emiko-o reware

Last month I joined the Bay Area LEGO Users Group (BAYLUG), and found a great community of LEGO lovers like myself, one of the benefits being the opportunity to show my work in an actual LEGO retail store! Who would have thought! So if you ever find yourself in the Hillsdale Shopping Center in San Mateo, cruise on by the LEGO store and check out my Duchess 2 necklace in the Window to the Community display. BAYLUG has a relationship with the Northern CA LEGO stores, and rotates the displays (also in Valley Fair mall) every 6 weeks or so.

duchess 2 in Hillsdale LEGO store

Hillsdale LEGO store

Accessorize with Toys at Maker Faire

The first day of Maker Faire 2009 San Mateo is done and whhew! are my dogs a’barkin’! This year our Accessorize with Toys workshop is in the Show Barn, our first year out of the Swaporamarama and on our own. If you’re looking for us, we’re in the same area as the awesome Tech Shop, and situated between the Metal Arts Guild and the Metals Arts Association of Silicon Valley.
What seemed like the highest attendance of all Maker Faires, we could barely keep up with the photo taking of participants and their projects. But the photos are up on Flickr, with much more to come after tomorrow. Here are some of our favorites.

Finally time to relive the beauty of craftin’ at Maker Faire: Day Uno. Can’t believe it was almost a week ago-egads! Happy to announce that the photos from our workshop are up on flickr (since it took me a year to upload last year’s photos…), so if you participated in our lovely event, go check out your mugshot.

Shana and I arrived at 9:30am and the lot was almost full, unbelievable-throngs of anxious makers-to-be were corralled behind the turnstiles, just waiting for the clock to strike 10am. By 2pm apparently there was no more parking, and the traffic on 101 was slooow toast.

Our little “U” shaped cubby home for the next 2 days, right before the eager jewelers descend upon us. Luckily we were early again this year and able to snag 4 tables and extra chairs to accommodate all the materials and provide workstations. The jewelry Sample board is a new addition (constructed from scrap materials conveniently laying around the apartment) to show off 3 years of jewelry workshop pieces. It was an effective lure to our table, as was the Uglu sample kiosk (generously donated by Justin of MACtac). Folks would come by just out of curiosity for the Uglu, their eyes pleading for the free samples and where they can buy it. Sadly, not available on the west coast yet, but hopefully soon.

Boy, was it BUSY all day long-standing room only for some folks (certainly for us; requiring major foot rubs by excellent boyfriend at the end of the night). Being tucked into the back corner of the Swap-O-RamaRama and next to the Bazaar Bizarre brought us a constant but manageable stream of people. We had all sorts of folks hangin out, making jewelry, sculptures, objects, embellishing clothing. Seemed to get a lot of dads with youngin’s, which was super cute (those moms that stayed home sure missed out-maker fair is more than just techie boy stuff)!

My favorite father/daughter team of the day. These two really worked together to create these elaborately decorated wood puzzle pieces; it was very impressive watching them make design decisions-I see a young artist in bloom.

Winner of the most adorable object of the day: this little soft sculpture owl. Most unique use of the jump rings-I want to make one! This gal came with her mom, and these two were the most artistic mother/daughter team.

Check our her mom’s sweet textile brooch. This family has got some art genes for sure!

The Fabulous Frances returns for Year 2 of recycled jewelry making at our table-wearing almost everything she’s made with us. What a rock star! Looks like someone might be getting grommeting pliers for christmas this year…

Next thing we know it is 5pm and everyone’s being herded out the doors-time to quickly semi-pack up and check out the rest of the Maker Faire. And lo and behold, what is this that awaits me outside, but the best way to end the day at the Faire: Matt and Funnel cake!

‘Twas the night before Maker Faire and all through the kitchen,
Every creature was crafting–and boy was it b_tchin’!
Shana and I getting ready for the Big Weekend of Recycled Jewelry Madness; going to Maker Day was just the medicine we needed to charge ourselves up for the crowds of eager burgeoning jewelers. Spent the afternoon taking inventory of the treasure tub of random collected pieces parts of toys, games, as well as investigating what each other has picked up in the last few weeks from Mission Thrift (5 Monoply games in one visit–pure gold!) and our favorite, inspirational supplier of recycled whatnot, SCRAP. Our goal: to make some new samples, namely, necklaces with the latest additions in jewelry findings from Rio Grande.

