Making it a Handmade Weekend

Got plans for the long week­end?

Depend­ing on all that weath­er it may involve tobog­gan­ing and mak­ing snow per­sons.

Or you may be like me and plan­ning to try your hand at pick­ing up a new skill, or sit­ting back and learn­ing how peo­ple put their skills to use at Hand­made. Hand­made cel­e­brates  mak­ing, cre­at­ing & con­sum­ing in all its delight­ful forms. From dumplings to Tivae­vae, from zines to sand­wich­es and to the Roy­al NZ Bal­let, Hand­made has it cov­ered and class­es are repeat­ed so if you can’t fit in on Sat­ur­day you hope­ful­ly can find a spot on Sun­day.

HQ for the whole event is Te Papa but class­es are tak­ing place all around town. My picks involve a mix of learn­ing and a bit of sit­ting back and absorb­ing it all.

I love mix­ing tech and craft so my first pick is AURORA AUSTRALI S with Brid­get McK­endry. Brid­get was one of the hive­mind behind mak­er­to­ri­um so she knows her stuff and you walk away with a fun shad­ow­box  and the skills to use LEDs in every­thing.

Some cre­ative roy­al­ty are teach­ing this week­end so class­es by Melis­sa of Tiny Hap­py, Jo & Jess of coco and co, Ruth Pret­ty and Tam­sin Coop­er are easy picks.

I’ve been lucky to have an ear­ly peek at A FRESH LOOK FOR OLD JEWELLERY with Nini Mulyani from Things Unseen. Basi­cal­ly bring along your old bits and bobs of jew­el­ry and Nini will help you con­vert them into some­thing new. She’s also shar­ing some of her cus­tom tech­niques so you walk away with the skills to make over your entire jew­el­ry stash.

I’m a big fan of any­thing Scott Sav­age touch­es, and the chance to hear him talk on col­lect­ing and take part of one of his class­es is tick­ing all my hap­py box­es. Espe­cial­ly as I’m going to walk away with a customized paper toy based on my cat.

Final­ly not to miss is a zine-mak­ing class taught by Colleen Pugh of Dear Colleen fame, who you might know her bet­ter as the woman behind the Ryan Gosling tea tow­els. She used to teach the same class at Edin­burgh Col­lege of Art and I’m excit­ed about mak­ing a per­fect lit­tle book­let from one sheet of paper.

In the gaps in-between I’m going to spend qual­i­ty time at the Knit Lounge. It’s host­ed by Tash of Hol­land Road so you can  save your­self some time going out to Petone as Tash and her knit­ty crew bring along half of the Petone store. The lounge is also home to  a Rav­el­ry and Twit­ter meet-up from 1pm — 3pm with free Rav­el­ry badges on Sat­ur­day, plus Tash is pulling out all the stops with giant knit­ting nee­dles and an explo­sion of pom poms.