~ Curious Charlie ~

Unleash Creative - Melbourne 2014 (Part 1) @ Saturday, April 05, 2014

Saturday 29th March - Unleash Creative Melbourne

Not my picture.

Today's event was a fun new event, a creative workshop 'Unleash Creative' running on the east coast. For Melbourne the location was 'Second Story Studios' in Collingwood aka the place where 'Dirt Cheap Books' used to be, now it's pretty much a warehouse and event space.

On arrival we (Emma & I) were greeted by Magdalena Franco, the creator and events manager of the event, cool name tags were issued. There's four groups that rotate around four activities. Unfortunately me & Emma were in different groups, as we picked different colours.

Name Tags! A magical printer cut out the letters.

An idea of what we're going to make. Not my picture.

The event is about "getting the time, space, materials and hands-on expert help to take your creativity to a new place (or even just coax it out of its shell!). " My translation is that you'll meet four women who are artists and each will show you how to make something interesting that you mightn't have tried at home.

The morning started with tea, but no coffee?

I do like the crepe paper wall, reminds me of Mexico and pinatas.

The feature wall, so creative and yet simple! You buy those paper squares in packs.

Available at most craft shops in bulk, le beau has them in his classroom.

Cardboard + string + pompoms + glue gun.

Crepe paper / streamers + shapes sewed into a garland.

Yarn balls around Styrofoam (most people use a balloon and pop it).

Pompoms on branches.

Our first activity was with Gemma Patford, who did felt-based activities. We made something fruity (necklace/brooch/earrings), which I really enjoyed, we did an apple and sewed on the stem on the leaf and added seed beads. Though if all colours of felt were available I'd do a dragon-fruit. Excited about doing more felt projects in the near future, as I bought heaps of colours when I "got into it" a few years ago and didn't even finish my first project (a marshmallow cylinder).

Next we did tassels! I've always wanted to do them, but procrastination kicked in, this one's great because you don't really need anything special/or expensive materials. I'm assuming everyone has twine at home. We used embroidery thread for this one (note the Lincraft 50% Off Sale) and here's a tutorial.

That's purple not blue.

Tassels round two, was made out of felt! Should mention that you need a glue gun for this one. I'd love to do a tutorial but don't have a gluegun (because I won't use it much). Here's another version, though there was more detailing on this one. The one we made was more like this.

There's so much you can do with tassels (other than as accessories for your girls ;) like make it into jewelry necklace/bracelet/earrings/brooch, handbag accessory or my favourite - bookmarks!

What I made - work in progress!

I did want everything to go together to create a decorative necklace (that I'd honestly probably wear once or twice to an event) but as that didn't work out I made one tassel as an addition to a "grapple" brooch instead and created a necklace with the other. This is work in progress, it has yet to be glitterfied!

Cupcakes - Not my Picture.

Morning tea, missed out on cupcakes as they only had a limited amount, as I was still working on the tassels. There was some lovely juices on glass bottles, I'd love to re-purpose those bottles. Chocolate were great with cookies in the middle, oreos while macaroons were not light and airy.

After the break we moved onto our next activity with Kitiya Palaskas, '(junk) sometimes food inspired gift boxes'. This honestly to me was stressful (the mathematician in me needs all the measurements, and calls wearing something not black creative) and not that interesting. In that there was no template, like say you're making a cube, you'd start off with 6 boxes and tabs. Score it and cut it out. That didn't happened, from a creative POV you'd make 3 slides and 2 bases for a watermelon slice shape.

It would have been much cooler to have made pinatas (Kit specializes in them) as it's something we're less likey to have ever done, but I am saying that from a mathematician/my fiance's a maths teacher POV. We do make 3D shapes in class, and provide templates.

I do love the mushrooms! Le beau says if I was an animal both Lily & me would me a magpie, attached to shiny sparkly things! We shall add glitter to the pepperoni!

Part 1 - This Post.
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