Jessika Rae Warren: Second Anniversary at PJ’s Lager House, Takeover Tuesday at St. CeCe’s Pub

If you took part in our crafty brunch, then you already know about Jessika Rae Warren’s delicious cooking. Four months later, our brunch guests still get a faraway look in their eyes when they reminisce about her vegan biscuits and gravy. We look forward to collaborating with J Rae on some future Small Craft events. In the meantime, there will be other opportunities to sample her punk rock comfort food. On Sunday, May 26, she’ll celebrate the second anniversary of her weekend brunch at PJ’s Lager House. And on Tuesday, July 2, she’ll bring a pop-up restaurant to St. CeCe’s pub.

PJ’s Lager House is known around the world as a live music venue. But its brunch is one of those well-kept secrets that make Detroit special. This brunch doesn’t interrupt your morning with a lot of glitz or hype. It’s just hearty food in a cozy room: everything you need to ease into a lazy weekend. J Rae has been cooking lunch at the Lager House for two years, and on May 26, she’ll host an anniversary celebration. Small Craft’s Ethan Cronkite will DJ, playing new wave, power pop, and other music of the ’70s and ’80s. Like hot sauce on your tofu scramble, or celery in your Bloody Mary, these tunes will add an extra flavor to an already pleasant experience.

As longtime fans of J Rae’s brunch, we’re excited to find out what she does with dinner! We’ll have our chance on June 2, when she steps into the kitchen at St. CeCe’s Pub as part of their popular series of Takeover Tuesdays. St. CeCe’s is always known for its old-fashioned atmosphere and modern commitment to local produce. But every Tuesday night, it transforms into a pop-up restaurant, under the guidance of a guest chef. Expect J Rae to bring some Southern style and vegan options to St. CeCe’s wood-paneled dining room.

We hope you’ll come out and support a talented friend, while enjoying some food, drinks, and music.

Jessika Rae’s Second Anniversary Brunch
Sunday, May 26
10:30 am – 3:00 pm
PJ’s Lager House
1254 Michigan Ave.
Detroit

Takeover Tuesday with Jessika Rae
Tuesday, June 2
8:00 pm
St. CeCe’s Pub
1426 Bagley Ave.
Detroit

Craft-A-Way Camp

What if you could craft among the lake breezes and rustling leaves of rural Michigan? Gather around a campfire with crafty friends, old and new? Fill an entire weekend with the creativity and companionship of a Small Craft get-together? It’s the dream of many a Southeast Michigan crafter. And at Craft-A-Way Camp, the dream will come to life!

On June 29 and 30, we’ll make our home at the Waterloo Recreation Area, the largest state park in the Lower Peninsula. We’ll sleep in a 20-bed bunkhouse. We’ll craft, hike, and swim amid 20,000 acres of woods and water. There will be grownup takes on all the popular camp activities, from nature walks and picnic lunches to campfire songs and s’mores. But at this camp, the focus will be on the crafts!

We’ll enjoy some indie craft favorites, like screen printing and jewelry making. And we’ll bring back some fondly remembered summer camp projects, like God’s eyes and painted sticks. We’ll learn from local friends, like Marcy Davy, Courtney Fischer, and Karen LePage. And from special guests, like Chicago’s Val Willer. There will even be a crafters’ tour of the park’s plant life, with expert guidance from Andy Sell, the Foraging Florist.

So fill the woods with the beauty of your work, and your work with the beauty of the woods. Join us at the campfire, and add your voice to the song. For one weekend, at least, life can be all about sharing your creativity with your friends. For life – like a craft, or a trail through the wild – is whatever we choose to make it.

Craft-A-Way Camp
$125 – Application required.
Saturday, June 29 – Sunday, June 30
Waterloo Recreation Area
16345 McClure Road
Chelsea

May Pop-Up Shop and Skillshare: Lish Dorset and Oh Sew Betty!

As you meet the people behind the crafts, you find that they tend to have personalities as  vivid as their work. On Saturday, May 11, we’ll host two of the Midwest craft scene’s most vivid personalities: Lish Dorset and Betty Floored. Lish will talk quilting 101, and guide us though a simple project – a mug rug! Betty will fill a pop-up shop with her retro-styled skirts, aprons, pillows, and bags. And of course, there will be free coffee, tea, and homemade vegan baked goods for everyone. It’s a day to relax, learn, and shop, while getting to know some of the people who make our local craft community so special.

Lish Dorset

She’s a member of Handmade Detroit, an organizer of the Detroit Urban Craft Fair, a craft writer for Metro Parent magazine, a former blogger for CRAFT. And she’s crafted with Martha Stewart! Wherever you find crafts, you’ll find Lish Dorset, wearing color-coordinated glasses, and telling a humorous story. We’ve worked with Lish on a number of projects over the years, and we’ve long admired her witty repartee, her boundless energy, and her personal style. So we’re looking forward to a lively introduction to quilting! And since we’ve seen her lovely quilts, we know Lish’s skillshare will be as informative as it is engaging.

