September 28th, 2011

We are thrilled to be hosting this event, courtesy of Etsy and the Craft Art & Folk Museum in Mid-City. We hope to see you there!

Thursday October 6
Etsy Craft Night At The Craft Art & Folk Museum: Zines!
Led by The Urban Craft Center and L.A. Zine Fest 2012
7:00-9:00pm • $5 admission (includes materials, drinks, and snacks)

Bust out the markers and scissors to draw, write, collage, cut, and fold. Zines (pronounced zeeen) are handmade mini-magazines that contain stories, comics, rants, raves, and anything else you can think of! The crew from The Urban Craft Center and upcoming L.A Zine Fest will guide you through a series of exercises to make one of your own.

August 31st, 2011

Hi Everyone! Eryca here, I just started working at The Urban Craft Center and I wanted to tell you about my trip to Portland, OR for the 11th annual Portland Zine Symposium! A zine (pronounced zeen) is a handmade self published “magazine” that you can hold in your hands (e-zine and blogs are not zines!) They can be any number of pages, and about any topic. Most often they are made as a creative/artistic/literary outlet, not in pursuit of making money. I’ve been making zines for about 8 years, and it’s by far my favorite craft! Zine fests happen all over the world, usually lasting 1-3 days. I started on the zine fest circuit a couple years ago in Chicago, where I was living at the time, and I absolutely love it! Zine making can often be a solitary activity, so it’s really great when zinesters can be brought together in a social setting (and not just over the internet!). The Portland Zine Symposium (PZS) is a 3 day event, that is free to attend and open to the public. Friday night started off at the Independent Publishing Resource Center, for an open zine reading, where anyone could get up and read parts of their zine. It was a really great to kick off to the symposium!

After scrambling late Friday night to finish collating my zines, I finally went to sleep, only to wake up super early Saturday morning to help set up for the main event; tabling! Zine fests very much resemble trade shows, in that there is a huge room with a bunch of tables and everyone who bought table space (for very affordable rates) is there selling and trading their zines and zine related crafts (such as one inch buttons, artist trading cards, stickers, etc.) I went early to help set up. Zine fests are run entirely by volunteers, and any profits go directly back into putting on the next zine fest, or subsequent zine events.

It’s really exciting to meet people in the zine community that you may only know through the internet or by trading zines through the mail. I made the sign for my zine table at The Urban Craft Center using the Cricut!!!

Along with two days worth of tabling and mingling with other zinesters and zine lovers from all over the world (we had people come from as far as Australia and France!) there were also work shops Saturday and Sunday during the tabling. There were a few rooms in the back of Refuge, the super cool venue that PZS was held at this year, that we had workshops in all day.

After the first day of tabling there was Zinester Feud (just like Family Feud!) and Karaoke at Floating World Comics! It was a lot of fun! After a long day of tabling it’s always great to hang out and play some games!

I made so many new friends, and re-connected with old friends! I had such a wonderful time! So many people walked through! I think one of the best parts of going to zine fests is trading zines and meeting other zinesters!! I got so many new zines! After the tabling was over on Sunday we took down all the tables, stacked the chairs and cleaned up. The Volunteers really care about what they’re doing, and making PZS the best it can be. There was a terrific after party later that night (after everyone could take a nap!) at The Alibi, one of the last original Tikki Bars in Portland! Where we celebrated a successful zine fest and snag more Karaoke!!

I’m currently one of the organizers for the LA Zine Fest and we’re planning a zine fest of our very own, for February 2012, learn how you can get involved, sign up for our mailing list, volunteer! Look out for events leading up to the fest, and come to zine club at the Urban Craft Center! (starting up again in November!)

April 6th, 2011

Our button maker is a creative way to accessorize just about anything! Choose an image from a magazine, draw your own, or bring in a picture of a loved one to create a 1” or 2 1/2” button with your choice of a pin-back or magnet. Great for band promotion, starting a business, zines, promoting a cause, and/or party favors. Great for all ages, this craft will inspire you to to experiment with endless ideas within minutes.

March 23rd, 2011

March 2nd, 2011

This month – try out our button maker for free! Buttons are a great way to get your ziney messages across with a single inch or two. Try out our one inch and two and a quarter inch button maker out and make one of each size for free – don’t forget to bring your zines!

Zines are small, low budget, self-published and self-distributed publications, written by authors outside the mainstream who are motivated to share thoughts or skills with a community rather than to make money or get famous. In a word, zines are awesome. We’ll be working on our own zines are well as collaborative projects, have zine swaps and lots of examples to peruse through.

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posted in Altered Art, Blog, Events, Misc Crafts, Past, Urban Craft Pack, Zines