Maker Faire

Today I went to the Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science in Flushing Queens. Make is a project based magazine that is pretty sciencey. Think less building a bookcase and more building a magnetic stirring machine. However they have a sister magazine, Craft, that is more my thing (although some of their crafts are quite nerdy as well... think firefox necklace, light up clothing, robot notecards).

Day of tickets were $25 (I could of saved $5 by planning ahead), but I ended up spending 5 hours there and got some free stuff so it wasn't too bad of a deal. My day started out in the crafts for sale area. Everything was high quality and included jewelry, soap, printed t-shirts, plushies (my newly learned name for stuffed animals), and stationary.

I then moved on to the craft demonstration area and saw how to make a stuffed hedgehog. It was cute and a well done presentation, but I didn't really learn anything new (make a pattern, cut it out, sew, stuff, whip stitch....)

I did love her pretty pink sewing machine

Next door was the Martha Stewart Living booth. I was a little disappointed by her crafts. When I first went by they had butterflies to cut out and attach to a dowel rod with a ribbon.... They were also making giant paper mache bones and taking pictures of people in front of a fall background. I was able to grab the October Living magazine.

Martha wasn't there

I went back by her booth later and they were handing out cupcakes decorated with gum paste cut out by a cricut machine. I've seen these machines before for paper, but was surprised to see them used for food. The results are pretty, but I can't help from feeling like its cheating.

I headed on to the Craft make tent. Inside there were several demonstrations and lessons.

Outside was this car with a knitted cozy.

Lion Brand and Red Heart Yarn brands both had booths inside. As I walked up to the Lion Brand booth they were starting a knitting lesson, although I already know how to knit the allure of free yarn, needles, and project bag was too much and I grabbed a chair. To my surprise I learned something new. I taught myself to knit from a CD my mom got me one Christmas. That is where I learned to cast on, I had no idea there were other ways! Today I learned the "knitted cast on". I picked it up pretty quickly, an advantage is not needing to know how long of a tail you need when you start casting on.

Some of the cute projects they had made up

Lunch of Paella (the shrimp was whole and messy)

After lunch I wondered over into the other areas of the fair. And wow. There were people all in gold riding gold horse bicycles around, there were Steampunk people (victorian science fiction), there was all kinds of soldering, and some crazy jet fueled 360 degree swing of death (that was really loud).

One of the cooler things I saw was these two guys with a bunch of bottles of diet coke and mentos. Not only was there diet coke flowing everywhere they guys gave a great explanation of what happens and how to do it yourself while being charming the entire time.

Explaining how different variations affect the effect

During the grand finale-- better than the fountains in Vegas

There was also this crazy guy giving haircuts. Ummm I didn't go near him.

I never go to salons that require my eyes to be taped shut

Overall it was a great fair. One suggestion... make it less child friendly? They had special children areas, but no special adult areas. The kids were everywhere and hey, I would of liked to tried and tested a few more things, but I never like making a kid cry.