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!

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!

CHECK IT OUT! aTED talk about Kiva

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:

Maria Eugenia Méndez Buelvas  $25

Colombia

Retail

Narmandah Jamdaan    $25

Mongolia

Beauty Salon

Ruben Dario Martinez Lora     $50

Colombia

Crafts

Laïdou Group                $50
8 Entrepreneurs

Mali

Cereals

Therese Mukandanga  $50

Rwanda

Food Market

Victor Omondi Omolo   $50

Kenya

Fruits & Vegetables

Jean De Dieu Iyamuremye           $50

Rwanda

Food Market

Zoila Naranjo Gomez    $50

Costa Rica

Grocery Store

Pascasie Sekamondo     $50

Rwanda

Clothing Sales

Benkadi Ii Group          $50
10 Entrepreneurs

Mali

Farming

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!

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

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!

Update!

Posted by: Circe

Heyyyyyyy friends! The Teenage Eco Warriors have good news!

Our loans on Kiva.org have been completely repaid, so we re-loaned our $250!

we loaned $25-50 to seven people all over the world:
-a mother in Tajikistan who raises cattle,
-a mother of three in Peru who is in clothing sales,
-a cafe owner in Kenya,
-a mother of three in Senegal who is in retail,
-a livestock raiser in Kenya,
-a woman who sells her crafts in Kenya (yay for crafts!)
-and a man in Lebenon who needed more tools for his work

There's more good news!

We're beginning to plan a fundraiser so we can put more money in our kiva account, and donate to other charities!

The fundraiser will include live music from local teen bands who want to help out and a silent auction with crafts we've made

It should be super hip-happenin'!!!

Our Crafty Readers Share Their Cool Ideas

One of our crafty readers, Emily- of Santa barbara California, was inspired by those plastic bag skirts that we like to make. She made an incredible dress from a vintage plastic table cloth and some black electrician's tape. She also made a beautiful necklace from buttons and thread. Below are some pictures and instructions for you on how she did it.

here are Emily's instructions: Thanks Emily!

Dress materials:
vintage dress pattern
vintage plastic lace tablecloth
black vinyl electricians tape
hooks and eyes

place pattern on lace in the usual way that one would lay out a pattern. cut out pieces. I cut off the seam allowances around the neck and armholes and only left them on the sides and back. Stitch the dress together on a sewing machine using a long stitch. Where the lace is lacey you may have to insert tissue paper between the seams in order to not have to deal with the holes in the lace. When dress is stitched together turn right side out. I topstitched the bust and back darts with doubled black thread by hand. The armholes, neck and back were done by placing one half the width of the tape on the right side of dress and fold over to back, matching edges of tape on right and back sides. I then top stitched the tape by hand using a doubled black thread. It's too hard to use the machine because the tape is sticky and causes the needle to gum up and the thread to break. I made the flower out of a strip of lace about 18 inches long. I did a long
running stitch by hand and then pulled it to shape the bloom. Then I stitched the running stitched edge together in places to reinforce the bloom shape. I then stitched the bloom onto the dress using doubled black thread and a large plastic button (on the inside of the dress I added a small circle of the plastic so that when I sewed into the plastic it would be stronger.. The bloom is edged in a running stitch using a doubled black thread. I called the dress "Notta Balenciaga".

NECKPIECE INSTRUCTIONS
materials: plastic buttons
linen thread - 6 strand
wash away interfacing

cut piece of interfacing the size and shape of finished neckpiece adding two inches extra all around for ease of handling.

useing plain thread stitch the buttons onto the interfacting in the desired pattern.

With linen thread, on each button, go up through underside of button to front and down in it's next hole to back. leave a tail of three inches or so on each side of the holes. after each six or buttons, tie the linen thread to adjacent buttons on as many sides as possible. This makes a linen web like structure on the back side. Proceed until all buttons have been linked together in this way.

rinse out disolvable interfacing in mildly warm water. allow neckpiece to dry thoroughly. when dry, separate linen thread into individual strands and fan out around buttons to your taste.

wear and enjoy!
About me: self taught, crafty from birth, age 62, woman, mother and grandmother of 3.
Emily

KATIE IN JAPAN !!!

It's summer in Austin!  Angsty Teenage Eco Warriors are all quite busy. Especially Katie.

Katie has been studying Japanese since middle school. She worked diligently all year on the exchange student application process.  She was accepted AND given a full scholarship! Yay Katie!

You can see what Katie is up to in Japan -here is her blog  http://nihonkatie.blogspot.com/

We Thought you would like to know...

Check out more2girls magazine!!!

NOT because we are interviewed in this month's issue and NOT because we make a special video appearance as well...

DO check it out because it is a great online magazine that is fun and inspirational and it happens to be absolutely free! That's right free inspiration, games, music, advice and even recipes. Oh and by signing up they enter you into a draw for a cool Canon

digital video camera!


Click here for their link!

Here what they say on their website:

This is an information age. Your generation of Teen girls is computer and tech savvy, with multimedia skills that rival those of many information arts professionals. This, combined with a heart for making the world a better place, shameless idealism, and boundless energy, makes you a force to be reckoned with. In so much as knowledge is power, your ability to acquire and disseminate information has the potential to be the proverbial lever that moves the world. More2girls Inc wants to help you move it.

More2Girls' mission is to awaken you to a fuller realization and acceptance of your potential power and then to help you to leverage that power to effect positive change in your homes, schools, communities and the world.

MICRO LOANS!

