July 16, 2010 Rit Dye has a swank new website including all kinds of fun projects and ideas for crafters. Of special interest to us of course are all the upcycling projects.
This week’s special featured artist is of particular interest. To me anyway. Well, it is me. So perhaps that’s why. You can read all about it here…
Posted in studio life, upcycling 
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June 29, 2010 It’s still a ways away, but we are already thinking about the Zilker Green Team/Future Craft Collective Back-to-School clothes swap this coming school year. Ordinarily we hold it on tax free weekend but this year we’re shaking things up a bit. Because so many folks are still away that weekend in one last effort before school begins to vacate, I mean um, vacation, we are pushing it back to start after school begins – which I believe is August 23rd.
So, those these plans are still in the works, here’s how it looks right now…
Andrea and Penny will be silk screening once again. Right ladies?
We plan on having the usual, sorters, sewers and silk screening stations. If you feel like volunteering, please email us and let us know. We might not get back to you right away but we’ll definitely save your contact info. And if all you can do is swap, that’s fine too!
So don’t go shopping. And don’t throw away that bag of primo kids clothes! Save them for the swap and we’ll see you there.
Posted in Events, green living 4 Comments »
June 18, 2010 My pre-teen gal Lucy has been pondering lately what to call play dates with her mates. You see, she doesn’t really want to call them play dates anymore. And I admit, I never really liked the term all that much anyway. She decided recently, as she was planning some long awaited hang time with her dear friend Lilah, that she would call them hang outs.
Only problem being, she and her friend Lilah really didn’t want to spend time just hanging out either. They weren’t up for playing but the idea of just hanging made them both a little anxious. Too much pressure to just be. And to figure out what to do with their conversations and their hands and their hearts too.
As they got together this week, they decided they would each bring their sewing machines, pick a project, and get busy. They pondered all kinds of great patterns and projects out there – including a few sneak previews they got from our upcoming Future Craft Collective book Make Stuff Together. They strolled through One Yard Wonders which has lots of great small projects to peruse.They poured over Lotta Jansdotter’s Simple Sewing book too which we all love to drool over. 
Finally, they decided they’d create their own. And, rather than each work on their own project, they would work together on a strip quilt lap blanket so that they could each have one on their respective summer airplane trips.They’d make one this week and then another next week (thereby guaranteeing some more time together too!)
Craft Out!!
They had a great time, as you can plainly see. And they made a beautiful blanket too that each one will have to always remind each other of their friendship – even when they’re traveling in opposite directions.
What we saw as mothers, were two girls seguing into the next portion of their developmental selves and their friendship too. The girls were both able to see how they are moving into that land that rests squarely between being little and being big. And they came up with a perfect new term for the kind of plan-oriented time they want to have with each other while they live in this land they’re in: A Craft Out.Not a play date. Not a hang out. But a Craft Out.
So, if you’ve got a pre-teen in the house and she’s trying to ease into this new life of hers, maybe she’d want to plan such time with a friend too. They can get together not to play, not to hang out, but to craft out. Together.
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June 15, 2010 We all love the idea of being summer mama. And we love that our friend Amy took a little time to create some intentions so that she could be the best summer mama she could possibly be. With the help of her two amazing and sewing daughters, Ellie and Jane, together they all whipped up this beautiful summer center of their very own. They went with a simpler model, since school was already out they wanted to make sure to get that baby up on the wall! But still with a nod to our FCC love of the burlap. Thanks girls! And we hope you’ve got lots of good sewing projects in your list of things to do.
So, here it is, their very beautiful rendition of the Future Craft Collective Summer Center…
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May 25, 2010 It’s summer time folks! And pretty soon the kiddos are going to be looking for things to do, places to go and people to see. Last year we created this awesome Family Summer Center and Calendar and now it’s time to bust it out again. It’s got a place for all your wishes, wants and desires of summer.
I’d rewrite it but really, when I read what we wrote about it last year, I realize it’s all said and need not be said again. Here’s a few highlights…
With this project, it is our greatest intention to help ease you and your kids into the transition, while simultaneously helping you get intentional about the open-ended summer months ahead.
We created the Summer Center as a place where the family can come on a lazy or crazy formless summer day to get ideas, prompts, and inspiration towards what to do next. It’s also a place to put intentions and schedule activities for the three school-less months that make up summer.
So get on over to Craftzine for parts one and two of the Summer Family Center. Whether you’re doing camps or going campless this summer, this banner can hold it all.
Posted in Family Projects 1 Comment »
May 10, 2010 Years ago, I had a friend that worked in a giant print shop in Chicago. He would generously supply my kiddos, and my brother’s kiddos, and my sister’s kiddos, with piles and piles of endrolls – the too small rolls left at the end of a print job. Too small for print jobs mind you but with hundreds of feet of paper left on the roll. It was delightful to have such pure white paper to play with in such ample and seemingly endless supply. But as we no longer get to Chicago and as the airlines now charge for extra bags anyway, that endroll supply did indeed dry up. For us anyway. Hopefully someone up there is still taking advantage and there are kids all over the windy city doing full size sketches of themselves and all their friends.
On our bike ride to school the other day we happened past an architect’s office who had just put out their recycling bin. Poking out of the top of the 90 gallon bin were ROLLS AND ROLLS of architect’s drawings. Big giant paper attached at the top just like a store bought easel sized sketch pad. Sure they had architect’s drawings on one side, but the other side was clean, clean, clean. And besides, the architect’s drawings always struck me as being rather design rich.
