Crafting Klatch

We invite you to join us!

Come explore with us the amazing world of crafting.
Come share your talents and passion for creating beautiful and useful things.
Explore with us the possibilities of what we can do when we join hands.
Relish with us the joy of making new friends.
Relax, share some refreshments, stories, and ideas.

Crafting Klatch Plans for the REM Craft Fair 2015

The REM Decorating Team and the Crafting Klatch Team will very often be working together and very often be composed of the same people. Not every Crafting Klatch member will be on the Decorating Team, and vice versa, but in general, we will work closely together since we both enjoy creating with our hands, making things beautiful and making beautiful things.

For the fair, we will:

Make things and then decorate with them
Make things and then sell them in our 10 X 10 booth we have been invited to have free at the fair
We have been asked to:
- Decorate the wall on the right as you enter the door
- Cover and make centerpieces for the dining tables
- Decorate a Christmas tree
- Decorate the outside entranceway
- Keep the decorations simple

We have decided to meet every Wednesday between now and the fair to make things together...both for selling and decorating. The community has been unbelievable with the gifts of fabric, and sewing and crafting supplies of all kinds. It is so fun to pick out items you'd like to use to create crafts.

We've decided to stick with the simple/natural theme. We have posted on Faye Nicholson's site on Pinterest the themes for each week's crafting. Visit: https://www.pinterest.com/fayenicholson/ and the first two rows are crafts we'll be making. Pick the one you'd like to make each week or find another on Pinterest and email that to faye@rem1.org and she'll pin it on the site or invite you to pin it so you can add things.

We are hoping that we can learn together how to make these things while we're working together on Wednesdays and then make others at home during the week.

Crafting Schedule for August and September

(Click on the red labels to see the Pinterest Boards so you can choose the craft you'd like to make.)

Wednesday, August 26th @ 4:00 p.m. - Mason jar decorations for our 6 dining tables at REM Craft Fair plus mason jar crafts to sell...whichever you'd like to do. Check out two of our Pinterest Boards for ideas because we'd like to develop a burlap theme as well and there are Mason Jar ideas on our Burlap Centerpieces Board as well.

Click here to see Mason Jar Centerpiece Ideas

Click image to see Burlap Centerpiece ideas

Wednesday, September 2 @ 4:00 p.m. - Making table linens...mats for under our centerpieces, runners, napkins, napkin rings and placemats. We have lots of fabric but if you have something you'd like to use feel free to bring anything you'd like. We will encourage the burlap theme so that our table will have a feeling of purpose and be pleasing to the eye! We have lots of burlap so you don't have to worry about purchasing any...and we have lots of lace as well.

Runners

Napkins

Placemats

Wednesday, September 9, @ 4:00 p.m. - Making chalk boards using frames and chalkboard paint. Bring anything you'd like to include in your project. We'll provide the chalkboard paint.

Click image for Chalkboard Ideas

Wednesday, September 16 @ 4:00 p.m. - Driftwood Crafts. Please check out our Pinterest Board by clicking the image below. We have some driftwood but if you have some to add to the mix that would be terrific. Bring any embellishments you'd like to include in your project. We also have many things you might like to add so be sure to check out our treasury of gifts given to the REM Crafting Klatch.

Click image to view Driftwood Project Ideas

Wednesday, September 23 @4:00 p.m. - Corky Crafts. Sticking with the naturals, we're going to play with the many creative ideas around how to transfer corks to artful and useful objects. Please be seeking out corks everywhere you go! We have some but need a whole lot more! Please check out our Cork Board by clicking on any of the images below.

Combines our Wreath projects with our Corky Projects.

Combines our blackboard projects with our cork projects.

Combines our cork projects with the own frames Lucinda gave us.

Combines our cork projects with the owl frames Lucinda gave us.

Wednesday, September 30 @4:00 p.m. - October - Wreaths. Bring any tools you have including clippers, wire and wreath forms. If you don't have any of those things we'll provide them. Please label your tools with your name so we make sure they don't get lost! We'll be making wreaths

There will be a beading session at Faye's house but we don't know what the date will be for that yet. Our plan is to make some jewelry to sell at our table. Be thinking about what you'd like to do. Visit our Beading Board by clicking on any of the pictures below.
Coming Soon - A trip to Faye's crafting room for Beading and Jewelry Making

Necklaces

Earrings

Skills are shared around the world via the internet.

Come help us create an exciting new creative crafting energy focused on helping REM build community. The REM Crafting Klatch creates decorations and useful tools to help REM volunteers create amazing community projects and events. Together we are creating a "community treasury" of handcrafted linens, decorations, and useful tools for REM volunteers.

We are just starting. Join us now and be part of the creation of a new community energy. Click on the "I'm interested" button below and someone will contact you to find out how you might like to participate.

Clicking this button means you'd like to explore the possibilities for joining this team.

We have a new crafting space. We need your help.

We need to turn this: into this!

REM Crafting Klatch

What is it? Well, its whatever we choose to make it. When I looked it up, here was the definition...only they spelled it wrong! We can spell it any way we want...so we're sticking with "Klatch"...unless the group decides to change it.

klatsch

[klahch, klach] noun - a casual gathering of people, especially for refreshments and informal conversation: a sewing klatsch.

Diane Louten, June Pullen and I worked on the concept of a crafting group for at least a year. REM calls me the "Dream Catcher". People share their ideas with me and I try to connect them to others in the community who are already doing what they want to do or who want to make it happen. Sometimes that means joining another organization, sometimes it means joining a team already underway in REM, sometimes it means starting a new REM Team.

In REM "team" is a synonym for community. REM's mission is to build community. Our little Crafting Klatch community will be linked to many other teams or REM communities. Some of them will help us do our thing; we will sometimes be helping others do theirs. Our work to decorate for the REM Craft Fair is our team's gift to our community. Producers of the craft fair work daily for an entire year. The work we do decorating is very appreciated!

The Crafting Klatch mission is to...

bring people together for conversation, friendship and the sharing of a passion for crafting.

Refreshments, we say, are a craft in themselves and we'd like always to share interesting and creative food and beverages...always being sure to have a balance of healthy and not-so-healthy snacks.

Here's what we've worked out so far:

Anyone can join; we are open to all people.
No crafting skills whatsoever are needed...just an interest in learning, experimenting and creating.
We will decide together what we do and how we'll do it. We've made the following decisions so far:
- What we craft will be for REM facilities, projects or events.
- We will carefully preserve and store what we make so that it can be easily found when needed. (An alphabetical inventory.)
- Creation of storage and work spaces will be part of what we build and design.
- We will use Pinterest (an internet site) to gather ideas from around the world.
- Some items will be used to decorate REM spaces for seasons and holidays.
- Any time we decorate anything we are solely responsible for returning or storing any items we have removed from our storage areas. (This way things are returned to where they belong and we can know where to find them next time we need them.