Author: Sue Tyler

Craft2.0 is all about the Free

We all know Craft2.0 is very much a shop­ping mec­ca for those who love hand­made.

But Craft2.0 is not just anoth­er craft fair, it’s also an all-day craft­ing par­ty. Thanks to Hutt Val­ley Com­mu­ni­ty Arts you can unleash your inner crafter with an entire ded­i­cat­ed space set aside for freestyle mak­ing. Share your ideas and learn from oth­ers in a laid­back and relaxed envi­ron­ment that’s 100% free.

Turn up at 10am and you might be one of the lucky 100 peo­ple to win a free Cafe Reka Gift bag. Inside are tasty treats from Cafe Reka and a heaps of crafty and yum­my extras.

But don’t wor­ry if you miss out on a gift bag — until 2pm you can enter the prize draw to win loads of beau­ti­ful things from the Craft2.0 Crafters, The­New­Dowse, World Sweet World and Felt. Added up it comes to about $100 worth of crafty good­ies.

There will also be free face paint­ing!

So get your shop­ping shoes ready and come along for a stress-free day of local craft and fun activ­i­ties. All stalls accept cash, or Craft­Cash is avail­able on the day. Remem­ber to check out The­New­Dowse exhi­bi­tions while you’re here, and stim­u­late your own cre­ative impuls­es. See www.craft2.org for crafter pro­files and blog updates.

Crafty Waitangi

Can’t wait till Craft2.0 in april to get your shop­ping groove on?

Well no wor­ries, becuase for those of you in Welling­ton this is a week­end of crafty awe­som­ness…

First up on Wai­t­an­gi Day itself, why not head out to Pata­ka and cel­e­brate Wai­t­an­gi Day and the Fes­ti­val of the Ele­ments with a spot of crafty shop­ping.

The Fes­ti­val of the Ele­ments is  being held at Te Rau­para­ha Park & Te Rau­para­ha Are­na. The day starts with an  open­ing cer­e­mo­ny at 11am, with a wide range of arts and enter­tain­ment pro­grammes con­tin­u­ing through until 7pm.

The fes­ti­val uses the arts to cel­e­brate the cul­tur­al diver­si­ty of Porirua, made pos­si­ble by the Treaty of Wai­t­an­gi.  The ele­ments of Earth and Air, Fire and Water embrace con­cepts of sig­nif­i­cance to all cul­tures, con­cepts around which we can all unite.  Tan­ga­ta When­ua and Tan­ga­ta Tir­i­ti rejoice togeth­er on Wai­t­an­gi Day by way of the arts.

Pata­ka is once again host­ing a wide and won­der­ful range of qual­i­ty crafts includ­ing jew­ellery, baby­wear, clothes, beads, lamps, cush­ions and much much more! You’ll be guar­an­teed to find some­thing funky, cool, styl­ish that is made with ‘crafty’ lov­ing care. Every­thing at Craft­ing is craft­ed in NZ and it’s a great chance to meet the per­son who cre­at­ed what­ev­er you buy.

On Sat­ur­day head over the hill to Mar­t­in­bor­ough where the annu­al fair is being held. While some of Mar­t­in­bor­ough Fair is very much focused on import­ed stuff that might be cheap and break in a month, you’ll also find some real­ly love­ly and orig­i­nal hand­made cre­ations, many from love­ly Craft2.0 crafters.

So have a fun week­end of crafts.

One more sleep till Craft2.0

Craft2.0 springs into the shop­ping sea­son by return­ing to The­New­Dowse on Octo­ber 11th with a Craftas­tic Craftac­u­lar

(don’t ask us what that means, but pret­ty much beyond fab­u­lous is a good def­i­n­i­tion)

There are over 60 crafters this time round and as always there is a mix of return­ing favourite crafters and brand shiny new ones.

We guar­an­tee you’ll find presents for all the fam­i­ly, and more impor­tant­ly some spe­cial treats for your­self. Plus you can feel good about spend­ing mon­ey on 100% orig­i­nal NZ made hand craft­ed cre­ations instead of import­ed mass pro­duced stuff.

