love this lilly pad game by mama urchin - instructions on how to play at their site

from two straight lines - directions here - just in time for easter.

free pattern by Soph Viklund project by hooks and needles

soto softies - bunnies

softies central - bunnies, bunnies and more bunnies

this bunny is from make it awesome etsy store

feed the dogs - gorgeous bunnies

and Fibonacci Rabbit at daskaninchen [via feed the dogs]

these lovely flying star toys bunnies

The infamous Melbourne Craft Cartel Market - purveyors of subversive craft since 2007 have expanded their web of influence with the upcoming launch of the Craft Cartel Podcast.

Podcast co host Casey says “The Cartel is all about creating a new world based on freedom, sustainability and a deadly sense of humour, without waiting for ‘The Man’ to do it for us. It’s direct action in it’s purest form, we plan on highlighting the brilliant skills of our stall holders and bringing the craftivist visions from around the world into one online show.

The podcast can be accessed from here or through the iTunes Store (from Monday 17th March).

If in Melbourne head along to the Launch - at the next Cartel Market Monday 17 March, Section 8 Container Bar, Tattersalls Lane, Melbourne, approx 7pm.

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Craft Con 2008, a business development conference for the craft community. This remarkable gathering of leaders and organizers in the evolving craft and design movement will be held in San Francisco April 4-6. Last year’s Craft Congress was the first event of its kind, bringing together an amazing group of craft promoters from all over the country and as far away as England to network, share ideas, and discuss the future of the resurging movement.

at sock monkey fun on flickr.

a game based on the children’s memory game - but a little more complex for adults. - from Hanne at heaven and earth.

In real life the pieces of the puzzle don’t always just fall into place. You have to sometimes make up your own rules in order to deal with the circumstances. Hanna has illustrated this by making a collection of single images and statements, when put together they become a whole life story.

by flickr user needle noodles - blog where you can find patterns etc here oh and pattern available to purchase on etsy

ihanna has a free tutorial to make these lovely romantic magnets

bobolina has a tutorial for pin/fridge magnets - very neat

a little hut has a tutorial for some recycled paper magnets

soule mama always inspiring with her natural take on toys and games for kids. here she discusses wooden toys and all the wonderful things you can make with wooden acorns (the real thing is good to use too - see pics)

acorn message by flickr user Li.. | acorn face by mac3 | acorn family by flickr user 8skeinsofdanger

Anne Clarke, a knitter who creates one-of-a-kind wearable art—primarily coats, jackets, and hats—using wool yarns that are knitted, felted, pieced together with hand stitching, and embellished with needlepoint details, will speak about her work at the March meeting of the Textile Study Group of New York. (Thanks Marci)

image caption: (wall hanging) Peony etc Fulled wood, 36″ x 24″

Location: Community Church of New York Unitarian Universalist, 40 E. 35th St. betw. Park and Madison, New York City : Date: Wednesday, March 19, 7 pm : More: Ann will be teaching “Experimental Intensive in Machine Knitting,” Aug. 8–12, at Peters Valley.

After finishing her art degree and no longer having access to a large studio space she started to “shrink” her work and began incorporating handwork and stitching as a drawing technique. This allowed her work to fit into her life both in scale and in portability—she could cram it into a bag and do it everywhere. She then learn’t to knit and started making one-of-a-kind garments.

Anne tells stories with her work using image and color in the form of heavy wool garments. Her main themes are family history, nature, literary references and the news.

Ann is interested in teaching students to see fiber as the vehicle for their communication. Knitting utilizes the vocabularies of surface design and weaving. It is a language of pattern, a language of color, or hand, of surface.

I am really looking forward to bringing an interesting spin to this months theme of toys and games. Different to kids crafts - this theme is not necessarily child related and can be toys and games for any age group. Please send in your ideas, tutorials and articles to whipup[at]gmail.com - don’t forget to read our submission guidelines if submitting an article.

Recently we have really cut down watching TV at our house. We were noticing an ugly trend in ourselves (my partner and I) and in our two children of becoming bored and boring. We were losing our creativity and imaginations and becoming snarky and prickly towards each other much too easily. Since putting a limit on TV (in fact we disabed it so the kids can not just automatically turn it on whenever they feel like it), we have noticed that we and they play more games, accessing the games cupboard and craft boxes and book shelves more readily. At night we have been playing various board games, the whole families favourite is blokus and the kids play Uno and pick up sticks and have recently become obsessed with Monopoly (oh dear!). The drawing books have made a big come back and the kids love to play schools with each other now that my youngest is learning to read and spell. We also play word games with each other and charades … Some of the kids favourite things to do are really so very simple - dressing up the cat and organising their endless collections of stuff (see pics). love to hear your suggestions and ideas for more family friendly games.

This month I hope to discover more games and toys that can be played with kids with adults and with the whole family - I will be hunting for games and toys for outside, sports games, dangerous games, imaginative and playful games - so send in your ideas whipup[at]gmail.com

greeting arts has made a tutorial for her scrappy cartwheel dolls quilt that was showcased in our mini quilts whiplash contest a while back.

