THE FLEA BLOG

It was a hot day and the first day back to Boulder for many CU students. This years FLEA market was full of great vendors. We were thrilled to host some amazing finds! Some favorites were fabulous, customed-painted bikes and skateboard decks, great womens wear made of recycled plastic bottles (good white water chic!), mosaic wall art made of small brand name stickers, custom leather belts made while you wait,  great vintage jewelry and art and local goods made by groups like SwearJar,  Anaka Arts and the Carriage House Art program! Beyond these treasures there were great garage sale steals, a delicious weekend brunch at Cafe Aion, fabulous coffee & poetry by Innisfree Poets, Hill business giveaways from groups like Brazil on the Hill, and cool stuff by student entrepreneurs like Jesse Hudson. Thank you to everyone that came and made it a great day. Check out coverage on the market written by the Daily Camera.

Do you have a skill you’d like to share? Do you know how to fix, grow, or make things? Are you willing to sing, story tell or dance in the streets?  WE WANT YOU!

Our market celebrates reuse, upcycling and DIY repairs, fixing and making. Create, make, local goods and stuff.  We support new entrepreneurs that are helping our community become more sustainable and daring! We’d love for you to join us by sharing your knowledge and expertise or by dropping by to learn something new. Contact us if you’d like to be a part of our August Market Entertainment or Workshop line up please let us know if you’d like to be considered by June 30th, 2011 by emailing your ideas/suggestions and contact info to info@thehillflea.com

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What a hot, beautiful day!

Visitors enjoy a presentation on making “yarn” to knit or “rope” from plastic bags.

Perfect Mothers Day gifts!

Favorite Flea Fans.. Waylon (Elephant Journal) and David (The Boulder Fringe Festival). Join the community- be at the FLEA or get invovled.

Craft and Mothers Day DIY activities for kids.

Visitors learned how to build a worm box for home as a part of the  ”Recycle Your Food” workshop hosted at the FLEA.

Visitors stopped by the MadGraphics Booth to make custom Mothers Day Stickers. Sketch, draw and print your own.

Stay tuned for an amazing line up of activities and events at the next August 13th FLEA.

Looking for an environmentally friendly present for Mothers day? Stop by the Flea and find a special treasure then visit the Hill Flea Information booth where you can wrap your own present with old newspapers, magazines, and Flea Posters. A reuse masterpiece!

Speaking of Newspapers…

Check out today’s Daily Camera Article on this years Spring Flea Market at:

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/ci_18003167

Can you think of other fun ways to reuse your newspaper… give us your suggestions and we’ll publish the best ideas here.

If your wrapping your Mothers Day present with recycled newspapers, magazines or Flea Posters consider these guidelines:

Bring your kids to the Hill Flea this weekend for a day filled with FREE fun! At 11am Kids can enjoy Story time, singing and dancing in the street. Join Lesley Kernochan who sings songs for children about many important subjects such as eyebrows, opera singing flies, chickens on tubas, and hugs.  Come dance and sing and wiggle with her!  Join us in the street for favorite mothers day  stories such as the classic  ”Are You My Mother?”  Kids can also join us at the recycled art station afterwards where they can make Mom jewelry out of junk for a fun mothers day present. There’s so much going on!!! Bring the whole family down for a great day of play.

Theda Bara, seller of Vintage Lingerie,  is one of the new vendors coming this year to the Hill Flea market this spring, Saturday, May 7th, 2011. Frilly bloomers or a 1930’s Night gown anyone? Vintage wear has always been a hot item at the FLEA and we expect this stuff to sell fast!  Among the many exciting finds… funky knickers, artsy garters, chiffon slips, night gowns from the war era, and more. The Historic University Hill is where it’s all happening.

