emiko-o reware

Nothing better than making the front pages of your hometown’s major newspaper! It only took me 15 years, but here I am featured as the Style &  Taste  cover story for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 11, 2012! Wonderful article, “Silver, gold, Lego: Precious links to the past are jeweler’s gems“ by John Petkovic – we had a long phone interview back last fall and it was definitely worth the wait. HUGE, multiple images accompany the article (photographed by me, Aryn Shelander, and Christine Dhein).  A different angle with this article, focusing on my Parma roots and start as a young recycling artist. Plus a nice quote from local retailer who carries my work in downtown Cleveland, Anne Van Hauwaert Fashion Design. If you’re in the area, stop in her boutique at Little Italy’s schoolhouse at 2026 Murray Hill #106, Cleveland, OH 44106.

As I say from time to time, “Cleveland Rocks!” To read the online version, go to cleveland.com or click here to see a larger image.

This weekend,  July 9-10, Accessorize with Toys Workshop will be at Renegade Craft Fair SF at Fort Mason’s Festival Pavilion. We’re bringing back the ever-popular Charm Bracelet project, and trying a new format with hourly seating for 10 participants. Make your own personalized charm bracelet from recycled toy and game parts – we provide all the parts, findings and tools, plus demos!

Sessions will be 45 minutes at the top of the hour, starting with a demo and should allow for more individual time with us. Fee is $10. Come a few minutes before the hour to get your spot! Find us up in the Mezzanine: sessions are Saturday 12-4pm, Sunday 1-5pm. Check out Renegade’s Website and Facebook page for more info on the fair.

See us on Renegade's home page!

About to head into the second day of the much anticipated, annual Maker Faire! Just when you think it can’t get any bigger or hold more people, it just blows you away! Our Accessorize with Toys workshop certainly has a following after 6 years of doing this event and we look forward to the creativity and enthusiasm for craft and reuse in our participants, from 3 yrs of age to 80.

This time we’re focusing on Expressive Name Badges, our favorite project so far with people of all ages and skills. A very personal project, people invest in making the badge (even as signs for their bedroom doors at home, genius, Lucy!), and are very proud to spread the word about upcycling afterwards. And so many terrific badges today–there must have been close to 150 projects made in a mere 4 hours today. Can you believe we were out of glue sticks by 4pm, yikes!

Great seeing our repeat AWT Fans – anyone coming back again today gets to make for free. We thank everyone who contributed funds towards our supplies costs, and who dontated toy/game parts.

Best Upcycled toy redo of the day. Sparkle Pants!

Find us in the EXPO HALL, #253 closer to the South Delaware St entrance. Right between LEGO (drool, drool) and the large, luminous CRAFT orb. Today from 12-4pm. Come early while the pickin’s best. 

For more info, go to our page on Maker Faire’s website.

You won’t want to miss my last holiday event of the year, happening today, Dec 3, from 4-7pm at Interstice Gallery in the Mission! If you haven’t been by the space yet for one of Shana’s previous events, make sure to come out this weekend and get in the holiday spirit with us. Today I’ll have TONS of LEGO jewelry for everyone on your gift list: NEW kids pendants and bracelets; long, swingy pendants on sterling chains; cufflinks, plus sophisticated new color combinations like Aura, Aegean, and Cashmere. I’ll have my full catalog handy to take Pre-Orders with FREE SHIPPING for items I don’t have on hand. My event is featured this week in THE LATEST AND GREATEST on BoldItalic.com.

Also, NEW LEGO Greeting Cards! So much fun to style and photograph, this is definitely going to be an annual, recurring product. Inspired by our Accessorize with Toys workshops and all those board game boards, I’ve made Upcycled Ornaments and Table Tops Trees, all which will be at the gallery this weekend. Not to mention the Hugging Dinosaurs ornament series (hard to resist the Golden Dinos, or anything spray painted gold, for that matter). If you’re on facebook, you can see the event posted there and also on Shana’s blog.

