During the pandemic I read Facebook posts where people comment on how much they miss their friends. “We should hang out soon again.” “Are you up for a walk?” “Let’s Zoom or grab some coffee”. In the summer time this wasn’t much of a problem. Friends got together at the square with lunch or coffee, sat 6 feet apart or wore a mask. But now it is winter….winter in Iowa, that is! So, here could be an idea for you, but also for your kids: A Virtual Craft Party!
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What is a Craft Party?
A few years ago I started a Craft Café in our town. There was an indoor play area for kids already at our local Recreation Center. I added a smaller room, where I put in a commercial kitchen for selling smoothies, coffee, tea and Dutch pancakes for our Saturday morning Pancake Brunch. A bigger room with a big craft table, couches and picnic tables and a toy nook.
Parents came with small kids in the morning, people who worked out got their smoothies and power drinks and in the afternoons I had After School Programs with crafts and drawing projects. Sometimes I had more than 20 children running around in the play area, making crafts and eating their afternoon snack.
In the Summer there were themed Summer Camps and in the winter, a Winter Camp. It was a lot of fun. Luckily I had friends who helped me for the camps and some drawing classes. Most of the time I was running between the play area, making smoothies and explaining the crafts. It was exhausting after only 3 hours each day.
Years after closing the Craft Café, parents still talk to me about what a great place that was and how they miss it, especially during the winter months.
They are right!
I miss it too! I like to connect with kids and friends and do something creative during that time! Especially now, with the COVID-19 situation, it’s much more needed. Oh gosh, why didn’t I think of this before!
How to Organize A Virtual Craft Party?
Do I need to be creative too?
It would be a good thing to know a few things here and there. I’ll try to show you as much as I can to make it as easy as possible.
The main thing is to be patient and slowly explain what you are going to do.
- Have an example ready so your friends can see what the end result is going to be. And you made the craft already, so you know what needs more explaining or what could go wrong.
- Go over the materials needed, so friends are not running all over the place to find the materials.
- Explain in simple steps.
- Leave time in between to have your friends show what they’ve got so far.
- Ask in between if there are any questions and how everyone is doing.
- Optional: Ask if everyone can make a picture from their creation at the end. You can make a gallery and send it to everyone (use Canva for example).
1. “Virtual Craft Party” templates to get started.
Download these “Virtual Craft Party templates” to get started. Fill in all the parts and copy and paste the emails to invite your friends. You can choose how many people you’d like to invite. Think about with how many people you’d like to interact during the Craft Party, or how many children you’d like to have online. Be aware, some might be quicker in making things, understanding the explanation and have the patience. I had 4 more adults for my adult party and 5 kids maximum for the kids party.
2. Make the craft project.
In the meantime, while waiting for sign-ups, you can make the craft yourself. Use my tutorial for the craft you choose (see link below) or choose your own. There are YouTube video’s you can watch in case you want to do something different or master the technique. Especially for some of the adult crafts. The reason to make one yourself is:
- You can make a picture and send it with the email to invite friends.
- You will have an example and you can show and talk about it at the beginning of the party, so everyone knows what you’re going to make.
- Just by making the example once, you can find out more difficult steps where friends might have some difficulties and need more explanation.
- Sometimes you’ll need different materials or tools, because it doesn’t work or people might not have it on hand.
3. Meeting platform
During our adult Virtual Craft Party, I made the mistake by confirming a date and time when my husband was using the Zoom account. The one where we won’t have a time limit.
I tried Facebook messenger, but 2 of my friends are not on Facebook.
We tried Zoom anyway! I made 2 Zoom links (2 meetings) just in case Zoom would throw us off, but we got a message: “It looks like you are almost out of time. We are giving you more time!” Well, thank you Zoom;)
The Craft Party for the kids we used Zoom, because we are using that platform for school anyway… and I choose a better day and time, so my husband wasn’t using it.
4. Materials and tools
By the time you know who signed up for the Virtual Craft Party, you can send out the 2nd email containing the date and time, a material and tool list and a link to your virtual meeting.
With the kids party, I send the material list and I never got a comment back if they needed help getting all the materials. With the adult Craft Party, some friends asked me if I could bring some materials by.
You can also choose to give them links to buy materials at Walmart or on Amazon.
5. How to set up?
I chose to have the Virtual Craft Party for 1 hour for the kids and 2 hours for the ladies.
To get 2 views (one from me and from above, so everyone can see what I’m doing) I used my laptop and my phone. Plug both in to keep them charged! I bought an iPhone holder which I can clamp onto the side of the table.
Connect the laptop and iPhone to the meeting. Be sure you cannot see the iPhone in the laptop view. Turn your iPhone to landscape view, so friends can see what your doing instead of seeing it side ways on portrait view. Don’t have audio on, on your iPhone either. There is a chance for an echo.
Have your example ready in view and the materials outside your view.
6. Ready to start!
Let your friends into the Virtual Craft Party meeting from the waiting room. Maybe wait a little until most of the people joined. Then welcome everyone and go over some rules. This is important for kids especially. Sometimes for the ladies too:)
If the kids have questions, they can raise their hands. You can mute everyone, if you like to explain something, without being interrupted. A lot of times, everyone can hear you better anyway.
I told my friends at the adult Craft Party that it was important for me, that I could talk to them and catch up how they are doing. If that is the same thing they want, then you can start the project slowly, so everyone can see step-by-step how you are doing it. You’ll notice, that some question will come occasionally.
I’m already planning my next and first adult Virtual Craft Party of this year. I’m so excited! It’s going to be fun!
Subscribe to my blog and receive 4 FREE craft idea’s for the Virtual Craft Party for kids here.
Subscribe to my blog and receive 4 FREE craft idea’s for the Virtual Craft Party for adults here.
If you have any comments or questions, please let me know!!!
Hello everyone,
Welcome to my Crafty Dutch Girl blog! Grab a cup of “koffie” and browse through fun blog posts about our Dutch family expat life in the USA, Dutch history, Dutch recipes, Dutch things to do in the USA and all kinds of crafts and activities. Don’t forget to connect with me for new ideas! “Groetjes en tot ziens”.