June 01, 2009

Craft Social was a hit

I'm back in town after a week away. We visited my family, then spent a couple days in Des Moines on our way back to Chicago. (If you're ever there, you have to eat here and here. Amazing. And visit this lovely little shop while you're at it.)

Craft Social, the big event I helped organize the night before we left, went great as far as I can tell. I'm dying to do it again. About 100 people showed up, and I'm not kidding when I say that every person I talked to was so completely friendly and wonderful that I concluded crafters are the nicest people on the planet. And I started hearing rumors from different corners of the room that we need to do a craft lock-in. You know, like in high school, except we make stuff all night long. Just put some cots in the corner in case we get tired. Um, we'll save that brilliant idea for later, but in the meantime, we're already talking about when the next Craft Social might be.

And so that we can stay connected and share our work with each other, here are two new Flickr pools:
Chicago Craft Social, for pix of your projects from the event.
Chicago Craft Community, for pix of other projects you've worked on.

Our hope is to better connect Chicago area creatives and build community. And for those of you who contacted us about holding a Craft Social in your town, we're working on a little package of graphics and guidelines to make things easy for you. Stay tuned!

19 comments:

  1. Well, I'm glad you finally made it back to your home. I've missed you online!

    Of course it was better having you here. I mean I've missed you since you left here. :-)

    Is anybody confused yet? ;-)

    I especially like the framed butterflies!

    Mum

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  2. Oh these sound great!! I've same flowers at my living-room... They're lovely.
    (^v^)

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  3. Glad you enjoyed your time in DSM- those are fabulous restaurants!

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  4. Woot woot, Des Moines. My husband lured me here from Minneapolis with many Sunday brunches at La Mie.

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  5. I like the butterfly setting!!! Awesome!

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  6. I'm jealous! That looks like it was a lot of fun :)

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  7. Totally rocking idea...thanks for sharing and for getting this rolling up in Chicago! How fun. And yes, crafters are wonderful: some sociologist should do a study about the friendly effect and how it can usually be found among glue, paper, and scissors. Maybe people need to craft in order to release the right happiness hormones? Just wondering...

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  8. nice idea! I'll bet everyone had a blast!

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  9. Oh, I really like the cute flower garland looking thing. Is it paper tissue? Fun idea.

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  10. I gotta know about that bowl. Is it brown paper papier mache or burlap?

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  11. The flower garland is tissue paper and the bowl is brown packing paper papier mache.

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  12. Looks like fun! Makes me wish (only a little bit) I lived in Chicagoland. =)

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  13. Love your blog - very cute =)Lovin' to see you in Des Moines (2 seconds away from where I live).

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  14. Love the bowl! Can't wait to join in on the next one!

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  15. I am glad you shared your great places in Chicago, my husband and I are hoping to go there next summer. Catch a Cubs game and what not. Looks like it was a blast!

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  16. I would love to start a group in San Francisco Bay area!Love the flowers!

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  17. Hey JJ - TG & I had a good time at the craft social. It was a nice little "distraction" for me. I'm hoping to slowly get back into the crafty groove sometime soon. Thanks again for holding such a wonderful event!

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  18. it was so much fun! can't wait for the next one!

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  19. PLEASE PLEASE let me know when the next one is - - I would love to come! jigcouture@gmail.com


    thanks!


    Alyssa Coberly
    jig.
    www.handmadejig.etsy.com

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