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Covid-Secure Night Shelters: What a Win!
Many of the creative people who bring their courage and skill to the Handcrafted community have experienced rough sleeping and homelessness first hand. So, when we were invited to collaborate with Durham Winter Night Shelter in making the shelter Covid-Secure, there was a real passion to help out. Here’s how the space was transformed by… Read more »
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No space? No tools? No problem!
I love looking at sites like Pinterest and the YouTube channels spearheading the “makers revolution”: seeing the incredible creativity of some humans – especially when they are transforming things that might otherwise be destined for landfill. But I hate feeling like a bystander, having neither the space or the tools, and possibly lacking the confidence… Read more »
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Our Saw-Some Soapbox
Most job descriptions don’t include “drive a wooden car made in three weeks down a massive ramp, over four jumps in front of 1200 people”. However in my second month working with Handcrafted, this is one of the unexpected things I have done. Along with the other teams, we had two attempts to get down… Read more »
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One Big Family
Our Gateshead workshop has increasingly become an array of cultures and languages. Recently, the number of our refugees and asylum seekers has grown, and they have shared their stories and become included in our diverse community.
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Making the Grade!
The smile says it all. Keith is one of the first crop of trainees graduating from our in-house training program this month. Keith’s lovingly finished cue case is the envy of his pals at the local snooker club.
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Downhill all the Way at the North East Soap Box Challenge
Prince, Michael Jackson and David Bowie needed a spanner to fix their coffin … What’s the punchline? Wait … no. This actually happened? It’s Saturday, August the 18th at Herrington Country Park, and pit crews are making last-minute adjustments to their vehicles before they run the challenging downhill skidaddle of the North East’s inaugural… Read more »
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Enter … Aly – our new Project Development Officer
Narrator’s Voice: We’ve been running a workshop in Gateshead since January 2017, practically working out our conviction that the Handcrafted way of doing things can have a powerful effect in other localities. Initially open for just 8 hours a week, and running bicycle repair courses alongside woodworking in a small workshop, we were helped by… Read more »
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First Day in the Workshop is a Lift Off
Even though our trainees keep telling us that they are pleasantly surprised how friendly and inclusive our workshop is when they first come along, those first impressions are so important. It’s like day one in a new job or school: you don’t know what to expect and if you are going to fit in okay…. Read more »
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Backwoods Ingenuity: The Kentucky Stick Chair
When I first heard the words ‘Kentucy Stick Chair’ it was hard to dismiss the image of a piece of furniture somehow constructed from pieces of deep-fried chicken. It turned out that what we were really talking about was no less extraordinary. The original Kentucky Stick Chairs would have been made from humble sticks and… Read more »
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Wisdom from the Workshop
by Justin Lau ‘Why doesn’t the Queen—’ [raises left hand] ‘—wave with this hand? … Because it’s mine!’ Laughter erupts around the table over steaming shepherd’s pie as jokes and banter flit across the room one after another like an impeccably coordinated symphony. Except there’s no one conductor; everyone’s directing, everyone’s performing, everyone’s judging if… Read more »
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Reaching Out
Asking a hard question Every day, we hear stories, big and small, that give us confidence that Handcrafted Projects is making a real difference to real people. We want to meet the people we can help and give them the best possible opportunity to join us. Recently, we looked again at how many people actually… Read more »
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The Pen is Mightier than the Saw
Reclaiming discarded scraps of wood and turning them into something attractive and useful portrays only too well what we are all about at Handcrafted. Even a bit of timber is worthy of another chance. The Handcrafted Pen has been a “bestseller” since we produced the first batch over a year ago. We can’t make them… Read more »