On December 6th and 7th, 2008, over 100 indie crafters will be selling their work at the fourth annual Urban Craft Uprising, at the Seattle Center in downtown Seattle…and you could be one of them!


Urban Craft Uprising’s third annual revolutionary craft fair, held in December of 2007, brought in a mass of talented vendors from all over the Northwest and over 6,000 fans excited to see fun, fresh, and funky urban crafts. UCU’s phenomenal success has captured the eye of local and national organizations alike.
come see a theatrical work-in-progress with me tonight. my friend nick is working his shadow puppet mojo and you don’t want to miss it. “The Lady Liberty Blues” will have two workshop performances at Live Girls! Theater so if you aren’t coming with me tonight, you can still check it out tomorrow.
velocity art and design‘s next lab is tomorrow night. kristen rask (of plushyou! and schmancy), hansi (of hansigurumi), and i will be on a panel to talk about plush, craft, business, etc. i need you there ’cause i’m scared. 6 – 8pm @ velocity.
also, i’m doing another basic needle felted bead class this saturday. the last one was unbelievably fun… we had such a good time that i’ve become buddies with some of the students, as if we had met at summer camp. once again, the class is being hosted by the wonderful folks at beadworld and there are only a few spots left. to register or get more info, give them a call!
i’d like to get some help and info from you. first, the back-story:
i think animals are cute, and i like to meet them and hold them and all that, but i never feel the need to make them mine.
however, i went to get my hair cut on friday and there were a couple of kittens (brother and sister) hanging out at deluxe. born in the wild, they were there for socialization so i held them and played with them to help out. at one point the little girl was sitting in my hands, looking straight up into my eyes for what seemed like forever. then, while maintaining eye contact, she fell asleep and that is when my heart exploded.
paul and i went back on saturday for a play-date. the boy is super friendly and agile. he climbed me like a mountain and made himself comfortable. the little girl is a little more shy but just as inquisitive… we nearly passed out from laughing when she jumped into the waste basket.
and that’s that, my friend. we are totally owned by kittens now. they were spayed and neutered on sunday and we’ll be picking them up tonight.
here’s a picture that lisa at deluxe took… i dare you to not to fall in love. it’s impossible, i swear.
on the left, we have “snafu” and on the right, in mid-swat, we have “hermano.”
so consiglieri, i come to you for advice and resources. some topics of interest:
– cat hacks: creative ideas/tutorials for diy cat furniture, toys, devices, that we can cook up for ourselves
– indie cat crafters: people making original, astounding, feline fun stuffs
– musts and regrets: tools and goods that you can’t live without, and the stuff you wish you never tried
– cat-centered behavior management: nurturing and innovative approaches to teaching kittens how to be safe
– inter-species bonding: techniques for integrating kittens into a thus far bunny centered home. i’m especially interested in success stories here, you know?
ok, it took me an entire week to get back to a normal work flow since my trip to maker faire. we had a fantastic time and i’d love to show you all the things we saw and did, but i can’t. i can’t because my camera turned out to have been totally buggered most of the time i was there. take that, and add it to the fact that paul could get a phd in crappy photos of moxie, and i’ve got practically nothing i can show you.
this is literally the only photo of me that is light enough, mostly in focus, and in which i don’t look like somebody just egg-farted:
here’s one of me and stacey that arwen took. and here’s one that somebody took of me and brookelynn. (looking at these, i’m starting to think that the egg fart face is disturbingly my fault/problem.)
you can see brookelynn’s photos of the needle felting playground here, thank goodness.
one of the coolest things was meeting people that made their own monsters from my tutorial. for instance, i met this great kid whose name i forget. she helped me during my monster demo for craft. the second day of maker, she came back and brought me this:
she made it herself and i’m completely honored to have it. i’m blushing even writing about it.
oh! also, i ate my very first “funnel cake” ever. that stuff is really good.
i don’t care if you don’t live in the bay area, maker faire is worth the trip. here’s a link to the CRAFT schedule. don’t miss brookelynn morris giving a demo of her amazing felted fruit from craft:02.
brookelynn and i will be rocking the needle felting playground again this year, now with more seating! i’ll also be doing demos at the craft stage and maker shed for mini monsters and needle felting. paul and i will be driving down in a few days. sometimes we post photos of our drive… not sure if we will this time but here’s the bunch from last year. i also happen to know that a ton of other crafty hot shots are making the journey too.
one of my favorite seattle superstars, kristen rask, will be there to chat and talk about all things plushyou! (and, she’ll be signing my copy of her book ’cause i’m gonna ask her to!)
i’m also unbelievably excited to meet my long-time craft-crush stacey rebecca. (i’ve raved about her before because i loves her so!) she’ll be traveling all the way from arizona to play with the people and spread some of her puppet love.
another highlight for me is what seems like my bi-annual chance to marvel/gawk at and then hug the stylish and savynatalie zee drieu. (she’s also hilarious and often makes me snort laugh.)
here’s a video that natalie and craft put together, giving an overview of fun times to come. (when i saw this the first time and heard my name, i swear i looked around the room like, “wait, was that on everyone’s computer?”)
finally, there’s a blog post at craft with lots of event info. go there now and then come hang out with me at maker faire, ok?
want to help some 1st and 2nd grade students learn about the postal service and the creativity of strangers?
my pal nick‘s sister is a teacher and has sent out a call for postcards of all kinds. their class will be collecting stamps and keeping track of the location of senders.
i don’t want to post the address online, so if you’re interested, leave a comment and i’ll drop you the info! viva mail art!
i had a fantastic time in portland yesterday. pictured above are my two new favorite women, sister diane gilleland and susan beal, giving away raffle prizes to the people. see how fun and kind they look? that’s cause they are really fun and kind! did i mention that i really really love them?
anyway, we had a lot of fun in portland, which you can see here.
while we were having our portland fun, there were monsters being born all across the nation. seriously, when i saw these photos today, i swooned. here are a few of the monsters made by party people:
