About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (April 20, 2011)
FLUKE 20111 TENTH ANNIVERSARY! spectacular! ATHENS, GEORGIA'S MINI-COMICS & ZINE FESTIVAL SATURDAY, M APRIL 23rd THE 40 WATT CLUB 28S W. WASHINGTON ST. 11:00AM-6:00PM t $2 GENERAL ADMISSION I fetg $8 EXHIBITOR TABLES FIRST COME —FIRST SERVE! FREE FLUKE COMICS ANTHOLOGY WITH ADMISSION 1 JLtilkmViMMIHflWIllllM HEY LOOK! GI\T A BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE TO OUR BELOVED SPONSORS! INCH-HIGH ,BUTTON GUY flagpole BOOKS jou&fyJl & < Pu&&, 14th Annual Charity Golf Tournament DATE: Monday, May 2, 2011 BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF ATHENS LOCATION: Lane Creek Golf Course 1201 Club Drive, Bishop, GA 30621 HOW: Sign-up as two-man teams ACTIVITES: Lunch @ 11:00 Shotgun Start @ Noon Raffle PRIZES: I st , 2 nd , 3 rd , Last Place, Closest to Pin & Longest Drive Registration includes food and beverages - $100 per person Mulligans for Sale! MH| DIRECTIONS: Take 1-85 N toward GreenvHle. Exit on GA-316 toward Lawrenceville/Athens. Go approximately 27 miles, and then turn RIGHT onto HOG MOUNTAIN Road. Cross over HWY 78. Stay on HWY S3. Turn right onto Cole Springs Road. Cross over Snow’s Mill Road and Lane Creek is approximately 1.5 miles on the right. A tan tax in-store or call or email Lindsey Pierson at 706-548-7277 or IpiersonCcDlocosgrill.com. NEWS FROM THE JUICE BOX SET Quick, all you parents out there: it's a pop quiz. Head out to your recycling bin and grab some newspapers before it rains. Or go out to your backyard and grab some sticks. Then, when your child starts complaining that they're bored, take these items and use them to create some super-cool afternoon crafting activity that will set your young Bob Ross on the path to creative genius. Did you pass the test? Don't worry, I didn't either. For months now, I've had this crazy idea that I can convert found objects into wholesome afternoon art activities with my daughter. So far. I've failed miserably. But luckily, we parents have a cheat sheet, of sorts. In recent months, several kid-friendly crafting spots have cropped up around Athens, with activities that are better thought out than anything you're likely to cobble together. Take some of the proj ects Hope Hilton puts together at Treehouse Kid and Craft (815 W. Broad St., Athens; www.tree- housekidandcraft.tumblr. com). Treehouse sells hand made toys and DIY-themed goodies, and the craft ing table is always open. •Hilton and Treehouse owner Kristen Bach scour websites and DIY blogs for kid-appro priate crafts, then organize them into hour-long weekly sessions throughout the week. Drop-in classes (10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Tuesdays, 4 p.m. Thursdays, $10) can have a theme, but some afternoon classes are more free-form, when Hilton puts out paper, crayons, sticks, glue and any other odds and ends, and lets the kids go to town. At 10 a.m. Saturday mornings there is a story, followed by a cor responding craft, and older kids can create their own fairy worlds with workshops at 1 p.m. on Saturdays. Another children's store with weekly art activities is Learning Express (Georgia Square Mall; find a calendar of events on the store's Facebook page). It seems toy companies have lots of samples to share, so the store has started sharing them with customers as part of weekly "playdays" (typically 10:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. on Thursdays, but the sched ule may vary some weeks). If the activity includes a cost to the stor§—for example, an upcoming playday involves painting plates for Mother's Day, and it costs the store to glaze the plates—it's passed on to the participants in the form of a class fee. But otherwise, most events are free and there's no pressure to buy what you're crafting with (though, of course, you can buy the items in the store if you're so inclined). Then there are the weekly art and crafting classes at Whole: Mind Body Art (160 Tracy St. next to ATHICA; www.wholemindbodyart. com). Michelle and Brian Vaught have a space where they try to enrich the body as a whole, so that means sometimes a yoga class may end with an art lesson, or maybe a crafting class also includes a lesson on, say, Cubism. Weekly art classes include a basic beginning kids' art class (12 and younger; $12 drop-in or $10 prepaid) or more specific topics using • recycled materials or a lesson linked to a story. Older kids (16 and up) can learn basic sewing techniques. Kids' art classes are 3:45 and 5 p.m. on Tuesdays. And tucked into a former recording studio next to Big City Bread, Arrow is another spot where parents and kids can chill out and have some fun with art on Saturday mornings (11 a.m.-noon every other Saturday, including Apr. 23). The Saturday art classes, taught by Rachel Barnes, an art education student at UGA, may include puppets, fingerpaints or something inspired by nature. In general. Arrow is more of a playspace for younger kids (4 and younger) compared with the other ven ues, which usually aim for ages 2-8. At Arrow, parents and their toddlers can drop in for $12 a visit (your first visit is free), and there are multiple membership levels you can sign up for, depending on how often you plan on com ing by to play ($40-$175). All of these classes come with an added benefit: no clean-up! But parents can learn from these classes, too. Both Michelle Vaught at Whole and Hilton at Treehouse say it's the simplest things that can make for good crafts. Cardboard cut-outs stuck onto coffee stirrers, for example, can become characters from a story. A stick wrapped with yarn can be the top of a whimsical found-object mobile. 'They love simple crafts," Vaught says. "As adults, we forget to think like a child. The knowledge you can gain by looking through a child's eyes—that's enriched us." And if you can use up more of that news paper from the recycling bin, even better. Kristen Morales Kiddie Dope is a monthly column exploring the pos sibilities for families with young children in Athens. Know a good activity or have an issue yuu’d like to see addressed? Email it to kiddiedope@flagpole.com. 8 FLAGPOLE.COM • APRIL 20,2011 KRISTEN MORALES
