Handmade Chirstmas Shopping: Blue Genie & Armadillo

On Thursday night Beth H and I went Christmas shopping & loaded up on gifts & artsy inspiration. We started off at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, now held at the Palmer Events Center. We didn't know what to expect since neither of us had ever been before! (a travesty, I know!)

We had heard that it can be a little more of the old fashioned type of craft show, but we what we were surprised by was the amazing fine art & more expensive gifts available. While it was definitely different from the "indie" craft shows we participate in, we both found some great gifts and stuff we loved for ourselves.

Of course the first thing I bought wasn't a gift really... its for the baby! This awesome boston terrier onesie was made by Animated Closet, from a booth shared with our friend Chantell Champlain of Kalei Doscope Aromacare.

These felt flowers were made from old sweaters that had been felted & formed, they really caught our eye & Beth bought some for a gift.

Right next door there was a candle vendor called Lights Out and I loved all the scents! I bought some for gifts & some to keep. My favorite was Chocolate Martini, mmmm.
We both LOVED the letterpress block vendor, The Olde Press Prints of London, who had these amazing letter collages & stamps. You could buy a drawer and fill it with letters & pictures, so awesome. Beth bought a vintage looking elephant stamp.
At one end of the asile was Flim Flam, a guy making these amazing little metal animal sculptures that when you roll them they move all their limbs. This crab's legs moved and pinchers opened & closed, it was really cool.
After The Armadillo, we were on to Blue Genie. Their entrance sign was spectacular! We were impressed with how they really transformed the whole Marchesa into a store, the entry had several displays & central check out.
We loved our pal Brandy Davis' anatomy collages for her shop Pigsey Art.
One lucky person on my list is getting one of these awesome laser cut lanterns, by Curious Customs.

I was absolutely in love with this amazing wall sculpture from Articulture & I bought a smaller item from them for another lucky person on my list.
I absolutely loved this trunk display from Darla Teagarden Photography, not to mention her amazing work!
It was a very successful shopping night, I think I got everyone on my list covered. I'll have to post more later because I didn't want those on my list who read this to see their gifts before I give them!

Renegade or Bust! Only 3 more days!!!

Tissue paper, pipe cleaners & faux jewels, oh my! What are we doing with all of these craftastic materials, you ask? Getting ready for the Renegade Craft Fair, of course!

Beth A & our awesome intern, Caitlin, made dozens of pretty tissue flowers to decorate our booth. I made a sign for our crafty make & take: Trick Out Some Timber! And we made some other super-cool decorations, but you'll have to come out to the show to see those! We have to save some surprises to wow you, right?

By now you've probably heard all about it, but if not, hop over to the Renegade page to get all the deets! It's happening THIS WEEKEND, and believe me, you don't want to miss it. We'll be there with Stella's Boutique (that's right: we're bringing our Airstream right into the events center!) & crafty DIY fun for you guys. There will be over 200 indie-crafters, interactive awesomeness from our friends at The Stitch Lab, Austin Craft Mafia & sooo much more! Too much handmade goodness to list here, so come on out & see for yourself!

Wood You Like To Try This?

Jen here. The girls at The WonderCraft have been hard at work getting our crafty fun project ready for The Renegade Craft Fair that is coming up just around the corner (May 15th & 16th). I think you guys will have a blast with our project.

I will share a few of the things I did for the sample I made here. One of the things we will be showing everyone at Renegade is a simple image transfer technique. It's super-easy, fun and versatile.

Now, I don't want to spoil the fun on that project so I went with a different technique for this blog post, but the results are similar. I decided to use graphite paper and transfer an image. Not as easy as it sounds. But after drawing in the missing pieces with a marker, I was pretty happy. I embellished it with some pieces I cut out of a doily, then decided to Mod Podge the whole image. Well, it smeared a bit so after fussing with it, I just went with the results and played them up. The result is a much softer look than I had originally planned, but I like it.

If you want to make your own cute wall hanging or pendant then come on down and visit us at Renegade! We'll have a ton of supplies and some great techniques to share.

