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, April 17, 2008

upcycle, re-T


upcycle, re-T, originally uploaded by ramonster cowpoke swankwear.

our april future crafters had an afternoon of attacking a pile of old t-shirts to see what they could come up with. we worked with patterns for both a skirt or a handbag, or they had the option to take a t-shirt who's artwork was less than inspiring to them and embellish the heck out of it.
everybody left with something totally unique and they had a great time making the stuff.
i felt lucky just to be there and bear witness to this cool posse of kids going to TOWN on this big old pile of shirts that otherwise would have been languishing at the bottom of a drawer, taken to goodwill (or the dump?), or used as a rag.
these kids got a glimpse of creating their own brand! way cooler than anything they could buy at target!
i'm totally inspired by these kids and the energy and enthusiasm they bring to their projects.
the future IS now, my friends!! wa-hoo!!

3 comments:

Panjo Kids said...

That is awesome and inspiring! Can't wait to hear more.

Kathie Sever said...

thanks, bell!!

Bernadette said...

Love the ransom note styling. Love the skirt. And love you and your crafty ways.