Thursday, May 31, 2012

CRAFTed in Doon.

This year is the first year when CRAFTed is run nationwide. It allows craftspeople to develop custom planned craft workshops with kids from Primary Schools.

 Here is us today in Doon Convent National School finishing the project! The spirits were high!


 And  look at those lovely messages they left in their farewell postcard!!! Amazing!
 
I adore this girl portrayed, it is me 100% like from the manga cartoon:)
its a beautiful work done by the girls!!! 


Well now more about the scheme:

In preparation to the program  we  got paired with teachers from our designed schools. 
I loved the idea that both the teacher and a craftperson had the opportunity to meet and develop a theme round which the series of 5  - 2 hour workshops will be run. 

There are essentially two teaching approaches: one is whereby the craftperson is focused on teaching the skills and the process of making. Whilst it often delivers quality product it can sometimes be limiting for childrens creativity. Say a good example is if i am making felted bowls, i will be giving kids set plastic templates, that are essentially one shape. Its better to allow kids to design their template and explore it from there. This approach is more difficult as kids are more likely to make some mistakes in the project. But what mostly excites me about is the possibility to let the creativity grow and flow.

That was the case of the Doon School, the girls from 4 and 5th class were absolutely  brilliant. They are bright, very skilled and we had a great craic. SEe the photos from our last project, the wallhanging. We sung, we bashed felt, we told ourselves stories from the series of Father TEd, we enjoyed every minute of it!

Here are some more photographs of what we did:
first lessons we did the self portraits useful to conduct our imaginary journey to australia :)
second we did the keyrings
third lesson we did the purses
5th lesson we did the wallhanging










Felted Disc Necklaces stacked up and ready to be uploaded on Etsy

Finished and all groomed up the necklaces are all stacked up on the mannequin in the studio.

Also myself sporting some of the models
more available at www.feltfieltrofilc.etsy.com









 

Large Discs Necklaces punched and assembled photos from the process

I have been very busy, making the orders for my shops throughout Ireland and USA. Now is the time to get organized. I dug out some hats that would never ever sell and punched them using an old tool I bought on German ebay.  




then using an old paper tube I assembled them in colourways
the only problem I need to solve now is to use / find something that would help me to make a perfect middle point where to stick the needle
 

 anybody having any ideas how to do so?