He can weave earmarks into an omnibus appropriations bill better than anyone. He can knit his brows while raging over thwarted efforts to open ANWR.

So why wouldn't Sen. Ted Stevens show up at an Anchorage craft fair Sunday looking like he knows the working end of a glue stick?

Call it the softer side of Stevens.

Wearing a snow-white barrister's wig and an apron, the most powerful man in Alaska spent Sunday afternoon cutting and gluing colorful pieces of construction paper onto one of the winning entries at the Crafters Smackdown, a fundraiser for Congregation Beth Sholom's Jewish Education Center.

The event brought together a bizarre group of Alaskans who have found fame in wildly different ways and places -- Alaskans so well-known they don't need full names for us to know who they are.

Emceeing the event was Mr. Whitekeys, whose biting comedy shows at the former Fly By Night Club once ranked among the hottest tickets in town.

Working at a table right next to Stevens was Pillow, the striptease artist who once entertained a loyal audience at PJ's and who, in recent years, performs as Buddy the Blood Drop, the recruitment mascot for the Blood Bank of Alaska.

A talented craftswoman, Pillow wore a homemade hat and carried a purse she made out of a pair of blue jeans.

"You have to go through the fly to get to the money," she said, still a savvy exotic dancer.

Uncle Ted, as Alaskans like to call him, knows something about procuring money too. In 40 years as a U.S. senator, the Republican has famously, and infamously, steered millions upon millions of federal dollars to Alaska.

"He brings home the bacon," Whitekeys told a crowd of about a hundred as he introduced Stevens, "and none of that will help him here today in a kosher establishment."

How Stevens, 84, wound up at a crafts fair at a Jewish synagogue is a bit of a story itself.

Selena Hopkins-Kendall, a lawyer at Holmes, Weddle & Barcott, sent an e-mail to co-workers urging them to come to her church's crafts fair. Tim McKeever, another lawyer at the firm who is a former chief of staff for Stevens, sent the e-mail to Stevens' office.

Someone there read it, pitched the idea to the senator, and suddenly the Craft Smackdown's lineup boasted the biggest name in crafts this side of Martha Stewart.

"At first we thought it was someone playing a joke," said Tara Witterholt, an event organizer. "We got in touch with them and said, 'Will he come? Will he craft?' "

The answer to both was yes, though Stevens' staff members said they don't think their boss knows much about the art of crafting.

"But as a World War II pilot, he was pretty crafty," deputy chief of staff Karina Waller said.

Stevens won the first smackdown of the day, getting help from Shayna Kaplan, a 17-year-old special-needs girl he befriended before the contest started.

As Whitekeys played the piano, Stevens shared a dance with Kaplan, and then with Witterholt, before getting down to business. His challenge: Create a box for an Alaskan cereal.

"Cheating is expected," Whitekeys told entrants, earning a big laugh from Stevens.

Stevens and his team came up with "Gold Rush Blueberry Crunch." In a contest decided by applause, he edged "Organic Chocolate-Covered Moose Nuggets" and "The Deadliest Crunch: Cap'n Crabby's Lucky Salmon."

For his victory, Stevens was awarded a first-place trophy designed by Jewish Education Center pre-schoolers, who were told to "make 'em ugly, make 'em cumbersome and make 'em so they fall apart when you walk out the door," organizer Leah Magid said.

Stevens examined the curious creation and pronounced it fine work.

"But I think it's against the rules to keep it," he said.