Earth Month can be like the holiday season of environmentalism; with a lot of events, press inquiries, and asks from the community, so as a small non-profit creative reuse center, it can be hard to choose where your resources are best spent during this, the greenest of months.

This April, we took the operative word “green” very seriously and cultivated a really fun partnership with our friendly neighborhood plant people, the Garfield Park Conservatory! This Earth month, the WasteShed joined forces with the GPC for a month of programs held under glass at their snazzy, iconic greenhouses. We love to combine creative reuse with nature education: two sides of the same Earth-y coin!

Shoutout to Grace, Nona, Anna, Quinton, and all the folks on GPC’s side for reaching out and collaborating with us. We love this collaboration and are excited to continue joining sustainable forces.

Here’s a look back at the fun workshops and kids programs we did in collaboration with GPC during Earth month 2026!

Adult Workshops

In April, we facilitated two artist workshops for the general public with the help of our lovely teaching artists Norma and Vahnaree!

Norma Rios Sierra is a visual artist whose work consists of stained glass and mosaics and is often inspired by her experience growing up in Logan Square as a Mexican immigrant. Her practice embodies community, unity and the idea that we all belong and deserve to feel welcome and safe. She is also a CPS school board member representing disctrict 3A!

Vahnaree Weiss is currently studying at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her focus is in Fiber and Material Studies, so her chosen mediums are typically sculpture and textile based. She is experienced in printmaking, fashion design, and 2D mediums as well. Her works are primarily found objects and recycled materials! Vahnaree is also a creative reuse specialist at The WasteShed!

Vahnaree demonstrating how to weave in plant matter in the Jensen room

Workshop #1: Soda Can Mosaics with Norma Rios-Sierra

This "pop"ular class is a favorite at the WasteShed and this time was no different. An extension of Norma’s Spring 2026 Trash Collective Residency at The WasteShed, this workshop dug deep into the recycling bin to create unique and shiny aluminum collages. Norma demonstrated how to repurpose aluminum cans to create colorful mosaics.

The participants saved many cans from landfill this morning and made some stunning work! Thank you Norma and everybody who came out this day!

Workshop #2: Nature Weaving with Vahnaree Weiss

In this class, Vahnaree led participants through the fundamentals of hand weaving while exploring unexpected materials to create a meaningful, fine art weaving with natural materials. The class was designed to introduce participants to frame loom weaving, emphasizing experimentation, texture, and creative reuse. The inclusion of natural materials resulted in sustainable art pieces inspired by the Garfield Park Conservatory’s collections.

Aren’t these woven pieces absolutely stunning?! Also — did we mention that this was all done on upcycled picture frame looms?!

Art After Dark: WasteShed + GPC Family Workshops

In addition to grownup workshops, we also hosted 3 unique, creative reuse inspired kids drop-in workshops as part of the GPC’s “Art After Dark” weekly program!

For 3 Wednesdays in July, program directors Emily Prescott and Laura Petersen + WasteShed intern El Konrad facilitated different kids art projects for families. This was such a great way to connect with families in our area and get the word out about materials and educational resources for kids at The WasteShed! We met some really creative and lovely youngsters and had a lot of fun (even if we were pretty pooped by the end of this busy month!)

4/8/26 Make a Turtle with Paper Maché!

Inspired by the conservatory’s secret turtles, we made cardboard turtle sculptures using glue and paper scraps!

4/15/26 Make a Mini Conservatory Diorama!

Inspired by the alien world dioramas that our coworker and miniature artist extraordinaire Frank Pollard makes, we shrunk the Garfield Park Conservatory down to tiny hands size and made these fun mini-gardens with faux flora and styrofoam. Plus, lots of random discarded junk of course!

4/22/26 ROCK FRIENDS

For our last kids class, we made rock buddies! In addition to anthropomorphizing some adorable pebbles, the kids also did a polaroid photo shoot with their friends and gave them a bit of personality by completing a rock friend zine. This was so much fun and the kids came up with such interesting rock friends!