Craft Club was founded in 2015 to provide after school classes, summer sessions, and other programs to promote and develop student's artistic and creative skills. Often with no prior experience or access to hands on craft and art activities, our students gain self-confidence and social skills in their ability to create and express themselves through crafting in a trusting and supportive environment.

Our first Craft Club programs are in Boston at TechBoston Academy and are run under the name Craft Club Boston.

Cris Jaffe, Co-Founder, CraftClub

Our BEGINNING

In third grade, I spent recess in the field behind my school weaving friendship bracelets. As the days passed, more and more children joined me in this activity, so each morning my Grandmother would send me off to school with a cookie tin full of embroidery floss and sewing supplies for my friends and me to share. We taught each other new and different techniques while chatting about our mornings. When we finished, we traded and gifted our creations, and my friends and I proudly wore our bracelets until they fell off.

One lucky summer several years later, I left my Missouri home to visit my Auntie Cris in Seattle. To my surprise and delight, she had an entire room dedicated just to making things. She set out supplies for my cousins and me to use in activities, and every day we created. The options were limitless, and from there I was unstoppable.

I believe crafting can be healing, therapeutic, meditative, relaxing, and inspiring. It can push you to explore new mediums and can help you connect with the world around you.  A few years ago, I began integrating art and crafting into my clinical school social work. My students’ response was amazing. They maintained focus, showed pride in their projects, and shared with me new and different sides of themselves. I saw firsthand the power of crafting with young people.

I quickly realized I wanted to extend this experience to more students in my school where there was a void of after-school art offerings. I talked with Aunt Cris about my dream, and from our discussion we hatched Craft Club.

Craft Club started off as a small group of middle school students joining together to make things and quickly grew into a nurturing space where “mistakes” are part of the process and individuality is praised.  Students take time to learn new skills, problem solve, and share their work and their process with others.

Please join us as we build Craft Club to give students the supplies and curriculum to create in a safe space with educators to support, challenge, and inspire them.

Jasmin Hagen, LICSW, Co-Founder, Craft Club