Craft Collective

Look what Melanie made!

Melanie is a member of our Chicagoland Craft Collective. Our group started through Meetup, but we are in the process of switching to a free host site. I'm thinking maybe ning, but possibly google groups might be better. I don't know. We've started meeting at a nice new venue: Craft Fancy in Arlington Heights. This great store has vastly improved lighting and electrical outlets!

Great work Melanie!

We made these quick butterflies at our last meeting:

Martha showed us all up by making this one with buttons:

And while we are on the subject of Chicagoland, I'm sad we won't be getting the Olympics here. My husband is relieved because of all the traffic/transit woes we already have, and that little problem of corruption in our fair city. I think we would make a terrific showplace for the world, but so will Rio. My area of Chicagoland would have had the equestrian events. Alas, it was not meant to be. We have friends and family from Brazil and are happy for them!

Craft Critique and Craft Collective

My review/tutorial of the Clover Quick Yo-yo Maker ran yesterday at Craft Critique. I gave this fantastic tool 12 out of 10 stars. The Jumbo version of this tool should be coming to stores soon. I've been watching for it!

In other news, Chicagoland Craft Collective members are being recognized worldwide! Martha is featured in a German scrapping mag. She also has a Martha Stewart Crafts Project Sheet up at Michaels.

Another of our members, Melanie, is excited to have a project of hers published in a beadwork magazine. Melanie doesn't have a weblink, but her project will be in the March Issue of the mag. When it comes out in a few months, I'll show you. Melanie works with very small beads and one time she taught some of us how to make these beaded beads. The project was complicated and not for the faint of heart!



We have a great time at our very casual meetings. We just share our crafty books and projects with each other and we usually do a fun craft that is achievable in a restaurant setting. Last meeting Donna helped us make Halloween candle jars. She got some of that elusive glow-in-the-dark Mod Podge for us to achieve some extra spookiness. Here's my project. I did a cute Frankenstien based on a project in one of her Magazines:



It was so fun and easy! I'm going to gather a bunch more jars and make more with my kids.

None of us at the Chicagoland Craft Collective are associated with any particular craft company or retailer. A few of us dabble in craft shows, blogging, and Etsy, but mostly we have fun connecting with other craft obsessed people like ourselves. Join us sometime if you live in the outlying suburbs of Chicago!

February Craft Collective

Our craft at our February Chicagoland Craft Collective meeting was these cute bunnies. Thanks, Diane! Mine is the one in the center with the yellow ears. I am a traditional direction follower. I envy creative thinkers like Nancy who made the Emo Bunny right next to mine. This was a fun craft. It's hard to come up with simple things we can do in a restaurant with strange lighting and this one was really fun and simple. It's sitting on a little felt penny quilt that Donna made to share with us.

Alex told us about her experience last week as an NIU student during the Valentine's Day shootings there. The students have had the week off since the shootings and she says it was very surreal and the gravity of what happened hasn't really set in yet because they haven't gone back to their classes.

We peeked out at last night's lunar eclipse, but it is really cold here, so we observed it from inside our restaurant venue. Sarah and Martha told us all about going to CHA last week. We are all cheering for Britney's recovery and we don't hold out much hope for Chyna on Celebrity Rehab. Did you know that Britney's hair is about 6 inches long now since it was a year ago that she publicly shaved it all off? I didn't know this juicy fact, but Martha did.

Diane brought a previously used Sizzix die cutter machine for me. I'm so excited about this new tool! The paddle punches I have are a lot of work to use with my felt, and I think this will be much easier to use. I really want to be able to get consistent circles...

Finally, Sarah read my mind and knew I would want to start getting Cotton Time magazine so she ordered it for me from a local Japanese bookseller and here's a sneak peek at my first issue. Yay!

Polished Silver

Isn't polished silver pretty? The candlesticks are wedding gifts from my husband's sister and brother. I usually use them for Christmas, but they needed a polish and I only just got to it today. Back when we got married, I was sure I'd need a silver chafing dish. Boy, was I wrong! It does look pretty in the china cabinet!


Tomorrow night is our meeting of the Chicagoland Craft Collective! Donna is finally going to get to her ribbon flower craft and as usual, I'm bringing a pile of my Japanese books to share with the uninitiated. We always pass our crafts around and share tips about techniques. Most of us use the internet, so we always talk about the tech side of crafting too. Join us if you are close to the northwest suburbs of Chicago.

I still haven't been crafting. My son has his last Cub Scout Pinewood Derby this weekend. My husband is really a math and history guy, so I supervise the construction of the car. Ours is always disappointingly slow. Thank goodness, several years ago we discovered that the hardware store sells cars already carved so we just focus on painting it and getting the weight right. I'm told the key to speed is using graphite on the wheels, so this time we'll try that to see if we can get this thing slightly fast. There is also some trick to the weight distribution that we have not mastered. Wish us luck!

My First Craft Show

It is likely that I made too much, especially since I'm sharing the table with Sarah and Martha from The Chicagoland Craft Collective.

The show is tomorrow (Sunday, Nov. 4) at Durty Nellies in Palatine, IL.

I made crochet flowers:


Travel tissue holders. I know that a lot of people make and sell these, but mine have rick-rack and gussets:


Embroidered applique pouches:


Assorted felt envelopes:


And several felted sweater totes with embroidered applique:


Wish us luck!

Chiacagoland Craft Collective

Here's the scrapbooking page I made last Meetup. Martha who makes fantastic little felt pugs and wonderful scrappy layouts of the various pugs in her life, provided kits for us to play with. This is my favorite picture of my 2 beautiful children. It's about one month after my little girl was born. My son is just 3 years old. I love the way he hold his bitty baby sister like a dolly. Last month he turned 10 and is headed to middle school next year. Where does the time go?

If you are crafty and live in Chicagoland, you have to join us at the Chicagoland Craft Collective. We are a diverse group of crafters who get together casually each month at the Schaumburg Portillos to share our crafts. We have scrapbookers, beaders, stampers, stitchers, sewers, knitters, and people like me who dabble in everything.

Sarah has done a couple of our MeetUp crafts. She helped us make this great clip one night. Another time she showed us how to make some adorable snowman gift bags. Mine was gifted for Christmas...
I taught some wee felt mascots on a couple different nights.

One of my favorite crafts was the night when Melanie, beader extraordinaire, taught us how to make these beaded beads. Isn't it gorgeous? When Melanie taught us this bead.. I was determined to figure it out and get it right. It was tricky, but even in the bad Portillos lighting, I got the hang of it and made 4 more when I got home. I even ordered a Japanese bead book, but I haven't crafted from it yet.


Next MeetUp, May 18, we are going to get help from each other with crafts we've always wanted to do. I'm bringing my punchneedle and Donna is hopefully going to show me what to do with it. Maybe some of the people who've asked me how to do the Hello Kitty Granny Square will come and I can give you some tips...