Sunday, August 5 we will be having our MONTHLY CRAFTER'S ROUND UP and our FIRST ARTS & CRAFTS SWAP MEET!

Bring your art, your crafts and your materials to SWAP. This is a cashless event -- we WILL BE TRADING!! This is our first attempt at this trade show and we are trying to encourage all sorts of work.

Paintings, photography, prints, clothing, buttons, furniture, lotion, knited goods -- WHATEVER IT IS YOU DO -- AND whatever arts and craft materials you have lying around that you can't use anymore! Come and trade with friends to get other cool stuff!

Bring a dish to share as usual! Here are the details:

Drawn To Art, 2200 Colonial Ave. #9, Norfolk, VA
Sunday, August 5th
6pm - whenever!

• How to make cupcakes with knitted marzipan! SO AWESOME!! More photos here.
• Make an adorable fortune cookie charm from polymer clay.
• How to sew a roll for circular knitting needles. Boy do I need one of these.
• New site: Trade A Craft. Just getting started but check it out! Trade finished crafts or materials!

Hey crafty mafiosas, it's time for our first Norfolk Craft Mafia skill-sharing workshop! The workshop is entitled GET YR CRAFT ON(LINE): Photo hosting, blogs and Etsy.

At this workshop, you'll learn how to upload photos to a free photo hosting service, set up a free blog and set up an online store at Etsy.com!

The workshop will be held at my house on Sunday, July 1st at 6:30pm and is free to all Norfolk Craft Mafia members. Non-members may attend the workshop for a $15 fee (but why not just join up for an extra $5 and get the full membership benefits)!

If you have a laptop, please bring it. It will help to have more than one person able to get online at once! I have a wireless connection so we can all get online at the same time. Please also bring a CD with some photos on it so you can upload them!

If you plan on attending, please email me at amber AT myaimistrue DOT com and I'll send you directions and my phone number!

Let me know if you have any questions!

Don't forget, tomorrow is PILE OF CRAFT, a big ol' DIY & craft show being put on by the Charm City Craft Mafia! The show runs from 10am to 5pm and I will be there along with Amanda of A. Bel Studio reppin' the Norfolk Craft Mafia so please come by and say hi if you end up going!

This show has gotten a lot of press and has some big sponsors (Etsy, BUST) so it should be pretty awesome! I'm driving up tonight and crashing with Amanda and her sister, then gettin' up bright and early to set things up! Please come out! Click here for directions and a list of vendors!

Pile of Craft went exceedingly well and the Norfolk Craft Mafia booth had a great day overall!

Here are some pictures of the stuff we had for sale.

Two new lip balm flavors: Cotton Candy and Bubble Pop! Check the etsy shop later this week for updates!

Pins, hair clips and earrings all made with vintage buttons and materials.

Bags made from Martha Stewart dish towels or vintage sheets with vintage zippers.

An apron and matching patchwork kitchen towel from repurposed vintage curtains.

Sugar scrub and cards with old letterpress designs I colored on the computer.

I think our booth looked awesome (thanks to Amanda for about 99.9% of that!) and she had some really great stuff for sale too and did really well at this show! Check the A. Bel Studio etsy shop later this week for some updates. Yall are gonna like this stuff!

The beach combers were really popular. She found vintage slips and hand dyed them, then screen printed each one with a Chesapeake-bay themed design. My favorite was the ship's wheel but she also had seahorses, crabs and starfish.

People went NUTS over her gnome stuff. She had ADORABLE magnet sets nestled into a flowerpot with a cute ribbon, label and mushroom charm. She sold out of those, I wasn't surprised. The guardian gnomes were a huge hit too, and each one had its own hilarious and cheesy story on the back. I couldn't shut up about them.

I bet these will be going up in her etsy store soon!

More awesome stuff from her. Pins, limited edition stickers and brooches.

This was the first show put on by the Charm City Craft Mafia, and they did an amazing job! The turnout was spectacular and the space (an old stone church with awesome windows and high ceilings) was oh so cool. They also held a raffle and were selling screenprinted posters. There were two rooms full of vendors and there were a great variety of different craft disciplines represented.

For lots more photos, go over to my set on Flickr. There's also a Pile of Craft group where people are dumping photos.

We had a really great time, and definitely would love to do it again!

Thank you to everyone who stopped by, and the cool people I got to meet! Please go see the rest of the photos on Flickr!

• Check out this roundup of beautiful vintage embroidery.
• Craft Tutorials blog is looking for writers!
• Tutorial on how to make covered buttons!
• A very helpful cursory tour in Publishing for the Amateur Crafter.
• Here's a great tutorial on using free form embroidery to embellish a design or even to make your own fabric!

Are you interested in putting together a crafty link dump for the Norfolk Craft Mafia blog? Leave a comment and we'll be in touch!