A new Kit in town!

Beth A here, I've been working on a new kit of ours that Beth H had started off with a class (it was our first class) And we figured that it would make a great little kit so we worked on the instructions, making them easier to understand and include lots of diagrams. I also wanted to try making a smaller version of the star to include.


So last night I tried it out and even had my husband Aaron try following the instructions, he had some good comments, like which side is the "front"? With the new instructions, some packaging design and now photos I've gotten these kits up on our Etsy site.

When I first tried the little star, with just scaled down dimensions of the bigger one, I didn't really like how small the center was (see it on the left), so I augmented the template and made another one that I like a lot better (the one on the right). I'm sure you all know about crafty trial and error!

Craftin' Masks for the Mixx & Make!

We'll be doing make & take masks at the Mixx & Make Pre-Halloween Craftacular this Saturday! It's gonna be so fun! Last night we WonderCrafters got together with Candace from Electric Promotions and made some example masks. We've got quite a stash of creative supplies and Candace made some rad mask templates that you've gotta see! We had a blast & made these funky masks. Come out to the partay this Saturday & make a fabulous or freaky mask with us!




All of us here at The WonderCraft are excitedly working on our Halloween costumes for it, too. Omg, we've only got 2 more days! What are we going as???? It's a surprise! You'll have to come out to the Mixx & Make to find out, although you may find some hints on my blog, Crafty Mishmash, and Jen's blog, Crafty Redhead. Join in the fun & show off your own awesome costume Saturday night! I have a hunch there may be prizes involved...

There will also be Treaty Oak red rum, coffin cakes from Blue Note Bakery, a fun photo booth with Trevor Ray Thompson, an amazing guitar giveaway, local music plus lots more! RSVP online to get in for $6. $8 at the door.

Looking for a way you can turn your trash into treasure?  Want to impress your friends with your brilliant crafting skills?  Looking for an inexpensive gift idea?  Dont worry, because here I am with the latest DIY project to brighten up your home space!

What you will need for this project:

*one jar/glass container/ or tallish tin

* two colors of spray paint

*piece of lace ribbon

*spray adhesive

*ribbon or fabric strip (optional

* Newspaper/ cardboard box/ or tarp for spray paint surface

What you will need to finish your gift

*potting soil 

*flower or plant of your choice

STEP 1: Clean and dry your glass container

STEP 2: Lay out your newspaper/ cardboard box/ or tarp to protect your work space

STEP 3: Working in your newly defined, and protected work area, spray the outside of the container with the paint color you have chosen to be your base.  Let dry.

STEP 4: Lay your lace flat and spray one side with spray adhesive.  (always using your protected work area)

STEP 5: Wrap your lace, sticky side down, around the glass container.  Press to secure all edges.

STEP 6: Use your second paint color to spray overtop the lace.  This will allow the lace to act as a stencil.

STEP 7: THE BIG REVEAL! Remove your lace...OHHHH!!! AHHHH!!! Let Dry.

FINISHING TOUCHES

STEP 8: Tie your ribbon or fabric strip around the container in a bow 

STEP 9: Add the flower or plant of your choice and fill with potting soil.

Now your ready to enjoy it for your self, or give it as a gift!  They are great for housewarming or business warming gifts!  

Halloween Inspiration

Jen here. I know a few of you folks out there are still trying to pull together some costume ideas. Most of the girls here at The WonderCraft are scrambling around trying to get ours together for both Halloween weekend and our Pre-Halloween Mixx Make bash this Saturday. I thought I would post a few helpful links to get your creative juices flowing. The costumes I picked use the humble cardboard box as inspiration. Believe me, it is amazing what you can make from cardboard.


As most of you know, I love robots. My new favorite blog (Mostly Forbidden Zone) has several postings of old Popular Mechanics articles illustrating how to build a robot costume. Great stuff. Cardboard robots are a classic and economical costume solution.

The Operation game costume has been a favorite idea of mine for years. Anything interactive is always a good idea. Makes breaking the ice at Halloween parties much easier.

For another interactive but economical costume, try being a camera. I love that the maker included a working flash. Makes night, party shots much easier. Plus, you would be expected to take photos. A great motivator for the shy photographers among us.

