Mini Maker Faire at EdVenture and photos from Castle Dome Ghost Town

(Above:  Demonstrating dry felting and making fiber bookmarks at the Mini Maker Faire at EdVenture, the Children's Museum in Columbia, South Carolina.  Click on any image to enlarge.)

Last Saturday I had a total blast at EdVenture, the Children's Museum, here in Columbia, South Carolina.  I was part of their Mini Maker Faire, a licensed event from Maker Faire.  The Maker Faire website explains:

Part science fair, part county fair, and part something entirely new, Maker Faire is an all-ages gathering of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, authors, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors. All of these “makers” come to Maker Faire to show what they have made and to share what they have learned.


(Above:  Making dry felted bookmarks at the Mini Maker Faire.)

To be a "maker", I had to apply, be accepted, set up, and spend the day sharing!  That's exactly what I did ... with "kids" of all ages, from three to around seventy-five.  I brought my Babylock embellisher, a stack of over 140 strips of Pellon's heaviest and stiffest non-fusible interfacing, four balls of variegated yarn, some small examples of my work, and a container of previously cut, multi-colored triangles of craft felt.  As soon as the doors opened, I started showing people how to take these things and make bookmarks.

(Above:  Making dry felted bookmarks.)

My husband Steve came in the afternoon and snapped a bunch of photos and even shot some videos.  I created a little YouTube video.  It is HERE.  It was 5:00 PM before I knew it.  There are more photos at the bottom of this blog post.


(Above:  Mounting Stained Glass XXXVIII.)

Since then, I've finished melting, mounting, and framing the commissioned piece, Stained Glass XXXVIII.  It is being delivered to Ellen Taylor Interiors later this afternoon.  I've also created four small pieces in my "In Box" series which now need melted and framed.  Thus, I'll be back in the garage wearing my ventilator masks very soon!


(Above:  Saguaro Cactus in bloom.  Click on any image to enlarge.)

Also, I finally finished working with all the images Steve and I shot while in Arizona.  Sure, I posted the pictures from my solo show, Decision Portraits, at Vision Gallery ... but I had hundreds more to sort through.  I created a Flickr! set of the image from our half-day trip to Roosevelt Dam, our time in Organ Cactus National Monument, the visit to the Yuma Territorial Prison State Park, and Quartzsite HERE.  (As a slideshow ... click here!)  Yet, our favorite part of the trip was going to Castle Dome Mining Ghost Town.  I arrived with a fully charged camera battery and shot until it died.  THIS PLACE IS AWESOME!

(Above:  A general view at Castle Dome Mining Ghost Town.)

Steve and I didn't know that it really wasn't supposed to be "open".  We got lucky and arrived at the exact same time as a van full of people who were brought from a mental health facility as a form of "art/history/therapy".  They knew to call ahead.  (THANK GOODNESS!)  Well, we got to enter the place with them.  They left after less than an hour.  We stayed for over four ... enough time that the owner/manager, Mr. Allen Armstrong, told us simply to make sure the gate was locked on our way out!


Basically, we had this marvelous 30+ structure ghost town to ourselves on a picture perfect day in the middle of "nowhere" Arizona.  FANTASTIC!  I deleted over half the photos I shot but still ended up with about 221 left.  The Flickr! set is HERE.  (For my Dad ... the slideshow is HERE!)   One travel review writes:

Since buying the property in 1993, Allen and Stephanie Armstrong have created a sprawling museum. They started with a handful of original buildings still standing. More structures were hauled in from outlying mines, while others were constructed on-site using salvaged materials. Today, visitors can prowl through 50 buildings, including a hotel, doctor's office, church (with functional bell tower), blacksmith shop, assay office, sheriff's office, jail and several saloons. And you'll be hard pressed to determine which buildings are original and which are re-creations.

Our time at Castle Dome was magical, inspiration, and an adventure all its own.  I highly recommend the place ... to ANYONE!  It was so worth the drive down an unpaved, 10-mile desert road!


(Above and below ... more photos from Castle Dome Mining Museum and Ghost Town.  All images can be clicked on for closer inspection.  Further below are more images from the Mini Maker Faire at EdVenture where I demonstrated dry felting by machine and made bookmarks with kids of all ages.  Enjoy the photos!)

(Further below are the images from EdVenture's Mini Maker Faire.)