in the mean time, i will continue to bring you t-shirt designs i find interesting from designers/companies who are using their creative skills to raise some money for non-profits and other organizations responding to the oil disaster.

the local t-shirt makers are still coming up with [...]]]> i don’t know the answer to that question. i’m just asking.

in the mean time, i will continue to bring you t-shirt designs i find interesting from designers/companies who are using their creative skills to raise some money for non-profits and other organizations responding to the oil disaster.

the local t-shirt makers are still coming up with the best stuff, in my opinion. local silkscreeners saturn screenprinting have a couple sharp looking spoofs on the bp logo on vibrant green shirts (above) – one that says “spill baby spill” and the other the more direct “fu bp.” there are lots of shirts using the bp logo now, but these catch my eye as being similar enough so that you know it’s a bp logo without having to actually BE the bp logo -  i like that. all proceeds from the sales of these shirts will go to the gnof gulf coast oil spill fund. you can pick one up online for $20 including shipping, or stop by their central city location and get it in person for only $15.

i was wondering how long it would take for fledgling t-shirt empire storyville to come up with their own fundraising shirt for the gulf, and lo and behold, they have. this is one of my favorite designs i’ve seen so far; i just really dig all the little drawings of fish, crabs, crawfish, shrimps, oysters and other local sealife that make up the shape of louisiana. (and the color palette is pleasing, too.) they too are donating to the gnof gulf coast oil spill fund, with $5 from each $23 t-shirt sale being donated. you can pick one up at their magazine street location or order online.

i noticed storyville also just added this one too, which spells it out loud and clear. this one is on one of those trendy burnout shirts in a color scheme that resembles dirty water; it’s a cool effect. these are $30 and some portion of each sale will go to the same charity, the gnof gulf coast oil spill fund, though it is unclear how much. again, available in their shop on magazine or online.

i first saw this design on skip n’ whistle‘s facebook page; they were saying it was the only design they carry in the shop at this point that is not their own. so i wondered who had made it. i’d seen others posting about it, saying they’d seen it on cnn and local tv news, so i did some googling and found that it belongs to nola tee, and is benefiting the st. bernard project, to help commercial fishermen affected by the oil disaster. it appears it comes in different colors and in both men’s and women’s sizes. click the picture above to go to their site for ordering, or call or stop by skip n’ whistle to see if they still have any in stock.

speaking of skip n’ whistle, they continue to come up with more of their own original designs in response to the oil disaster. i’ve featured two of their other designs in previous posts, but this is their most recent one, time is running out for bp. they continue to donate a portion of their sales of these bp response shirts – $10/shirt on this design – to the humane society of louisiana, who are helping with wildlife rescue in the oil affected region.

of course, locals aren’t the only ones making fundraising t-shirts in response to the oilpocalypse, but i think i’ll leave that to a separate post, as this one is already getting long. if you know of other oil spill/bp related t-shirt designs that i haven’t covered that you think are cool, feel free to post them in a comment here.

stay tuned for more.

i love the bayou boogaloo. for all the years i was away in kentucky post-federal-flood, i was so sad i could never seem to make it here during memorial day weekend (too soon after jazzfest) so i could partake – either as a vendor or just a mid-citizen – in the boogaloo. i mean, come on [...]]]>

i love the bayou boogaloo. for all the years i was away in kentucky post-federal-flood, i was so sad i could never seem to make it here during memorial day weekend (too soon after jazzfest) so i could partake – either as a vendor or just a mid-citizen – in the boogaloo. i mean, come on – a music festival in my own neighborhood! (well i guess an argument could be made that jazzfest is also a music festival in my own neighborhood, but the boogaloo is more of a community, grassroots event, and even closer to where i live than the fairgrounds.) last year, i was FINALLY able to participate as a vendor, and it was glorious. so much fun, so many sales (thanks everyone!), and so great to see so many of my mid-city neighbors!

this year, i have been looking forward to the boogaloo for months. the new orleans craft mafia is again, like last year, offering a free t-shirt recycling workshop adjacent to the kid’s tent, in the “eco” area of the festival. (see the festival map below.) we’ll be out there both saturday and sunday – saturday from noon til 5pm, and sunday from 1-4pm – teaching people how to make tote bags, halter tops and other fun stuff out of old t-shirts, with a minimal amount of sewing. we have a good stash of donated t-shirts already, but we’re still accepting donations – just bring ‘em on out to the fest and throw ‘em in our bin. if you don’t have any t-shirts to work with, don’t worry – we got ya covered. oh, and at the end of the weekend, we’ll have a little fashion show at 5pm on sunday for you to strut your stuff with your new creations, too!

