Our Blog

Geniuses and reCREATERs!

2012-05-06T17:28:26Z

Thank you for an amazing night last night!

Almost four years ago, before there was a reCREATE art center, I took the Junk 2 Genius idea to the Davis Art Center, and we’ve held a very successful event with them in the fall for the past three years. But, I’ve always wanted to bring it home to reCREATE, ever since the electricity we all felt at the first event. Thank you for helping me make my dream come true last night.

reCREATE is not a large nonprofit. Last year we served almost 10,000 children with Rolling reCREATE, our school program. We teach them about why they should care about Reducing, Reusing and Recycling, and they celebrate their new knowledge creatively by making mini sculptures from our saved trash. Kids literally start jumping up and down then they see our truck rolling up at their school. Most of the time when our kids get to make art in elementary schools, they are asked to draw a horse or a skyline or a tree. The reCREATE program lets them stretch their imagination and make whatever they want! In 30 minutes – each week we see kids feel a bit of the magic that you felt last night. In some underserved areas, kids who didn’t think they could afford art realize its within their reach. Suddenly the empty cereal box becomes a canvas, and the empty paper towel roll becomes a body part for an animal. It’s an amazing thing to witness, and it humbles me every time I see it.

Our reCREATE art center serves thousands more kids annually. We offer drop in crafting, after school classes, camps, birthdays, and shopping at our reuse store.

We estimate that we diverted over 75 tons of waste from entering our waste stream in the last year alone.

And we were able to do all of this on just over $100,000.

But, truthfully – we needed a bit more. There were months that the staff and I chose to volunteer much of our time, so we could afford to fix the truck, pay the rent, or buy necessary materials.

Our fundraiser last night was to help us raise money to replace our aging truck, and purchase a few things we need for the program. Our night was amazing – but we fell short of our goal. We love our truck, but its 22 years old and replacing it soon will ensure that reCREATE keeps moving forward on our mission of More Art, Less Trash.

Would you consider a donation to help us achieve our goal?

Donations $100.00 snags you a cool Junk 2 Genius t-shirt. All donations are tax deductible to the full extent of the law.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=3YAPPRP3JRY9W

Once you make your donation, just shoot me an email with the size shirt you would like.

Not in the budget right now?

Would you consider making a donation that fits your budget? $20, $40? Every bit helps!

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=WE8VFR92FN6FC

Lastly,

Mark your calendars The Second Annual Junk 2 Genius program will be held on May 10^th, 2013. Same place, more teams, new twists – and the weather is going to behave next year!

Join us for our First Annual Masquerade Ball on October 27^th. Party the night away Incognito! Details to follow soon.

Thank you.

Donna Sangwin

Executive Director

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Leprechaun Traps!

2012-03-17T02:50:16Z

I love the idea of having the kids make Leprechaun Traps! Reuse items from around your house. Strawberry baskets, popsicle sticks, show boxes, etc.

Hwere are a couple that Liz made @ reCREATE. The "cloud" in the rainbow - is actually a strawberry basket covered with packing peanuts, and part of the trap!

Have fun, and good luck snaring a leprechaun!

Why We Encourage Reuseable Shopping Bags

2012-02-24T15:50:18Z

Most people don't know this, but all of the plastic that was EVER made is STILL here in some form. Yes - some of it gets recycled. In our region about 7 out of 10 plastic water bottles are recycled - the rest end up in the landfill. This is higher percentage than in most areas. Please consider getting and using both reusable water bottles and reusable shopping bags!

I found this brilliant info-graphic on it has so much information, all on one page, so I had to share:

We've Moved!

2011-12-14T16:48:15Z

We outgrew our old space and moved into a much bigger art and creative reuse center in October. We are located at 8417 Washington Blvd #135 in Roseville. The easiest way to get to us is to get on Washington Blvd, going toward Blue Oaks from Pleasant Grove. Turn Left onto Industrial Blvd. Go past the Surewest Corporate Offices and second driveway. Turn Right into the next driveway. Take it past the California Bottling Company on the left and we are the second suite on the right.

We now have over 3,000 square feet for bulk item sales, a separate crafting area and a dedicated party room! Keep an eye on our blog and calendar for class updates for adults and kids!

Parachute Jumper Toy

2011-01-20T03:01:32Z

Much to my chagrin, and continuous attempts to rid our house of plastic, my son LOVES those plastic

parachutes toys that sneak their way into our house from party favor bags.

He is entertained by it. He climbs to the top of the stairs, and drop it to his sister below. They giggle and squeal with delight, until.... the strings get tangled and the little parachute man is rendered useless.

This weekend we devised our own Parachute Jumper using the plastic that wraps our bulk toilet paper purchase.

It is pretty simple to make one of these at home. Here is what you need:

Large piece of plastic packaging material.
Scissors
A large round bowl or lid to use as a template
Permanent marker for tracing, and colorful markers for decorating (optional)
A figure or type of weight for the bottom. We made a little man out of beads, telephone wire and a tiny spool
Thin string
Hole punch

First, open up the plastic, cutting the melted corners off.

Next, trace the large circle on the plastic.

Decorate it however you would like with permanent markers. Cut the circle out carefully.

