Craft Club is an exciting initiative from Artcore that upskills selected workshop participants and provides them with the materials, equipment and advice so that they can create craft items to be sold in our new shop, Craftcore. The project demonstrates that creating and selling artworks can be a viable alternative career path that anyone can consider. Craft Club meets once a week and the Makers work in a given material to create a variety of products that are then sold in our shop. When an item sells, a portion of the proceeds go to the Maker who designed and crafted the item. Products made and sold so far have been mosaics, pinch pots, pendants, linocut tote bags, Christmas and Valentines decorations.

Craft Club Project Seven – Crochet

We decided to have a go at crochet and learn the skills through our volunteers Rima and Sophie sharing their knowledge with us. We used different coloured wools and yarns and began by learning the different stitches which could then be turned into designs. Participants worked hard to practice and develop often finding it fiddly

Craft Club Project Six – Upcycled Mosaics

For our sixth project we found photo frames and tealights in charity shops to upcycle. We used glass mosaic tiles to reinvigorate the tired surfaces and create vibrant patterns. Participants developed skills in cutting tiles and making unique patterns with colour and shape. They worked together choosing frames and thinking about how to improve them

Craft Club Project Five – Valentines wall hangings

Craft Club’s fifth project was working with air-drying clay to create valentines clay themed wall-hangings. With this clay there is no need to fire in a kiln so working with it is different. It is important the participants share and teach the use of different mediums and materials to further their learning and confidence with

Craft Club Project Four – Clay Christmas decorations

The fourth project looked at using clay to design and make terracotta hangings for Christmas decorations. Using terracotta clay with the concept to only fire once on a bisque fire to reveal the un-glazed beauty of the terracotta. We made stencils of stars as a technical challenge, it is important to explore new challenge and

Craft Club Project Three-Linocut tote bags

Craft Club’s third project was looking at a completely different medium – lino! The sessions looked at how to make a design for a tote bag using a block of lino. The group talked about repetition of shapes, composition and positive and negative space. They created and transferred their designs from paper to the lino

Craft Club Project Two – Clay pinch pots and pendants

The second project looked at using clay as a medium to make professional pots and jewellery with Jane Smith. This was a new medium to many of the crafters and a good skill to learn manipulation with fingers and hands. Clay is very intuitive and can easily go wrong so manipulating it into functional and

Mosaic Tiles

Craft Club Project One – Mosaic Coasters Craft Club’s first project was to make mosaic coasters. To begin the project the group had a planning meeting where they took inspiration from artists like Niki De Saint Phalle and Antoni Gaudí; together they looked at different styles of mosaics and discussed what theme could inspire their