Speaking of ornaments, come by the gallery on Sat, Dec 4, from 1-4pm for our Ornament Making Party. Make your own ornaments from recycled game/toy parts and I’ll spray paint it gold to give it extra pizzazz. $20 gets you all the ornaments you can glue gun together, plus treats and mulled wine. It’s addictive, and you’re guaranteed to go home with successful projects, perhaps even gifts.  The SF Chronicle listed our Ornament Making Party as one of the Eight Great DIY Holiday Gift Workshops!

Interstice Gallery
3443 26th St, between Mission and Valencia, SF

Accessorize with Toys is rockin’ the holidays with Ornament making workshops this Thurs, Dec 2, from 6-10pm at The Workshop in SF. Robotix, Lincoln logs, LEGO, army men, and all sorts of toy parts, perfect for decking out the tree. Come ready to wield a glue gun and you’ll be hooked on the ornament-making train! The Workshop is making a party of it as well, providing brewskies and tunes by local djs. It will be a festive time; we’d love to see you there!

Our event is featured in SFStation’s Holiday Shopping Events: http://www.sfstation.com/holiday-shopping-a33531

WHERE: The Workshop
1798 McAllister @ Baker, SF
WHEN: Thurs, Dec 2, 6-10pm; 6-8pm kids welcome
HOW MUCH: $15 adults, $10 kids; It’s Open House, so you can wander in off the street and check it out before plunkin’ down cash

Celebrate the Fall Equinox with us this Thursday (Sept 23), 11:30am-1:30pm as we bring Accessorize with Toys to Green Zebra for their Power Hour lunchtime event! Green Zebra Environmental Action Center is a great community resource for many of your eco needs. You may know them best by the great coupon book they publish, highlighting eco companies in the Bay Area. Recycle your batteries, bulbs, and come get valuable info on how you can lessen your carbon footprint.

projects made at SCRAP workshop

Why spend your lunch hour in the office? Come down to the Crocker Galleria, lower level (enter on Sutter Street side) and make jewelry with us: charm bracelets, expressive badges, necklaces, keychains! Super easy to get to: take Muni/Bart to the Montgomery St station, and the Galleria is on 50 Post @  Montgomery. Class fee is $10.

brooch made at SCRAP workshop

Then on Friday, Sept 24, 4-7pm join us for our Artist Reception Happy Hour at Green Zebra, celebrating our recycled jewelry art show, “From Geekery to Regality: Beauty in Reuse”. My Metal Arts Critique Collective (M.A.C.) has been showing a selection of our recycled jewelry work in the window of Green Zebra for their Eco Fashion Month. Open your minds to the creative possibilities in circuit boards and recycled & familiar plastics.

Meet the artists, have a bite and drink, and peruse the selection of smaller, ready-to-wear jewelry for sale (bling yourself out for your dinner date!). Party ends at 7 (gates close then), so come early!

See more from M.A.C. on the web: http://critiquecollective.rewarestyle.com/

Accessorize with Toys Workshop @ Green Zebra
Thurs, Sept 23, 11:30-1:30pm
$10 class fee

From Geekery to Regality: Beauty in Reuse
Recycled jewelry by the Metal Arts Critique Collective
Sept 1-30 with Artist Reception Friday, Sept 24, 4-7pm

BOTH EVENTS HELD AT: Green Zebra in the Crocker Galleria
50 Post Street @ Montgomery, SF

I’m super excited that we’ll be doing our Accessorize with Toys Workshop for the 2nd time at SCRAP! Happening this Saturday, Aug 28 from 1-4pm at SCRAP’s main location 801 Toland St @ Newcomb (off of Bayshore). We just went last week to SCRAP to scrounge around for precious toy parts and we scored BIG, so come to the workshop and partake in our trashures!

Continuing the fun of charm bracelets, key chains, expressive name badges, and necklaces — learn how to cold connect alternative materials, whether it be riveting, grometting or wire working. We’ll help you actualize your vision. Bring personal, special  pieces from home to incorporate into your wearable projects. Read more on SCRAP’s webpage (they recently redesigned their site and it’s mighty attractive!).

