Happy New Year!

It's been a very busy holiday season and I am finally sitting down to post an update.

Crafters for Critters began in June of 2010 and in the last 6 months we have earned over $3150 for the Kingston Humane Society.  Our funds are currently being directed toward spaying and neutering of shelter animals. We also made nearly 200 beds for the shelter cats, and some "adopt me" bandanas and warm fleece coats for the dogs.

I've really enjoyed these last months of crafting and working together with everyone in the club and at the shelter.  Thank you all dear crafters for all of your donated time and supplies, every item you lovingly made, your inspiration, suggestions, and even coming out on the weekends to work at the events, and especially your friendship!  A huge Thanks to everyone at the shelter for supporting us in our endeavor, especially  Maggie who helped start it all,  and all the office staff (who collect our sales money, as busy as they are), board members, and everyone who sponsored a cat bed, purchased one of our items, or donated crafting materials. 

Here's to even more success in 2011! 

We are having our first meeting of the year on Sunday January 9th.  We'll start at 1:30 with some sorting and sharing of donated supplies.  We'll have a general meeting at 2:00, and after that we'll do some crafting until about 5:00.  Brenda has kindly offered to host.

Email me if you need the address or more info.

Here are a few photos from recent events:

 

Mary, Kari, and Monika helping at the Kingston Military Community Craft Fair.  It was a huge 2 day event and we raised over $1300.  Mary is a fantastic knitter, Kari makes beautiful and fun greeting cards (and other things too), and several items on the table were a result of Monika's skills at the sewing machine.  Kari also teaches card making classes at her home.

Amber, Andreanne, and Jen also spent time helping at the craft fair.  Amber helps with the sewing of cat beds, and has made dog toys and cat and dog placemats. Andreanne is a very creative card maker and spends many hours designing and making tags and labels for our products.  Jennifer also sews and is always willing to help make cat beds or whatever else needs doing. Many of the others were there helping with  set up on the preceding Friday night. Our successes are definitely a result of a great team effort.

Barkly our donation dog is a lot of fun and really helps to bring in the donations. A stack of the sponsored beds we made for the shelter cats is in the background.  Brenda (not pictured) has been a huge help in getting the beds made.  As well, she makes many (in fact, most) of our "kitty tents" which have been good sellers.

That's Linda sitting at the table and me standing.  We sold crafts at the shelter on Dec 11th as part of the fresh tree sales event.  Among Linda's knitted creations are some beautiful dog sweaters and fun scarves and mittens.  Deanna and Maddie (not pictured) stopped by to offer help too.

Ted and Linda at our Crafters Christmas party at my place on Dec 18th.  Frank prepared the feuerzangenbowle (flaming hot mulled wine with rum) and we all enjoyed plenty of wine, good food, and relaxing.  Some of the spouses/ significant others joined us.  It was a fun and relaxing evening and I got to try out my wine glass slippers!