Handmade U Semester Seven - Welcome Night and Day 1 of Classes

When we started looking for property outside of town we kept our eye out for a home that would allow us to host Handmade U on site.  No more hotel conference rooms, no more schlepping supplies and decorations down and having a small window to hang things up, and no more concern about whether the tape would hold things up on the walls - and no more Hotel lunches and dinners!  YEA!

Well it was kinda hard not to envision some amazing Handmade U craft weekends in this barn when we saw it.  The loft was gorgeous on its own, and with a few lights, banners, and tables we could be in craft weekend heaven.

Fast forward to moving into our new home July 19th.  We decided a Fall Semester could be possible, it would be tight, a lot of work needed to be done, but we had faith we could find the help we needed and we did.

This is what we came up with....

Thanks to my husband for #1 supporting all the work that was done on the barn to get prepared for Handmade U, #2 tirelessly shopping with me at all the local antique malls and piling all these tables in the trailer to bring up to the loft, #3 feeding us all weekend and cleaning up!

Thanks to my Mom for sewing all of these fun oilcloth banners and making all the gift bags for the girls, and thanks to my Dad for helping hang up all of the banners, and especially for power-washing all the floors to get ready and helping with moving the furniture!

Also thanks to the amazing group of women that came from all over the US to be our guinea pigs for the 1st Handmade U in the Red Art Barn.  We had many "peaters" come back again to be 2-peaters, 3-peaters, even 7-peaters (meaning they've been to EVERY SEMESTER!).  We had our freshmen too, and I always love that the freshmen fall right into the classes just like the 'peaters!

Welcome Night

Thursday evening is our welcome night.  The girls started arriving around 6pm.

 There was a chill in the air, but pretty comfortable to be outside for a grill-out.  Omaha Steak Burgers and Grilled Chicken were on the menu thanks to Grill-master Jim.

We had a special guest Thursday night for dinner, Declan, he is a 1-peater now!

After dinner we set up an enjoyed Vendor night.  All the girls that come to Handmade U are encouraged to bring goodies to sell, whether it be vintage supplies or handmade items like jewelry or journals.  We had quite a bit of fun stuff to choose from.

Thanks to Michelle Geller for the below shot of some of the girls getting their first glance up at the loft ceiling.

Everyone was welcomed into the barn with a personalized Swag bag full of fun sponsor treats along with the official Handmade U t-shirt.

My talented Mom made the below bags with a picture of the barn on the front for everyone.  

Class Day 1

I got up early to set up the tables for my half day class.  I taught a few fun techniques to marble paper. We were able to use some of what we made in our journals with Michelle on Day 2 of classes.

The flowers were picked early that morning from around our house, the mini pumpkins were a must since it was October, and a water mug with their names on them.

As everyone arrived we had Jim take our group photo before he went off to work.  Fridays are Handmade U T-shirt days.  These t-shirts are my favorite of any semester, though I love our logo ones, these are so SOFT!  I got a couple extras, and a sweatshirt...let's just say I wear them a lot around the homestead.

What a fun group of ladies!

I rang the big bell atop of the barn to start class...it is a cool bell....I'll have to share the pics of our carpenter and the 40 foot ladder he used to get it unstuck the week before....but that's for another time.

Class was in session.  

 

The first technique is my favorite, and super easy.  We used shaving cream and food coloring.  The kit I provided included all different types of papers and tags to marble.  

The ladies enjoyed this one, we got a little inky, but it's food coloring and washed out easily.  This technique is fun with your kids, and a couple school teachers in the room were thinking of teaching it to their kids.  Jayne did it with her grandkids a few weeks ago!  Fun for the whole family!

Jennifer was really having fun!

Proof of good times....

Papers laid out to dry we used the paper marbling inks you can buy at Dick Blicks as well as Sumi Black Ink to try a couple other techniques as well.

With our papers marbled we moved on to lunch next door at our local restaurant.  The meal was light and beautifully presented.  The salad was made with our apples which was a surprise, they tasted delicious.

Michelle and Jan

Kim and Jennifer

Me and Jayne

Julie and I took a glance outside at the neighbors' lake.

We then went shopping.  After semesters where I didn't really have shopping time built in, but we always squeezed it in here or there, I learned and made time for it!  We stopped at the first antique mall, it's a nice one, some would say the perfect one since it had a bar in it for snacks and drinks for those who finished shopping as others shopped on!