Next on the workshop front: Power Hour Lunch workshop at Green Zebra, Thurs, Sept 23 from 11:30am-1:30pm. $10 fee. Drop-ins welcome. Bring a friend and spread the crafting love!

I can hardly believe it’s been 2 months since I last posted, but here we are again, gearing up for another Accessorize with Toys crafting marathon! This weekend we’ll be at Renegade Craft Fair at the SF Fort Mason Festival Pavilion (the large building way out back by the water), 11am -7pm. This year the organizers have really upped the ante by making this much more than a crafting bazaar selling of wares. Upstairs in the Mezzanine will be a Craft Hub, which is where we’ll be, along with other hands-on workshops by SCRAP and Etsy! Food, drink, and even live music! Best of all, it’s FREE entry (’cause they know you’ll for sure spend some greenbacks once you’re in).

We’ll be doing decorative badges, keychains, and bracelets the entire weekend, so stop by and make something with us. As always, we encourage people to bring favorite parts and bits from home to make their creations extra personal. Like last year, we are asking for a $5 donation per project to cover our material and booth costs. However, if you bring us a DONATION of small Toy or Game PARTS, you get to make a FREE PROJECT.

Take a minute to check out the Renegade Craft Fair site (we’re the first on the list of artists/vendors!) to plan your course of crafting action for the weekend.
Stay posted on our latest news and upcoming events and photos on our Facebook page. The map to the fair is linked there. Become a fan right now!

It’s that time of year again for the awe-inspiring, 2-day extravaganza that is Maker Faire! May 22-23 at the San Mateo Event Center. And yes, Accessorize with Toys workshop will be there for its 5th year, and finally this time in the Expo Hall where we best belong! We’re going to be in the craft section of the hall, somewhat near LEGO (very fitting for me, yes indeed). I know many of you missed us last year as we were in the Show Barn with Tech Shop, but this year we should be much more accessible.

And now Accessorize has a FACEBOOK FAN PAGE! Can you believe it – well, you can help us out right now by becoming a fan so that we can get our URL. We only need 44 more to go!

This year we have some projects for people to create: Personalized Name Badges, key chains (level: Easy), and Expressive Charm Bracelets (level: Advanced). To cover our costs so we can continue to bring the workshop to you, we’re asking people for a donation of $3 per project made. So don’t forget to bring some change with you! And of course bring some of your favorite toy or plastic parts from home to incorporate into your projects or just bring to donate. Nowadays Goodwill and other thrift stores are not accepting toy donations, so bring them to us – as long as they are smaller than 2″.

Here’s the skinny on the event:
When: Saturday, May 22, 11am-6pm; Sunday, May 23, Noon-5pm
Where: San Mateo Expo Center (where the county fair takes place). Parking is $17 (yikes!) but free parking is a 15 min walk away at Franklin Templeton. Check out the Maker Faire link on getting there. Carpool with your peeps! Caltrain and Sam Trans buses are great ways to take public transit there.
Cost: entry to Maker Faire starts at $20 for advance adult tickets, less for youth and students, MORE if you purchase at the gate. To make a project with us is a suggested donation of $3 per project.

Hope to see you there!

For all you wanting to get your crafting fix on, join our Accessorize with Toys! Workshop at the CA Academy of Sciences March 18, 6-10pm. Part of the Academy’s weekly NightLife Thursdays (a club-like atmosphere with DJs), this one highlights SCRAP who is sponsoring us to do our Charmed! bracelet project. Shana and I are bringing primo game and toy parts, so come on out and make a super fabulous charm bracelet! Other SCRAP projects will be masks and cards from recyclable materials.

DJs on deck are shOOey, playing house and breaks, and shissla of SpaceCowboys. Sounds like a booty-shaking time to be had.

Take note that this is a 21+up event, and tix are $12 general admin, $10 for museum members. Best to get tix in advance, I hear that these Thurs. night events can sell out. Get tix here.

charm bracelet by Shana Astrachan