This week we had a chat with Bee from Make Do Menders who put on classes in London and the South East.
What is the Make Do Menders?
Claire and I worked together and felt that our combined talents in craft and teaching would work well in a dedicated business with a twist. We loved the idea of workshops taking place in lovely venues around London and the South-East and helping people to organise their own special crafty events.
How did the idea of Make Do Menders start?
The plan at the beginning was to organise craft classes in a couple of venues that had expressed an interest in that sort of thing - knitting and crochet mainly. The ‘Tea Rooms’ in Stoke Newington and the pop-up shop started by the girls at ‘Drink Shop & Do’ were our first venues. We quickly realised that there was also a market for parties, hen and other types, playing to our strengths in sewing with corsage-making, quilt and bunting making as well as cupcake decorating courtesy of the wonderful Kate Jarritt. It was also important that we were happy to travel to people's own venues and this opened up the market considerably for us. At first the bookings were maybe once in a while but gradually, just through our web presence, we built on this to pretty much a booking every weekend and sometimes 2 or 3!! Now the parties have come centre stage and the classes are more a winter/spring treat. We have a fantastic following of fellow crafty types who book in for a crochet top-up every so often and we have been interviewing new tutors who will be offering quite a different skill to the mix – so look out for those!
Who makes up Make Do Menders?
It’s mainly me (Bee) I run the operation, with the input of Claire and many other talented craft and baking experts along the way!
We are now getting lots of bookings outside London in client's own venues but they also use various lovely venues in the capital, including Drink Shop & Do in Kings Cross and the Tea Rooms in Stoke Newington. You can keep up with all our adventures on our website too!
It’s nice to see someone doing workshops in more than one space and mixing it up a bit, going to the people rather than getting the people to them. It’s also great to see that crafty parties are on the up and this has taken off for them more due to the change of venues they are able to go to. I love that this enables Bee and her colleagues to have some treat crafty nights along the way!
Live it!
H
