Lights of Love 5k benefiting Austin's Ronald McDonald House

Wanna support Austin's Ronald McDonald House & make an adorable snowman ornament while you're at it? Then join us at the Lights of Love 5K! It will take place at the Mueller Hangar this Friday, Dec. 4, at 6 pm. Here's what's happening:

* Run, jog or walk through SNOW provided by Event FX and Wolf Stuntworks at the Lights of Love 5K & Kids K Finish Line
* Take your picture with Santa Claus and Ronald McDonald
* Let your kids enjoy our holiday crafts area, with great activities from The Wondercraft
* Bring the entire family for kids entertainer, Mr. Leebot
* Listen to great music on the course and at the Hangar
* Kids K finishers enjoy a finisher's prize and the first girl and first boy receive a framed 16x20 portrait from Kiddie Kandids
* Enjoy the festive lights and hot chocolate stop on the 5K course
* Don't miss the annual lighting of the Mueller Tower.

More details on the Lights of Love Event Information page. You can also read 5 Ways to Join the Fun to find out how you can join the run, sponsor a runner, or make a donation to the Ronald McDonald House. See you at the Hangar!

Being Crafty & Conscious

Are you crafty and conscious?  Love to make and design your own personal and home accessories?  Here are a few tips to help you craft a little greener.

1. Always be on the look out at your favorite thrift stores for fabric bins, as well as old garments. Just because the garment may be out of date doesn’t mean you cant restyle it into something new and flattering.
   
2. Tape your old newspaper pieces together to make patterns and save cereal boxes to  make templates for your projects.
   
3. Going through your old clothes to donate to a secondhand store?  Any damaged items that cant be donated can be salvaged for findings.  Save those bits of lace, buttons, and zippers!  Seamstress have been doing it forever, and because of this lace from the 1800’s is surfacing at estate sales and on Ebay today!
   
4. You can also find some great vintage findings on Etsy from other crafty supply hoarding gals like yourself.
   
5. Take a second look at the things you're throwing away each week and challenge yourself to reinvent these items.  For example old metal tins can be cut up into shapes for jewelry using some metal shears.  
   

Have you tasted the goodness of Blue Note Bakery?

We here at The WonderCraft love supporting our fellow local businesses, especially when they are this tasty! Blue Note's desserts are simply marvelous! Blue Note Bakery got its start in a small, shared catering kitchen back in 2004, and has grown steadily ever since. They now have their own shop located on South Congress. They can create a unique dessert or custom cake for any occasion. Check out the photos of their one-of-a-kind works of "edible art!"


If you come out to our Mix & Make Crafty Hour tonight you can taste Blue Note Bakery's delicious treats for yourself! You can also kick back with a glass of wine, make some fabulous wine glass charms to take home, mingle and shop our boutique of handmade items from local artists. In honor of the East Austin Studio Tour, our Crafty Hour is free tonight! Come on out & get crafty with us! Stella is parked outside of Creative Side Jewelry Academy for the duration of E.A.S.T. at 628 Allen Street, stop #45.

DIY Door Side Memo Board

brought to you by Amanda Fay :) of Fayded Creation

Materials:

• wine corks
• picture frame
• glue gun 
• knife
• cutting board

Directions:

1. Wash and Dry your picture frame.  
2. Begin to lay out your corks and decide how you would like them arranged. I chose the zig zag pattern pictured above.
3. Using the knife and the cutting board, cut corks in half to fill in the edge spots where a full cork wont fit.
4. Once you have all your corks laid out and fitted to the frame, you can begin to hot glue them into place.
5. Now you can stand it up on your desk at the office or hand it next to your door.  You can even add hooks to the bottom where you can hang your keys!

Get crafty with us during E.A.S.T.!

We will be out on the East Austin Studio Tour with our Airstream trailer, Stella, parked at 628 Allen St. as guests of Creative Side Jewelry Academy (stop #45 on the E.A.S.T. map). Of course we'll be doing many crafty projects you can take part in throughout the week!

We'll have a huge rocketship sculpture outside, with a variety of materials so you can make something unique to add to it. We look forward to watching it develop into something awesome over the course of the tour! We'll also be doing some of our most popular make & take projects, like upcycled cardboard wallets & mustaches-on-a-stick (as modeled above by 2 party-goers at the Beard Folks event at Austin Handmade). Fun, fun stuff! Aside from joining in our crafty fun, it will be a great chance for you to see the talented artists of Creative Side at work, too!

Additionally, we'll have a lovely little boutique set up inside the trailer featuring the work of all 4 WonderCraft founders, as well as that of several of our EtsyAustin team members, chock full of fabulous handmade items such as:

* jewelry from Merritt Gade, Lucy Blue Studio & Broken Ear Productions
* unique purses & wallets from Fayded Creation
* fun greeting cards & screenprinted apparel from Paired Hearts
* awesome art for your walls from Leah Duncan, Nessa Dee & The Flashbulb
* appliqued clothing & gifts for kids from The Snuggle Herd
* felted goodies & felting kits from Gypsy Harte
* DIY screen-printing kits and stamp sets from Craft Chi
and more!

And don't miss our Third Thursday Mix & Make crafty hour at the trailer on 11/19 from 5-9pm. There will be free wine & nibbles & lots of crafting fun, so we hope you'll stop by!

What Can I Do With Paper?

Jen here. Lately, I've been looking at my collections of random materials and trying to come up with ways to finally use it. I'm an infamous pack rat but since I'm rapidly running out of space to store new goodies, I need new projects to use up the old ones. I love paper and since we started up The WonderCraft we have made some great things with scrap materials. We have decorated cardboard wallets and mustaches as well as made paper mosaics out of recycled magazines and other papers.

Here are some more ideas and inspirations to help get your creative juices flowing with regards to recycling old magazines and paper products.

Collage:

Clemens Habicht


Jonathan Oxlade

PaperCrafts:

from Cubecraft

Origami:

from Origami Club

Don't forget decoupage! You can cover all sorts of things from the backs of cabinets, table tops, dresser drawers, mirror frames, etc with any paper scraps you have collected. It is a great way to alter old pieces to give them new life.

Ohdeedoh

Visit our Airstream during the East Austin Studio Tour

Enjoy free, fun craft projects, local food & drinks and shopping our boutique full of wonderful local artists! We'll be parked in front of Creative Side. Lots more info on our Get Crafty blog. Hope to see you there!