Toddler Fun - Dear Zoo Camel

We have been exploring into the wild at our toddler craft on Tuesday & Wednesday Mornings. Each week we have a story then a related craft. 

Today we read the very fun book Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell, a great lift & flap book where the reader asks the zoo to send them a pet and they send all sorts of wild animals until they find the best suited! 

This book is so interactive for kids as you can see they can guess what the animal is going to be before lifting the flap. It was great to here some of the kids own reasons for not having these types of animals in their house, like the monkey stealing all their bananas!

Today we made a very fun camel from egg cartons - which are so underrated - the craft possibilities are endless with these gems and let's not mention wooden pegs (which are quite hard to find in NZ, however I found a massive bag for $2.50 at Kosco)

We used brown paint for this project too, which is best done with orange and a bit of blue. We mixed our own orange first with yellow & red and then just added a drop of blue

The camels blanket is just a small piece of felt and we used brown card for the camels neck and face. 

Tip: It is best to create your camels face & attach his harness, then make a slit in the egg carton box and slide it in first before painting - unless you have a patient toddler who can do this in stages.

And there you go! We have one grumpy camel! 

Have fun creating your own camel and we would love to see it on our Facebook page! 

Toddler Craft happens on Tuesday & Wednesday mornings at 10am at Make, 355 Riccarton Road

Book online here: Preschool Story & Craft

Term 2 will be up soon.

We're Hooked!!

At Make we understand how many of you just love Crochet, so we have teamed up with Becs from Kiwicraft to bring you an amazing line up of crochet workshops! 

Curl up this winter to create something gorgeous! 

If you have never crocheted before don't despair! Learn all you need to know in our Learn to Crochet workshop, plus you will take home your first hook and a ball of yarn to keep you going! 

Once you have mastered the basics, we have two directions for you to go: 1) Amigurumi and 2) Home & Accessories 

1) Amigurumi

Amigurumi (編みぐるみ^?, lit. crocheted or knitted stuffed toy) is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and anthropomorphic creatures. The word is derived from a combination of the Japanese words ami, meaning crocheted or knitted, and nuigurumi, meaning stuffed doll.^[1] Amigurumi are typically animals, but can include artistic renderings or inanimate objects endowed with anthropomorphic features,^[2] as is typical in Japanese culture. - Thanks Wiki! 

We have a fantastic list of workshops, just check the prior requirements needed for each one and then book your date in! Next week we have Murtle Turtle - if you can single crochet, start a ring of stitches and increase you can do this one! You will learn how to create joined rounds, changing colour in joined rounds and construction.

2) Home & Accessories

This route with crochet is fantastic as you will work with both regular & softer yarn in order to create pretty handwarmers, african flower motifs, mug warmers and slippers

  

Keen to book on? Just click on this link and you can register today. Why not bring a friend along and each get $5 discount per workshop?

You can view the Kiwicraft Felt shop  to see what other creative items she sells! 

And if you love free stuff post your latest crochet project on our Facebook page  by 31st March and we will pick a winner to get the latest Simply Crochet + a Ball of Inca yarn mmmm nice!!

We need you! Join our team.

Part time Sales Assistant  

We are looking for a dynamic and positive spirited  person to join our team of creative people at Make! The ideal candidate should have an interest in crafting, administration skills, and also customer service. They also need to show the ability to work well and efficiently under pressure. 

This is a part time position for various weekday shifts as well as Saturdays.

Responsibilities will include:

• Serving Customers
• Packaging Online orders
• Stock Management

Opportunities are also open for teaching workshops and working within our kids programme as part of this position.

If this sounds like you, then email your CV to info@themakecafe.co.nz and we will send you the full job description.

Applications close 31st March 2014

This Week at Make

On Sunday, we hosted the second instalment of our Mosaic mirror workshop, during which the ladies completed the final stage of the process - grouting and polishing. 

Having attended Amber's class in the past, we can attest to how messy this part of the process is! But messy is fun, right?! It does feel quite strange to plaster your pretty china and glass tiles with what essentially looks like mud though!

Once an even layer of tile grout has been applied. this then needs extensive sponging to reveal all your pieces again before a final polish to add a lovely shine. We can't wait to see the ladies finished mirrors so we can share them with you!

Wednesday night was Part 1 of our new Vegan Taxidermy workshops, in which our in-house tutor Holly has been showing participants how to create a faux stuffed animal head like the magnificent stag - Monty - which we have on display behind the counter in the shop.

Three students also chose to make stags, while a fourth opted for a cute wee elephant ornament. We'll reveal the finished pieces after Part 2 next week!

Our huge SALE started over the weekend too, with many items discounted to amazing one-off prices! Call into store to have a rifle through what's on offer or check out our Facebook page as we have been listing three great deals to snatch up every evening.

So Much News, So Little Time

Since our last post back in December, soooo much has been happening here at Make! We had an amazing programme of kids classes and events over the summer holidays which kept us all nice and busy. And then we attended the Christchurch stint of the very popular Craft and Quilt Show, during which we met many lovely new customers from all over the country and premiered our new brand of products (more on that to come!)

This weekend has been a real testament to just how many exciting things we have going on at the moment, so we'd like to share a little taste of our latest events and changes with you today.

Saturday kicked off with a beautiful baby shower for a group of fifteen lovely ladies. Petit fours, cake and tea were enjoyed while the ladies set to work on customising 15 onesies with super creative applique and hand-stitching. What a lucky new babe!

This was shortly followed by a birthday party in which the kids got to customise their own tote bags using applique and stencilling with fabric paints, a solid favourite among our children's birthday party craft options!

Sunday was an equally big day! We hosted our first ever Mosaic Workshop, in which the very talented Amber taught four ladies how to transform a square mirror with broken china, coloured tiles and beads. This was the first session in a two-part series - next Sunday they will be grouting their mirrors and we can't wait to see the finished result!

Behind the scenes, Kirsty and Justin were working flat out to restructure the shop before we re-opened our doors with a brand new layout for Monday! We have decided to change things up a little in store to improve the accessibility and availability of all our products and, in turn, to make your experience as a Make customer the best it could possibly be!

We are still serving pots of tea and a variety of cakes for the rest of the month and there are various different cosy spots within the new shop in which you can sup a cup of tea, partake in a bit of stitching and watch the world go by. We are very much looking forward to welcoming back an on-site Cafe in April, when coffee and food will be available once again.

The Make girls are certainly very grateful of our new snug layout during this crazy weather we're having here in Canterbury. Being surrounded by colour definitely makes you feel a little cosier! Come and say hello soon!

To find out more about our options for baby showers, birthday and hen parties, check out our parties page on the website: http://themakecafe.co.nz/community/birthday-parties/