Doh, ray, me, fah, SEW, la, ti, doh!
I’ll lay a bet you have one or two craft books on your shelves at home.
Everybody does, it’s almost the law to have a couple, but how often do you pick them up and have a good look through?
Consider this a rubbishy prompt.
The nights are drawing in already, the outlook for autumn weather is lousy and this is a perfect time to think about starting up a little crafty group.
It doesn’t have to a grand affair, a few friends is all you need to get going and you might find yourself pleasantly surprised in a few weeks time when you’ve snowballed to quite a gathering (er, just ignore that bit about ‘snow’)…
We all have untapped creative skills, some might not have been exercised since school but that’s all the more reason to reawaken them. You might be the queen of card and gift-tag making, jazzing up your clothes with a bit of spangly appliqué, cross stitch, doll dressmaking, embroidery or quilting. Mix that with the skills of your friends and you have pool of cool ideas and sources of some wonderful rubbish materials too.
Here are my top tips for pulling a group together.
- Organise an initial meeting with your girlfriends to discuss the idea and find out who’s keen to commit to a regular meeting.
- Held fortnightly or even monthly this can add an enjoyable event to any lack lustre calendar.
- Keep the event date and time the same but alternate the venue, giving the host the responsibility of half-time nosebag.
- You might want to encourage the members to breathe new life into some of their old projects, or get started with something fresh and exciting. Once the momentum gets going, the enthusiasm will be contagious.
- Have a set time for the event to finish and have a short discussion about the venue and projects for the following week, ensuring diaries are filled in. Organise car share wherever possible.
- Plan well ahead for forthcoming events like Christmas and Easter. Friends and family cannot fail to be touched by a handcrafted gift or card.
- Keep a group address book of local suppliers and craft stores for everyone to use and contribute to and be sure to store your clean rubbish materials like foil, sweet wrappings, buttons, textured card and other materials in a box stored by the host and taken to the next event.
- Each session, have somebody give a couple of minutes presentation about their chosen crafty project. This is a great way to learn new skills and keep the buzz going in the group.
- If things go really well and you have a committed group of chums, consider putting a nominal subscription into a pot to subsidise a Rubbish Crafty Girls Night Out!
Trade in a quiet evening, pick up some clever new skills, start to see rubbish as a wonderful resource and hook up with your mates all in one hit!
Rubbishly yours,
TSx
This is a lovely idea, like a knitting circle.
On the arty note, something we’ve done is to get a plain white pillowcase and do a design with fabric pens, it gave hours of fun and we ended up with some great ideas. Great for a sleepover idea. Deb x
That’s an excellent idea for a sleepover!
What could the boy equivalent be I wonder?
Camouflage kit bags?
Boy toy tidys (don’t be ridiculous – they are boys….) what was I thinking…
TSx