I had a great time teaching the decoupage plate class yesterday! We sifted through vintage images and patterned prints and each person created a gorgeous collage on a decorative plate to take home. Two of the students in the class were Eileen Gibson and her cousin, Susan. When Eileen mentioned that she is opening up a small business called The Writers Junction, my ears perked up.

There are several small business in Santa Monica that are striving to build community through creativity, while providing a physical space to bring out the endeavors and ideas that can often remain isolated in one’s home. The Writers Junction is a membership based, shared workshop space that encourages just that.

Eileen (pictured above), and her brother Jay, decided to open the business together. Both are working writers who wanted a space apart from the distractions of home, dedicated specifically to writing. Why not just rent an office space you ask? Well, creative minds must think alike because, like The U.C.C, The Writer’s Junction wants to make people’s workspace a place of supportive interaction as well as a space to work independently!

Eileen says that, “The Writers Junction offers an affordable destination for work that is conducive to productive solitude, within a growing and supportive creative community. We create the quiet of a library, the society of a coffee shop, the focus of a daily office, and the camaraderie of a club.” What’s the biggest perk, you ask? The workspace is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year! If you are a member, you can burst through the doors the moment your writer’s block subsides.

If you’d like to find out more about The Writers Junction, visit Eileen’s website HERE.

Check out these photos from our newest class, Molecule Jewelry and Earrings, taught by Stefanie Louie (pictured on left). We will be offering the class again in the Fall/Winter session – look our for our new schedule in the next few weeks!

Aaron Kramer taught another of his altered art/home decor classes this weekend and once again, the finished projects were beautiful and a tremendous success! This all day wood woven marathon will be offered again in the Fall/Winter session, so look out for our new schedule when we release it in the next few weeks!

For more photos of last weekend’s class, visit our Flickr page HERE

Spoonflower is an amazing website where anyone can upload a design and have custom fabric printed and sent to you in just a couple of weeks.

I am very excited to announce that the Spoonflower fabric I made with local artist, Champ, has been chosen on their website for this week’s fabric contest! If we win, Spoonflower will offer this design for sale as a limited edition, special fabric. We are extremely excited and would be thankful if you went on their website to support us by voting for our design, Blue Monday by Shared Madness. Click on the Vote Now button on the left side of the homepage HERE. Voting ends on Monday!



As you can see, this is the fabric I used for Christine Haynes’ Ruffled Skirt class in the Spring!

We’ve just put up some new designs on our Spoonflower site, Here, if you’d like to take a look.

The event on Friday was a tremendous success! It was great to see so many familiar and new faces, all celebrating the handmade journey of U.C.C sewing teacher Christine Haynes.

Christine signed copies of her book, Chic and Simple Sewing for eager seamstresses who were able to get questions answered about starting a successful crafting business.



Groups gathered to learn one of our very favorite, addictive crafts: needlefelting. In addition, we had Yudu screen printing demos of images adapted from Christine’s book. People left with an elegant silhouette image, or a special event poster from the night.





Trunk Show pieces from Christine’s collection


The night ended with a fashion show with a fantastic group of models. Such fun :-)



Thank you everyone for being a part of our very special evening!

Level: Beginner and intermediate

Learn to knit the project of your choice in this 4 part series. Guest teacher Anna Vegezzi will teach you about gauges, how to measure your tension, cast on, knit, purl, knitting in a round, and other techniques that fit your experience and interest. Additional materials list can be found here.

This is my latest crafty addiction. So far, there seem to be no harmful side affects – although I’ve heard that if I keep this up long enough I am bound to get a visit from a sewing needle into my finger. I used some of my Spoonflower fabric as the central theme of my coins, and one of our yummy jelly roll sets of fabric as the alternate patterned pieces.

Alissa was a fantastic teacher, giving us a perfect mix of instruction with time to master the techniques independently. She creates contemporary quilts you can see on her blog, Handmade By Alissa, here!



I loved this project and the fact that the class was such a social experience. Even though we were working on individual projects, everyone was supporting each other and genuinely excited about the progress each person made during the two week course.



This is my finished piece!



Sewing on the binding!



This is J.’s finished quilt. J. is a self proclaimed ‘craft-aholic’ and extremely prolific. She has a blog full of great projects and inspiration called The Girl With A Curl. Find it here!



This quilt was made by Jamie – of The U.C.C! She loves the Wonderland fabric prints and it turned out beautiful!

Here are some photos from our Hand Screen Printing class – the final session is tonight!