What Happened When I Signed Up for A Craft Camp?
What to Expect from a Online Craft Camp
What happens when you sign up for online Craft Camp? I spent 6-weeks at a virtual camp with like-minded crafty ladies and it built my confidence and creativity. Here’s what happened any why you should consider attending a virtual craft camp too.
There’s me, just innocently scrolling through my Instagram feed when a cute advertisement pops up for a 6-week Camp Wanna Craft. I click through an read about it, fully expecting to be presented a kid summer camp with online tutorials for making bird houses out of popsicle sticks and lemonade stand banners–the kind of crafts that keep kids busy during summer.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that this is a craft camp for grown up girls who need to be more creative (me), and need a really good excuse for some crafting self-care (me again!)
I happily handed over my credit card, even though I had no idea what type of craft classes I was getting into. I just knew that I wanted to have an excuse to craft–in fact I really hoped that someway, somehow, we all crafted together like a bunch of real campers.
The first surprise was our project. A junk journal. So embarassed to tell you that I had to look up junk journals. You probably think I’ve been living under a beautifully glitter-painted rock, but I had never ventured into the world of planners and junk journals, art journals, mixed media journals–who knew?
The closest I came was to try a bullet journal a few months ago (you newsletter girls heard all about it) but it turned out that I’m not a gifted freehand draw-er (is that even a word?) The best I could do was sketch a sad looking flower. I also, quite frankly, didn’t enjoy the tracking aspect that is the backbone of the bullet journal.
Did you drink your water? Exercise? Pet the cat? Eat healthy? Water your plants? Take time for a bath? Umm. Nope, it’s hard to call that exercise but I’m counting it, haven’t really seen the cat, nope, nope, and I did manage to dust my great big tub but didn’t get around to filling it with water.
As you can see, I had good reason to dislike bullet journal tracking.
But I was more than willing to give this junk journal thing a try. And so I grabbed my Dr. Pepper (no judgies) logged into my account and dove into my lessons.
It was so fun! This camp was created by Cori Speiker, a famous junk journal gal that I’d never heard of before. She goes by The Reset Girl because her life sort of blew up and she had to reset, made lemonade out of lemons and reinvented her life.
She’s a kind, encouraging teacher with a soothing voice that I enjoyed crafting alongside. The lessons were quick, easy and her clipart is simply to die for! I’m embarassed to tell you how much money I spent on her Honey’s (her signature vintage fashion dolls and other clipart because it was so fun to have these new tools to use.
I was surprised at what a great medium junk journals are for creative play. For some reason I gave myself permission to be messy, to do it badly (some of my pages were like, Ee gads!), and to use up my craft materials. Because, if you’re like me, it can be so tempting to save our favorite supplies for that special project that we never get to because we’re a little afraid. And this project took away that fear.
It helped that it was my first junk journal and so I didn’t have to play according to the rules because I didn’t know what the rules were!
Before long I was adding embellishments to my notebooks and clipboards the same way I went crazy with my bedazzler in the 8th grade.
But this camp had so much more than just great little lessons and vintage clipart. Cori worked hard to make it feel like you were going to camp. We had 3-4 live events every week where we could tune in to talk and craft with Cori, she turned chat rooms into “cabins” and gave us a gallery where we could post our best work and cheer each other on. I think by the end of the six weeks there were over 300 photos of beautiful journal pages in the galleries.
And so this craft camp has ignited a new love of crafting for me.
You’ll notice that a few more junk journal tutorials (okay, they’re really just me showing off my pages) will start popping up on the blog. I’ve been coming up with creative ways to use my Cricut to up my junk journal game that I’ll share with you just in case junk journals are one of your craft loves too.
For all the planner girls out there, be patient with me. Planners still aren’t my thing–my to-do list is never fun and I have no desire to decorate it. But I am an avid reader and note taker so I will continue junk journals to record my thoughts and all those amazing quotes that keep me going when life is feeling especially heavy.
Want to see my finished Vintage Campy Junk Journal? I have a great video of it!
Want to see where I got all my amazing clipart for this vintage junk journal? Check out the video below!
Interested in joining Camp Wanna Craft? It runs for six weeks during June and July. Sign up for Cori’s Newsletter and you’ll receive emails letting you know when Camp opens for Registration.
Have you ever signed up for a class or an experience that was better than expected? Worse? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
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