If you still need a few ideas, try the Instructables website. You can also join us Saturday and make a mask!

Thought about the holidays yet?

Every year Austin is host to a number of awesome holiday shopping venues and events. The WonderCraft will be at a few, so I thought I share a little list of what we're signed for and what else is out there.

First on the calendar is early November, The Hill Country Arts and Crafts Fair. Saturday November 7 from 9am-4pm and Sunday November 8 from 11am-4pm and located at Sun City Texas Social Center Ballroom at 2 Texas Drive, its a free event too. Get on out shopping early and see Beth H out there with her Snuggle Herd!


The following week we'll be out with Stella at EAST. The East Austin Studio Tour has become an annual event where galleries and studios all over the east side of Austin open their doors and host events of all sorts. We are going to be across from The Creative Side Jewelry Academy of Austin at 628 Allen Street with our big Airstream Stella, she'll be a boutique, a gallery, and a crafty space. Come by and create something with us!

Then starts the famous Blue Genie Art Bazaar going from December 2-24th! At the Monarch Evens Center.

Next up December 5th and 6th there are two great shows going on, one is hosted by the Wheatesville Co-Op and goes from 10am-5pm. The other is Presented By EtsyAustin and is called Craft Riot! - A handmade revolution in shopping. This year we have the luck to be hosted by the owner of Wines.com at his headquarters near the intersection of Springdale Rd and 290, at 5005 Commercial Park Dr. We're also bringing Stella out to this one to house the photo booth with Santa as well as some of our wares. Its happening Saturday Dec 5th from 10am-8pm and Sunday Dec 6th 11am-7pm, $3 entry includes a glass of wine! (or bottled water) Also on hand will be yummy eats and a ton of our EtsyAustin friends.

After that starts the ever famous Armadillo Christmas Bazaar going from December 11-24th at the Austin Convention Center.

Then comes a fantastic show the Cherrywood Art Fair, Saturday Dec. 12, 10am-6pm and Sunday Dec. 13, 12-6pm at Maplewood Elementary. This is another one that Stella is coming out for, we'll be hosting a DIY gift wrap station and of course she'll have the boutique interior set up for selling.

Finally finishing the season with the Keep Austin Bizarre, at Fiesta Gardens December 18-21st, we're not vending but we'll be out shopping by then!

Hope your holidays are as handmade as ours!

Robots & Mustaches & Beards, Oh my!

It's been a crazy-fun week getting ready for 2 awesome events.

First, I hope you'll join us tonight for The Robot Challenge at Imperia! Starting at 5:00, you can show off your robot-building skillz & compete for fabulous prizes! Ticket price includes all supplies for the challenge, 2 California rolls & a drink. Get your advance tix thru Google Checkout for only $18! $20 at the door.




Then, tomorrow night, continue the fun with the Beard Folks Art Show at Austin Handmade. We'll be there to help you make your very own beard or goatee to wear (like mine above)! There will also be great food, bevvies, music, giveaways & a "bearded" photo booth - fun times, for sure!

Computer parts anyone?!

We've spent a couple days now just tearing apart old computer bits getting ready for the Robot Challenge on Thursday and have now created all of our grab bags! We even got an intern who's been a HUGE help!!

Jen made this awesome robot rubber stamp! (you can take her class and learn how)

We scrounged up a lot of these parts from friends and supplemented the stash with stuff bought by the pound from Computers 4 Kids. We got 8 keyboards, mice, and a ton of other junk there, at a bargan to-boot!


The disk drives had some of the best goodies inside, but you need tiny tools to get those apart.

Remote control buttons are so satisfying to push, and their circuit boards are going to make good robot parts.

We now have an enormous stash of keys, they sound just like Legos when you play with them, its cool.


Come get inspired!!! Hope to see you out at the challenge! Its going to be a steep competition so you're sure to see some awesome work, and the drink and appetizer will be delicious!

Beard Folks Art Show at Austin Handmade

Does this sound like fun or what?!
Beard Folks Art Show featuring the work of Corinne Loperfido. Other artists featured along with DIY demos by The Wondercraft & music from Team Fabrication.

