Nina Nightingale's Charm School: Wrapping Up - Atlas Obscura Experiences

Nina Nightingale's Charm School: Wrapping Up

1 hour
$10 per device
See Dates
$10 per device
$10 per person
See Dates
What We’ll Do

Nina Nightingale's Charm School is in session.

From silhouette portraits and hair reliquaries to postage stamp flirtation and suffragette tea parties, join curiosity artist and host Nina Nightingale in exploring history's most fascinating disciplines and their hidden origins! During each hour-long virtual live show, Nina will guide you through the basics of a specific craft, tell you about its often surprising importance in the cultural landscape, and take any questions that might come up along the way. Part Home Ec, part AP History, Nina Nightingale’s Charm School won't teach you how to be more genteel, but you’ll learn why crafting was never that polite anyway

Mystifying everyday items by obscuring them in wrapping has been part of gift-giving traditions for a millennia. We continue to be dazzled by coordinating accoutrements from ribbons to glitter to decorative trinkets, and as a $5 billion industry, wrapping presents has become almost as significant as the gift itself! In this episode of Charm School, we’ll discuss the long history of shrouding objects in mystery for the purpose of presentation, then you’ll learn several ways to up your own wrapping game with a sustainable twist! You’ll leave class with tricks and techniques as well as inexpensive ideas for how you can maintain tradition while reducing your contribution to the four million tons of wrapping paper that ends up in landfills each year.

CLASS SUPPLIES (if you’d like to craft along):

- fabric (an old t-shirt or bedding, tea towel, scarf, bandana, etc.)

- paper (newspaper, paper bags, old comics, books, magazines)

- optional decor (string/yarn, dried flowers or fruit, sticks, bottle caps)

- paint or markers

- scissors

- masking tape or glue

Where We’ll Be

ZOOM!

About Your Host
Nina Nightingale
Nina Nightingale

Hello! My name is Nina Nightingale and I am a professional fine artist practicing the very rare art of SILHOUETTE PORTRAITURE, in which I cut your likeness from paper with no writing instruments—simply freehand drawing with scissors. This art of "shadow cutting" was popular before photography was made affordable. Silhouette portraiture is one part history and one part how-does-she-do-it?

What Else You Should Know

Once registered, you can access the Zoom room for this experience through your confirmation email or Eventbrite account. Atlas Obscura online experiences are recommended for attendees age 13+.

This event is one of Atlas Obscura’s Online Experiences. At Atlas Obscura, our mission has always been to inspire wonder and curiosity about the incredible world we all share. Now, more than ever, there’s a need to stay connected—not only to our sense of wonder, but to each other.

We encourage you to follow and share the hashtag #AOExperiences for more incredible online experiences and our newest addition of Online Courses with Atlas Obscura and our friends. And check out AtlasObscura.com, the definitive guide to the world’s hidden wonders, to keep virtually exploring the world through the website’s atlas of amazing places, unique stories, and videos.

Dates and Availability

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