Lish Dorset

All of our Small Craft events are fueled by endless sips of free coffee and tea. So what project could be more appropriate than a mug rug? This is not only a cute place to set your hot beverage, but also a great way to learn basic quilting techniques. If you’ve been intrigued by quilting, but feared it might be too difficult or pricey, this is your chance to get started. Rulers, mats, batting and fabric will be on hand for you to use. This project does require a sewing machine, along with some basic sewing skills. So if you’re making a mug rug, please bring your own machine, and have it threaded and ready to sew.

Don’t have a machine or are new to sewing? You’re still welcome to join us! Stop on by to see how it’s done, and leave with a handy how-to sheet. And if you’re not interested in quilting, that’s okay too! Bring your own creative project, and enjoy our coffee, treats, and companionship while you work.

Photo: Freezeframephoto419

When you see Betty Floored skating past with the Glass City Rollers, or selling crafts at Artomatic 419, you see the tough yet friendly spirit of Toledo, Ohio. As a founder of Handmade Toledo, and an organizer of the popular Maker’s Mart craft fair, Betty has been a key figure in the rise of her city’s indie craft scene. And as an avid participant in Michigan’s handmade celebrations, she’s helped to unify a regional craft culture. Betty’s been a dedicated regular at our Small Craft get-togethers, making the drive from Ohio in order to join us. This month, we’re proud to be hosting her Oh Sew Betty! pop-up shop. Oh Sew Betty! is best known as a line of dresses: custom-made, body positive, and retro-styled. In her shop, you’ll see her rock n roll sensibility applied to skirts, aprons, pillows, and bags.

Photo: Amy Cronkite

Many of the Midwest’s personable crafters will be joining us at this event. And there’s always room for more! We hope you’ll drop by the Trumbullplex - a space with a vivid personality of its own – and introduce yourself!

Small Craft Pop-Up Shop and Skillshare
Saturday, May 11
Pop-Up Shop open 2:00 – 6:00 pm
Skillshare begins at 3:00 pm
Trumbullplex Theater
4210 Trumbull
Detroit

Small Craft Returns to the Trumbullplex! With Courtney Fischer and All Things Grow

Our Winter Tour was a lot of fun, but we’re happy to be coming home. For two decades, the Trumbullplex has been a home for DIY in Detroit. And for over a year, it’s been the home port for our social craft Saturdays. On April 13, it can be your home away from home! Courtney Fischer will be there, with a skillshare on making silverware into garden markers. Marcy Davy of All Things Grow will be there, with a pop-up shop filled with nature-themed screen prints. And of course we’ll be there, with free coffee, tea, and homemade vegan baked goods. If you’d like to spend a Saturday afternoon crafting, shopping, eating, and socializing in a historic and dynamic space, then you should be there too!

Courtney Fischer

Don’t fill your one-of-a-kind garden with dull, mass-produced markers! Make your own, from a cheap and abundant thrift store resource: old silverware! Experienced jeweler Courtney Fischer will guide you in stamping the names of your crops into upcycled forks, knives, and spoons. You’ll not only be beautifying your yard, but also learning a basic metal stamping technique. You’re welcome to bring your own silverware. (Silver plated will work better than stainless steel, so look for the mark on the back.) Or for a small charge, you can use some of ours. This will be the only charge for the skillshare.

Courtney Fischer

The lovely patinas on her brass and copper jewelry seem to echo the textures of the Michigan outdoors, where Courtney Fischer camps and roams. In her backyard garage, she combines modern forms with an antique finish, creating necklaces, earrings, and cuffs that sing with a proud Midwestern accent. We’ve known Courtney to be a fun and friendly neighbor at many a craft fair, so we’re glad to have her company at this event. And with over ten years of jewelry making experience to draw on, Courtney will surely have a lot to teach us!

Marcy Davy

The Huron river bed. A row of birch trees. A finch at the feeder. The Michigan landscape fills our homes, thanks to Marcy Davy and her All Things Grow line of screen prints. A graphic designer, an art educator, and a cofounder of the DIYpsi Indie Art Fair, Marcy brings many talents to the local creative community. She has an eye for the rocks, plants, and animals that surround us, and a knack for transforming them into elemental shapes and colors. On fabric, wood, or paper, the resulting prints are both modern and rustic: a perfect fit for an urban Eden like the Trumbullplex.