Project: Pretty Upcycled Jewelry

We recently hosted a super fun jewelry party and I thought I'd share the project we did together. We were asked to do a jewelry party, but we wanted to do something really different than just beading or basic jewelry techniques. Inspired by these new fabric flower necklaces we've been seeing everywhere lately (Kim and I had spotted a cute one at J Crew in the Domain but this one is from Anthropologie) we spent an afternoon playing with fabric and jewelry parts and designed some fun pieces.

I created this asymmetrical necklace using different fabric qualities straight out of my scrap bin and inserting a large jump ring into the middle of the chain. It was really easy too!
Beth H made the cute green earrings that Jen is sporting in this pic. Jen made several pins that can be converted into hair clips, the possibilities seem endless!




We'll be teaching similar techniques at the upcoming Renegade Craft Fair, so come on by and learn it! Or have your own crafty party or custom class and learn anything you want!

Lantern Fest 2010

The WonderCraft is one of the awesome vendors at this year's Lantern Fest held at the Sri Atmanda Memorial School on Red River at 41st street.

We'll be bringing out Stella and doing a super fun and easy scratch-board printing craft. Bring your whole family ready to enjoy another one of Austin's unique and local events!

Want to craft your own lantern? Come out to the festival and learn how, or check out this quick and easy tutorial on Suite101.

Artist Spotlight - SquidInkKollective

Last night I met the lovely and super crafty Lynnea 1/2 of SquidInkKollective at our monthly EtsyAustin team meeting. So naturally I had to check out her goods this morning especially since she'll be joining us for the upcoming Grand Opening of our WonderCraft boutique location February 25th 2010! Come check out her beautiful and unique screenprinted shirts, linens, and accessories.

The Squid Ink Kollective was founded in the fall of 2007 by Brian Maclaskey, who has been studying printmaking since his early teens. Brian was drawing his own cartoons from the age of 5 and grew up on a healthy diet of Robert Crumb, Propaghandi and anti-circus protests. When he's not screen printing, he's working on his own art (see http://conybologna.etsy.com), playing the drums, or making food with Lynnea.

Lynnea Edwards, the other half of the Kollective, was groomed to be a professional musician but decided to learn a more important skill than composing for whenever the apocalypse occurs. She is an entirely self-taught seamster and loves nerding out about fabric weight and different types of interfacing.

Squid Ink Kollective consists of a great team, Brian and Lynnea along with their simple set up of 1 six color manual print press, 1 exposure unit, 3 sewing machines, a whole ton of ink, screens, squeegees, thread, fabric, rulers, scissors, some trusty computers and a printer.

The mediums they have chosen to pursue our artistic creativity in allow them to share their passion with the general public as an accessible alternative to mass production. This company represents the hard work and commitment of artists dedicated to a creative-based living.

To learn even more visit their website at http://www.spiralloop.com

Awesome.

Join us at We Make Stuff, Sept. 19

We Make Stuff will be another fantastic evening of art, music & fashion brought to you by Electric Promotions. A variety of Austin artists & designers, musicians, vendors, retail boutiques and food & drink sponsors will be there, plus a fashion show and a skateboard painting contest! We WonderCraft gals will be there to offer a fun "Make & Take" project, and help out our EtsyAustin teammates with a DIY screenprinting table. Come by to print your own "I Make Stuff" t-shirt. Tres chic!

Hope to see you there! September 19, 7pm - 12am at The Scoot Inn.

Stella to appear at the Handmade Nation Screening & Craft Fair on Sept. 6

Author/Filmmaker Faythe Levine will be in town Labor Day Weekend for a book signing party on Saturday at Domy Books, and of course the film screenings & Q&A sessions on Sunday at the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar. We are very excited to have been invited to participate in the fun at this Austin premiere! We'll be part of the craft bazaar featuring about a dozen local artists outside of the Drafthouse on Sunday, 9/6. It will be from noon to 6pm, so come by before the movie! We'll be there with Stella, our vintage Airstream trailer, doing a crafty "Make & Take" project that you won't want to miss. Then we'll enjoy the movie & head over to the Post-screening Shabang at Austin Handmade! Get all the deets for the weekend & buy your tix on Sublime Stitching's site!