Recycled Fashion, the final days

Recycled Runway Fashion show is June 4 and we cannot seem to work fast enough. Students were treated to an extra day off of school for Spring Break, which fell on our Fashion Friday Club work day.  This means less helpers were available to finish our creation.  Have no Fear, we will conquer this mission.

An "Inside" View

With staplers, hot glue guns, and yarn in hand, our team of designers understands the pressure of this deadline and works very hard to complete the task.  I bet they will never see water bottles or yarn the same way again.

Organized Chaos

The piles of donated yarn have become integral to this design and will provide color and texture to this creation.  There is a lovely balance of chaos and order, which will please the audience.  Fitting this "organized chaos" onto our petite model will be a minor challenge, but we stare "challenge" in the eyes and charge onward.

There is only one class left, just days before the runway.  The pressure is on to complete and refine before the BIG DAY.  Check back in May for the final sneak peeks before the show.  Better yet- get your ticket to the show.  You will be amazed!

2015 Runway Desgns

Fashion Club...continued

Fashion Club is steadily designing with trash.  This is the second design group from the Southeast Steuben County Library to participate in the annual Recycled Runway Fashion Show, a benefit for The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes.  Each fourth Friday, from January through May 2016, the group will finalize their juried design to perfection until it is exposed on the catwalk.

Mess o' Materials

The trouble with reporting the fun we're having in the program is the desire to show off our progress, while keeping you all intrigued and interested enough to support every designers' efforts and purchase a ticket to the show.  Remember: the fashion show is a benefit fundraiser for our local ARTS Council.  Although we are training young ladies and gents to think and work creatively, we are also participating in a much larger effort, so please--support our local ARTS scene.

Gimme Your Water Bottles!

The main elements of our design are the clear plastic water bottles used to hydrate our patrons during movies and other programs.  These get recycled every month after Family and Adult movies.  There is a 5 cent deposit on these containers, which makes them more valuable than most trash in our state, but they are so plentiful in supply, we needed to re-purpose them for our design.  

Curly hair?

"The Age of Reason" is the title of our design.  We are going BIG!   Big hair and big dress.  Curls, height volume--we need it ALL!

BIG Hair

There are many directions to go, but teases are the only direction I will take you...until the catwalk. 

Yarn circle elements

Yarn and cardboard circles are the other elements in our design.  Yarn is always donated to the library, so we have an over abundance.  The cardboard circles are also a donation that is scrap from a local production company.

Here we go 'round in circles

It feels like we are working around a Mulberry Bush, 'round and 'round we go.  Strong staples and dedicated hands get this job done.

Bit o' Bottle

These bottles have grown into a tower and the piece is not even complete.  I just love the way these beauties seem to suspend in mid air.

Our designers are having a great time working together toward our goal.  The program series is past the halfway mark and the Fashion Show is just over 2 months away!  

This means I better get working on my own piece.  That's right, I have my own Trashcan Fashion piece in development.  Make sure you get a ticket to the show...I'll look for you in the crowd.

Check back next month for more snippets of our design and remarkable pieces from last year.

Friday Fashion Club

 

We are at it again-- taking our trash and creating fashion forward art!  Fourth Fridays at the Southeast Steuben County Library are dedicated to  Last year we participated in the Recycled Runway Fashion Show, a benefit for The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes and it was a smashing success!  Here is a recap of last year:  Catch Us on the Runway.

Our design is TOP SECRET, so you will have to purchase your ticket and get a front row seat to the show.  To tease and excite you, here is some bait to whet your appetite.  Enjoy!

Busy Fashion House

Mini Masterpieces

REpurposed Plastic

Layout Sample

Recycled Runway Fashion Show will be held in the auditorium of the Corning Museum of Glass on June 4, 2016.  Check back for sneak peeks at our progress in the coming months, but better yet, come out and support this fantastic fundraiser!

Catch us on the Runway

The Recycled Runway at Corning Museum of Glass was a spectacular event.  Our design was well received.  Our young model accessorized perfectly and carried herself well.  I am very proud to see the design process finalize on the catwalk.
Designers from our program were in attendance.  They witnessed the talent in our region and were inspired to enter their own designs next year!  This proves success to me. Rather than chat away, the time has come to share our design in it's entirety.

Prep & Spruce

Strike a Pose

Final touches

The Runway Crew

Tatyana and her own design, "Unfold"--a crowd favorite!

Sarah Strutting

  Many thanks to our hard working kids.  This design is truly their's.  

I look forward to Recycle Runway 2016.

Recycled Runway and SSC Library

Recycled Runway is an annual fundraiser event for The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes.  The event showcases regional talent for designing fashion out of trash.

This year at SSC Library, a group of young adults entered the juried competition and their design was selected to be part of the Runway.