Photo: Cassie Staub

Since 1993, the Trumbullplex, a housing collective and theater in Detroit’s Woodbridge neighborhood, has been the center of a creative counterculture. (And the space’s pre-plex history links it to an earlier counterculture: the Cass Corridor art movement of the 1960s and ’70s.) Far from being a relic, though, the Trumbullplex is alive with concerts, readings, plays, dances, potlucks, and puppet shows. There’s a special feeling to these events: a sense of connection to the past, present, and future of Detroit DIY. The best way to understand the Trumbullplex is to experience it for yourself, so we hope you’ll be there when Small Craft sails into port.

Small Craft Returns to the Trumbullplex
Saturday, April 13
Pop-Up Shop open 2:00 – 6:00 pm
Skillshare begins at 3:00 pm
4210 Trumbull
Detroit

Tuesday in the Forest: Ethan Cronkite and DJ Thrashleigh

Photo: Amy Cronkite

You may know Ethan Cronkite through Small Craft. Or you may know him through the Trumbullplex Zine Library, the collection of independent publications he helps maintain at a collectively run theater in Woodbridge. You probably don’t know him for playing records, but Ethan spent his teenage summers as a DJ at a small college radio station. It was his first experience with noncommercial media, and it made a lasting impression.

On March 5, he’ll be back behind the turntables, as a guest DJ at the Loving Touch’s Tuesday in the Forest. Stop by, and hear some sounds from the heyday of college radio: new wave, post-punk, jangle pop, and more. Feel the faint warmth of a bygone summer. And see that season’s last mirage: an awkward youth, taking time from his schoolwork, and taking control of the airwaves.

Photo: Andrew Paul

Ethan will be joined by DJ Thrashleigh, AKA Ashleigh Davis. Ashleigh is a longtime resident and collective member at the Trumbullplex, and she frequently spins records at this storied venue’s shows and parties. She’s the singer for Collapse, Detroit’s brutal new hardcore band. She’s a volunteer at the Howell Nature Center Wildlife Infirmary. And she’s the founder of Puppin Around, a dog walkers and trainers collective. Ashleigh has a profound connection with dogs, and she shares many of their best qualities. Like them, she’s adorable, loyal, and highly social. And like them, she can be ferocious!

DJ Thrashleigh’s set is sure to cover some pathless ground. So leave your usual route through the week, and lose Tuesday night in a leafy pool hall.

Tuesday in the Forest
March 5
9 pm – 2 am
The Loving Touch
22634 Woodward Avenue
Ferndale

March Pop-Up Shop and Skillshare: handleber and Glass Action! at the WAB

There’s always one last flurry of snow before the end of Michigan’s winter. And there’s one last flurry of social crafting before the end of our Winter Tour! On Saturday, March 9, we’ll visit Woodward Avenue Brewers in Ferndale. We’ll learn to make bottle cap rosettes with Amber Sarker of handleber. We’ll shop for rock ‘n’ roll stained glass, handmade by Carey Gustafson of Glass Action! And we’ll share free, homemade vegan baked goods. With its hot food, fresh beer, and relaxed atmosphere, the WAB will be the ideal place to wait out winter’s final flurry.

Amber Sarker

We will be creating a versatile project: the bottle cap rosette. We will be making them into wine charms and/or key chains. This is a great way to upcycle bottle caps you’ve collected over the years, as well as scraps of felt or fabric you may have lying around. These bottle cap rosettes can also turn into pendants, magnets, and pins. Feel free to start your bottle cap project at the WAB, and take it home to transform into something new.

Materials, including bottle caps, key rings, wine charms, felt, and embroidery floss will be provided. There will be approximately 30 key chains and 60 wine charms available. There will also be a glue gun station. It is encouraged that you bring a pair of scissors. You are welcome to bring your own supplies if you have a specific color story in mind. This skillshare is free of charge.

Amber Sarker

Skillshare instructor Amber Sarker has been giving handmade treasures to friends and family for decades. In 2011, she decided to start handleber and become a “felt florist.” handlber has sold felt flower accessories, bridal items, and home décor on Etsy and in local craft fairs, such as DUCF and the DIY Street Fair. We love Amber’s intricate floral necklaces, which feature pretty vintage buttons. (And her delightfully kitschy wardrobe, which features a Garfield Christmas sweatshirt!) Amber has been wonderful company at past Small Craft events, and we know she’ll be a wonderful instructor at this one.

Carey Gustafson

The David Bowie nightlight. The Michigan necklace. These well-known icons of local craft are the work of Carey Gustafson, and will be among the many treasures in her Glass Action! pop-up shop. Carey combines traditional stained glass technique with modern pop culture subjects: Bill Murray, Morrissey, Pee Wee Herman. She also does custom work, creating stained glass portraits for weddings, birthdays, and other special occasions. (In our experience, a Glass Action! gift is always a big hit!) Crafter, mother, drummer, bartender: Carey is a true Renaissance woman. She’s a member of Handmade Detroit, co-founder of the Detroit Urban Craft Fair, creator of the Zombie Dance Party, and organizer of the Loving Touch’s Tuesday in the Forest.