Every­thing sold at Craft2.0 is 100% New Zealand made.
Every­thing sold at Craft2.0 is made by the per­son sell­ing it.
Most items are unique one-off or lim­it­ed edi­tion cre­ations.

This time round there are free mak­ing activ­i­tites. In asso­ci­a­tion with Hutt Val­ley Com­mu­ni­ty Arts, kids lit­tle and small young and old can cre­ate flo­ral bou­quets from but­tons, card­board and pipe clean­ers.

every­thing is sup­plied all you need is your cre­ativ­i­ty. this is a great activ­i­ty for all the fam­i­ly, but we warn you it is addic­tive.

Spe­cial Treats
the most awe­some gift bag ever in the his­to­ry of craft2.0 , cour­tesy of those amaz­ing folks at Cafe reka are being hand­ed out at 10am.
inside you’ll find, badges, crafty things, fudge and some oth­er treats that we are keep­ing secret for now, but will prob­a­bly gush about on the web­site www.craft2.org/blog the night before the fair.

Because we know that every­one loves Crafts so much we also have a prize draw, where you can win over $200 of Crafty cre­ations and oth­er spe­cial things.

Books, books, books, books…

and more books

welling­ton’s biggest book­sale starts tomor­row. There are over 60,000 books being stacked as we speak for the Down­town Com­mu­ni­ty Min­istry Book­fair tomor­row.

It’s all being held at TSB area, entry is free, But the books, jig­saw puz­zles, mag­a­zines, records, CDs and DVDs are not. how­ev­er the prices are just the right size for any­one want­i­ng to stock up on read­ing for the sum­mer

as a mad keen col­lec­tor, my favorite stop is the chil­dren’s book area. How­ev­er i will also be spend­ing qual­i­ty time in the Sci­ence Fic­tion (usaully all sells out by about 2pm Sat­ur­day) DVD and vinyl sec­tions. I also plan to pick up a truck load of mag­a­zines, hope­ful­ly a years sup­ply of the new york­er.

Doors open at 9am on Sat­ur­day (clos­ing at 5pm) and at 10am on Sun­day (clos­ing at 4pm).

Plus the best part every bit of mon­ey you pay for all those books, jig­saw puz­zles, mag­a­zines, records, CDs and DVDs goes toward help­ing welling­ton’s most in need peo­ple.

it’s shop­ping and help­ing save the world all at the same time 😀

Crafting at Pataka

Tomor­row why not pop out to the very love­ly PATAKA in Porirua for the Day.

Because as well as their very love­ly Japan­ese gar­den you can have a bit of a shop and a browse at all sort of Crafty goods.

Why? Well it just so hap­pens that from 10am till 2pm Craft­ing is being held.

Think fun, funky, unique and you’ve got an idea of the range of crafty things for sale at CRAFTING.

There will be jew­ellery, cro­chet, dolls, stuffed toys, cush­ion, clothes, badges, bags Russ­ian dolls, and all sorts great things for sale from a bunch of crafty types from around the welling­ton region.

You can find PATAKA on the cor­ner of Nor­rie and Paru­moana St, Porirua.

And heck I bet if noth­ing else you’ll find some great inspi­ra­tion for enter­ing our com­pe­ti­tion to win a phone from Voda­fone.

knit one, purl the other

Sat­ur­day 14th of June 2008 is World­wide Knit In Pub­lic Day. As we all know knit­ting is not a crime, but very much an activ­i­ty peo­ple most­ly do on their own.

In Welling­ton why not ful­ly embrace the out­doors and head along to the Buck­et Foun­tain in Cuba Mall where the love­ly Tash will be from 2pm with her nee­dles (or at the South­ern Cross if it’s rain­ing).

Yay for knit­ting in pub­lic!