Fortunately I had my super handy Madsen cargo bike so on the way back home I tossed a few rolls in the bin. I hesitate sometimes to take such items home because of my urge to stockpile, but the other side of me just can’t leave stuff like that behind. As I looked into the giant bin with far too many rolls for me to take personally I realized I can’t wait until Austin gets their super duper Mungo Creative Re-use center so my urge to gather and reuse can be met by bringing my materials to them.
These rolls have been super inspiring to my drawing kiddos and while I kept a roll for ourselves I passed on some others to my son’s preschool and a couple of friends. I couldn’t help but think too that these pads would make some fantastic wrapping paper for some cool design store or some funky jewelry shop. If you’re an owner of such I can’t help but think you’d definitely have some street cred with the green crowd if you did.
If there is an architect near you, I’m sure they would be more than happy for you to take some of their old drawings off their hands. Just one more item to be reused before it gets recycled.
Posted in upcycling 2 Comments »
May 5, 2010 Surely you’ve heard of paper roses. Paper dolls. How about a paper wallet?
A couple weekends ago we participated in the Austin Art Alliance’s Art City Austin along Town Lake in downtown Austin. It was perfect weather for the event: blue skies, low 80s and mellow breezes too. Future Craft Collective was set up in the kids tent volunteering our crafty/sustainable skills to make origami paper wallets.
We found the original project in a library book ADVANCED ORIGAMI and tweaked it a bit to make it a really practical shape and size for use and also easier for the kids to fold. We also added stitching around the perimeter to bump it up a notch and to make them more of a permanent fixture. It was upcycling at it’s finest as we dug through our recycling bins in search of just the right weight and colored paper for the project. We utilized magazine pages from these great photo stock books that Kathie had stocked away. We also played around with file folders, bird seed bags, brown paper bags, wall paper and whatever other little scraps we could gt our hands on.
By weekend’s end, we had folded approximately 200 or so paper wallets with kids and adults alike. (We always take great pride when our project appeals to both kids and adults – especially when we’re in the kids craft tent.) Some folks wanted the pattern so that they could continue to make wallets at home from their own recycling bins.
These would make great gifts to mail – especially if you stuck a couple bills or a check inside!
Here’s how to make your very own paper wallet…
Materials: paper and a sewing machine
These instructions are for a 8 1/2 x 14″ piece of paper. Any size paper will do. Just fold adjust the dimensions as needed.
4. Fold the paper NEARLY in half but not quite, approximately 3 7/8″ 
5. Tuck the fold into the bottom flap and flatten 
6. Fold the wallet in half and stitch all the way around the perimeter 
Posted in Tutorials, Uncategorized No Comments »
April 23, 2010 We’ll be in the kids tent all weekend long at Art City Austin, Austin’s biggest art event. You can come and hang out and craft up a paper wallet or a special pouch to keep your secrets in. Come play with the reused materials and get some ideas for materials you can use at home. It’ll be fun. We promise. And you’ll get to take something really special home. And you’ll get to see us. What more could you ask for? You can read more about the event at Art Alliance Austin’s website. 
Posted in Events No Comments »
April 7, 2010 I was talking with a woman the other day about sewing. She said she stopped sewing a while ago because she could no longer afford to purchase new materials. I thought for a minute and realized that in all my years of sewing I have actually purchased new material only a handful of times. The first time was when I was 12 and I was going to make a prairie style shirt with my sister. I got the pattern pinned, cut and folded and then I went out to play and never went back. Another time was when I needed some camouflage for some many burp cloths for a manly baby daddy I know. Since then though I really don’t think I’ve bought new materials more than a handful of times as I love creating materials out of what’s around me. I love the challenge, the reuse and the innovation. And currently, I am loving the price tag as well.
Sometimes I reuse things from around the house – table cloths, cut off pant legs, t-shirts, etc. Oftentimes too I sew with materials not ordinarily thought of as sewing materials: paper, event banners, tarps, burlap, plastic bags and, perhaps my most favorite of all for their great imagery, birdseed bags.
Next week, Saturday April 17th, from 7:30-10pm Come and discover ways to find, make and utilize these surplus and sustainable materials in your sewing projects. We’ll fuse plastic and try our hand at creating other new materials. There’ll be tons of supplies on hand ready to sew into bags, wallets, and whatever else your mind can conjure.
Sign up here before April 16th or email me your interest or questions. Hope to see you there.
Bernadette
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April 5, 2010 True to our tagline, we really do like to make stuff with our kids. We like to make stuff without our kids too which can actually make the making of stuff with our kids a little more complicated. Sometimes our own vision gets in the way and we have to remember that it’s not just about us and our vision. (no, really, it’s not)
A couple of weekends ago I shared the stage with Gever Tulley of the Tinkering School (enough already Bernadette!) and my partner in Slow Family Living, Carrie Contey. The theme of the night was innovation in education and it was a great synchronistic trio of talks. My own talk was on creating with kids, or, making stuff together. And the idea that it’s about the process and the connection built and not necessarily the end result.
Through our classes and through our crafty sessions with our kids, Kathie and I have learned a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t when creating with kids – when to push forward and when to back off and let well enough alone. In our current pause from studio classes, we’ve learned a bit more as well, and are grateful for the collaborative effort that lets the ideas get ping-ponged back and forth as opposed to just lying dormant in our brains.
Do you like to make stuff with your kids? Someone else’s kids perhaps? After you read the points below, I’d love to hear what you’ve learned in your own process. Because as we write our book, Make Stuff Together, we’d really like to know what everyone out there is seeking and experiencing in the making stuff together with kids. Here’s what we know so far and right now…
And what I learned from Gever’s talk, is to remember that we are collaborators, not leaders. It is sometimes hard to do, to let go, but it is definitely an idea worth working towards. Because our kids have some pretty cool ideas of their own if we give them a chance to express them.
Posted in Book, studio life 5 Comments »
