Tag Archives: samantha
Sage and I layered felt hearts, cinched them at the bottom with a few stitches and attached them to elastic wristbands and barrettes. The perfect accessory for the day!
This past summer, we had the chance to submit a project how-to from both our Curious Jane and Blue Tree girls, to be included in Kiki magazine’s Feb/March issue. And it has hit the newsstands! Continue reading
Our collaborative sketchbooks are bound and ready for their official submission into the Sketchbook Project 2012. Continue reading
We have recently posted a few of our Wired 101 projects to make at home, but even a household’s best ‘junk drawer’ might not have everything needed to make an LED Circuit Card. And, as all of our instructors know, I’m super picky about our colored paper and steer clear of the mottled, gray-ish construction kind that is ubiquitous in craft stores. Science kits, blank books, hobby parts, fashion fabrics, art supplies… where do we find the good stuff? Continue reading
What a fantastic Friday! I spent it tinkering around with little motors and new electronics gadgets. I found spidery legs make a fantastic revision to our bristle-bots project; they keep it from falling over! Meet “Jalapeno” – our new office scuttle-bug… Our bristle-bot anatomy includes the head of a toothbrush, 4 paper fasteners (the spidery legs), 1 coin battery (on top of the toothbrush head), 1 vibrating page motor (the yellow mini-motor wired to the battery), double-sided foam tape, and masking tape (the small purple piece that acts as the ‘switch’) See our bristle-bot in action: Jalapeno enters the marble field…
…This event got our wheels turning. The December (create) and April (visit) dates for The Sketchbook Project could book-end a winter Field Trip Series, with different events for January, March and April. I had a quite a few criteria for this first line-up of trips: 1) they push the boundaries of what girls may have already tired; 2) offer a private, shared experience for girls to build community; 3) range in location, interest and cost; 4) give a snapshot of what Curious Jane is all about… Continue reading
This weekend, at our Wired 101 workshop, we tackled three projects: Circuit Cards, Bristle Bugs, and, the hands-down favorite – Drawbots! These little creatures make the coolest patterns and even our seven-year-old engineers were able to make them almost entirely on their own. Basically, they are a paper cup body standing on marker tripod legs and topped with a small motor and battery. The key to the whole project is an irregular weight affixed to the rotating axis of the motor. When the markers are uncapped, and the drawbot is turned on, the weighted motor causes the little creature to wobble around in a huge variety of patterns. The type of pattern depends on the size of the weight and the placement of all the pieces together. There’s plenty of room to experiment! As I was jotting down the project steps, I realized each project had exactly seven steps and … Continue reading
Miss Representation premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and aired on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network October 20. The documentary exposes how American youth are being sold the concept that women’s and girls’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality. The film appropriately re-frames what we may even consider ‘normal’ in the media as atrocities that wash over us daily, via magazines, TV shows, films, the news, serious journalism and tabloid coverage. So: what do we do? Continue reading
Over the weekend’s social and family gatherings, in the natural courses of conversation, I found I kept recommending this book, The Mostly True Story of Jack, by Kelly Barnhill. There are so many of my daughter’s books that I have enjoyed just as much as I have my ‘own’… Continue reading
Halloween Glitter Scene I regularly receive emails from Michael’s Craft Store, and I adapted this project from a Halloween scene they shared this month. I changed many of the materials to suit a younger age-group. For example, the original project involved lots of fine-detail painting for the faces, so we used Sculpey color clay instead; it’s more fun to work with and more suitable to the creativity and motor skills of amateur designers. I substituted Styrofoam parts for wooden parts because they are cheap, available, and very easy to assemble (just connect the pieces with some slim wooden dowels). We amped up the glitter usage, covering almost everything in sparkles. Really, who doesn’t love a great glitter project? We only avoid it because of the mess. This project is a great excuse to overdose on glitter with an easy clean-up. I grew up on Michael’s Craft Supply; I can smell … Continue reading
Samantha Razook Murphy is the founder of Curious Jane and Blue Tree. She was inspired to create these unique programs to give her girls, and all girls, a chance to be creative and inventive in a high-energy, collaborative and gender-affirming space. She loves designing, tinkering and figuring out. Samantha is the mother of two girls and lives in Brooklyn, NY. She holds her BA from Yale and Masters in Industrial Design from Pratt. In her spare time she coaches volleyball and rides her bike around Brooklyn.