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.

1. Fold the top edge of the paper over 3 1/4″
2. Flip the paper over and fold each side in 3/4″
3. Fold the bottom edge up 2 3/4″   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

The traditional Tibetan prayer flag is a colorful panel or rectangle of thin cloth in many colors and strung together. Traditionally they are woodblock printed with prayers in the form of text and images. They are often found strung along mountain ridges in the Himalayas to bless the surrounding countryside. The thought is that the breeze blows through and around the flags thereby spreading the prayers far and wide.

Here at Future Craft, we have made many a version of prayer flags that offer a similar intention – to spread prayers, wishes and good thoughts far and wide.

Last year, in our mama’s group, we used the prayer flag template to make “birthday wish flags.” With pinking shears we cut printed fabric for a background square, and then a smaller square of plain white fabric – either muslin, cut up white cotton sheet or some such similar plain, recycled fabric. Each person in the group wrote our messages, wishes, thoughts and feelings for the birthday girl onto a piece of white fabric, which we then sewed onto the background piece. We then strung them all together for the words to catch the breeze and bring good wishes all year long. We each have them hung up in some special spot and, nearly a year out, they still make our hearts sing.

During election time last fall we participated in an Obama Mama rally and family picnic and were asked to bring a participatory craft. We had already done the birthday flags and thought a flag would be a great project for a large group. For the kids, we wanted to present something that would conjur up hope, pure and simple, rather than a partisan declaration. Kathie cleverly came up with the term Hope Flags and at that rally for Obama on a beautiful fall Austin day, that sentiment resonated LOUDLY!

We pre-cut a couple hundred background fabrics in a wide variety of patterns and colors. We also pre-cut a same amount of the smaller, white sheets. As a nod to the traditional Tibetan flags using wood blocks, Kathie made rubber block prints that offered Hope themed writing prompts: I AM HOPE… Hope to me sounds like… Hope to me looks like… and, What I can do… We also had some blank flags for people to come up with their own statements.

Rather than machine sew the white onto the patterned, we brought buttons and embroidery thread and needles to sew them together by hand. Kids and adults could write out their prompts using the colored pens, select their background fabric, choose a button for the anchor at the top two corners, and either sew them on themselves, or have us do it for them.

The response was amazing and colorful and thoughtful and hopeful and accessible for all. We then strung the flags from tree to tree for all the messages of hope and commitment and peace and diplomacy to waft on the breeze and spread to all the surrounding countryside. After the rally we took them back to the studio where they now hang the length of the building and from wall to wall. They illuminate the studio still with their drawings, scribbles and words – all serving as clear and continuous messages of hope. And I guess they worked!

We continue to ponder the prayer flag, birthday flag, wish flag, hope flag as a design that is full of amazing possibilities – each one full of sentiment and love and hope and each one full of ideas for more ideas!

So whether you are a master seamstress or someone who has never before held a needle and thread, you can whip up a prayer flag to suit your own needs and creative desires. Make it detailed with embroidery and buttons and all the bells and whistles, or make it simple with plain cloth and thread and pen. It’s yours to do with what you like and yours too to share meaningful messages over and over and over again.

If taking this on still seems too complicated, please head over to our shop page for your very own Future Craft Collective Prayer Flag kit – which includes everything you need to make your own string of flags.

Thanks to our dear friend Jote for these amazing pictures!

So congratulations Lace, whose blog is coincidentally called “Keeping My Fingers Crossed”. I guess she really was.

Stay tuned this on Thursday for word of our next giveaway. We really enjoyed this one and since we both make lots of things, we could do giveaways until the cows come home.

We’d like to smack a big old virtual high-five to our girl jenny at websydaisy.com for her unending support and assistance in getting this site a-rockin’.  us future crafters seem to be far better at whipping something up on a good old fashioned sewing machine then we are at typing code and embedding plug-ins, what ever that all means.  so thank you jenny.  we love ya.

so our giveaway!!  this is a shirt from kathie’s ramonster collection- it’s a size 4T.  all we ask is that you leave us a comment giving us some feedback about what you think of the new site, and tuesday morning (the 17th) we’ll draw a number from a hat (an adorable hand made one, of course, made from bedsheets and old jeans, most likely, that’s how we roll) and announce our winner.  so check back tuesday!

here’s the goods:

good luck!  and thank you in advance for your comments.  we’re a collective effort, for sure, and we aims to please.  wheeee!  here we go!!!!

http://www.flickr.com/groups/futurecraftcollective/

We will be starting our Monday classes on February 2nd, offering two bi-monthly* sessions per month. We are offering spaces for the same amount of kids in our classes, but each class will meet twice a month instead of weekly. It was seemingly getting too overwhelming for the kids to be here every week**, and feeling a little bit tight for us as well, so, in an effort to keep things fresh and creative, each session will meet twice a month. Sign up today on our class page.

Also, starting in February will be our brand new, swanky, accessible Future Craft Subscription Service! We have had many requests from other states and girl scout groups and homeschool groups in places here and there asking us to bring Future Craft to them in some capacity. Time and space and 6 kids between us never allowed us to be there physically so we came up with a viable solution creating downloadable subscriptions each month. We are totally excited to get to virtually serve Future Crafters far and wide.

Each monthly subscription will have 2 downloadable patterns, dialogue around each project regarding reuse, recycling, upcycling, material suggestions and ideas such as finding reusable materials where you least expect it, tutorials, tips for creating your own Future Craft Community, tips for working hands on with your own child, ideas for keeping things fun while simultaneously getting things done, and, access to an online Future Craft community moderated by us, the creative geniuses, er, um, co-founders, of Future Craft. All this for the amazingly low price of just $6.00 per month!!

Stay tuned for the big announcement on subscriptions – they are getting close.

If you are interested in classes, check out our class page for our schedule and sign up today!

*That’s bi-monthly as in two times per month.

**If you’re child really had his or her heart set on class every week, please talk to us about availability.

Thanks for all your time and attention and attendance and kids and classes and all of what the year has brought.