The spanish crafters Eloole have designed and produced a suit of the planet for Intermon Oxfam´s campaign “Hasta los Polos“. They try to remove consciences about the climatic change, armed conflicts and the immigration. The handmade suit have a structure of foam and details as the chimneys, skulls, weapons, small boats in felt and cottons fabrics.

Los artesanos españoles Eloole han diseñado y producido un traje del planeta para la campaña “Hasta los Polos” de Intermon Oxfam. Tratan así de remover conciencias sobre el cambio climático, los conflictos armados o la inmigración. Este traje está totalmente hecho a mano, con una base de espuma recupierta por pequeños detalles en fieltro(barcos, calaveras, chimeneas, armas…) y telas de algodón.

April fool contest at dabbled - submit your cool & funky & foolish works along the theme of “April Fool”. Take it literally, or figuratively–or April Fools’ Joking-ly.. the funner the better! - The Rules: Your entry can be art, craft, or food. - Deadline: Friday Mar 26 @ 9:00 pm Eastern time. Winners announced on April 1! Judges - yours truly kathreen of Whip Up and Alice of Futuregirl amongst others.

Melissa wrote in with this: arts & crafts fund raiser for orphans in China to keep the two little girls we sponsor in their programs. There are a lot of talented & popular artists/crafters involved with the fundraiser. Craft for China is a fundraiser for orphans in China. Artists, crafters, and other volunteers have donated their time and products to be auctioned on eBay. 100% of the proceeds will go to Love Without Boundaries, a nonprofit organization that helps Chinese orphans get medical care, nutritional care, foster care, educational help and so much more. The money raised goes towards sponsoring children or their orphanage.

What is copyleft… (libervis wiki) a term being used for licenses that use copyright law to give permission instead of forbid, usually permission to copy, use, modify and share. As such “copyleft licenses” today lay at the foundation of the free culture world as they provide the means to preserve and continue building a free culture (free as in freedom).

Another explanation… (Wikipedia)Copyleft describes a group of licenses applied to works such as software, documents, and art. Where copyright law is seen by the original proponents of copyleft as a way to restrict the right to make and redistribute copies of a particular work, a copyleft license uses copyright law in order to ensure that every person who receives a copy or derived version of a work, can use, modify, and also redistribute both the work, and derived versions of the work. …

To read an excellent article on copy left for artists, designer and makers go to knit sisters. Alex explains all of this and how it might apply to us makers and gives some tips and ideas on how to make it work to our benefit. (scroll down a few paragraphs)

The approach of the free content movement—the copyleft people—has been to try to encourage copyright practices which allow great freedom for innovation and collaboration, but also offer the author certain controls over their work as well. The essence of it is that most people really don’t need to have “all rights reserved”—they can give away substantially more rights, if done carefully, and won’t suffer any negative consequences (that is, they can still make a buck off of their work).

an article at eye magazine by David M. Berry, Marcus McCallion titled Time to examine the debates about the ownership of intellectual property. They say:

Designers increasingly see the question of copyright and intellectual property as an important issue. More and more, they are concerned about being ‘ripped off’, and are told that establishing copyright is essential. But there is little understanding of what copyright is, how it works, whom it benefits or what alternatives there are. This Agenda hopes to raise awareness of the issues surrounding copyright and to empower the designer to make informed choices about how to use copyright and its alternative: copyleft.

an article titled The Copy Left Is Not Right by Brad Holland gives an alternative view on copyleft and looks at the issues from small designers and big corporations perspectives.

A new “rights movement” is taking shape around the issue of creators’ rights. In theory, its goal is to benefit the general public. But if successful, it will affect the careers and legacies of freelancers everywhere. And artists, writers and photographers who are already confused about how to protect their copyrights can now say hello to a new ride at the Funhouse.

At article about copyleft and creative commons as an alternative at designerati

In the broadest sense, copyleft is the process of making a work (program, design, artwork, et. al.) free – if not in price, then in the sense of “freedom”, to extend the right to change and redistribute a work, and requiring that all modified or extended derivatives be free in this way as well. This is in contradistinction to public domain – where a work is released to the world without restrictions or obligations on its use of any sort.

Find out more go to creative commons

Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control — a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which “all rights reserved” (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy — a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation — once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally — have become endangered species.

Creative Commons is working to revive them. We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare “some rights reserved.”

Laura shares: If you use a washing machine to felt your knitted pieces, eventually as some of us know, it will plug up with fibers. I have figured out how to ‘unplug’ my Danby washing machine and thought this might be of interest to other felters.

Part of our toys and games month - this lovely fairy bed made from collected twigs and leaves from children’s garden.

nini makes sent in this idea for creating a paper doll of yourself or for for your kids.

Ponoko is currently having a 10 day contest for aspiring jewelry designers with prizes up to $10,000. If someone has always had an idea for something to get cut out of acrylic or wood and made into jewelry now is the time to enter and make it a reality!

Entries will be accepted between 1 March 2008 and 10 March 2008. - read more about the invitation round which has a later closing date.