Going, going .......

Well I have finally managed to find some time to keep you up to date with that has been happening with Lev3l3 Crafters.

As you know if you read my last post, Lev3l3 Crafters will be coming to an end at midnight tonight.  The reason for this is that our parent company "Digital Community Youth Ltd" are closing down and the company is being dissolved -  and that means Lev3l3 Crafters too.

Every crafter who made up Lev3l3 Crafters has voted for us to stay together as a group and so from tomorrow we will be starting all over again as Cramlington Creative Crafts.  And as a new stand-alone group, without the financial backing of a parent company, we won't be in a position to financially maintain a unit in Manor Walks any more.  However, all is not lost and we are currently exploring all our options before making any big decisions about how we move forward as a group.  In the meantime the name on this blog will change tomorrow (at least I hope it will - if  Blogger allows me to change it).

In the interim, anyone who wishes to contact any of the crafters  can do so via this blog, our Facebook Page (which will also change name tomorrow), or direct to the individual crafter (there is a link to each crafter's FB page down the right side of this page).

And in other news ......

We have continued with out monthly Krafty Kidz sessions in the mall right up to and including our last market day last Saturday. 

 The money we raise from the Krafty Kidz sessions goes to Guide Dogs and I will be paying over all we have raised so far in the next few days.

And finally we would like to thank every single person who has supported us as Lev3l3 Crafters and hope that you will continue to do so in the future when we are Cramlington Community Crafts.  Special thanks go to Bruno and the rest of the management team in Manor Walks (past and present) who have supported us every step of the way over the last 3.5 years when we have used The Venue as our base (in all three of it's different locations).

Thank you for reading this blog post.

As one door closes.......?

Last time I managed to post anything on here Lev3l3 Crafters had just relocated to a new unit in Manor Walks and started to hold craft markets in there every day Monday to Saturday.  As a result of all the increased crafting going on, in order that supply could meet demand, time for updating business pages and this blog diminished dramatically!  Let's just say that we hit the ground running .....

Since we opened in our cosy little unit we have gone from strength to strength.  The downside of The Venue being in such a small unit was that we no longer had any space in there to carry out our Krafty Kidz sessions.  Manor Walks management team, past and present, kindly allowed us to use space outside in the mall in order to continue to craft with the kids.  We also continued to hold Krafty Kidz sessions in the central mall in conjunction with The Vue cinema in Cramlington too.  As a bonus all the proceeds from these sessions go to the Guide Dog Association so win, win all around!

We were also encouraged by Manor Walks management to have a display in the mall outside The Venue each Saturday in order to draw attention to our little craft market, which has worked quite successfully.   (We do tend to have a problem with passers-by thinking we are a charity shop for some reason - despite the sign above the door stating we are crafters!)

 In addition to this we also had "crafting showcases" out in the mall each month where individual crafters demonstrated their craft.

 

 Ebeneezer Scrooge even visited us in The Venue as part of the Christmas Lights Switch-on in December 2015 (and not Wee Willie Winkie as someone suggested!!)

 In June 2016 we were very honoured to be invited to the Duchess of Northumberland's Garden Party for volunteers and carers.  The Duchess holds an annual garden party in her capacity as Lord Lieutenant of Northumberland.

As part of our support for the Guide Dog Association we managed to have some of their volunteers visit the market, along with their beautiful guide dogs.

And in November last year we had a tombola stall in the mall outside The Venue to raise funds for them.

We have also had new members join our group during our time in our current location, whilst others have moved on to other things.

Our new members include:
 TC Crafts

Pintastix

Craftee Thoughts

Paulin Crafts

Greylord's Bookbinding Services

Earlier this year our founder Sue took the very difficult decision to leave our group due to other commitments.  She has been instrumental in guiding our group since she founded it a little over three years ago and it is largely thanks to her that we are where we are today so she is a great miss.

Sue with her trusty assistant Lucy

So that is a very quick potted history of our time in our current location.  But now for the bad news.....

Our "parent" company Digital Community Youth have taken the decision to close down, which means the end of Lev3l3 Crafters as we know it.  With effect from 1st June we will no longer exist.  At present we are in limbo waiting to find out when we have to vacate The Venue and as soon as we have a date for that I will update the blog.

However, on the plus side, each and every member of our crafty group has said that they want us to remain together as a group.  You can find links to the business pages of all of our members at the rightside of our blog page.  How we proceed as a group from 1st June is not yet clear and requires a great deal of thought as we will effectivley be "homeless".  We will also have to decide on a new name so the name of this blog will also be changing, as will our Facebook business page and our twitter account.

I'll leave you with a few pictures of the inside of our current Venue.  Thank you for reading our blog.