Future Craft Collective Mission:




The future craft collective is about inspiring children to get crafty, to create beauty, while simultaneously teaching them ways of minimizing our impact on this earth.  It's about understanding ways of recycling, reducing, reusing, and at the same time, making some really cool stuff.  
Throughout the craft sessions, kids will discover ways to create a world in which the belief in handmade looms larger than the messages of the marketing machine.  In this era of relentless advertising and planned obsolescence, the time has come to infuse our children with our own messages of creative living and sustainability.  This message too can save a kid from a lifetime of seeking contentment through consumption.
The future craft collective wants kids to understand the thrill of making it themselves.  We want them to look at the used goods all around them not as trash, or as items to be tossed in the recycling bin, but rather as raw materials in their crafty creative pursuits, thereby allowing them to experience the innovative feeling of instilling new life into old objects.  
From the idea, to the completion of a project, to showing it off in public, we can teach children to recognize the value and pride and indeed the thrill in saying "Thanks, I made it myself."  And the even greater thrill of utilizing old-fashioned ideals of resourcefulness and ingenuity and of finding the hidden life in abandoned materials.
in addition to making some really cool things we'll cover:
-why is there so much?  understanding that less is more.
-what are retailers doing to the value of handmade?
-the pride of making it yourself.
-the joys of creating personal style.
-the value in knowing the ability to create is within his/her realm.
-tapping into a kids' inherent desire to create.
-recognizing the marketing machine of a consumer culture.
-spreading the love and celebrating the thrill of handmade.

Each session stands alone with a lesson in sustainability and a hands-on project, which will lead to a greater understanding of the thrill of consciously crafting.  A follow-up discussion of each project will lead to greater understanding of the thrill of handmade, the need to minimize the impact and the necessity of creating rather than consuming.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

FUTURE CRAFT COLLECTIVE SUMMER CAMPS 2008

email us to enroll.

Sew Boy: For boys ages 8 to 12.
monday june 9 through friday june 13
9 am till 1 pm
max 8 kids
$200
A heavy piece of electronic machinery with a sharp object that could potentially hurt the user – what more could a boy want? Sew Boy will introduce boys to some sewing basics that will de-gender the world of sewing and bring it to them with totally boy-friendly projects. In a girl-less class they’ll be able to truly explore the thrill of handmade without having to pretend that sewing and crafting is “too girlie”.

This week will start off with a trip to the thrift store where boys will be able to search for potential yardage among the linens and drapes and blankets. We’ll appeal to their competitive selves by making a contest out of getting the most from the yardage they choose. We’ll explore the hidden crafts in random household objects too such as plastic bags, cereal boxes, and the endless t-shirt collections which come from all directions and infiltrate every American household. They’ll never look at the garbage or recycling bin the same way ever again.

Has Beens: Lessons on not taking out the trash For girls ages 8-12.
monday june 16 through friday june 20
9 am through 1 pm
max 8 kids
$200
Packaging represents about 65% of household trash. More than 20,000,000 Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using 133 square miles of tinfoil. In a one-mile stretch of the average U.S. highway, you will find nearly 1500 pieces of trash.

This week will focus on the packaging we bring in, what we throw out and what we recycle, and how we can reclaim it in some very cool ways. We will discuss the importance of reducing what we use and what we toss thereby minimizing our impact in some very big ways. We’ll explore sewing with paper and cardboard, reclaiming burlap and other heavy duty packagings, the many uses and re-uses of Tyvek and other modern packaging. Your child, and therefore you, will never look at your trash or your recycling the same way again.

Bed, Craft and Beyond: What to do with linens and things*
monday august 11th through friday august 15th
9 am through 1 pm
max 8 kids
$200
It’s easy to walk into a fabric store and pick through the various bolts and samples in order to make the things you need to make. But it’s way more fun and adventurous, not to mention more eco-minded, to give new life to items that have already served their time as something else. We’ll begin with a trip to the thrift store to dig through the linens and drapes and blankets and things. We’ll look for extra groovy fabrics of different weights and patterns and sizes. We’ll teach the kids to examine the wear and usability of the pieces to determine just how much life is left. Then we’ll get to work with our patterns and figure out just how many things we can make out of the chosen pieces. The kids will be amazed, and you might too, at how much life is in those old fabrics. This is not recycling, this is upcycling – giving old objects brand new life.

*Our apologies for the title but we just couldn’t resist.



The Land of 10,000 T’s
monday august 18th through friday august 22nd
9 am through 1 pm
max 8 kids
$200
Our houses are full of them. They come at us from every direction: from teams and clubs and concerts and camps and camps and more camps. Well, this camp too will provide your child with a take-home T or two only this one will be uniquely crafted, cut, stitched and stamped – no two alike. We’ll explore the hidden uses in those thousands of t-shirts by deconstructing, remaking, printing, stamping and ironing on. If you have any favorites of your own, you may want to hide them from your kid after this camp because they’ll never see a T-shirt they won’t want to remake into something unique and fabulouso!

1 comment:

Bernadette said...

Wow! Sign us up pronto!