Sweater Drive at City of Craft: donate a sweater, help the homeless!

Today's the day citizens! City of Craft opens this evening at 6:00 pm!  

Whether you come Friday (6:00 - 10:00 pm) or Saturday (11:00 am - 6:00 pm) or Sunday (11:00 am to 5:00 pm), please plan to bring an old sweater (or 3) to donate to a great cause!

Local eco-accessories designer Nathalie-Roze Fischer is running a Sweater-Drive during City of Craft.

Please bring in your cozy old sweaters, and she'll morph them into Toques, Neck-warmers & Mitts to be donated to local shelters & homeless programs. And, if you like, you can help cut & sew these items during the show. Nathalie-Roze will be doing some production on-site, and you can get hands-on (if you like) or maybe sign up to volunteer at upcoming sewing parties.

 

NOTE: Warm winter-weight sweaters (ideally, wool) are best, please. Also, since most donations are given to men, partnering agencies have requested mainly low-key colours/patterns.

This Make & Donate Upcycling initiative is part of The Lennie Project, a series of deliberate acts of kindness aimed at helping Toronto's most vulnerable ~ inspired by the big-heartedness of Nathalie-Roze's uncle (Lennie) who died of cancer last year.

Please give to this amazing project!

Questions? Contact N-R at: info@nathalie-roze.com

Twitter: @NRandCo  Facebook: http://on.fb.me/oJ7VEg

See you at City of Craft!

Spring Photo Booth Images Online Now.

Hey, Citizens!

The images from the spring photo booth are now online! Go check 'em out at Have & Hold Design. Big thanks to stylist and prop-designer, Samantha Dubeau and photograpger, Becca Gilgan, for making the booth such a splendid part of our spring event!

Spring Photo Booth Preview.

As the minutes, hours and days count down to our big spring show we are happy to bring you a little stream of previews to get y'all super excited. Above is a preview of the spring back drop for our ever-popular photo booth by Have & Hold Design. Ever a stickler for details, Sam has also promised us all-new thematically-inspired spring props for lucky visitors to pose with. Even we don't know what she's cooking up! But we do know that she is a photo booth pro. What's more? It's free for all attendees!

And if all that is not enough, the photographer for this show's booth is the talented and wonderful Becca Gilgan, a very good friend of City of Craft. What could be better?

Screen Printing Wars Recap.

Poster by Team Colour Code

All who came out to the Bloorcourt Arts & Crafts Street Fair on Saturday afternoon will be well aware of the amazing Screen Printing Wars hosted by Kid Icarus in front of Comedy Bar. For those who don't know, three of Toronto's top screen printing collectives/studios had one hour to battle it out by making competing gig posters for an upcoming (surprise) event in the Bloorcourt area. They only had old inks, old screens, paper (for making stencils) and their inner design sense to get them through the challenge. 

 

Poster by Team Carl Wagan

Varying strategies were used to create these amazing end products. It was just as thrilling to watch the challenge unfold as it is to see the end product. Yup, pulling the curtain back on the secret art of screen printing is a joy to behold. And this was only Round One - watch the Kid Icarus website for future installments popping up aat other Toronto events.

Poster by Team Kid Icarus

Fun Fact: Catch23 Improv is actually co-produced by City of Craft Ring Leader, Becky Johnson. She is also a regular performer there so if you want to see her act like a goof on stage get yourself down to Comedy Bar on Friday nights at 8:00pm.

Carl Wagan Bookmobile at Bloorcourt (Saturday).

 

Hello campers!

We are very happy to announce the schedule for our special Bloorcourt guests, The Carl Wagan Bookmobile, for this Saturday's street fair. They will be hosting demos, hands-on activities and interactive opportunities all day long! earn badges, eat s'mores, bind books! What's more? All activities are by donations/pay-what-you-can!

The Wagan will be set up all day, this Saturday at Bloor and Delaware in Toronto.

Daily Schedule 

11:30-1:30 - Bookmaking with special scouts Lisa and Eunice 

2:00-3:30 - Field Trip: Screenprinting Wars 

4:00-5:00 - How many badges can you earn? 

