Craft Club runs on Friday mornings 10.30 am to 12.30pm

There are 3 sessions per month with a monthly theme that we’ll explore over the 3 sessions.

My aim when I started The Making House was to create a supportive creative community  and Craft Club is an essential part of that. Craft Club is a club, not a tutored workshop; it’s a chance for us to experiment and try out new ideas. We try out so many different crafts, often  very experimental, mostly successful, always fun! We are passionate about recycling and often this is a theme within our projects. 

Prices for 2023

Craft Club Priority Member: £20 per month plus materials.

This includes 3 x 2hr craft sessions, if you can’t make all 3 sessions, we’ll share with you our progress  through photos, notes or maybe even  the occasional video

Craft Club Visitor: £10 per session , plus materials

Craft Club Introductory Session : £5, plus materials (One session only)

Due to the size of The Making House spaces are limited to 11 people,  priority will be given to people who book  monthly.  Further spaces are bookable  each  week online on a first come first serve basis.  (Unfortunately, as your space is reserved for you, this is none refundable)

Dates for Summer 2023

The Craft Club ethos

Craft Club members  are encouraged to contribute to the ideas, alongside myself and then together we work out what to do.  If you are leading the session it’s free and that amount will be carried over to the following month.

It’s always been my aim here to create a warm supportive place that encourages anyone to enjoy making regardless of their ability; so no matter where you’re at, your welcome to join us and have fun whilst you find your creative spirit. 

Book here:

https://themakinghouse.bigcartel.com/product/craft-club

2022 Highlights

2020 Highlights

Highlights

We’ve done so many things over the years. Here’s a few from last year:

2017 Highlights

Christmas 2017

We spent quite a few sessions creating Festive decorations, finishing off with a group get together and Christmas Fuddle. I’m ever grateful to all the people who’ve joined us for Craft Club over the years, it was great to see the place full for the Festive Get Together; it’s the backbone of what we do here and we have such a fantastic group of ladies that join us.

Pyrography with Elaine Thomson

We were lucky to have my friend, Elaine Thomson, drop by with her pyrography tools. Elaine from The Wood Gallery in Eastwood creates beautiful pictures on wood.

Easter 2017

For Easter we created Easter Egg trees: The plan is to create trees, wire and nail polish flowers and leaves, mini felt eggs and birds and then put it all together!

Natural Dyeing

Last year we had fun experimenting with natural dyeing, bubbling up pots of leaves and onion skins, so we were delighted that Joelle Harris could join us to teach us more about the potential of natural dyeing.

The group created an amazing selection of naturally dyed wools, which they’ve begun to go on and use; crocheted scarf by Col and woollen leaves by Jill of ‘Poppy Creations’

Papermaking

As a student, many many years ago, I did lots of papermaking and enjoy sharing this technique with people. I’ve never attempted to make paper from natural materials before though; everyone embraced this idea, their homework for the week was to bubble up some concoction or another or find some interesting materials to use. Karen was in charge of sprout stalks, Col bubbled up some recycled cotton fibres for what must have been days, Gill and Pat had some rose petals to use, Erica nettles, emma ornamental grasses, Phinea brought some lovely calendula petals and lavender heads, me i bubbled up bark and grass. It was so much fun, like being a kid again, added to which it worked too!

Mandalas

My new year’s resolution was to be a bit more zen, so we started the year with mandalas.

Using some lovely wooden circles, (provided by Phinea, one of our regulars), we created mandala decorations using dots and pyrography; we then created some metal versions and recycled plastic ones. We attempted painted mandalas, inspired by painted pebbles …. it wasn’t as easy as it looks, neither was pyrography! I enjoyed it though as you had to concentrate and be really careful, I was definitely in the moment.

2016 Highlights

In 2016 we did lots of metal embossing, felting, weaving, willow platters, we made fabric pumpkins for Halloween and of course lots of Christmas themed ideas too

Here’s what some of our Craft Club Ladies say:

Julia is one of our original members and infact was the inspiration for me to start craft club, she agrees craft club is a place to play, make and chat …..

….And eat cake! I have enjoyed everything that I have tried at Craft Club. I have been better at some things than others but everyone is so supportive, it doesn’t matter how good you are. Of all the things I have ever made, ever, I am most proud of my Santa made from a Hellboy hat and scarf. Also, did I mention cake?

Some highlights from previous years

Favourite Bits of 2013

To name but a few: Julia Unwin brought along bottle top pin cushions and some cute Canadian inspired snowmen, Linda Stacey taught the group some advanced crochet as well as crochet for beginners for the likes of me, Karen Carr showed the group how to do toothbrush weaving, Emma Hodges brought in her spinning wheels for people to have a go on, Emma Whittaker always turned up with a new amazing crochet pattern and idea, Anthea Chambers gave us some ideas for creating and using Dorset Buttons, I shared some of the bag weaving skills I learned from Sarah Baker, creating birds and hearts from plastic bags, we did extreme pompoming with Rhea Clements, fathomed out how to do origami boxes for the lovely truffles we made for Xmas.