Pages

Monday, August 18, 2014

Do you Meet Up?

One of the coolest things about the art of scrapbooking in particular is that the artists teach one another new techniques, demonstrate different approaches, and share their individual stories and processes in classes and crops. Scrapbookers don't just document, they build communities.

In much the same way, quilters, beaders, yarn artists, mixed media artists, sculptors, etc form their own enclaves, build their own artistic communities.

The trick, it seems, is finding one of these groups to get involved with .

Now, you could be like me a have a couple of friends who share your hobby and want to just come over and hang out in your kitchen.

But even we like to branch out, meet up with others, talk, share, learn, generally be part of a larger community.

I'm not sure what its like where you live, but where I live it can be hard to find things to do with people who have the same interests as I do.

This is especially true in my community when it comes to my crafting hobby. The stores that cater to my hobby in this area - the place I would normally go for events and classes - are primarily large chain stores with generic classes and no meeting spaces.

I imagine any artist in any community can find themselves in the same predicament, feeling like a lone wolf.

Enter Meet-Up.com.

Meet-up.com offers a way for you to gather with others who share your interests. The individual meet-ups take many forms  - regular meetings, special events, tours, trips, or retreats. The potential topics range from business networking to wine tasting to christian singles to quilting to moms of multiples to exercise groups and nearly every possibility in between.

Most groups are private - choosing to disclose meet-up opportunities only to the group members. However, the good meet-up organizers give descriptive summaries of their groups so you know what sort of opportunities they provide for meeting. Once you are a member, you can choose to get updates and notifications in a way that works for you and you can reserve your spot in the various events as it fits your schedule.

Obviously, the groups will be different depending upon your location and the individuals involved...but so far, I've had nothing but awesome results from the meetups I've participated in.

A couple Saturday's ago, I attended a scrapbooking meetup that happens to be based out of my home town and that happens to meet at my local community center.



This particular group is amazing - friendly, funny, generous and informative. Many of the ladies who participate are involved with various stamping, scrapbooking and other home-based businesses. This one in particular provides Cricuts and cricut instruction for anyone who might want to use them. This one also guarantees a lot of space for working and making a big artful mess.




If you have never tried Meet-Up, you should give it a shot.

Its as easy as signing up for an account and then searching the huge list of meet-ups for something that interests you.

The groups generally require very little commitment and you can participate or not as you see fit.

Peace, ya'll!

1 comment:

Meghann Andrew said...

How awesome that you found this group so close to you!