I was really excited when creative genius Karen Kimmel asked me to join Crafting Community as an art teacher this year. Crafting Community is an annual retreat that celebrates creativity, imagination and family. Families congregate at The Ace Hotel in Palm Springs and spend the weekend crafting, cuddling, creating and clowning around.
When they asked me what I wanted to teach, I thought it would be fun to do Face The Foliage portraits with the families, but I wanted them to have the ability to make something that they could take home. Since we were in the desert, I thought it would be fitting to make sun prints. Sun prints are printing techniques which use sunlight as a developing agent. So if you place objects on the surface, the sun ‘develops’ the area around the objects and leaves a ‘print’ of what was underneath. Perfect for Face The Foliage.
After a bit of research, I found out that sun prints didn’t just come in paper, but that there was sun print fabric, too, so we decided to make Face The Foliage Sun Print Wall hangings.
Crafting Community provided all kinds of foliage, flowers, feathers, and beads for the occasion. The craft was a lot of fun and easy for the kids to do, too. If you’d like to try this craft at home with your family you can get the SunPrint fabric here.
Unfortunately, Ida and Jason both got sick a few days before Crafting Community so I ended up hitching a ride there with Joy (thanks mama) and being there solo. I was bummed that they couldn’t make it, but because I had some extra free time I was able to learn a few crafts myself. I took Janelle Pietrzak’s weaving class. I love Janelle, from the design studio, All Roads. you may remember this studio tour I did with her a couple of years ago.
And I had a chance to make my very first weaving. I could see myself getting addicted to weaving. It’s therapeutic for sure. There were also a ton of really cute families and really cute crafts goin’ on. Also some of my favorite crafters, like Cathy Callahan, were also teaching and it was great to connect and make new friends.
For more info on Crafting Community and to see when the next events are, go here. I’m so excited to be a part of this community!
Photography by Morgan Pansing and Kate Miss for Crafting Community.
debra says
Creative energies in an creative space. Sounds like a great way to spend a weekend with my kids! A little something for everyone.