Crafty Happenings This Weekend!

Ok, get out your calendar and mark this down!

Swap-O-Rama-Rama

Sunday, April 19th, 2009
11:00am to 4:00pm

Location: Heritage Hall – 3102 Main Street
Admission: $6.00 plus one bag of clean clothing or craft supplies
More information: http://www.swaporamarama.blogspot.com

Swap-O-Rama-Rama is a community clothing and craft swap event. Workshops starting at noon by Blim, the Mustache Press, Urban Source and Fibre Manipulator. Learn how to silk screen, make your own buttons, needle felt and craft with recycled materials. Including DIY craft and sewing stations.

Second Annual "Nifty for Fifty" Sale
Art and Soul Gallery at the Pacific Palasades Hotel
1277 Robson Street
Saturday, April 18th and Sunday, April 19th from Noon to 7pm

For more information, contact Adhesif at info@adhesifclothing.com



Foux De Fu-Fu
The Cambrian Hall - 17th and Main Street
Saturday, April 18th

This event is a 2 part event.

The Daytime: 12pm-6pm
A retail opportunity for artists


Local artists will be showcasing their work, giving the community an opportunity to meet new up and comers as well as purchase their work. This will be a lively day with music pumping, a bar open as well as many other random seeming activities to take place.

12:00 Doors Open- Yeah!
1:00 Pinata Painting
2:00 Intro to Knitting
3:00 Juggling with JMac
4:00 High Kick Academy
5:00 How to Give the Perfect High Five
6:00 Day Event Complete, Get Ready for the
AFTER PARTY
***Most Classes Provided FREE by Team RAD


The Evening: 8:30pm-12:30am
The After Party/Concert

Live music including DJ El Garzita, The Green Hour and Pretty Vanilla; a full bar serving cheap drinks and a chance to rock out with your friends and soon to be, fans. Tickets are $8 and available at The Wallflower at 2420 Main Street.

button snapshot

I heart buttons! If you haven't been to it yet, go check out Button Button in their new location right around the corner from Dressew. A little piece of heaven! Also, a great chance to top off that button collection!

Did you see those cute chipmunk and lemur buttons that I picked up on my last trip to Portland? So cute!

Lots of crafty things to do this weekend! Stay tuned for full details.

the Express

Here's the clip that we prepped and taped last month featuring Wendy Russell from the Vancouver Craft Mafia on Shaw TV with 4 easy DIY projects!




Stay tuned for more Shaw TV appearances with me (eek!!) and Stephanie from Fibre Manipulator!

** video courtesy of Erin Shaw from Shaw TV

Show and tell

Update: The post and full tutorial can be found on Granville Magazine!

I was asked to write a tutorial for fusing plastic shopping bags together to make a bag, so of course, without ever doing this before, I said "Sure!!". So, viola, my first zipper pouch made completely with a zipper and fused shopping bags. Not only is it environmentally friendly, but it is waterproof too!

After some trial and error, it was third time lucky.

A) Don't have the iron on too hot like I did
B) Don't use wax / freezer paper or regular paper like they say you can

Once the tutorial is published, I will post another copy over here for you to follow along. I am pretty happy about how it turned out - both the pouch and the tutorial. Maybe this will be the start of Tutorial Thursday's on here ?? :D

Craftgasm - Day Three

Flutter in Mississippi

I forgot to show you this link of us on the Museum of Contemporary Craft's flickr page. DIY accessories courtesy of Blim and Track and Field Designs.



Today's post includes a few snapshots of my favourite places in Portland.



Bolt on Alberta Street.



Porch Light in Mississippi. Just a hop, jump and a skip away from Flutter

That pretty much wraps up our whirlwind trip. Back to our normal scheduling ....

Craftgasm - Day Two

Check out West Coast Crafty for more images of the flag making process.

(amazing crochet installation by Mandy Greer


Back to the Museum of Contemporary Craft for the CraftPerspectives Conversation: Handmade Nation with Susan Beal (West Coast Crafty, Susanstars), Jill Bliss (Blissen), Kate Bingaman-Burt (Obsessive Consumption), Betsy Greer (Craftivism) Garth Johnson (Extreme Craft) and Faythe Levine (Handmade Nation). Moderated by Namita Gupta Wiggers, curator, Museum of Contemporary Craft.



Some topics included feminism and crafting, participant backgrounds and where they came from, challenges of being judged when they don't buy handmade, permission giving, crafting - a fad or will it last.

Earth Day - Call for Crafters

(image taken from Etsy Labs)

In celebration of Earth Day on Saturday, April 18th, 2009, Metrotown will be hosting an event called Reuse Me from 11:00am to 3:00pm at the Grand Court in Metropolis.

Reuse Me is inviting members of the community to discover what can be created with a little imagination and teaching others how to recycle items that you would find around the house.

I am currently looking for 5 to 7 crafters to come out and participate. Each crafter will be given a 4x6 table surface as their workshop space where they will spend the day crafting, networking and interacting with the general public. Crafters are encouraged to talk about their crafts, their materials and their process.

