My crafty familia is rockin' the Odd Duck

This has been such an expansive year for the Hollywood Craft Mafia. We started a meetup group and started monthly meetups, added a new member, and started serious planning for our upcoming trunk and craft shows.
I’m certain there were other hectic and productive times this year, but August has really blown me away. The four of us have begun seriously working on our first Odd Duck Trunk Show on October 10th 2009 and our first Odd Duck Indie Bazaar on March 27th 2010. It’s been amazing to watch Alexis create a hand drawn logo, a custom built website, and an amazing post card.

We have a beautifully branded product, and it’s all handmade, in keeping with the Hollywood Craft Mafia mission: DIY or Die!

More on how much I love my Mafia sisters, and the joys of creating a life that you love soon.

Creating community...

I'm on a bit of an obsessive kick with the whole community thing. I feel like crafters on one hand are very solitary people, since crafting isn't usually a group activity. However, I also notice, that once you get creative people together, getting them to stop talking is generally kind of diffucult.

South Florida doesn't really have a centralized art scene, and even the down town area is pretty well spread out. One of my favorite aspects of working with the Hollywood Craft Mafia has been working on improving involvement of the South Florida crafting community.We've been doing meet ups for a while, but Rebecca organized a meetup.com group for us, and we all come up with ideas for what types of events to have.


So far we've had a few craft supply swaps, a Glove Bunny Workshop, and a trip to Trash 2 Treasure creative re-use center. This month we're joining up with Undergrounds Coffeehaus for their monthly Stitch N Bitch. I love this kind of event. All I have to do is show up, craft, chat, and snack. It's a really fun way to meet new crafters and it's "networking" that doesn't make me feel creepy.

The Hollywood Craft Mafia Meetup group is heading out to Undergrounds Coffehaus Saturday, July 25th from 7pm to 1am for some public crafting, exellent coffee, and general hanging out. You should join us, because the only thing better than sewing, beading, painting, or whatever portable craft thing you do, is doing it at Undergrounds.

Come get your craft on people.
More info, and to join the meetup: http://www.meetup.com/HCMMeetupGroup/calendar/10807980/

Finding my community

I think I’ve been searching for a proper community for most of my life. I have a large family, but grew up in south Florida, hundreds of miles from them and anything resembling a community. Raised by a slightly anti-social and extremely busy single mother, I didn’t even have my parents’ friends as a substitute family.

I was never sporty, perky, or social enough to be a jock, cheerleader, or otherwise popular person. Thankfully, the internet, and my somewhat improved social skills have improve my ability to meet new people. I’ve made a few good friends from dating sites like OK Cupid and www.plentyoffish.com . One of those friends told me about Undergrounds Coffeehaus, where I now live part time, and have some jewelry on consignment. I’ve made new friends through LiveJournal, found old friends through FaceBook, and have met lovely people through my shop on etsy. I’ll have to have a completely separate blog post next week about my crafty sisters in the Hollywood Craft Mafia.

I’ve also found some people who are amazing resources on the internet. JD from Get Rich Slowly helped me to embrace my frugal ways, and see them as the asset that they are. Chris Guillebeau constantly reminds me that conformity is not a good thing for everyone. Havi shares her process, her stuckness, and her general amusement at life, while helping me acknowledge and deal with my roadblocks.

All my life, I’ve looked for a sense of community, a group of people who would cherish me, a place where I fit in. Now I find a new place I belong almost every time I turn on my computer, get a cup of coffee, or answer my phone. I sincerely hope that everyone who wants to has the same experience.

Links, because I don’t know how to do that fancy thing where you can just click on the pretty blue word…yet:

http://undergroundscoffeehaus.com
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/
http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/
http://www.fluentself.com/blog/

Loss, friends, and coffee

While technically I still owe this blog an intro post, I think this will do nicely:
http://www.handmadenews.org/article/index.php?id=1231

I’m thankful for that article as I have more profound things on my mind today than myself. I was recently lucky enough to find a local indie coffee house (www.undergroundscoffeehaus.com ). There was a well established base of regulars when I first came, but the few on the fringe and the owner made me more than welcome. As it became obvious I was becoming a regular too, I got friended on FaceBook and invited to a bar-b-que. I told my friends about the place, asked the owner to host a Hollywood Craft Mafia event there, and I even brought my mom. Just as I felt like I was getting to know some of the people who’d been there from the start, they suffered an enormous blow: the sudden death of one of the inner circle.

Just like any other family, they banded together, held a private memorial, attended the public memorial, tried to be supportive of his wife and family, and grieved. And they continue to grieve, as I do with them, for the loss of a great man, a good man, a talkative man, a man who filled an auditorium with mourners.

As I sat through Boone’s three hour memorial, I had a lot of thoughts. I thought his students really loved him. I thought his lessons will fade much more slowly because of the timing of this loss. I thought that I wouldn’t mind having an auditorium full of people whose lives I had touched, though I’d rather live to see them there. I thought how impossibly difficult this loss and pain must be for his family, especially having to bear it publicly. I thought about getting on an exercise plan, really. I thought how little my paper pushing day job aligns with how I want to impact the word. I thought about community, belonging, and hope. These are the things that I will continue to write about here, as learn what I can from Boone’s death. He was a teacher; I think he’d like that.