Maker Faire 2010 coming to New York, Detroit and the Bay area

If you have been following my blog, you will know that I am a huge fan of Maker Faire - the DIYer's Disneyland.



Our family has been making a yearly pilgrimage to the weekend long cutting-edge tech, craft and eco-friendly event since its inception.

You can read my past posts on Maker Faire here.

I've always felt sorry for my East Coast friends who were never going to have a chance to experience this ultimate field trip.

Now, I don't have to feel sorry for them any longer (well, at least not about this... I still feel sorry that they have to shovel tons of snow while I luxuriate in my flip flops and short sleeves in December).

Maker Faire is coming to Detroit and New York!

Get out your calendars. Circle the dates and make your hotel reservations. You do NOT want to miss this.

Bay Area

May 22nd and 23rd, 2010
San Mateo County Event Center
San Mateo, Calif.

Detroit
July 31st and August 1st, 2010
Henry Ford Museum
Dearborn, Mich.

New York
September 25th and 26th, 2010
New York Hall of Science
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Queens, NY

Swap-o-Rama-Rama - Summer 2009

I've written about this before, but I need to make sure that my readers really GET this and GO!

One of the very best clothing bargains ever is Swap-o-rama-rama. You take a bag of your good condition clothes that you don't need/want anymore and trade them for someone else's good condition clothes that they don't need/want anymore. PLUS there are sewing machines and designers to help you "pimp" your new items. It is just the VERY best.

One time, my daughter got a pair of brand new knee high Liz Claiborn black leather boots from Paris. We knew where they came from because the person that brought them to swap saw the boots in my daugher's arms and told us the story. She was glad to see that they had gone to a good home.

OK.... so, there are actually two swaps this coming weekend. One is in Santa Monica, California and the other is in San Mateo, California at Maker Faire (www.makerfaire.com). There is also another one coming up in LA on July 11th.

The swaps are not just in California. Click here to find listing of scheduled swaps. If there isn't one in your area, you might want to see if you can get one scheduled. It is well worth the effort.

Get the info on these swaps at: www.hiplinemedia.com/swaporamarama.html

Maker Faire - a rave review

I just got back from one of the most remarkable weekends of my life. I took my family to the 2nd Annual Maker Faire in the San Francisco area. (www.makerfaire.com)

This was an event that attracted "Makers" of all kinds to one venue to share their newest inventions and passions. Each booth was another porthole into vast as-yet-uncharted territory for all of us.

There is just too much to try and explain here, but there is tons of information on their site along with pictures of this past weekend's event.

The highlights for us were:

1. My husband and son watched hours of the Combat Robots competition and now they want to build robots and compete with them.

2. My daughter and I spent hours at one of the felt making booths and learned to felt. (Thanks Moxie!) This has opening a whole new area of art for both of us.

3. My son also purchased a fabulous radio control car and will be getting up to competition level with this.

4. My daughter and I were able to carry around a prototype camera purse and take candid pictures of the fair that are on line on the flickr site.

5. We learned about TONS of new technology in the internet world, got a great tip on how to set up a photography studio for cheap, learned to hand spin yarn, discovered an new and free 3D program that can be downloaded from the net, made some very cool jewelry out of recycled materials, found out about an awesome fundraising tool and of course.... walked the hamster wheel to power the giant nose picking sculpture.

6. We met lots of great people, get a zillion new ideas and were generally happier than pigs in the mud all weekend.

All this for a $20 ticket for the entire weekend for adults, $15 for students and $5 for 12 and under. Talk about a bargain.

I'm sure that everyone in my family learned more this weekend than they would have learned in an entire year of Science, Technology and Art classes.

We WILL be attending next year's faire. Check this out. For anyone who LOVES to MAKE things and is interested in what others are doing... this is THE place to be.