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…

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.

And this month, just in time for Halloween, we present our Halloween t-shirt Trick or Treat bag. Check it out. Whip up a few and get ready for some free candy!

My kids are by now used to the idea that all the birthday gifts we bring to parties are either handmade or second hand. We have a pretty decent repertoire now of things we can make the morning of a party and a few more too that take a little more forethought and time. We also like to give second-hand, and really like to hit the thrift stores in search of something special for the birthday boy or girl. It gives us an excuse to go to the thrifty (as we like to call it) and while there, in search of, we are spending good energy thinking about the recipient.

It took me a while to embrace the idea of giving second hand proudly. At first it seemed it might be perceived as cheap. It was my now 11 year old daughter who helped me get over that. She went to a particularly high falutin’ birthday party of a friend and her thrift store gift with a handmade embellishment was the hit of the day. Truly the birthday girl’s favorite. My daughter, then 8 or 9 exclaimed proudly, “and we got it at the thrift store!” This was to a family that never went to the thrifty and if they did it was ONLY to drop off. My identity revealed, though I was a bit embarrassed at the time, from then on I embraced it. Lesson learned from my daughter to tread the idea of second-hand proudly. And now that second-hand falls under the green umbrella, it can actually be considered somewhat innovative and definitely earth friendly.

For girls it seems so easy to come up with an entire list of handmade gifts. I have made aprons, personalized and stitched gift cards with a cloth carry-all, head scarves, embellished t-shirts, birthday prayer flags, pencil rolls, and lots more – all made with upcyled or recycled materials of course.

For boys it’s a little less clear what handmade things to make. The headscarf, letter-writing thing seems more girl oriented without a doubt. Of course boys write letters, but the stationary kit is definitely more girl-friendly. Slowly though I have created a boy repertoire as well – although admittedly my 9 year old son still would rather purchase the gifts than give the handmade. Something along the Lego, Star Wars line of thinking would be his preference but he’s getting there.

I stumbled upon a favorite one recently though that is easy to make and gets my son’s gift giving approval. Using discarded pleather upholstery samples, which we got from a deceased boat upholsterer and come in conveniently sized 3″x6″ strips, I make personalized snap cuff bracelets – cool enough for any girl or boy. We put the child’s name on it or some other personally influenced applique also made from a contrasting pleather strip, a snap or button closure, and voila, a one-of-a-kind birthday gift.

I’m compiling a list of my favorites, which I’ll run by my kids for their approval. I’ll put the list up here soon enough and break it down into a tutorial and/or a three-day project as well so stay tuned. In the meantime, I’d like to know, what kind of handmade or second hand birthday gifts do you like to give?

Nancy Judd is an artist/designer that is doing some fun and inspiring design with recycled materials called Recycle Runway. It’s haute couture from Obama signs. A dress train from origamied junk mail. Bathing suits from plastic soap bottles. Faux fur from cassette tape. It’s precisely this type of innovative material use that we want to encourage and inspire in our Future Craft students. Take a look at what she’s doing. Then check your surroundings for inspiration and get going on your own ingenious re-use.

So, it’s not actually a competition of course. And each one really does have its attributes beyond what we could ever count. But there is no doubt teaching 8 kids ages 8-12, 2 days a week for 2 hours after school is a totally different experience than teaching 7 moms on a Saturday afternoon all of whom have left their kids at home and I can’t help but put them side by side for a little comparison.

We laugh hard in the kid classes because they are just so raw and open and bring us back to that time of life of being 9, 10, 11, 12 years old. We can remember the disjointed-ness of that age and the geekiness and the feeling on the verge of coolness and trying it on in a fun(ny) way.

We talk seriously in the mama class about ritual and sentimentality and connection and setting our families up with traditions of our own.They are there to make something for their families and there is much talk about many aspects of family life from infancy onto nearly teen-hood.

The kids sew fast. Sometimes furiously so. They are not so mindful of aesthetics as much as they are with completion. We do talk to them about enjoying the process and all that but sometimes, I’m afraid, it just becomes sort of background noise. Or maybe they hear it and they’ll remember later, somewhere down the road, those sewing teachers they had that talked about being in the moment.

The mamas are more thoughtful and maybe even a little hard on themselves worrying about colors and layout and making it look perfect because they are all after all making an heirloom and they’re hoping they’ll still enjoy the aesthetics of it all when it is being used for their own children’s children. They are able to look to the future because when watching children grow the velocity of time becomes all too clear. To them too we speak of trying to enjoy the process but it is hard when the time is limited to one 3.5 hour chunk on a stolen Saturday afternoon.

After each class we are exhausted but for a different reason. With the kids it is manual labor in a way with all their technical difficulties and the need for much hand-holding. We hope we can give them enough and we try our very best to do so.They let us know instantly if they feel neglected or ignored or if they aren’t getting what they need and came for. They are not shy about that and while it is tiring sometimes, it is at least clear-cut.

With the mamas we can only hope we have given them enough. We ponder whether they got what they came for but with each coming perhaps for different reasons it’s really hard to know whether we’ve reached that goal or not. They leave with a mostly finished product that we hope they get finished in a timely manner. We will nudge them virtually to do so but it’s in their hands now.

For each class we are grateful to offer the space to sew and create and think about sustainability and reuse and recrafting. And for each class too we are grateful for all we learn in the midst of our teaching. And believe me that is a lot – each and every time.

Check out the mama class story and more pics on the blog of our dear pal Average Jane Crafter.

At Future Craft Collective’s after school club Kathie came up with a great upcycling project for the girls using plastic grocery bags. The thing was, when Kathie went to her cupboard to find plastic grocery bags, the cupboard was bare. When she called me, same thing. She had to search a few houses before she stumbled upon a stash and that alone seemed like a good sign. The fact that most of the people we know are no longer amassing huge piles of plastic bags means there is definitely a shift.

But the bags she did find were definitely happy to be discovered. And the girls in the club were happy too. Check out this amazing little snap purse made by my own ten year old daughter and gifted to me at the end of the class. I love this thing and it is seemingly rather durable as well. I’ve tossed it around quite a bit in the past couple of weeks and it is still not only looking real good but holding up nicely too.

I love recycling and reusing and reducing and man oh man do I love upcycling too.