Microcrafting @ Barnes & Noble

Posted by Alicia Kachmar

On Small Business Saturday, I spent a few hours in a very large business, a Barnes & Noble to be exact!

But in the spirit of “small,” I was there to facilitate some crafting sessions in support of Microcrafts, your go-to guide for teeny tiny DIY-ing. Barnes & Noble had set us up with some basic supplies and we came ready with a makeshift Christmas “tree” (lots of branches inside a vase) from which we hung many of the book’s crafts, including mini books, owls, houseplant macramé holders, quilled ornaments, and bottle caps.

After signing all of the store’s copies of Microcrafts, we got down to our small business: making one of the book’s projects, little greeting cards and envelopes by paper-pro Larissa Holland. Only 2 inches in size, these cards and envelopes are perfect for adorning your Christmas gifts or for slipping notes of the non-text-message variety.

All you need are some cardstock or wrapping paper and a little creativity! Well, and scissors and glue. Adults and kids alike enjoyed getting crafty amidst their book-shopping and Starbucks-sipping. Now if only the U.S. Post Office would let us mail these diminutive Christmas cards…

Check out some more pictures from the event on the Quirk Books Flickr page!

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Alicia Kachmar

A teacher turned freelance writer, crafter, and all-around DIY-er, Alicia Kachmar enjoys crocheting safety cones, mixing martinis, playing pool, biking around cities and making pies.

She grew up in a creative and crafty household in Pittsburgh, needlepointing and sewing before she had really mastered reading. Most of these crafty interests took a backseat to a busy career as a New York-based museum educator/nanny/school teacher, until health travails resulted in a sort of early retirement, and twiddling-thumbs-time-in-bed became her daily routine.

She taught herself to crochet and began to dabble in all those favorite crafts from childhood. Alicia then opened an Etsy shop called EternalSunshine, creating an entire crochet wonderland of frowning s'mores, happy balloons and everything in between. This led to a lot of fun conversations and anecdote-exchanging as well as custom crochet requests like a line of cheeses, a yule log and a ukulele.

Alicia now designs for such magazines as Knit Simple and Crochet Today, and sells in brick and mortar shops around the country.