And speak­ing of knit­ting in pub­lic, how much are we all lov­ing, lov­ing, lov­ing the urban knit­ting that is appear­ing around town. Final­ly Welling­ton is expe­ri­enc­ing a fash­ion renais­sance of the woolen vari­ety. Every day I keep hear­ing and see­ing reports of sub­ver­sive knit­ty­ness around the city, and hon­est­ly I don’t think Welling­ton has ever looked more beau­ti­ful.

Sad­ly some­one dis­agrees as noth­ing seems to stay up for too long.

Which makes me won­der, if you could see sub­ver­sive knit­ting any­where, where would it be?

books, books, books.…

Col­lec­tions for Down­town Com­mu­ni­ty Min­istry’s annu­al Book Fair Fundrais­er are under­way. I love the book fair, because you name a book and you’ll most prob­a­bly find it there. Plus you get to go shop­ping and know that all you mon­ey is going to a good cause — like address­ing home­less­ness in Welling­ton.

Scat­tered around town are wheel­ie bins for peo­ple to donate their unwant­ed books. Some of the cur­rent loca­tions are:

• St John’s Willis St
• Wes­ley Welling­ton (Tarana­ki St)
• St Paul’s Cathe­dral (Molesworth St)
• Cen­tral Bap­tist Church (Boul­cott St)
• Aro Val­ley Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre
• New­town Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre
• Kil­birnie CAB

If you’ve got a pile of books, DCM come and col­lect from Welling­ton loca­tions, so why not have a mini book col­lec­tion in your office?

DCM also col­lect DVDs, CDs and vinyl records as well. I can con­firm their vinyl bins are always trea­sure trove of mag­i­cal dis­cov­er­ies.

The book fair is one of the biggest in the coun­try. It will be held on the 6th and 7th of Sep­tem­ber in the TSB Are­na on the water­front.

ooo shiny

There is noth­ing this girl loves more than check­ing out jew­el­ry, because hel­lo, it’s most­ly spark­ly and shiny.

Cel­e­brat­ing that very fact is Shine, a jew­el­ry exhi­bi­tion with a bit of a twist. Instead of your stan­dard hang­ing from the walls and encased in box­es exhib­it, Shine is a a per­for­mance exhi­bi­tion where con­tem­po­rary and bur­lesque dancers, actors and cir­cus per­form­ers will all be adorned by the cre­ations of six women jew­el­ers from around New Zealand.

In their own words:

“It will be quite unlike any jew­ellery exhi­bi­tion you’ve seen; glow­ing, lumi­nous works will be pre­sent­ed in con­text, close to the skin, mov­ing, in con­ver­sa­tion with its human envi­ron­ment in a glo­ri­ous evening of bur­lesque dance. Streams of pearls, gleam­ing sil­ver chain-links quiv­er­ing on skin; feath­ers tick­ling just under­neath a chin… this is a per­for­mance that glo­ri­fies beau­ty, and wel­comes the human form in all its shapes.”

When: Thurs­day, Fri­day, Sat­ur­day, 29 — 31st May, 9pm

Book at the Para­mount 04 384 4080

Tick­ets:
* $30 Adult
* $20 Groups 10+
* $15 Con­ces­sion

web: http://www.myspace.com/shinejewellery

PechaKucha 2

On May 28th — that’s this Wednes­day night — PechaKucha returns to Welling­ton for it’s sec­ond Welling­ton out­ing.

All you need to do for a great night out is head out to The­New­Dowse at 45 Laings Rd in Low­er Hutt.

PechaKucha Night is an event in which pre­sen­ters give brief pre­sen­ta­tions about a top­ic of their choos­ing accom­pa­nied by 20 images, each of which is shown for 20 sec­onds — giv­ing a total pre­sen­ta­tion time of 6 min­utes 40 sec­onds.

Doors open at 7.30 pm and the whole thing kicks off at 8.20pm. The bar is run­ning all night, so you get to hang with great peo­ple, hear about some inspi­ra­tional stuff and have some fun, all at the same time.

After the jump is the list of love­ly speak­ers they’ve lined up for Welling­ton.