Friday, Oct. 16 - 6:30 to 9:30pm - at Austin Handmade

Sponsors include: Saint Arnold Brewery, Birds Barbershop, Treaty Oak Rum, The Wondercraft, Sugar Mamma's Bakeshop

Raffle & Giveaways, first come first served!

Get Ready for ROBOTS!!!

We're busy planning our Robot Challenge Mix & Make that takes place next Thursday, 10/15 at Imperia from 5-8pm. It's going to be awesome!

Think you've got the skillz to win it? You could take home a fabulous robot trophy! And of course, the respect & admiration of all your crafty peers. Click this link to our events blog to purchase discounted tickets (Buy Now button at the end of the blog post).

Kim & Jen made all of these robots here - can you outdo them? We want to see!


Be there or be square.

Looking Forward to Halloween!

Jen here! If you follow my personal blog you may have already seen these photographs but I wanted to share them here as well. Halloween is my favorite holiday. I never got over the thrill of dressing up as a creature of the night, or the fun of scaring yourself silly with ghost stories. I am enamored by jack-o-lanterns, bat decorations and fake cobwebs. Despite that, it has been a few years since I really allowed myself the time to concoct a cool costume. This year I am going to be a steam punk Frankenstein monster.

I made myself two hats because I still can't decide on whether to go with the cool vintage hat my dad gave me (I can add goggles to it!) or the cute mini top hat that seems to be exploding on Etsy lately.



To add a little realism to the costume I also took some inspiration from other Etsy artists and made a choker and 2 bracelets that make it look like my head and hands have been stitched on. I made those out of polymer clay and craft wire. Now, I'm trying to make a tulle bustle and add some lace and accessories to my favorite velvet jacket.

Hopefully I'll have the whole thing finished by our Mixx Make Pre-Halloween Craftacular and I'll post pictures of the finished costume.

Getting Crafty with toilet paper tubes

Hi Beth A here, I thought I'd do a How-to posting for my latest favorite item to keep, toilet paper tubes! I've been keeping these things for months now, knowing I wanted to make something out of them. The first thing I made was some cute necklaces for kids to make-n-take at a "green" fair back in the spring, but I'd always thought I could make some type of window screen with cut pieces. So when I was catching up on my reading of the Craft blog I saw this post about paper tube wall art, I'll admit that I didn't actually read the instructions, but I knew that I could modify the project to become my window screen. So here is how I did it:

Mine uses only 5 toilet paper tubes.


Then I picked out a paper to cover the inside and outside of the tube (white and red), cut the paper into quarters (4.25 x 5.5 inches).
I then put the cut paper into a box to spray mount them, that way the spray doesn't get on the floor. I used 3M Super 77, but a regular spray mount or even rubber cement would probably work fine.
Then roll the paper over the tube on the outside and roll it and tuck into the inside. After they are all covered with paper, cut them with regular crafts scissors into about 1/4" slices (you should get between 9-10 slices per tube) You can cut them thinner or thicker as you like. When you cut the strips they'll get a little bent, into a leaf shape.
I then arranged them in the design pattern that I liked, it took some fussing, but I wanted something asymmetrical while still somewhat rectangular to fit into my window.
I then glued each petal together with regular school glue, I tried a glue stick first but it didn't work. I did not clothes-pin them, but you may want to depending on the intricacy of your design. I glued them one at a time keeping the design intact while lifting one slice up and gluing it.

Wah-LA! You've got to attach some string to the top, and hang it wherever needs a little inspiration.

Free First Thursday Fun!

We'll be out at Wooldridge Park today from 4-7 pm for the kick-off party of the month-long Get Your Art On celebration. Come by and make some art with us! Just look for Stella, our 32-foot Airstream trailer!

Other event highlights include: Greater Tuna’s Aunt Pearl (Joe Sears) making Halloween cards and crafts with kids; The Biscuit Brothers of PBS as strolling minstrels; theatrical excerpts from Austin Bike Zoo’s “Wheels of Wonderland,” an imaginative treatment of Alice in Wonderland; improv comedy courtesy of The Hideout; and musical performances by The Austin School for the Performing and Visual Arts, featuring YouthCast Choice Award winners, “AfterMath.” So much to see! And did I mention it's all FREE?!

Be sure to check nowplayingAustin.com for a complete list of all the Get Your Art On events going on this month.