Monday, December 19, 2011

Luminations Festival at the Wildflower Center

The Teenage Eco Warriors recently participated in the Luminations Festival at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, and had a blast with recycled crafts!

At our craft station, we transformed scraps of used plastic and fabric into festive wreaths.

        
Katya helping a young festival-goer


     
Circe giving instructions               

Kids and grown-ups who came by could grab a wire hoop to use as a frame, then choose scraps in colors of their choice to tie around the hoop until they ended up with something like this:


                            
                                      

Over the two evenings of the festival, we recycled over 30 pounds of fabric and 100-200 plastic bags!


Want to make this cool craft at home? Its not too hard, and you'll be recycling materials in the process!

Step 1: Find something you can use as a frame. We used thin aluminum wire bent into a circle and secured with tape. Another good option would be to bend a coat hanger into a rounded shape, and use the hook at the top to hang the wreath when you are done.

Step 2: Gather some old rags, scraps, clothes, socks (try to avoid the ones in the dirty laundry bin), plastic bags, or anything else that you can cut into strips or tie onto your wreath. This is the step where you can really get creative (twist-ties? old gift ribbons?).

Step 3: Cut your materials into scraps that are roughly 4 inches by 1 inch. 

Step 4: Tie a scrap in a single knot around your frame so that both ends are left hanging loose at approximately even lengths. 

Step 5: Tie another one, and another, and another, and another and another andanotherandanotheraaannndd..........you get the picture. Keep tying on your scraps until the wreath is as packed as you want it! 

Step 6: Just kidding, you're done! Now you have a beautiful wreath for your house!

Monday, December 12, 2011

Back in Action!

Hey Everybody!

Circe, Sadie, and Roz have taken the past year off to focus on school and college applications, and I'm happy to say that we have completed the long journey and are finally settled in at college!

So what's next for the Teen Eco Warriors?

Since we are busy in college now (and some of us are very far away!), we have put a new leader in place, and Circe is serving as director and coordinator.

Who is this new leader? Is she AWESOME?

Her name is Katya, and she is TOTALLY AWESOME!!

Katya is in 8th grade (the age we were when we founded T.E.W.) at the Anne Richards School for Young Women Leaders in Austin, TX. She is a bright, studious young lady with some SUPER SWEET ideas for crafts, events, and workshops. Look forward to some posts from her in the future about recycled crafts!

As Teenage Eco Warriors continues in this "second generation" led by Katya, we hope to raise more money for our account on Kiva.org and inspire the young and old to reduce, reuse, and recycle!

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

More Kiva Loans!!

We just loaned a bunch more money to entrepreneurs in developing countries- who are in need, through Kiva.org.  This Summer the Teenage Eco Warriors earned $250 in honorariums by creating the Austin Responds wall AND by teaching a Plastic Bag Tu Tu workshop  both at Austin Museum of Art.

                                  Sydney, Alex, Roz and Circe  but wait where is Sadie?
                                          she was being camera shy but we found her !


BTW we highly recommend going to Austin Museum of Art to see some really great art!

What ever money we manage to make, we loan through Kiva. Almost everyone that we loaned to a couple of months ago has paid their loan back so we got to re-loan that money. The Teenage Eco Warriors really like it when we re-loan because we are recycling money!!

All together,with the money earned this summer and the money paid back we had a grand total of $450 to lend to people in need!!!!
This is a run down of who we made small loans to this time:



Colombia
Retail
Mongolia
Beauty Salon

Colombia
Crafts

Laïdou Group                $50
8 Entrepreneurs
Mali
Cereals

Rwanda
Food Market

Kenya
Fruits & Vegetables

Jean De Dieu Iyamuremye           $50
Rwanda
Food Market

Costa Rica
Grocery Store

Pascasie Sekamondo     $50
Rwanda
Clothing Sales

Benkadi Ii Group          $50
10 Entrepreneurs
Mali
Farming

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Teen Eco Warriors Gettin' Pretty!



This summer took the Teen Eco Warriors all across the globe. Just in time for school, they convened once again to strut on the cat walk for Keep Austin Beautiful's Recycled Fashion Show at the Austin Museum of Art. Circe Torosian designed four dresses for her collection of adorable, wearable plastic bag dresses and skirts. Allison, Sydney, Amber and Sadie modeled the dresses for the sold out show.

Here's an interview with Austin's the CW.
Check it out!

Here are a few photos of the individual dresses:


All of us!




Saturday, July 24, 2010

Workshop at Austin Museum of Art!

Posted by: Circe!

If you didn't know, the Teenage Eco Warriors care deeply about the children.


That's why we recently participated in a Saturday children's workshop at Austin Museum of Art!


Among other things, we showed people how to make the plastic bag tutu, a signature work of the Teenage Eco Warriors





Here are a few examples!





and some tutus in progress...





and some people got super creative and invented their own fashions using the scraps too!

those are bag scraps on her shoes!

ankle decorations!


another variation on the shoe decoration



We were particularly impressed by the girl above because she is a plastic activist! Her name is Taylor, she is seven years old, and she made a video about the harm that plastic is doing to the Earth!

Here, check it out:




Good job, Taylor!




Well, we saw some pretty awesome things come out of that workshop, and successfully recycled hundreds of bags that would have otherwise been thrown away




Friday, June 11, 2010

Austin Responds!

Posted By: Circe!

SO recently, the Teenage Eco Warriors were invited to share their story and ask for the response of visitors on the Austin Responds wall at Austin Museum of Art. What's that, you say? Well, it's a wall at Austin Museum of Art that a group or individual selected by the museum puts prompts and questions on in any creative way they choose. Then, people who visit the museum can place their responses on a clothesline-like apparatus attached to the wall.

We chose to communicate our message with pictures, string, gems, and a few googly eyes and fake mustaches. We posed a few questions to the public, and mentioned a few light warnings about caring for our environment (If we don't take care of our oceans, the pirates will come back and attack the land people).

The wall was corresponding to the show going on at the museum dealing with themes of consumerism and how much humans consume (the title of the show is Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers).

Here are some pictures of the wall:


This was our main question



And this is someone's awesome response to that question
(Click here for the link)


The whole wall (well, most of it), Circe in her
plastic bag dress, and a responder


Our message to the children

Roz by her dinosaur, and well dressed in her bag tutu

check out our flickr album to see more photos

Coming up next: Children's workshop with plastic bag tutus!