Rebel Craft Rumble 2011

(Repost from my former DIY Lounge blog)

Last Wednesday night was the Rebel Craft Rumble, hosted by Scrap.  In case you aren’t familiar with what the Rebel Craft Rumble is all about, think Iron Chef with crafts.  Like Iron Chef, competitors have specific items that they must work with and then they compete side by side to see who will become the winner or in this case the “Craft Master.”  Sister Diane was the champion last year so I was excited to see what sort of “craft muscle” the other contestants would bring to this year’s competition.   Alyssa Kail did a great job as “The Ringleader of Reuse.”   Richard and I were asked to be judges along with Julie Sabatier, from Destination DIY and Lindsey Newkirk, from Junk to Funk and oh, what fun we had!  The contestants were amazing!  There was Bridget Benton, Miss Demeanor, Sister Diane, Aurora Owen and Chelsea Badding.  The last two contestants I wasn’t familiar with, but they were great crafters and totally entertaining.

There were a few different bouts: such as detailing and tricking out a chair from a thrift store.  In the next round they made puppets.   Chelsea created superior puppets, but Aurora did voices and named her puppets in an excited 5 year old kinda way so she totally won that leg of the competition.

Photo by Mike Harper

Aurora had a huge fan club at the event.  Even, Isaac B. Watson from I Heart Art was getting in on her fan club by waving a huge sign that said, “show us your cleavage.”  If you know Isaac you know how funny and out of character holding a sign like that is for him.

Photo by Mike Harper

One of the many fun elements of this event were the bribes that contestants brought for the judges.  Here you can see Richard and Julie fighting over who will get the hand altered “Hans Solo” created by Aurora.  I’m pretty sure Richard was screaming something like, “I’ll cut a bitch for Hans Solo!”  But that’s what happens when you go to a rumble.  Things can get pretty ugly.

Photo by mike Harper

Another cool element of the Rebel Craft Rumble  was that contestants could have secret weapons.  Miss Demeanor had caution tape, which she used to weave a chair.  She also did sexy, yet almost threatening dance moves that were totally entertaining.  Check out the picture above and you’ll see what I mean.

Photo by Mike Harper

Here you can see Isaac in “jail” again.  Throughout the night many people spent time in jail.  Sometimes for running around and acting like a nut, as in Isaac’s case, others were jailed for not bringing the craft cop a beer or other acts of “doing nothing,” but no one spent as much time in jail as Isaac.  He was so rowdy.  Screaming and waving signs to Sister Diane that said things like, “Marry me!”  It was pretty awesome!

Photo by Mike Harper

I think this guy was jailed for doing nothing.

Photo by Mike Harper

As the night began we were legit judges as you can see in the photo below.  We were carefully thinking it through and weighing out our options.  But we kept getting drinks from contestants and from the audience, after awhile it became more and more challenging to judge people based on their projects.  The bribes, booze and entertainment of each contestant began to weigh more heavily.

Photo by Mike Harper

Here’s a link to a quick iphone video of a drink that was delivered to me.  Diane didn’t purchase this drink it was purchased by an audience member on Diane’s behalf.  I couldn’t get a good photo of it because it had been written on all the way around the cup, so a video seemed like the best idea.    Notice in the photo below the water has barely been touched but the beer cups are getting stacked up in the middle of the table.  We are also being presented with the whiskey shots at this time.

Photo by Mike Harper

Here are Bridget and Diane competing in the chandelier redux portion of the evening.  Bridget’s hot glue gun died, but Sister D was kind enough to share hers.

Photo by Mike Harper

Crafters came and competed hard!  After a few black eyes and copious amounts of hot glue Sister Diane came out victorious once again.  It’s hard to beat divine crafting.  Even the Chinook Book sign couldn’t handle the intensity of the rumble.  Look at it, trying to fall down for mercy and crying for it’s mama.

Photo by Mike Harper

All in all this is one of the most fun events I’ve been to in some time.  I highly recommend it to anyone who likes crafts, supports reuse, is a fan of friendly competition or really anyone who likes affordable fun!