The Benefits of Joining a Craft Group

I met Lisa when I formed the Lincoln Handmade Etsy Team.  She is such a great addition to the group and does an excellent job of keeping us motivated and on task.  She takes her role of dictator very seriously.  Lisa is the person behind Oobbles. 

Thinking of joining a craft group?  Have you seen all the teams on etsy?  They have hundreds!  Some are grouped by location and meet in person, some are grouped by subject/craft and meet only virtually.  I am a lucky member of two such groups- Etsy Hookers and Lincoln Handmade.

I joined Etsy Hookers first, right at the beginning of my sojourn with etsy.  My main craft is crochet and so I went looking for a crochet team!  Etsy Hookers is great because they take their team seriously.  They maintain a ning forum, a group blog, and a flickr pool.  In addition to all of that, they have regular activities like chat and promotion threads, crochet contests and a hooker of the month.  I love that this group is so active and has so many different ways in which to participate.  They are a really nice group of people and are always willing to help out when you have a question or just want to chat.

There are many benefits to being a member of a large virtual team- communion with like minded folks- the power of a big team for promotions and more.  But one thing they usually lack is the ability to meet in person.  That was a big reason I joined Lincoln Handmade when it formed in 2008.  Lincoln Handmade is a group that is made up of many different personalities and crafts and what binds us together is our love of creating (and I think our love of talking!).  We have a regular monthly meeting where we get together to discuss our etsy shops, new crafts we're working on, and fun get togethers we'd like to have in the future.  We've already had some great ones, as you can see from the photos!   If you'd like to see more, check out our flickr pool or our new facebook page!