The fashion show is Saturday, May 30 from 9-11 pm.  These kids have shown their diligence to completing an ambitious task.  Here are a few sneak peeks at their design.  I will share a video of our model strutting down the runway, but that will be after the big event.

Thanks for visiting and please join us at The Recycled Runway to 

experience all the excitement!

Nimble fingers must work quickly!

Stitching....must keep stitching!!!

The "before spray paint"

There are magical powers surrounding glitter and cans of spray paint. Out of the 6+ hours these kids worked to create this fashion piece, they showed the most excitement in the last half hour topical embellishment--a.k.a., spray painting and glittering like their lives depended on it.

The "after spray paint"

Sneak peeks are all I can share.

Stay tuned for the video of our very own fashion project on stage at 

The Corning Museum of Glass.

Spring Break 2015

Spring has sprung in the Southern Finger Lakes region.  Our robins are raiding for worms, even if the wintry weather gives us woe.  The Full Pink Moon is pending and I am just coming up for a breather after a week of entertaining young adults on Spring Break. 

I had initially planned 3 Spring Break programs, but tossed in a fourth option last minute.

Tuesday, March 31 was a Sand Art experience.  You may have made one of these at your town carnival or County Fair.  Those bottles can cost up to $15 or more, depending upon location, but this program cost less than $20 and served nearly 10 kids, with lots of extra.

The difference is we had bottles cleaned and donated by various patrons.  I purchased Play Sand for just under $4 per 50 pound bag at our local hardware store.  The sand was natural color, so students had the chance to dye their own sand for a more original look.  This tutorial helped guide the group on this simple process.  The results are fantastic!

Wednesday, April 1, was April Fool's Day and I was a fool with double Young Adult programs.  One room was quiet with a http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2013/05/play-recipes-homemade-bounce-balls.html, but the impromptu Fashion Club with Tat became a flurry of activity all afternoon.

As we have been preparing for REcycled Runway, Tat and I realized during our last class that adding another few hours to the plan was a good idea.  Luckily, Spring Break week had the space and time available with most of the classmates in attendance.  We brainstormed, snacked, and got giddy as our design made a big transformation.  It is amazing how much progress can be made in just three hours!  Remember:  only teaser shots until the big reveal on May 30, 2015 at Corning Museum of Glass...get your tickets!!!

Thursday, April 2, was another entertaining event leaning in the realm of science experiment.  We made Glow in the Dark Bouncy Balls from household ingredients.  This class was full and quite the experience, because I did not test the instructions beforehand.  I wanted to approach this class just as fresh to the idea as my students.  I learned that the tutorial was slightly misleading.  The ingredients allowed us to form a ball, but left at room temperature, it became a slime puddle.  The project was still educational and fun, but not what we intended.  This is the case with many experiments.  Nevertheless, we had a ball!!!

Today is Good Friday and the library is barren...of kids at least.  I am mentally preparing for First Friday Art Club and creating Crayon Encaustic paintings.

Check out the First Friday Art Club blog next week for the details.

Until next time, enjoy these peeps...

 Happy Spring!

Fashion Fridays with Tat

Who wants to be a fashion designer?  Designing and creating my own fashions is my lifelong love.  I studied Fibers and Textiles in college>>check out Tyler School of Art to discover an amazing school.  Our local ARTS Council has an annual fundraiser called "Recycled Runway Fashion Show" each year, which showcases regional design talent in a juried fashion show.  My designs have been on the runway and I wanted to offer the opportunity to young artists.

 Enter Tatyana Buchholz (aka TAT), a fellow designer with a mission to teach fashion design to our younger generation.  Tat's design was  in the first annual REcycled Runway show in 2012 and I was so enamored with her design, we became instant friends.

We joined forces and created a Fashion Fridays with Tat program at SSC Library in order to present a youth created fashion design on the runway this Spring.  Through special arrangements with The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes, our proposal was selected!  We just needed many happy hands to help create our spectacular avant-garde design.

There are 10 budding designers in the program and we are fascinated by the results of these hard workers!!!

Fashion Fridays with Tat runs the fourth Friday of each month, February through May, in order to finalize our design.  The progress is amazing!  Our next class is rapidly approaching.  I will only give glimpses and sneak peeks of our design until the runway.

Please check back to check our progress.  This design will be worn by a budding designer in our group.  The REcycled Runway Fashion Show is Saturday, May 30, at The Corning Museum of Glass auditorium.  This show must not be missed!  Purchase a ticket to attend and cheer on our local (and young) talented designers.

Until our next update, please check out the Slide show from 2014.

(you might find me wearing my "Hair of the Dog" ensemble...)

If you have a yen to sew, get more information from Tat.

She runs her own Corning Fashion Club!