so yeah. i’ve been looking forward to it. but at the same time, freaking out… because a) i had a really successful jazzfest show at jen’s and sold a lot of t-shirts and signs – which is good, yay for money and sales, but also has left me with not as many of the signs and t-shirts i would like to have to sell at the boogaloo; and b) i started this census job that has been kicking my ass! it’s been a long time since i had any kind of “real” job (meaning worked a job outside of my own house), and it’s been a hard adjustment getting used to both that aspect as well as the strange start/stop nature of census work. for example, on any given day, i: have a daily meeting at 9am for a half hour; might go out to make rounds on a new block i’ve been assigned in the morning for a couple of hours; come home for lunch; spend an hour or so going over all the paperwork from the morning to make sure i have it all correct; go back out to a different block for 2nd or 3rd or 4th rounds, trying to find folks who weren’t home the first time; come home again to cool off and do paperwork; go back out in the early evening trying to catch folks coming home from work who i’m having a particularly hard time trying to find; come home, eat dinner, and maybe even go back out again after dinner before dark, for the pesky hard-to-find folks. and then spend more time on paperwork when i’m home. (and then collapse!)

and all of that only got me like 6-7 hours of actual on-the-clock work. but i’ve been working since 8:45am! so it’s been a big adjustment, to say the least. and has left me little time to think about things like ordering t-shirts to print (much less finding time to actually print them), cutting/sanding/painting wood for signs, and making clocks. and, to top it all off, though i did well at jazzfest at jen’s, it’s the only good market/sale i’ve had in months, so i’ve been begging/borrowing/stealing to pay my bills and am deeply in debt… and we’ve only gotten one paycheck so far from the census. so i didn’t even have the money to invest in buying t-shirts to print, or paint to make signs, etc. (much less the booth fee for vending at the boogaloo.)

so this all came to a head on saturday night, as fae and i were hanging out at home and i was surfing the internet, trying to find some wholesale outlet that actually had the style/color of t-shirts i wanted to order (all my usual outlets were sold out of at least one size and most of them several sizes) so i could order them in time for them to actually arrive in enough time to be able to print them… and i realized, what am i doing? i don’t even have the money to pay for these. nor do i have the money to pay for my booth. and even if i could scrape that up, there’s no guarantee that i’d make it back… just because i sold a lot of 70119 t-shirts last year at the boogaloo doesn’t mean i will this year. sales at markets has SUCKED overall so far in 2010, so why would the boogaloo be any different?

and, as an aside, i have been wracking my brain trying to come up with an oil disaster related design, which i thought might be the biggest seller due to the timing, but i haven’t even been able to find the time to work on coming up with that. (and even if i did, i’d be donating the proceeds to the gulf restoration network, so it wouldn’t be something i’d be making money off of. which i still really want to do, but, it was just one more piece of the puzzle that wasn’t coming together for me.)

so. all of a sudden, it came to me. i can’t do the boogaloo. i can’t afford it, i don’t have inventory, and i don’t have time to think about it. and the second i started thinking about not doing it, i instantly felt relief. i immediately posted something on my facebook page, and thought i was done with it. i slept better and the next few days i didn’t think anything about it. it was actually really nice. sad, but also stress-relieving.

and then yesterday, my friend rachelle offered to share her booth with me, which was so sweet. i thought about refusing, but then i figured if i don’t really need to spend any time making stuff and i just take what i’ve got and make as much fit as i can in part of rachelle’s booth, around her stuff, then it doesn’t have to be stressful and maybe i’ll still make a little money anyways. and i always have fun hanging out with rachelle at markets – we almost always set up next to each other. so thanks, rachelle.

so now i am once again doing the bayou boogaloo. and of course, i am going to try to make a few signs this week, maybe a few 70119 clocks. but i’ll only have a literal handful of t-shirts, and a weird assortment of clocks and signs and cufflinks… and that’s it. not a big effort. but at least i’ll be there.

hope to see y’all there!

