Welcome to the first Lost & Found Crafts blog post!

Hello Crafters!

I’ve never done a blog before, so this will be a big learning curve – be patient with me!  I’m loving my new website (thank you, Smiling Web Design), and I think a blog is going to be a lot of fun.  My niece, Emma, is working on some fun crafts to try out with secondhand materials and will be posting her creations with instructions/photos soon.

I get asked a lot about how I got the store started.  My husband and I have talked a lot about wanting to open a used bookstore when we retired, maybe in the mountains somewhere.  I love to hike, he loves to hunt.  Then, as my kid got older, I found I had more time for crafts, so I started branching out from the usual cross stitch, and trying new things.  New things are expensive!  I heard about creative reuse centers, and looked for one in Olympia.  There wasn’t one!  So…. there you go and here I am.  It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but a really good one.  I love the store more every day.  I have the best customers, and have met the most interesting, inspiring people.

My first crafting love is cross stitch.  My sister taught me how to do it when I was little, and I’ve done it ever since.  I’m branching out now into embroidery, and sewing (quilting), and making stuff like gnomes out of old wood spools.  I’ve tried knitting (not a fan), crochet (pretty good), coloring with alcohol ink markers (still obsessed with this but terrible at it and rarely try it), but I always come back to stitching.  My newest obsession is stitching on felt.  I’ve been making felt ornaments for a couple of years now, and have now branched out into embellishing them.

It’s daunting, but I love the bright colors and the uniqueness of this stuff!  Now all I need is about 12 extra hours a day to learn this.  While also learning how to quilt.  And run a store.  And work my other part-time job.  🙂  And play with my dog!  Now that my son is off at Boise State, I’m hoping for more time to play, but we’ll see how life goes.

I’ve got a lot of plans for the store.  I want to learn more crafts so I can teach more classes.  I want to expand of course, so I can have a first floor location with better parking.  To do that, I need more customers, which means more advertising.  To do more advertising, I need more customers.  And around & around we go!  Things have been steadily picking up since the covid lock-down though, which is great.  I still get people in who have never heard of the store until recently, so word is slowly trickling out.  If you’re a fan of the store – tell everybody!  I’m considering having more crafting machines for rental — sewing machine, of course the cricut is already here, not sure what else yet, but these are things I’ve been thinking about.  My brain is always spinning with ideas, and I’m always willing to chat with you all about other ideas as well.  Classes right now are hard – I can only fit 4 people per class right now in order to maintain social distancing.  I’m trying to develop some video classes, and I’m also looking into shipping within the US.  Let’s all hope they have a vaccine soon for covid, and we can get back to normal!  Also – if I had a larger space, I could have a larger classroom too.  Another thing to consider!

I get asked a lot about donations.  I always take donations.  If I can’t use it, I will donate it elsewhere.  Quilting fabric and yarn are the biggest sellers, and I definitely will take any of that. Pretty much if you can craft with it – I’ll accept it!  The variety is more fun for shoppers, and I try to have examples around of crafts people have done for inspiration!

I think that’s it for the first blog!  A little about the store, a little about me, a little about upcoming ideas for the store.  Stay tuned for some fun reuse ideas from Emma!

Happy Crafting,

Michelle