Happy Monday! I’m writing this morning with some details about the Innisfree Poetry presentation scheduled for 2-3pm on Saturday. Our schedule says Open Mic, but we’re going to need a loose interpretation of ‘Open’ on that one (aren’t loose interpretations what poetry is all about?) because Brain has been working hard to assemble a line-up of ten absolutely killer poets who will hit the stage, one after the next, and blow your socks off by the end of the hour. This is my way of saying, if you want to perform, please talk to Brian this week; please don’t show up on the morning of the event hoping to read, lamenting our usage of the term ‘Open Mic.’

So what, might you ask, does the Innisfree Poetry Cafe and Bookstore have to do with the Hill Flea’s ethic of sustainable living, recycling, reusing, and upcycling? ‘Just about everything,’ comes my somewhat smug response. Starting with the obvious, all their cups are compostable, the tins are recyclable, reusable (and yes! upcyclable if you like!) and supplied by Conscious Coffees, a Boulder-based company dedicated to sustainable economic development across the coffee-producing world, whose products have recently been officially certified under IMO’s “Fair for Life Social & Fairtrade Certified” program.

And if the concrete is not good enough for you, oh so heady Boulderites, might we tread into the realm of the abstract? What is poetry but the recycling (and sometimes upcycling if there’s talent involved) of that collective lexicon we’ve all inherited from our peers and parents (and sometimes great great great grandparents)? Poetry recognizes the meaning, historical and personal, of words and reinvents it through realignment, reinterpretation, reimagination. We take words known for generations (and which might be starting to go a little stale like old bread) and upcycle them into something fresh and vulnerable to pass down to future generations.

And what is reading poetry? Reading is sharing. If a market is a forum for exchanging goods, services, and ideas – and in the case of the Hill Flea, it’s all tied together under the unified ideology of sustainable living – then what could contribute more than the sharing of life experience, feelings, the revitalization of our language in the name of acknowledging that we are all here together, living on this earth together, and in the same way we must help each other take care of our home, we must also help and teach each other how to take care of our own souls.

Sorry if that got a bit grandiose there at the end, I just think poetry as a form of upcycling is really really great. Can you tell? And please, take some time to visit Brian at Innisfree in the next week. It was talking with him that inspired me to write the paragraphs above. Maybe a few words with him will inspire you too.

Happy Wednesday, Boulderites! We’re only 10 days from the May Flea, so I thought I would give you a little taste of the new discoveries awaiting us all there. Today I interviewed Kristina of O-Dance Studio, who will be hosting a hoop-making and body shaking workshop from 1 to 3 pm at our May event. As many of you know, hula-hooping (now generally referred to just as ‘hooping’) has been making a huge resurgence in recent years, moving from a small collection of circus performers and Burning Man aficionados to a more mainstream audience, with competitive teams springing up all over the world. It is now considered not only a technically challenging sport, but also an incredibly beautiful dance performance. And Kristina will not only be teaching us how to make our own hoops, but also the basics in how to use them.

Kristina has been hooping for 4 years, ever since she fell in love with a stunning performance at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. In that time, she’s come into her own as a teacher and hoop manufacturer, making her own masterpieces out of PVC pipes, glitter tape and gaffer tape. At the Flea, she will be providing all the needed materials (including pre-shaped pipes as the process of joining the ends requires boiling water and a coupler, which could prove a little tricky out under the sun on the Hill) for kids and adults alike to design and decorate their own customized hoops. At 3 o’clock, Kristina will begin a demonstration/dance performance of all she’s learned in recent years, and then instruct us all in Hooping 101 until the day ends at 4.

Visit O Dance’s webpage at http://odance.net

THE HILL FLEA -Boulder’s Newest Market is Growing Greener!

The Hill business district creates a hot bed for local innovators and creative entrepreneurs!