You Ask: What is a micro-loan?

we found this answer on wikipedia

Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to the unemployed, to poor entrepreneurs and to others living in poverty. These individuals lack collateral, steady employment and a verifiable credit history and therefore cannot meet even the most minimal qualifications to gain access to traditional credit. Microcredit is a part of microfinance, which is the provision of a wider range of financial services to the very poor.

Microcredit is a financial innovation that is generally considered to have originated with the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.^[1] In that country, it has successfully enabled extremely impoverished people to engage in self-employment projects that allow them to generate an income and, in many cases, begin to build wealth and exit poverty.

We are dedicating this entire post to micro-loans. We will show you how to get involved, even if you don't have any money!  We think that micro-loans are a great way to fight poverty throughout the world. 

This is a video from Small Things Challenge 

This video gives you the basic idea behind Micro loans.  Check out the Small Things Challenge website.

This website gives you a chance to get involved even if you don't have money! Just click and Intel donates a quarter! Those quarters add up!

Below is a video from Kiva. We used Kiva's website to loan our $275.00 of "raking money" to a woman entrepreneur in Tajikistan. She is the owner of a clothing stand. When she finishes repaying the loan (she has almost finished paying) we can get the money back and keep it or we can re-loan it to another person in need. Our plan is to keep raising money for our Kiva account and keep making loans with it. 

Curious? Click here to see and learn about actual people who need loans. 

The smallest loan that you can make through Kiva is $25.00

To get started, go to their website and follow the instructions.

Here is some info we copied from their website: Kiva.org

What Is Kiva?

We Let You Loan to the Working Poor

Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.

Let us know what you think-Let us know if you get involved. Have questions? To contact us just click on the comments link below!

RAKING FOR A CAUSE

Raking it in for Kiva!

here we are practicing the ancient art of "rake fighting"

Our Inspiration:

 the inspirational Mr. Loewenstern (not in class)

In Mr. Loewenstern's Geography class we look at different regions of the world, identify their inherent difficulties and evaluate them from a problem solver's point of view. As we study different regions we take on the role of it's leaders and try to solve the problems of that region. So in a typical class period we might be negotiating with  mock leaders of a bordering country or a mock European Union or UN!  After we had finished a unit on poverty Mr. Lowenstern introduced us to some aid organizations that had been very effective in some of the most impoverished regions of the world.  We learned about operation BUZZKILL (that's another post!) but most importantly the Kiva website.-circe

What is KIVA?

Kiva is the world's first person to person micro-lending website that empowers individuals (like us!) to make small loans directly to entreprenuers working in impoverished regions throughout the world.  When you make a micro-loan you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need. We definitely wanted to get involved in this progam but we didn't have any money!

HOW TO raise money...

It was Autumn, there was an immense pile up of leaves around the neighborhood... we saw opportunity! People might pay us to remove their immense piles of leaves. We started by making up a flyer -we sent it out via email to our neighbors. To our surprise several people took us up on our offer to rake.-sadie

Here is what our flyer looked like. Feel free to copy it. We charged about 2.00 per bag, most yards had between 25 and 30 bags worth of leaves

=====================================================================================

“RAKING IT IN” FOR Kiva.org

Does your yard need raking? A group of teenagers from your neighborhood (Circe, Sadie and friends) have formed a service organization that enables them as a group to volunteer and raise funds for environmental and humanitarian causes that they care deeply about. They call themselves The Angsty Teenage Eco Warriors.  These “Angsty Teens” would like to rake your yard and donate 100% of the proceeds to Kiva.org. 

What is Kiva.org? 

Kiva is non-profit micro loan organization that is doing great things: Kiva.org allows individuals to make $25 loans to low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world. By doing so, individuals like you provide affordable working capital for the poor (money to buy a sewing machine, livestock, etc.), empowering them to earn their way out of poverty. 

Here’s How it Works 

• Angsty Teens will rake your yard, put the leaves in paper yard waste bags and place them at the curb for City of Austin pick up. (You supply the bags and the City will compost the yard waste) 
  
• Angsty Teens will invest the leaf raking money at Kiva.org- you can track the investment online at the Kiva website. As the loans are paid back Angsty Teens will continually reinvest the money to Kiva.org 
  
• Angsty Teens are parent supervised. To make a raking appointment or to get an estimate on leaf removal call us 
  

Click the links below to learn more about Kiva:

http://www.kiva.org  

micro loans are a Nobel Peace Prize winning idea! Click below to learn more: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/061013-nobel-peace.html  

===================================================================================

RAKING DAY!

mentally preparing for the task

Ahh, the fresh scent of autumn. Cool mornings, blustery days and most importantly, leaves!

Whether the smell of leaves bring sweet maple memories, or just give you the sniffles, raking is something that any able bodied person can do, and some good can come of it if you are willing to roll up you sleeves! 

a steep learning curve: What goes in the bag?

Grabbing our "garden" variety household rakes and claws, a bunch of us got together and tackled those immense piles of leaves. With nimble hands and feet we deftly maneuvered the tall mounds of leaves into huge paper sacks (not without some trouble though, somehow some of us ended up inside the bags, too). It was quite a fiasco. The piles of leaves everywhere seemed endless, but that didn’t stop us. After a couple of weekends spent in many yards, we had earned $275.00. We thought that amount was a good start for a micro-loan. Just by being willing to rake our friendly neighbor’s lawns, we ended up “raking” in the dough for a micro-loan that will change someone's life. -sadie

done!