We stopped at one other antique mall, lots of fun was had and special finds made.  Back to the homestead we went to get ready for our Cream Can Dinner.

We had hoped for a nice fall night to sit outside by our new firepit and cook smore's but Nebraska weather wasn't our friend as Friday evening came so did the chillier weather.  We decided it'd be best to eat in the loft at the tables.  We enjoyed standing near the burners for a little warmth while the dinner cooked.  

A Cream Can dinner is made in the old cans as you see below.  You line them with corn cobs, still with husks on.... (thanks to our farmer neighbor who brought the last of his sweet corn over in a bucket earlier in the day - how's that for friendly!)  Then you add sausages, brats, potatoes, carrots and some purple cabbage, fill it up with beer and steam away!  It is good, so yummy.

If we make a small Cream Can we typically dump it out on some newspapers on the picnic table, but since we were eating in the barn, the big galvanized tub worked great lined with some brown paper.

We all ate the warm meal heartily. I heated up some apple cider as well made from the trees right outside of the barn.  It was a fun night.

The girls went back to Lincoln to their hotel with a quick stop at the local Lincoln Makers Market that is on the First Friday of every month.

I sat outside by the fire with Jim to wind the evening down.  Michelle was busy with her class set up....wait until you see my next post on what she had to come!

-Rach

RECAP :Handmade U Fourth Semester - Class with Dawn DeVries Sokol

Day 2 of Handmade U - Spring 2013

After our fun welcome dinner and vendor night we had a full day class Friday with the talented Dawn DeVries Sokol.  You know her from her many fun Doodle Books.  She had a new release Art Doodle Love and each student received one as a part of the goodie bag!  It is a fun doodle starter book for those of us that stare at a blank page and FREEZE!  Check it out, it's on sale at Amazon as of this post.

We all were excited to get our ART on!  As you'll see we all had our official Handmade U T-shirts on too for our class photo.  We like to be comfy for our crafting!  Plus why worry where the paint might splatter?!

Here is my table space...clean for the moment...not to last long...

The class was a Doodlicious Tape-bound Book that began with the kit above.  Dawn had brought along cereal boxes, dog treat boxes, cardboard, etc.  This was to be the base of journal.  

We started by learning a bit about Dawn's process.  

We collaged using scraps of ephemera, I just pulled out all my swap goodies from the night before and had MORE than enough fun things to choose from.  Here is what my first layer looked like...

I loved how Dawn showed us how to start with a base then to keep adding more and more layers....I always feel bad covering up a layer I just worked to create...I mean you don't see all the detail anymore?!?....then once the next layer goes down you start to see something wonderful forming...a work of art you couldn't have planned in one try!  So here goes....we also learned a little about color choice...she showed us how not to mix colors together that end up as BROWN and MUDDY...unless you like the muddy look, but I was happy to hear how to avoid that!

Here are a few of the attentive students :)

Then we all chose our colors from my tote of paint and the colors Dawn brought along!

I was pretty happy with how mine was coming together...as you can see here I was still sad to cover up the cool ephemera that I had laid down first...but don't worry I get over it later!

Of course Dawn's was look A.MAZING.

Shelley and Jennifer were finger painting away...they both made beautiful books!

Jayne and Tamatha's also came out so cute!

There is just something about paint all over your fingers!

Next putting the pages into the cover with TAPE!

We used an assortment of masking tapes, duct tape, washi tape, etc. to add pages to our book.

Dawn brought some of hers tapes to share, and nearly all the students had a pile of their own!

They make such fun colors and prints of duct tape these days, hot pink was Dawn's choice.

Then we just added pages and pages to the book.

This is how my cover was coming together..

Of course I had to add some of the mustache duct tape....why wouldn't I?

After we all had our pages in and were at a place to start doodling, Dawn gave us some prompts to start us working.  Here we were to create a Doodle Quilt...

One of the others was to create Doodle Lines...

All in all this was a FANTASTIC Class!!  Just look at all these fabulous journals!  Each one unique to the special students we have at Handmade U!

Thanks again Dawn for such a FUN class, so happy to have you as an Alum of Handmade U!  

XOX Rachel