On Graduation Weekend, Saturday, May 7th, and the day before Mother’s Day, Boulder residents will have an opportunity to shop locally, sustainably and innovatively at this years Spring Hill Flea (http://www.thehillflea.com) 10am-4pm. This year’s May Market will showcase family garage sales, vintage clothing, and much more. The Market also hopes to attract more “up-cycled innovators” in the future but will feature some early adaptors at this spring market.  Market director Hillary Griffith says her goal is that the Market will become a hotbed for Colorado inventors, innovators and creative entrepreneurs, “We are looking for people who can help us conserve resources by showing how to redesign our trash!” says Griffith. Griffith notes that in May of 2012, The Market will launch its first annual “Reuse Innovation Competition”.  “The long-term goal is to encourage the Boulder community to go design crazy, showing off their wild ideas, and maybe even sell some of them! We also hope to help people continue to shop locally and consider repair before the dumpster, so we offer free workshops that teach people DIY skills and how to fix it as well” notes Griffith.

Griffith also highlights that  “Americans throw some 175 million tons of trash into landfills each year and that not so far away from Boulder, the Denver Arapahoe Disposal Site in Colorado is recognized as the second largest landfill in the United States (based on tons of garage received each year).”  The Flea is a way of promoting a more sustainable future for all of Colorado.

Those who are already familiar with online development sites like Quirky.com may want to check out some of the latest LOCAL innovators that will be showing up at the HILL Flea market. Boulder is already home to some companies that are leading the way in reuse like Green Guru who sells products like “up-cycled” dog leashes made from old climbing ropes and various products from recycled bike tires. See http://www.greenguru.com

Griffith noted that at last year’s market, vendors were diverse and included designers from throughout Colorado, CU student groups, mountain community members bringing garage sales, and even several high school students who designed products or brought art for sale. One of these students ended up at Harvard and another is now at Stanford studying in the Design School program.  The Flea is a great way to promote our entrepreneurial and engineering, local expertise. This year the FLEA has a Student Bazaar section, which offers booth space at discounted rates, to student businesses and artists.

On another note, Griffith also believes that the Hill Flea, now in its third year, has in a subtle way helped attract a variety of new businesses to the Hill by encouraging the public to consider the potential for “up-cycling” this business district.  Businesses like Cafe Aion (now nationally recognized as one of Boulders great restaurants) www.cafeaion.com and Innissfree Poetry Bookstore & Cafe (one of three poetry bookstores in the US) have chosen to make “The Hill” their home.  These businesses have renovated historic buildings and have created beautiful spaces that are attracting visitors from all over the state. Griffith hopes that the Boulder community will remember the value of saving old buildings, including the Hill’s historic buildings by  “up-cycling” them and promoting this in the Hill Commercial Area.

As usual the Market offers cheap garage sale space to encourage people to reuse.  Garage sale items brought to the Market can be left on the street at the end of the market and are picked up by Arc Thrift. “The goal”, says Griffith, is to make it easy, affordable and fun to participate.    Griffith notes that at the end-of-summer during, the August 13^th Market   (when students are just getting back into town) big furniture often goes like wildfire. “Last year Historic Boulder sold out of all of its big furniture quickly” says Griffith.   Other local non-profits will also be involved this spring like the Second Wind Fund & Collies Closet who will be promoting their own coming fundraiser which features an ‘up-cycled fashion show’”.

Attendees can also enjoy great street food, free entertainment, community workshops (like how to “Repair Your Chair”), and fun activities like “Make your own Hoop & Hoop Dance Class “,    offered by O Dance Studio and Open Mic community Poetry Hour. The Fringe Festival is also helping with music and production, Core Power will offer a free 10am Yoga in the Street class and the Flea hosts a children’s story hour. Of course, children can also make presents for Mom out of recycled goods and practice “up-cycling” at the market. Mad Graphics also attending the Flea will be hosting a “make your owns custom sticker for mothers day”- A simple, affordable, fun present to give!

This Spring 2011 event runs from 10am to 4pm on Saturday, May 7th, 2011 and takes place IN THE STREET at 13th & Pennsylvania in the Historic University Hill District, in Boulder.

The City of Boulders Parking Services and CU are the major sponsors.

You can also get updates by following the Hill Flea on Facebook and Twitter.

For more information : thehillflea@gmail.com