For all you creative and artistic people out there, check out the Seattle Mini
Maker Faire on June 8 – 9! While not just for the technologically and
scientifically inclined, projects at this year’s fair include unique and
artistic hands-on projects.
Some of the best directors started out with a good story and a small budget. Try your hand at Tabletop Moviemaking! The structure for this workshop is informal, where people can drop-in, make a movie and then check out more of the fair. To speed things up, all the backgrounds, characters and props are laser perforated so you could easily pop them out and stage it in minutes.
We invite you to record your movie on your smart phone! You can leave the workshop with your story on your phone! “Creativity is necessarily chaotic and messy,” says workshop creator, Brick Maier . When he ran the workshop in LA he says, “It was kind of amazing to see just how quickly the students would stage a story, and how different each set was even though they were starting from a common set of materials. I think this is an excellent demonstration of how we all have a unique perspective and given an opportunity will showcase it through the stories we tell.”
You can learn a new skill and practice in a supportive workshop at “A Stitch in Time: Sewing Through the Ages.” An interactive sewing experience, “this collaborative workshop represents several different eras of sewing. Tamara Clammer of FaceOdd Masks will bring a 1910 treadle sewing machine and teach sewing leather using two harness needles and the saddle stitch. Fay Shaw of bitwise E-textiles will demonstrate e-textiles and invite visitors to add to a collaborative embroidery piece. You can try many different forms of sewing, and a computer slide show loop will portray sewing in various forms.” This is the perfect workshop to practice your artisanal skills! Come check it out!
Another great garage project is “Scroll Wood Shop,” by Cliff Nelson. Mr. Nelson “cuts 16-24 piece jigsaw puzzles out of postage stamps glued to plywood, pentomino and hexiamond math puzzles that use 12 natural hardwoods for animal shapes of my own design, and jigsaw coasters that marry function with the beauty of natural wood grain.”
He plans to “demonstrate how he makes his puzzles with his scroll saw and will even provide fairgoers with a kit that provides clear instructions about how they can make their own intricate puzzles using scroll saws”. This project is a great one for anyone who enjoys woodworking and do-it yourself projects!
And last but not least, for all of you who love to build things out of paper, then “Artigami Flights of Fantasy” is the place for you! 
Learn how to construct wreaths, kites, crystals, aircrafts, and castles from Miss Karah Pino of the organization, “Unwind your Mind and Get Creative!” You will leave with a whole new knowledge of the mathematical, scientific, and creative aspects of crafting origami, and will get to take home several new trinkets that you can play around with and share with friends!
So, for all of you aspiring artists out there, take some time at the start of summer to participate in the workshops at Seattle Mini Maker Faire! You’ll get to learn and make some really neat art projects, and you never know what will get your creative juices flowing.
This year, OlyMEGA will again be pulling out all the stops for Seattle Mini Maker Faire. We’re still firming up a few of the projects, but confirmed projects include a “3D Bubble Printer”, Interactive/Touchable Projections, Rattan “Luminary” Animal Art, Electric Bike Conversion, Paper Marbling, and hopefully more as time, space, the laws of physics permit.
