craft Thing.

But nows I got to up the game, homies. J-krafty don’t just send out t-shirts and call it a day, yo. I gots to be doin some craftin’ up in here, so I head to the basement, my magical craft den/laundry room.

First up, I make up some xs crafty t-shirts which ain’t even available to my normal craftas so you know that junk is special and such. Then I start silk screenin’ on some kraft paper shopping bags and then rubber stamp all over that! I get some craftygangsta.com pencils and make up pencil packs, then some crafty temporary tattoo packs and a finish that junk up with a home-burned CD-R of Crafty and Crafty Acoustic. I’m totally in the sponsor zone now haters.

Check this out:

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Guess what homies! Simon Stamps has agreed to sell the Official Crafty the Video Rubber Stamps!

Here’s how you get them. Just follow the links below!! (have to click twice the first time — not sure why)

CRAFTY
BITCHES
PUNK
CRUNK
MOTHERF*CKER

Hope you all enjoy these fly stamps!

Whoa my craftiest peeps. The video release party was a true success if you ask J-Krafty, and why wouldn’t you my crafty soldiers. Sure it was Friday Dec. 11, but the mayhem started Thursday evening, Dec. 10 with a trip to Artists and Craftsmen in Central Square…pickin’ up mad silk screen supplies–a scoop coater and some mo’ hinge clips to get my silkscreen on.

Then to the totally crafty Tibetan restaurant whos name I don’t know but the food is super good and pretty bland, which is perfect for Scizzas who got stomache issues. Oh, and I forgot a trip to Jacks fo’ some 99cent tape, yo. The scary guy at tha counter assured me that my bag would be safe with him in the crafty self-check. That made me nervous but I left it anyhows. Craftas got to be mad focused when they shopping.

Next, home to start the videos compressin’…3 hours later and what! a spelling error in the credits? Holy mutha of Craftiness. 2 more hours on a lower setting and it was time to mix my silkscreen emulsion and coat the small screen.

Short naps throughout tha night from 10pm-11, 2:30 to 4, and 6 to 7:30, interspersed with magic markerin’ the edges of tha 70 page tile of the crafty logo (shown here) and exposin the silk screen (failure on that front), and finish editing the Crafty Crew Video profile. Ugh.

8am rolls around and I’m driving Scott (who has kindly dropped off some gear at my crib) to the T station, and then an emergency trip to Walgreens to get DVDs and a container of OJ to get my vitamin C up in this piece. Finally home, compress the video profile (2hours) burn the first DVD, set up the iDVD and burn the other kind, (another hour) sleep shower pack up the Ford and J-Krafty is out!

At which point i was so tired that I could not focus on a single thing fo’ more than 5 seconds. I hauled myself to the Dilboy VFW unpacked, met Mike and Julie and Scizza and Knitta and we all just went crazy on the Place. John Hendricks showed up and worked the door which was a godsend. Scott Anderson hung out at the sound all night and managed the production. Bubucheek clothing co. came in and just started silks screening like crazy and they did that all night. I can’t say enough good things about them so find them and buy some of thier mad cool t-shirts.

We all played short musical sets and then it was time fo’ J-Krafty to freestyle. J-krafty don’t really freestyle, so I started freestyle readin’ some lyrics that i was workin on and a mad shoutout to all my crafty gangsta’s…like Slim Crafty and Old Dirty Crafta. The crowd was getting all hyped fo’ tha video and then we dropped on them like hot glue on a foam ball my peeps. They didn’t know what hit em. BAM! They’d been Craftitized. Once we layed the deleted scenes on them, there was no turnin’ back my crafty sodiers.

And that was how it went down.

Gangsta out.

J-Krafty

Friday Dec. 11, 7PM, George Dilboy VFW, Somerville MA

Link to the facebook event here

Yo craftas, don’t be messin wit J-Krafty or the crafty crew, cause we WILL bust into your house and we WILL decoupage yo mama. Craftin’ is a promise in tha streets, my crafty soldiers.