The Craft Center has all the tools and materials required for the areas listed below. Employees should be able to help you make a simple project in most of these areas during drop-in hours. We also teach weekly workshops in these crafts.
In the Stained Glass area you can make anything from a sun catcher to a glass box. We are equipped with three soldering iron stations for putting your pieces together; two grinding wheels for smoothing the edges of glass; and all of the tools needed for cutting and snapping glass into the shapes you want. We sell over 50 colors and patterns of glass as well as everything you need to put it all together, down to the chain to hang it. We even have items for making picture frames and hinged boxes. For special questions or projects come in and see our Stained Glass Area Coordinator.
The title can be a bit decieving, as we have sheet metal and wire in brass and copper as well as silver. We have tools for cutting, filing, stamping, bending, pounding, and soldering our metals. We also stock a number of gemstones for creating beautiful, professional-looking jewlery. Jewelry making can range from a simple bent wire project to complex soldered creations. Most crafters' first soldered silver project is a simple band ring, which takes usually about an hour to complete. After having made that, you have all the skills required to create something more complex. We have fine-grade sand papers, two grades of motorized buffing wheels, and polishing cloths to give your final piece a mirror finish.
The Craft Center is stocked with over 200 different kinds of beads. We also offer a variety of cords, threads, wires, clasps, earring findings, and pin backs to make jewelry. These can be made through a variety of techniques. Beads can be sewn onto fabric as an accent. With a beading needle and thread, you can weave beads into intricate patterns. Another method for weaving beads is on a bead loom, of which we have two. Beads can be combined with some of our finer gauges of silver, brass and copper wire to create yet another look. Of course, we can teach you the basics to make a necklace with a single strand of beads, too. And for those with sensitive skin, we carry a number of findings in sterling silver.
The Craft Center provides two regular sewing machines for member use. We can loan you all the little odds and ends to help you complete your project, including thread, needles, flexible measuring tapes, fabric scissors, and pins. We only carry a very limited selection of fabric, so the best way to do a project with us is to come in with your fabric already bought.
Silk painting is a fun, easy, and beautiful project. We sell pre-made plain white silk scarves in a variety of sizes, in both squares and rectangles. What you do is purchase a scarf, stretch it on a frame that we provide, draw the outlines of your pattern on the scarf with resist, and paint dye within the lines. While the price of dye and resist is included in the purchase price of the scarves, we can work out a small fee to use these if you'd like to come in with your own silk object. Our Silk Painting Area Coordinator can teach you the fine details of silk painting, including salt effects and heat-setting the dye.
An art that was popular in the '60s is still thriving us here at the Craft Center. We carry a variety of leather, from belt strips to colored suede to soft elkskin. To complete your projects, we also sell belt buckles, snaps, rivets, and leather needles and thread. Learn how to make a tooled leather belt, or come up with your own creative idea. Our leather specialist can teach you decoration techniques with stamps, carving, burning, and dyeing.
Batik is a technique of drawing and painting onto fabric with wax, dyeing the fabric, and then ironing out the wax. Most of your dorm room tapestries and sarongs are prints based on batik designs. We sell white and unbleached muslin by the yard for dyeing, and provide the melted wax, tools, irons, and dye. You can combine this technique with sewing to create custom designed pillows, clothes, etc. Tips and tricks for crackle dyes, color mixing, getting the wax out, or anything else can be provided by our Batik Area Coordinator.
Haven't you always wanted to make your own T-shirts? Well, you can! We will teach you how to apply emulsion to a screen, burn your design onto the screen, and set it up to print. We sell tee shirts, tank tops, and hoodies to screen, but you can print onto just about anything that you can get to lay flat. We sell inks to print on just about anything, too, including special inks for printing on dark colored surfaces and metallic gold, silver, and copper inks. If you are planning on coming into the Craft Center to learn how to silkscreen, we recommend that you come with your black-and-white only design already on a transparency. From there, the Silkscreen Area Coordinator, can teach you everything from scoop coating to heat setting, and every step in between.
Our Photo Coordinator can teach you how to use all of the equipment in our black-and-white developing darkroom and give you tips on where to buy your film and paper and how to take good pictures. We charge a rental fee for the darkroom ($4.00/hr), where you can process your 35mm negatives and prints. We provide chemicals and all the necessary equipment, but you'll need to buy photo paper and film elsewhere. We do sell lens cloths, negative sleeves, film cleaner, spray mount, and spot toner. Our equipment and chemistry can accommodate black and white, non-C41 process film only (check your canisters, or ask a craft center employee), and our space allows for printing up to 11x14".
Bookmaking
Bookmaking combines precision with creativity to achieve an elegant result. You can create an ecelectic array of books by using different kinds of paper, binding and folding styles. Create planners, diaries, photo-albums, notebooks or simple books here at the Craft Center! You can personalize the books you make by being creative - add a leather covering, integrate funky bookmarks into books, use beads to bind - whatever you will! Books make great presents for all age groups and personalities (and are also mad cheap :P). The Craft Center carries book board, bookmaking paper, decorative coloured paper (covering paper) and other essential tools.
