Above is a photo of some of the bags my craft club is putting together. They include travel soaps we have been collecting as well as hand made cotton wash cloths made by both club members and the Yahoo Crochlist, who have sent a whooping 33 wash cloths already! We are even able to double up and add two cloths per bag, which is great. It looks like I will have about three boxes full of these bags by the end of the semester.

Along with the toiletry bags, we have made blank journals and coloring books. I picked up some boxes of crayons at the dollar store. Plus, of course, there are the amigurumi toys I’ve been make. I’m up to 15 so far. I may be able to squeeze out one or two more before I deliver everything. We may also be teaming up with another club who wants to donate children’s books to the shelter. So I will have one full car when I make the final delivery!

I have been making amigurumi from Stacey Torck’s patterns for awhile now. I have taken one of her classes from Craftys.com, signed up for her Design a Monsters class over there, and have been following her blog Fresh Stitches as well. So when she sent out a call for guest bloggers, I knew right away that I wanted to participate. I had a few different topics in mind, but I ended up pitching a topic for how to start a craft club, which she agreed to (yeah!). You can find it published today: Tips for Starting a Craft Club. Thank you, Stacey, for giving me this opportunity!

About a year ago, I purchased some yarn for the craft club in school colors thinking we could whip up some hats to sell. We did make hats, but it was about 80 degrees out, so they did not really sell and ended up being sent to a charity, which is fine. However, I’ve been trying to think of what we could make using this yarn that might actually sell at the craft show - maybe hacky sacks?

So far, I’ve made three, but I have had to rework a number of patterns to get the right size. Most of the patterns I found do not use worsted weight yarn, or if they do, the hacky sacks (IMHO) are too large. So I’m continuing to experiment and hope to get a pattern perfected as I make a few more of these.

I’m stuffing them with aquarium rocks that I first stick inside plastic wrap and then wrap closed with tape. They have a pretty good feel to them, so even if my stripes are off a tad, I think they are turning out pretty well.

To expand on the amigurumi animals my college craft club plans to sell at a local craft show - owls are cute but we need more than owls - I thought I would also make some frogs as well. Plus, someone donated a huge skein of green yarn to us. I have made a number of the Lion Brand frog patterns, which are basically a circle with legs, arms, and eyes. They are pretty easy to make, except the eyes. Those are fiddly, and so I thought I would use googlie eyes instead to streamline the process.

Yup, it streamlined it because I just had to glue on the eyes, but to me, this guy looks weird, not really like a frog. So before I opted for the entire eye the pattern calls for, I thought about it for awhile. Eventually, I decided to try just making a few small white yarn circles, stitching these to the face, and then gluing the googlie eyes to those.



Yes! Success! He looks like a frog now, and those extra white circles where not that big of a deal to make. And, of course, we also have a lot of white yarn that someone donated to the club, so it is another way to use up the yarn supply.

The college craft club I advise is getting ready to participate in a holiday craft show that is run by another club at school, so of course, this means we are switching gears from making snuggles (our service project for this semester and a good way for members to learn to knit or crochet) and making items to sell at the show. Proceeds from sales will be donated to the same place we will give the snuggles, Domino’s House, a local no-kill cat shelter.

We received a huge donation of acrylic yarn (lots of Red Heart Super Saver), and so along with snuggles, we are now using it to make small amigurumi items for the show. In the past, I have hesitated to try to get members to attempt amigurumi because it required crocheting in the round, which is not that difficult, but it is also not that easy for someone who basically learned to crochet a few weeks ago. As it happens, however, this semester we have a group who is really into the yarn and are very eager to learn. A few have really taken off with it, so I think they are ready. Plus, I figure if I at least make the parts and pieces, those whose crochet skills are not up to it, can still help with finishing them such as gluing on noses, eyes, stuffing them, etc.

I am starting off with this adorable little owl pattern by Ana Clerc called Owls Two Ways because she has instructions for knitting or crocheting them. It is a free pattern available here through Ravelry.com. These are crazy easy and quick to make and take very little yarn. For my first finished one (pictured at top), I used buttons for the eyes, but I also have some googlie eyes we can use that you just glue on. I’m hoping that considering we are selling these at a college craft show, that owls will be kind of popular. I also plan to attempt some of these mini-amigurumi animals from a Lion Brand pattern.

This mountain of yarn is from one donation from a woman who is moving from the area and was thus forced to go through her crafting supplies. It is 6 bags of yarn! It is going to take some time to go through it all, but most of it looks like acrylic, which for our club is perfect. Our service projects, like making snuggles for animals and baby afghans, usually require using acrylic yarn. Plus, many of our members are learning to knit or crochet for the first time, so again, nothing better to use than inexpensive acrylic. Now I need to spend time digging out my office!

Yesterday’s mail brought me a yummy load of lampwork beads from Dee Dee Hess of DeeDleBeads. She knows that the craft club I sponsor at school likes to make jewelry, and as it happens, we will definitely be making jewelry during the fall semester to sell at the DECA show we participated in last year. So she got a collection of beads for us, many of of them her test beads or seconds, but heck, they look pretty darn good to me. I can just picture these mixed with crystals to make some awesome memory wire bracelets. I know club members are going to love these!

I am thrilled to announce that I received this very cool award at the college’s CCG Banquet last night. Since I do blog here about the craft club that I advise, I figured I would show this off a little. The craft club at school has been around a little over a year now, and while we are a small group, we are very busy. It is nice to feel appreciated!

My college craft club had its last meeting for spring semester Thursday. I have been taking photos for the past year and a half as we have taught members how to do various crafts, like jewelry making, crochet, rubber stamping, and book-making, and we have used many of these skills and other crafting techniques to help those in need. At our last meeting, we worked on putting together a club scrapbook to help document all of our accomplishments:

• We have made fleece blankets for Save the Chimps (a chimp sanctuary) and Miss Inc. (a women’s and children homeless shelter).
• Along with blankets for the chimps, we ran a donation drive at the school to help collect many of the other items like food and towels that are also needed at the sanctuary.
• We have made crochet cotton wash clothes also for Miss Inc. and collected travel soaps to go with them.
• We have made baby hats and blankets for Healthy Start. Have I missed anything?
• Oh, yes, and there was the craft fair that we participated in, and we have also been selling our hand-made greeting cards through the college’s print shop (who is nice enough to help us with that).
• Then there were the animal blankets, both fleece and crocheted, that we made for Dogs and Cats Forever and Domino’s House, which are two local no-kill animal shelters. Shew!

Putting together the scrapbook was fun, but it also was a great reminder of how much we have done!

At one of our recent craft club meetings, we made small books. Member have been so busy most of this semester making stuff for charity, we thought it would be nice for them to make something for themselves for a change, and well, we have a ton of paper right now! Here’s basically how the books above were made (I so which I had taken step out photos!):

1. Take a sample piece of wallpaper and an 8×11 piece of card stock and glue the card stock to the back of the wallpaper.

2. Allow it to dry, and while it is drying, pick out 8×11 paper for the center of the book.

3. Use a bone folder to fold over each of the 8×11 papers you selected in the previous step. (The bone folder helps create a super nice crease in the center of the papers.

4. Once the glue in dry on your wallpaper section, trim off excess wallpaper so that it pretty much matches up to the size of the card stock piece glued inside.

5. Position the folded paper pieces in the center or spine of the book and use a saddle stapler to staple the pages into the spine of the book.

6. Press the book using a book press. Once it’s nice and flat (let it press for as long as you can stand it), your book is finished.