first of all, i wanted to update that it appears dirty coast’s make wetlands not oil [...]]]> ok, so here’s another oilpocalypse t-shirt roundup. at this point, 21 days into the crisis, lots of folks are hopping on the t-shirt-as-response bandwagon. of course, not everyone is donating proceeds to responding organizations, so do your due diligence when shopping.

first of all, i wanted to update that it appears dirty coast’s make wetlands not oil shirt is back up on the site, ready for your orders. once again, proceeds from this shirt will go to support the united commercial fishermans association. as soon as my first census paycheck is deposited into my account, i’ll be buying one of these.

second, my pal chris reams over at skip n’ whistle on oak street (uptown) finalized his shirt design only yesterday, with proceeds going to benefit the humane society.

back of shirt

front of shirt

and lastly, for now anyways, my favorite bp-response t-shirt i’ve seen anywhere does not come from a local t-shirt maker. it comes from west coast designers us versus them. it’s two-sided and is called “lube job,” which i love. i had just been brainstorming on ideas for a stencil and/or t-shirt and had the thought of doing a “fuck you, bp” design with the flower logo in shades of grey/black… but it looks like us versus them had the idea first – and no doubt executed it far better than i could. might just have to get me one of these, too. they say they are donating 50% of the proceeds to the clean-up effort and mention a few organizations in this rant on their site. it’s a little vague, but i trust that they will get the $ to some deserving organizations. it’s a great shirt. i can’t decide if i like it on white better (for contrast) or on black (for more of a tone-on-tone effect, and reinforcing the blackness of the oil itself). anyways, pre-ordering is now available – just click the pics above.

i’m sure there will be many many more shirts coming down the pike, but generally speaking, i’m mostly only interested in the local ones… unless it’s as fabulous as the one above. i’ll keep looking and letting you know when i find good stuff.

the first weekend of jazz fest feels like it was a million years ago to me now. my last post was on saturday afternoon, so to recap the rest of my weekend:

i did hang out at porchfest 2010 on saturday night. we lucked into an easy [...]]]> just really, really busy. it’s been a crazy week so far.

the first weekend of jazz fest feels like it was a million years ago to me now. my last post was on saturday afternoon, so to recap the rest of my weekend:

i did hang out at porchfest 2010 on saturday night. we lucked into an easy parking spot and camped out for the afternoon/evening on the porch with the other non-festing and then later, festing, revelers. the weather was pretty great and the band was awesome and there was a sizeable crowd. we were pooped by 9:30 or so though, so it wasn’t a late night.

sunday, though i wasn’t feeling all that well, we ended up heading out to the fairgrounds for our one day at jazz fest. the weather couldn’t have been better, and we again lucked into a perfect parking spot at jen and mary ann’s with no hassle. i wasn’t very set on hearing any specific music – though we did catch a lovely few songs at the beginning of theresa andersson’s set at the fais do do stage – so our day was mostly spent wandering around eating. let’s see if i can remember what i ate: i had the fried eggplant with crawfish sauce as my first appetizer, and fae shared her boudain balls with me. next i had some jama jama (sauteed spinach) and fried plantains from benechin over in the congo area (i skipped the chicken on a stick this time). we shared a strawberry lemonade and later an iced tea. there was some glorious downtime in the gospel tent, enjoying the shade and the breeze and the electrifying crownseekers (their lead singer had the most amazing falsetto voice – wow did he hit some high notes!) with deuce and puma. we visited with karen and debra in karen’s booth in the louisiana folk life/marketplace area. at some point i had a snoball (strawberry) from plum street. oh, and fae ate a cochon de lait poboy that she generously shared with me. she also picked up some cracklins for later snackage. as i was finishing my snoball, i couldn’t resist the white chocolate bread pudding, while fae had some strawberry shortcake. and then she grabbed some crawfish monica to walk out with for mary ann (which she had requested), and i decided at the last minute to get some spicy crawfish rolls from ninja to walk out with, which i later enjoyed on the porch back on ponce de leon street.

so that was our day of feasting. i think we did a pretty good job, knowing it was probably going to be our only day out at the fest since we had free tickets. (of course, if anyone has any free tickets they are trying to get rid of for this weekend, please do let me know! there were a few things i wanted to eat that i did not make it around to!) we also worked our way around contemporary crafts to see all the wares for sale, as well as congo and the louisiana marketplace. but we really didn’t listen to all that much music. and by about 5:30-6pm, we were done. with our last food choices in hand, we sauntered back over to ponce where we plopped down on the porch and remained for the rest of the evening, chilling out.

