Level up your business!
Maker Sessions
Craft Your Creative Business! Are you ready to make a living from your craft? Do you dream of selling your wares at Crafty Mart and handmade markets? Want to expand your existing handmade business? Join Crafty Mart for the updated Maker Sessions, an 8-week virtual course designed to help you map out a financial plan, establish your audience, sell your products, take professional product shots, market your business, address legal matters, and much more.
Maker Sessions has been reimagined with two tracks for Beginner and Master Makers. Starting in March 2022, Beginner Makers will be given a roadmap from idea to market, culminating in an invite-only show to help you launch your business. Starting in August 2022, Master Makers will be supported with individual and group consulting with business experts and professionals and an opportunity to pitch your product and win cash at the annual Creative Catapult event on October 21, 2022. Stay tuned for Maker Session Scholarship applications and ticket packages!
Beginner Track
Beginner Maker Track is designed for makers who are just getting started on their journey from hobby to market. We have invited experts and community resources to offer important information for getting your small creative business up and running. We will lead new makers through the process of selling at their first market: setting up social media, how to move your business online, branding your business, setting up a vendor’s license, building a budget and tracking inventory that will culminate in a Launch Market on May 21st, where you will put everything you’ve learned to use and sell at your first market with us!
The Classroom:
We will be using Google Classroom as a virtual setting starting on March 7th. Google Classroom helps instructors and participants to communicate and can be used to organize and manage assignments, to go paperless, for collaboration between participants and between instructors, for teaching from a distance, and so on! Also, it is FREE! You can access Google Classrooms on your computer or your phone with the Google Classroom App.
*One thing to keep in mind: you will need to have a Gmail or Google e-mail address. If you do not have one, you can create one for your business for FREE!
The Format:
The sessions will be structured on a weekly basis beginning on March 7th. This curriculum set up for you to move at your own pace.
Every Monday morning by 10am, content will be released for that week. Content will be a pre-recorded video presentation from that week’s instructor(s) covering that week’s current topic.
Every Thursday evening from 7-8pm we will do a LIVE hour midweek check in. The check in is for you to ask your individual questions to get some clarity from that week’s session and expertise from the instructor. You are welcome to stay in the hangout for networking after the Q & A sessions ends, we will keep it open for an additional 30 mins. We will post a Google Hangout in Google Classroom for easy access each week.
Additionally, each week you will be given a DIY task/project that reflects that current week’s session that will be due Sundays by 8pm, (for instance, you will learn how to do AMAZING product photos from the comfort of your own home). You can upload your projects directly into Google Classroom. That week’s instructor(s), Crafty Mart staff and the Education Committee will offer individual feedback and critique to each DIY task/project.
Example Schedule:
Monday, March 7th @10am: Content Video released to Google Classroom
Thursday, March 10th @7pm- Live Google Hangout to ask questions
Sunday, March 13th @8pm – DIY Task is due
Monday, March 14th @ 10am – New week’s content is released
BEGINNER MAKER SESSION BEGIN MARCH 7, 2022
includes all 8 sessions and the Launch Market
Master Track
Master Maker track is designed for makers who are ready to cut back on shows and explore other options. We have invited experts and other community resources to offer feedback to level up your creative businesses. Master Maker Track will guide professional makers who have been a part of the market scene for a few years on how to level up their creative businesses: moving into a larger studio space, hiring, more traffic through websites, social media and online markets, collaborations on new lines, wholesale and merchandising, funding options and opportunities, business finances and in depth tax talk, that will lead to our annual Creative Catapult event on October 21, 2022 where each Master Maker who has applied to participate, has the opportunity to pitch an idea on how they plan to level up their business to the public. The public will vote and the winner will receive a prize package and $2,000 from Crafty Mart to get them started.
The Classroom:
We will be using Google Classroom as a virtual setting starting on March 15th. Google Classroom helps instructors and participants to communicate and can be used to organize and manage assignments, to go paperless, for collaboration between participants and between instructors, for teaching from a distance, and so on! Also, it is FREE! You can access Google Classrooms on your computer or your phone with the Google Classroom App.
*One thing to keep in mind: you will need to have a Gmail or Google e-mail address. If you do not have one, you can create one for your business for FREE!
The Format:
The sessions will be structured on a weekly basis beginning on August 2nd. This curriculum set up for you to move at your own pace.
Every Monday morning by 10am, content will be released for that week. Content will be a pre-recorded video presentation from that week’s instructor(s) covering that week’s current topic.
Every Wednesday evening from 7-8pm we will do a LIVE hour midweek check in. The check in is for you to ask your individual questions to get some clarity from that week’s session and expertise from the instructor. You are welcome to stay in the hangout for networking after the Q & A sessions ends, we will keep it open for an additional 30 mins. We will post a Google Hangout in Google Classroom for easy access each week.
Additionally, each week you will be given a DIY task/project that reflects that current week’s session that will be due Sundays by 8pm. You can upload your projects directly into Google Classroom. That week’s instructor(s), Crafty Mart staff and the Education Committee will offer individual feedback and critique to each DIY task/project.
Example Schedule:
Monday, August 1ST @10am: Content Video released to Google Classroom
Wednesday, August 3RD @7pm- Live Google Hangout to ask questions
Sunday, August 7th @8pm – DIY Task is due
Monday, August 8th @ 10am – New week’s content is released
The Maker Sessions can help launch your creative business!
Crafty Mart invites our community to join our Maker Session Beginner's Track businesses as we celebrate the end of the program with a special market celebrating all they've learned. Beginner Makers have gone through a 8 session course that provided a roadmap from idea to market, culminating in a show to help launch their creative business!
We look forward to the next Creative Catapult on October 2022!
Crafty Mart invites our community to learn about some of our local Creative Entrepreneurs! Creative Catapult finalists have gone through our program, The Maker Sessions: Master Maker Track, and have taken all they have learned and created a creative business idea to level up. Each finalist will explain their idea through a video pitch and the crowd in attendance will vote for their favorite idea! The winner will be launched into a new business with a $2,000 micro-grant to help make it soar!