Carey Gustafson

The WAB has hosted a number of crafty get-togethers over the years. (You may recall Loop Social Circle, or Handmade Detroit’s Sunday Crafternoons.) And of course, it’s the heart of Ferndale’s annual DIY Street Fair. So we know it’s a great place to meet friends for crafts, treats, and drinks! It’s a fine feeling to settle into your chair, with craft and glass at hand, and watch the Woodward Avenue traffic go hurrying by. While the view on  March 9 may still be wintry, the WAB will already be filled with warmth and life. We hope you’ll be a part of it!

Small Craft Pop-Up Shop and Skillshare
Saturday, March 9
Pop-Up Shop open 2:00 – 6:00 pm
Skillshare begins at 3:00 pm
WAB
22646 Woodward Ave.
Ferndale

February Pop-Up Shop and Skillshare: dang argyle and Cellar Door Soap Co. at pot & box

February 9 is when our Winter Tour will take us farthest from home, with a journey to Ann Arbor. And it’s when we’ll be hosting an event in a space that’s completely new to us: flower and garden shop pot & box. So we’re looking forward to an adventure! On the other hand, it’ll be the kind of cozy Saturday you’ve come to expect from Small Craft. We’ll make book sculptures with our old friend Amanda Schott of dang argyle. We’ll enjoy the soothing scents of the Cellar Door Soap Co. pop-up shop. And of course, we’ll share plenty of free coffee, tea, and homemade vegan baked goods. Whether you’re a Small Craft regular, or you’re joining us for the first time, we’re glad to have you along for a cozy adventure.

Amanda Schott

She hosts Twin Peaks costume parties. Sends a stuffed pickle on a trip around the world. Shares her love of kale and Sigur Rós. And makes cute bags and pouches out of vintage fabric. If you’ve spent any time on Southeast Michigan’s indie craft scene, then you know we’re talking about Amanda Schott of dang argyle. The dang table is a beloved fixture at area craft fairs. And who among us does not own at least one of Amanda’s bags? She’s also known for her fun quirks and engaging personality, so we’re happy to be spending a Saturday with her.

Amanda Schott

In addition to fabric, Amanda works with paper and vintage ephemera. For our February skillshare, she’ll show us how to cut, fold, and glue unwanted paperback books into attractive sculptures. In keeping with our garden shop setting, we’ll be making some paperback trees, and we may explore a few other shapes as well. Books, scissors, X-Acto knives, and glue guns will be provided, along with red and pink glitter, for those who want to give their sculptures a Valentine’s Day look. You’re also welcome to bring along your own books, tools, and supplies. This month’s skillshare is free of charge.

Cellar Door Soap Co.

It’s vegan-friendly. All natural. Handcrafted. And it smells amazing. It’s Cellar Door Soap, and we’re proud to feature it in this month’s guest pop-up shop. Not only does Brandon Mitchell make all his soaps from pure, plant-based oils, he always goes the extra mile to get the right soap to the right person. With scents like Patchouli Bergamot, Lavender Mint, and Green Tea Lemongrass, there’s a Cellar Door Soap to suit any man or woman, making this pop-up shop a great place to look for Valentine’s Day gifts.

pot & box

We have yet to visit pot & box, but we’ve long admired this flower and garden shop from afar. It provides container gardening, floral design, and flower landscaping services, all with an emphasis on sustainably and ethically sourced plants. It carries work by local crafters, such as Sloe Gin Fizz. Hosts indie craft events, like Tiny Expo. And offers crafty workshops by talented friends, like Rae Hoekstra and Karen LePage. We’re sure we’ll feel right at home in the pot & box event space, which – much like our base camp the Trumbullplex – has had previous incarnations as a factory and an artists’ studio.

pot & box will soon be embarking on its own adventure: opening a second location in Detroit. Soon after our Winter Tour travels from Corktown to Ann Arbor, bringing a pop-up shop, pot & box will travel from Ann Arbor to Corktown, bringing a pop-up market! So in February, we’ll all be whirling round and round the region, a blurry crowd on a huge and thrilling carnival ride. But we’ll also be pausing to sip tea and fold paper with that little circle of friends we always find at Small Craft.

Small Craft Pop-Up Shop and Skillshare
Saturday, February 9
Pop-Up Shop open 2:00 – 6:00 pm
Skillshare begins at 3:00 pm
pot & box
220 Felch St.
Ann Arbor