Since the event is taking place in Metrotown, crafters are not allowed to sell items, but crafters can give out promo material. Participating crafters will also be included in any press releases related to the event. Depending on what materials you require, expenses will be covered.

Some projects that we have already confirmed include:

• Artist that makes furniture out of cardboard boxes
• Nicole from It's Your Life will be on hand to teach you how to craft with old, plastic bags.
• Artist that takes pop cans and makes it into art
• Bliss in a Teacup will be there to show you how to turn your old t-shirts into a grocery bag
• Stephanie from Fibre Manipulator will be on-hand with demos
• Goodmorning, Morning! and Roxypop will teach you how to craft with everyday household items
• Astrid from Fire Ice Creations will teach you how to use recycled glass to make art and jewelry
• Marnie Thwaites uses old newspapers, paper bags and scrap paper and decorates them to make wrapping paper.
• Paper Boy will show you how to build your own frame and use scrap paper and junk mail to make new paper for notes.

Lots of fun and plenty of exposure. Contact me at info(at)lotusevents(dot)ca for more details and to get involved!

Craftgasm - Day One

First of all, craftgasm is what my friend Kim called this weekend in Portland and it pretty much sums up all the goodness we experienced!

I tried to blog during our trip, but it was such a whirlwind! We left Vancouver Thursday evening and stayed overnight in Olympia, two hours outside of Portland. We arrived in Portland about lunch time and headed over to the Museum of Contemporary Craft to drop off our swag bag donations. I figured that we would drop them off rather than ship them, as I didn't get on the band wagon until a week before we were leaving!




Don't the bags look good? We tried to get these for Vancouver, but these were left over from the book launch and Portland snapped up all the remaining bags! Rob and I did manage to grab two, so one of them will be given as a prize at the Handmade Nation Vancouver Premier.

Friday night was the Portland premier screening and although I knew the film was going to be good, it was incredible. 65 minutes of some of the most amazing and influential crafters in the United States - wow!! The staff at the Museum of Contemporary Craft put together a wonderful night and it was great to see and meet so many of the artists from the film that came down for the event.




I finally had the chance to meet Susan from West Coast Crafty. I have been reading her blog for the past year or so, so I was glad to see her in person. I also finally had a chance to meet Kim Werker from Vancouver. We were introduced by friends and seriously live maybe 20 minutes away from each other, but of course, we didn't meet until we were both standing (or maybe sitting?) in the screening room! I love her and can't wait to work on some awesome projects together!! Also, had the chance to meet Kate Bingaman-Burt, the founder of Obsessive Consumption and What did you buy today?. I had been talking to Kate leading up to the event about swag bags.



Of course, after talking over email since February, we were so happy to finally meet Faythe!! The screening ended with a 30 minute Q&A session and she was absolutely amazing.



If you don't have your tickets to Handmade Nation in Vancouver, then you should get them now! This is not to be missed! To purchase tickets, please visit the homepage of Got Craft or see the post below.

handmade nation - tickets now on sale!

I am so excited to announce that the new Got Craft website is now up! This is a one stop shop for all of the information that you need to attend or participate in our upcoming shows. Vendors now receive an image on the website as well as a link back to their site and their very own page where they can post more pictures! Everything is laid out clearly and the website is easier to navigate. I love it and I hope you do to!

To celebrate the new site, Got Craft? is proud to present the Vancouver Premier of Handmade Nation.

Thursday, July 9th, 2009
Ridge Theatre, 3131 Arbutus Street
Screening at 8:00pm, Craft Showcase at 7:00pm

Traveling across the world to sold out crowds, it is Vancouver’s turn to join the handmade revolution!

Join Director Faythe Levine, July 9th, for Western Canada’s premier of Handmade Nation. Be the first in Vancouver to see the film, meet Faythe Levine and participate in a Q&A session after the screening.

Tagged as the ‘Ambassador of Handmade’, Faythe Levine has traveled 19,000 miles to document what has emerged as a marriage between historical technique, punk culture, and the D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) ethos.

A companion book, Handmade Nation – The Rise of D.I.Y., Art, Craft, and Design, features 24 artists, their work environment, their process, their work, and discussions of how they got their start and what motivates them.

Tickets went on sale this morning and they have been coming in fast and furious! Space is limited. First 100 sold receive a free swag bag. For more information about the event or to purchase your tickets, please visit Got Craft?.

Swag bag participation! If you are interested in submitting items to the swag bags, please contact us. Lovely tote bags have been donated by Craft Stylish!

Yippeee!!

I am so excited to announce that the new Got Craft website is now up! This is a one stop shop for all of the information that you need to attend or participate in our upcoming shows. Vendors now receive an image on the website as well as a link back to their site and their very own page where they can post more pictures! Everything is laid out clearly and the website is easier to navigate. I love it and I hope you do to!

In other exciting and un-related news, Button Button is now open! I have not made my way downtown to go check it out, so you may want to give them a quick call to make sure they are opening on schedule - 318 Homer Street, Gastown, 604-687-0067. I heart buttons.