sadly, due to the chaos of jazzfest, our treme viewing party was postponed til monday. and even more sadly, on monday, when we went over to deuce and puma’s house to watch it, we all collectively learned that hbo on demand does not show the current episode of treme until 24 hours AFTER the show is over, which means, 10pm. not 9pm, which is when we showed up. and by 10, we were too tired to stay to watch it, knowing that folks had to get up early the next morning for work. so i did not get to see the 3rd episode and now will not get to see the 4th episode until next tuesday (again due to jazz fest). sad. (but yes, i’ll live.)

speaking of work, on tuesday, fae and i then started our training with the u.s. government’s census bureau. it’s been long days of mostly having a training manual read to us aloud verbatim, which is pretty dull for the most part, but we really love our crew leader and he at least does his best to make the training entertaining. there are 15 people in our training class – we had 5 no-shows the first day. but so far, no one else had dropped out. today was the last day of the verbatim training, and tomorrow we will take our final test and then go out into the field for “live” training – which of course means, we start knocking on doors tomorrow. i will probably take saturday and sunday off so i can enjoy porch fest this weekend, but then monday i will begin full time door-knockin, hopefully in my own neighborhood. i can’t wait for that first paycheck.

so that’s what i’ve been up to. things will calm down a little after jazz fest i guess, but for the next two months i think it’s going to be all-census-all-the-time. i’m basically being forced to take a little break from the crafty life due to that, but don’t worry, i’ll get back to it when the census gig ends in late june. i think it will actually be good for me to take a little break from making and selling stuff, plus i still have my music column to write and there’s that pesky film festival that i need to finish programming and write up for michfest. so i got a lot going on for the next little while.

all of which is to say, i guess i might not be blogging all that much. but i’ll try to pop in every now and then.

with everything that’s been going on lately (jen’s art show, crawfest, alternative media expo, etc.), i’m a little late on the draw getting the word out about this fun earth day event that the new orleans craft mafia is doing. but better late than never, right?

so what is it? well, some of you may recall at [...]]]>

with everything that’s been going on lately (jen’s art show, crawfest, alternative media expo, etc.), i’m a little late on the draw getting the word out about this fun earth day event that the new orleans craft mafia is doing. but better late than never, right?

so what is it? well, some of you may recall at last year’s bayou boogaloo that the craft mafia did a free t-shirt recycling workshop/demo in the eco-village of the festival. we ran sewing machines on solar power and taught festival-goers how to modify t-shirts into things like halter tops, skirts and tote bags. we were SOOOO incredibly busy, beyond our wildest expectations. the lines were steady all day and people were excited to learn how to reconstruct old garments into something new. we got a great write-up in the times-picayune, a spot on abc26′s morning show a few weeks later, and we recycled a whole helluva lot of t-shirts that weekend!

we’ve been wanting to do more of that kind of educational outreach, so we decided that there was no better way to celebrate earth day than to offer another t-shirt recycling workshop. we’ve partnered up with whole foods market uptown (5600 magazine street), and we’ll be out front on their outdoor patio starting at 11am, setting up our handmade and eco-friendly wares for sale… and then at 1pm, we will begin offering recycling sessions throughout the afternoon, showing shoppers how to turn their old t-shirts into fashionable and reusable shopping totes!

the fun will continue until 6pm, hopefully catching both the lunch and dinner/after-work crowds. whole foods will have some other activities and specials going on inside the store, and will also have buckets out to collect bottlecaps, jar lids and other such items that crafters like us utilize in their recycled wares. we will also be accepting t-shirt donations for this and other upcoming t-shirt recycling demos around town. so please drop off your recyclables to us on earth day!

the weather is forecast to be lovely, so consider it your warm-up to the first weekend of jazz fest. and of course, it’s never too early to start thinking about gifts for mom for mother’s day, which is coming up really soon (may 9th!). so drop by if you’re in the neighborhood and tell yer friends!

edited to add:

here’s a list of other things going on at whole foods uptown for earth day:

Earth Day Festivities 12 pm to 4 pm:

