So I visited the Mini-Maker Faire last week, and in the confusion of upgrading to an iPhone 5 (yes, I finally bit the bullet and switched from my beloved Blackberry!!  Ugh, touchscreens…), I didn’t transfer my phone photos quickly enough.  But here they finally are!

The Mini-Maker Faire is a smaller version of the yearly Maker Faire (sponsored by MAKE Magazine and Intel), a celebration of makers in all their forms.  It’s also the first Faire hosted here in Portland!  It’s a hotbed of creativity, a platform for geekiness, and an amazing source of inspiration for everything from crafts to home improvement to just plain wacky inventions.

This Klein Tools canvas bag, $80, available from Hand-Eye Supply in Portland, may be a storage bag for tools but I think it’s total industrial-chic.  Imagine paired with a trenchcoat and dark corduroys and using it as your handbag!  Awesome.

The trebuchets were quite popular, and hurled rotten pumpkins and foam balls (on the kiddie versions).

An 8-person bicycle-driven vehicle, which was steered by a guy wearing a pair of butt-less acid-wash jeans, displaying his bright red panties.  I kid you not.

Steampunk-style custom goggles by Steambaby.net.

3D-printed objects.  I believe that is Yoda’s head in the foreground.

Side tables made of welded copper pipe.

Lil Tot tested out an iPad drawing program for spaceships using geometric figures, pioneered by Make Space Ship.

Fiber arts using colorful wool spun into chunky yarns.

Lil Tot also made a chocolate penguin out of modeling chocolate.

And learned some archery with Trackers PDX, a group that he had Ninja Camp over the Summer with.

And he drove a robot using a Playstation controller.

It was a super-fun day for him, and we definitely saw some neat things, though I would have preferred to see more crafting and fashion-related items.  I’m hoping that they expand into a full-fledged Maker Faire for next year!  (And you just might see me there at a booth too!;-)

xoxox
Carly