I am MOST EXCITED about this generous shipment of UGlu samples from my fellow Clevelander, Justin, over at MACtac, an adhesives company. This stuff is the greatest, non-toxic, STRONG (but not take-off-the-paint-on-your-walls strong), semi-permanent adhesive I’ve ever worked with (no small beans, as there are two tubs full of adhesives drying out in the back workroom as we speak). Shana and I met Justin a few months back at her friend Susan’s house for a focus group, where he had us brainstorm about tapes and glues. Most memorable was he stuck a full bottle of beer to the wall with this stuff and it stayed there all night. It was That Strong.

Anyhow, I really wanted to use it for our workshop at Maker, so now we have enough to hand out a package to each person–no more toxic goopy glues. Should be perfect for the kids!

Look at all the goodies (good thing you can’t see the rest of the room, it’s like a small monsoon hit)–here we are making samples, me taking way to long to make one necklace while Shana makes the cutest cat hairclip ever!

Cute in that Amy Sedaris kind of way, as Shana pointed out. Too bad we don’t have an entire bag of cat figurines….

You must see the whole picture to really appreciate its charm:

12 hours later, the suitcases are packed by the front door with care, knowing that Maker Faire day soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
Dang, I should be too, but I’m blogging instead….

Hope to see you fellow Makers in San Mateo!

What an inspirational, revelational way to kick off Maker Faire–this will be my 3rd year as a Maker, but my 1st time attending Maker Day, thanks to the invite from organizers Sherry Huss and Dale. Fellow Maker, Shana Astrachan and I drove down to my ol’ stompin’ grounds of San Mateo for an afternoon of presentations by innovative minds on the Future of Making.

We arrived just in time to catch Garth Johnson’s talk on Extreme Crafts, a curatorial collage of craft artists who are pushing the envelope–topics such as Craft Extending its Middlefinger and ManCraft, to Cozies and OMG WTF? The eternal debate of Craft vs. Art: “Craft is the greatest Trojan horse out there”, says Johnson, “craft masquerading as art”. Why can’t it simply Be Art? That question aside, I could have listened to another hour of Garth, and so you see his blog is in my “craft must see” links.

Next up, the co-editor of Boing Boing and editor of Make Magazine, the mighty David Pescovitz guides us through The Future of Making map, which I’m eager to see in print. Representing the Institute for the Future, IFTF has created a map outlining future drivers and trends in Making. He summed up with these 6 concepts for success: Network your Organization, Reward Solution Seekers, Err on the Side of Openness, Go Transparent, Engage Actively, and Celebrate Hackers.

A few speakers later, String Theory’s Autumn Wiggin showed us a glimpse Cradle to Cradle philosophy and how indie crafting can be a vehicle for change in consumerism. Being conscious of our environmental footprint with the supplies we buy, sourcing our materials in alternative ways to hopefully turn the heads of big corporations our way to what we really want to see as consumers. The concept of Bio Craft–making goods that will decompose and actually enrich the earth, not poison it. You go, girl–enlighten the Midwest for us, please!

Break time! Maker Media had a full on photo set up in the front entrance of Fiesta Hall, to shoot Makers such as ourselves. check out the other photos on flickr.

One of the last speakers (where did the last 4 hours go!?!) was Mister Jalopy, seen here to the right of Dale, who MC’d the afternoon. Man of various talents & businesses, Jalopy’s talk, Authentic Innovation, touched upon many of the day’s recurring themes, the major points being: 1. Design for Life–make original, quality items that will last; 2. Authentic Innovation=Shared Innovation, as he says, “Admit you are not good at everything–collaborate”; 3. Build Honest; 4. Build Open; 5. Circle back the the True Believers. His final words still resonate in my brain, “When you build Open, your success comes from individuals connecting Beyond Consuming”.

There you have it, folks. My 1st blog post ever–it was well worth the wait. Time to put this cold to bed–12 hours from now we’ll have Maker Prep madness in the kitchen!