**Green Light NOLA – info on energy efficient lighting, sign-up for free bulb replacement
**New Orleans Food & Farm Network – free seed give-away, compost display & how to’s, gardening advice
**Re-Cork Info, Cork Collecting, Cork Craft Design Contest
**RePax Reuseable Bag Vendor – bringing in the “plastic bag monster,” a huge sumo wrestler type costume of used plastic bags, contest to name it and collection of used plastic shopping bags.
**Let’s Retake Our Plates info table with giveaways & plate graffiti
**Green Product Giveaways
**RE-purposing NOLA Piece by Peace – recycled fabric from local hotel renovations turned into Jazz Fest pants & sarongs, burlap coffee sack bags

last friday, i dropped off a fresh batch of clocks to my friend erica at tulane’s in exchange shop. if you’re on tulane’s campus, you should check that shop out. not only do [...]]]> i’ve been making clock faces and signs like crazy this past week, in anticipation of my big weekend ahead. tis the busy spring season!

last friday, i dropped off a fresh batch of clocks to my friend erica at tulane’s in exchange shop. if you’re on tulane’s campus, you should check that shop out. not only do they have an astonishing inventory of defend new orleans t-shirts (apparently they are part of the tulane undergraduate uniform), but erica stocks lots of local artists and crafters work as well as fair trade items from makers around the world. she’s got lots of cool stuff there. even if you don’t have a reason to be on tulane’s campus, checking out all her unique inventory is a good excuse to stop in. it’s located in the student center on the quad side – there’s a map on her website. (and keep an eye out for in exchange out at the congo square crafts area at jazz fest!)

yesterday, i dropped off a bunch of my stuff to my friend jen, who for the past several years has hosted a fun, funky little art show in her living room during the two weeks of jazz fest. she lives over near the fairgrounds, close enough to catch a lot of the entering/exiting traffic to/from the fest, and knows a gazillion people, many of whom make a point of dropping in to sit a spell on her multicolored porch during and after the festivities. it was a brilliant idea when she conceived it, and i’m so grateful she continues to host the show every year in her home.

this year, the artist count is up to 17, the most yet. some folks might only have one piece in it (larger stuff), but many have lots of smaller pieces, all of which take up every available inch of space on her living room walls. this year, i have a few clocks, a nice array of signs and some skull and 70119 t-shirts for sale there. the opening for the show is this friday evening from 6-9pm, and then the show will remain up through both weekends of jazz fest. (but it’s good to go to the opening, as all the best pieces always get sold that first night!) leave me a comment if you want an invite to the opening on friday or need to know her address. (since it’s in her home, i don’t want to broadcast her address over the internet, but am happy to let interested parties know on an individual basis.)

wednesday, i’ll be helping out my craft mafiosas, stuffing our fashionable new tote bags (pictured above) with all kinds of free swag from indie businesses around the city and country, which will be given out to the first 100 paid attendees of the alternative media expo this saturday. the new orleans craft mafia is a co-sponsor of the event, and this year’s swag bags are gonna be the best yet (and in high demand)! we’ve got all manner of stickers, buttons, product samples (jewelry, tiny art, books, etc.) and other cool promotional items to fill them with. so definitely get there early so you can get a swag bag. you’re gonna be bummed if you miss it.

sadly, i will not be vending at the alternative media expo this year. i love that event and usually do participate, but this year it’s occurring on the same day as tulane’s crawfest event, which was very lucrative (and fun!) for me last year. i had to make a tough business decision and decided to do crawfest. so though i will miss being with everyone at the alternative media expo, i’m hoping for great weather and huge crowds at crawfest. they’ve got an AMAZING musical line-up (dirty dozen brass band, jon cleary, the radiators, trombone shorty, and more!) and 16,000 pounds of crawfish! the event itself is free and the crawfish is free with a tulane student i.d. ($10 for all you can eat for everyone else). last year was a beautiful day on the quad so i’m looking forward to another one just like it. friends rachelle (of greenkangaroo) and christeen (avantegarb) will both be out there too, so stop by and say hello if you make it over there.

if i manage to get out of crawfest before it’s over (it goes til 9pm, but last year we packed up as it was getting dark), i’m gonna try to make it to the big easy rollergirls‘ bout that night, too. they are taking on the hard knox rollergirls of knoxville, tn – a formidable opponent. advance tickets available through their website, or you can pay at the door for a few more bucks, too. it’s always a good time out there. i just hope i have the energy to make it there after my long day!

by sunday, i’m going to just want to pass out! but i better rest up, cuz the following two weekends are jazz fest! oh goodness. well, it’s all in the pacing, my friends. happy spring everyone!