Activities include:
 Woodworking, Knots (crochet), Poetry, Friendship (pins), Physical Education (thumb wars), First Aid (mouth to mouth!), Self Esteem (giant novelty cheques), Orienteering.
 5:30-7:00 -Campfire with special guests on the ukulele, stories, and s'mores.
 7:00 onwards: Magic hour (what dreams may come?)

Nutso!

Photo by Ian Phillips

Raffles are so 2010, right? That's why we are incredibly excited to have this 'NUTSO!' board on loan from the cuties at Chevaux de Bois (Ian and Alexx). Every ball is a winner! With prizes from Coldsnap Bindery, SOAK, Sublime Stitching, Sweetie Pie Press, Omiyage.ca, Bespoke Uprising, rc boisjoli & more!

Who is as excited as I am?

Nutso!

Ian and the NUTSO board by rc boisjoli

Citizens, guess what! We have managed to finagle a brand new element to the show for 2011. We will be kicking our dusty old raffle to the curb in favour of a much more fast-paced, instant-gratification, everyone-wins, prize-winning activity - NUTSO!

The awesome gents at Cheveaux du Bois, Alexx (not pictured) and Ian (pictured above), have agreed to lend us the interactive midway board (not to be confused with Plinko which is probably trademarked by someone else) so that we can give you all the chance to win awesome handmade, indie and/or local prizes.

Not only will this be great fun to play, we also think that the accompanying prize display will make our donated good shine even more than they have in the past.

Feel compelled to help stock that prize shelf with your wares? We are actively looking for in-kind sponsorships for just such a purpose! And you get lots of hype and love in return. Just email cityofcraft@gmail.com and we will hook you up with the 2011 Sponsorship Package.

Midway Update: Hand Modelling from Handmodel.ca

We, at City of Craft HQ, just got this very mysterious communique from the folks at HAND MODEL. Very mysterious, indeed.

FREE HAND MODELING SERVICES AT CITY OF CRAFT!

UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY! MAKES FOR AN UNFORGETTABLE GIFT!

Attention all artists: On December 18th & 19th HAND MODEL will be providing complimentary “professional” modeling of the art/craft item of your choice. Participants can bring items from home or use items purchased at City of Craft (they can be made by the participant or by someone else). A professional photograph will be taken on site as items are hand modeled. Modeled items will appear on the website handmodel.ca. Participants will be emailed a large digital copy of their photographed item.

Print & frame your hand-modeled artwork and give it as a gift to someone special this Christmas! Use it on your promotional website! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Don’t let it pass you by!

HAND MODEL encourages local artists to bring their own work. Please make sure that it is a manageable size.

Who is HAND MODEL?

I guess you will just have to come to the Midway and experience this for yourself. And in spite of the freeness of this service, I have also encouraged the hand models to put out a donation jar. I can't imagine all this hand modelling doesn't take some kind of toll.

Danijela Pruginic's Silhouette Cameos return to the Midway!

A massive hit at our 2008 show, the silhouette cameo photo booth will be back on the upper mezzanine/balcony again for the 2010 show! We are very excited to welcome Danijela Pruginic back to fill the South West corner of the upper level with vintage-inspired joy. Dani is, after all, a very in-demand photographer about town. I keep seeing her work pop up everywhere from weddings to new-style product photography to editorial work to interpretative fine art photography (see For Keeps: a mending show for some great examples of the latter).

The cameos are available as flat magnets and, from personal experience, I can tell you that these items make great gifts for loved ones and/or proud parents who really just want a memento of you for the holidays. I also saw some super sweet couples cameos last time around which I sort of regret not getting. Don't you regret anything! Get on the silhouettes!

Read more here.

Unflattering Portraits on the Midway.

Unflattering Portrait of Nathan. Photo by Becky Johnson

This just in: we have it on very good authority that the ladies and gentlemen of the Misanthrope Specialty Company have released the online sign-ups for Reverend Aitor's Unflattering Portraits. Since the Misanthropes will also be vending at the show, the number of portrait sessions is somewhat limited. The Reverend's service have been quite popular is past years so if you are considering sitting for a portrait, we strongly recommend booking your slot in advance.

The Reverend will also do portraits via online ordering but all in-person sittings are by donation. The online-submitted work is also very reasonably priced.

Read more here. Book a slot here. Peruse the Gallery of Unflattering here. And if you can't make it to the show, order online here.