celebrate earth day with the new orleans craft mafia!

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