Hole punch a hole, about an inch in, on "four corners" making large rectangle with the hole punches.

Tie the string onto the 4 corners, and attach to your Parachute Jumper, two on each hand.

Finally.... climb up and let it fly down!

Eco-Friendly Packing Peanuts = Awesome afternoon of Crafting Fun

2011-01-19T20:06:53Z

Corn starch based packing peanuts are an excellent medium for crafting. Get one damp, touch it to another one, and *magic* they stick together! With some markers and scissors, you can have a great time creating just about anything under the sun.

Materials Needed

For this craft, you need:

a bowlful of eco-friendly packing peanuts. (The kind that dissolve when you get them wet.)
some washable markers, if you want to color them.
a wet sponge in a small bowl
scissors

To create, simply dampen the part of the packing foam you want to attach to the other piece of packing foam, and touch them together.

We learned a few things from making our crafts:

You can roll the foam between your hands, and the moisture on your hands will condense the foam. This helps if you need a smaller piece. Also, cutting pieces to the shapes you would like works great.
A few pieces of year or fabric scraps and be intergrated to this craft quite easily. Just use a dab of glue to attach.

Here are some pictures of the art we created.

Don't have any packing peanuts handy? You can buy one of our Playing With Packing Peanuts Art Kits. reCREATE is a nonprofit organization. Our mission is to divert clean, safe, usable materials from entering our landfills... and we use those materials to encourage creativity and art! Our art kits can be found at: http://www.recreate.org/art-kits/

Make a Roller Coaster for a Marble!

2010-07-27T01:19:24Z

We started a camp at reCREATE today called Labyrinths, Catapults and More! We have a week full of mazes, crafts and fun. Today the kids made their own Marble Runs. I love marble runs, but refuse to spend $40 to $100+ one buying an already made one.

The materials we used for our marble runs were:

a flat pizza box for the base (you could also reuse a piece of foam core or other big piece of cardboard)
strips of scrap paper and sparkly tape.
some L shaped packing edges. (We cut these down to shorter lengths with a saw)
paper towel tubes of differing lengths, pained bright colors
craft paint for painting the background of the marble run (the pizza box)
hot glue gun for putting it all together
glitter, stickers, etc. for decorating
two egg holders from an egg carton

We started by having the kids paint their flat pizza box.

Then we started laying out the marble course. We would glue down a new piece, test it, and glue down the next thing. We learned quickly, that it was more exciting if it went back and forth more than just straight down, right away.

Here is what some of the finished marble runs looked like:

And here is one in action!

Creative Team Sought for reCREATE

2010-07-12T05:48:45Z

We are looking for some people that will allow us to share their creativity on our blog. Our vision is to have a hoppin' blog packed with great ideas and tutorials of crafts made from reCREATE items. Our Creative Team will also post crafts that promote our classes, products and reuse concepts at reCREATE.

We offer you an exciting opportunity to participate in our mission to inspire others with your projects, encouraging them to find their inner artist, get creative and have fun! We will rely on our Creative Team to help us tell the region about the great treasures we have at reCREATE. We hope that participation on this team will generate friendships and camaraderie among like-minded creative types helping build the reCREATE community. What type of creative talent are we looking for? Sewing, knitting, crocheting, sculpture, child crafting, wire-work, jewelry making, mosaic, collage, trashion, you name it – we are game if you are reusing materials!

Requirements - Creative team members must commit to the following:

A school year commitment to membership on the reCREATE Creative Team (September to June)
Two projects per month made from upcyling materials like those we have at reCREATE. (Probably one child’s craft and one adult craft)
Having your own blog where you also post your projects would be a plus, including a link to our website for materials.
Additional projects given by invitation, such as seasonal projects.
We may also ask you to provide an in-person tutorial up to two times per year, if you have an interest.

In exchange, we offer you:

A $25 monthly allowance of reCREATE materials
A 25% discount on ALL classes and other purchases
The opportunity to help a nonprofit showcase art that will inspire others to make art, not waste.

Entry Details

To apply for the Creative Team for reCREATE:

1.Choose two or three of your best projects.

2.Upload your photos to the reCREATE Creative Team Search gallery on our facebook page.

3. Include a description of what was reused, and include a link if you have a blog or tutorial of the craft.

Entries will be accepted until 11:59 p.m. Pacific August 30st, 2010.

Creative Team members will be announced September 4th.

Inspiration from around the Web!

2010-07-08T04:02:29Z

We make loads of GREAt art all the time at reCREATE. We are REALLY bad at taking pictures and sitting down and blogging it though. I am going to try and get on here more often with craft ideas... .but there are zillions of blogs out there to inspire you.

Take this post... for making Barbie Headbands from a few sequins and the plastic rim of a bottle. Love it!

http://zakkalife.blogspot.com/2010/07/upcycle-craft-doll-headbands.html

We were out recently at a Vendor fair at Whole Foods and made bracelets from scraps of fabric, inspiried from this:

http://itsahodgepodgelife.blogspot.com/2010/02/rag-braceletall-grown-up.html

We added some faux flkowers to ours and this is what they looked like!

E-Waste Event to Benefit re|create!

2010-04-26T23:04:54Z