Swept Away In A Whirlwind of Crafting

The King Midas Upcycle Touch - Turning Trash into Treasure

Goodness! Where did March and April disappear to? They left in a flurry of activity is where they went. In between teaching some really fun computer classes to some fabulous artists at the Sawdust Festival offices, teaching upcycling projects to loads of wonderful kids and packing up Etsy sales, there has been the looming and omnipresent load of this movie that I'm on.  Most movies take 1-3 months to do post-production sound on them.  This one is going on 9 months.  NINE.  MONTHS. Ah but that is another story for another time.....  Let's get to the good stuff!

So first off in early April I taught this class on upcycling in Laguna Beach at the Sawdust Festival Spring Into Art event. Eight little girls for 5 hours. IT WAS AWESOME!!!  My sis Alissa helped me and it was so much fun.  Here's a picture of everyone hard at work.

Little Girls, Little Girls, Everywhere I Look I See Little

I pulled out every tool I could think of for these projects - eyelet punchers and setters, dapping blocks, embossing rollers, wire bending pliers, and these little girls mastered them all! They kicked butt! I think it is so important to teach kids, especially girls, how to treat tools with respect and with command and then with practice comes skill and confidence.  Oh, when Alissa was little I was always teaching her how to switch drill bits or swing a hammer.  It's the best!

And the wonderful thing was seeing how every little girl made her work completely her own.  All the flowers and vases were completely different.  Here are a few examples:

       

It's a FlowerPalooza!

Aren't they awesome?!  I was so proud of my students!

Then a couple of weeks ago Alissa again helped me and we team taught making soda can pins as part of the Imagination Celebration held at the Sawdust.  We must have shown 60 adults and kids over the course of two hours how to make these pins.

Ooh So Bright and Shiny!

So You Takes Dis Heah And You Puts It Over Heah

Step Right Up And Make Something Cool!

Alissa and I had precut all the flower and circle shapes so on the day of the event, we were able to focus on showing everyone how to decorate and shape the metal and cardboard using dapping blocks and embossing tools. Then using stacked button centers, we assembled the flowers with wire and pinbacks. It was grueling, I'm not kidding you, but it was truly one of the most fun and inspiring things that Alissa and I have every done.  It was so uplifting seeing everyone's creativity burst out to make something really pretty out of essentially trash. And as you can see we were swamped!

These pins are actually an evolution from the felt pins which I was making plus the soda can pinwheels!  Isn't that interesting?  My friend Dolores had suggested a project making flowers out of cereal boxes so I thought "Hmm - how about making felt flowers out of metal?"  So there you go!   

  

Poppies, Poppies Will Put Them To Sleep

A lot of visitors mentioned that these soda can pins would be a great Girls Scout project so I'm going to write up the instructions and post them here - hopefully next week sometime.  I will also be teaching the flower pins at our upcoming Red Rabbit Arts & Crafts Market at the Los Angeles Arboretum in July. Oh yeah, now that is yet another story to tell but that will have to wait until tomorrow. :)