At long last, someone is addressing the severe lack of mermaid-related activities in Charlotte’s craft beer scene.
This Sunday, Charlotte Mobile Makery will host a Let’s Be Mermaids! craft event at Sugar Creek Brewing.
The traveling craft workshop housed in a refurbished 1963 Shasta trailer will be stocked with all the shells, beads and other adornments you need to make your own mermaid crown and nautical-inspired jewelry.
via Instagram
Jess Murphy launched the Makery in 2015 with her business partner and best friend Shannon Hale. For Murphy, it’s a way to empower people to be creative.
Courtesy of Charlotte Mobile Makery
“The best thing about crafting is using our experience to help others feel proud of what they make,” she said. “There is something powerful about bringing out people’s hidden creativity.”
via Facebook
For the mermaid craft event at Sugar Creek this weekend, they’re hoping to spark a little joy and playfulness.
They’ll be offering two crafts—an anchor pendant for $15 and a custom crown for $30. Huff says Charlotte offers plenty of options for children to be artistic; Charlotte Mobile Makery events are intended for adults. And that includes men, even at the mermaid event, she said.
So why mermaids? “Mermaids represent the wild, the free and the feminine,” Huff said. “With all that is going on in this world we need to bring a little magic into our lives.”
Courtesy of Charlotte Mobile Makery
Crafting is on a steady upswing in Charlotte perhaps thanks in large part to the prevalence of sites like Pinterest and Etsy that showcase a lot of DIY and handmade items.
Crowned Sparrow Co., another local crafting company that hosts regular DIY events at breweries and bars around town, is also in the process of turning a retro Shasta trailer into a mobile makerspace.
And Skillpop, a wildly popular pop-up class concept, hosts everything from marketing boot camps to hands-on crafty classes like hand lettering, cookie decorating, embroidery and woodworking.
Down in Pineville, Anders Ruff Workshop recently opened a brick and mortar craft wonderland on Main Street where they offer interactive instruction for making things like custom canvas pillows and plank wood signs.
Nail and string art by Crowned Sparrow Co via Facebook
Anyone who has ever attempted a seemingly simple Pinterest project only to fail miserably knows that DIY isn’t always easy.
So part of what’s special about these local craft classes is that they move novices away from trying and failing alone and instead engages them in an approachable, interactive social workshop environment where they’re guaranteed to walk away with a successful finished product and have fun in the process.
Courtesy of Charlotte Mobile Makery
While the maker movement might seem cutesy because a lot of the crafts themselves are (hello, mermaid crowns), DIY crafting can be a seriously lucrative business.
Just ask Brit Morin who turned her DIY hobby into multi-million dollar global maker empire Brit + Co. Last June, the then 2-year-old company raised $20 million in Series B funding. Morin has been dubbed “the Martha Stewart of the digital age” and the “Queen of Makers.”
So could the next next Martha Stewart be here in Charlotte?
Who knows? Maybe it’s you and maybe you’ll find your calling in the process of turning yourself into a mermaid at a brewery this weekend. Stranger things have happened, right?
The Charlotte Mobile Makery mermaid craft event is this Sunday, September 25 from 1 – 4 p.m. at Sugar Creek Brewing. Pricing varies by project.
Also be sure to check out Crowned Sparrow’s Kickstart the Craft Cruiser event on Monday, September 26 from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. at NoDa Brewing. A $55 donation towards their Shasta trailer renovation gets you two craft classes, a beer ticket, a swag bag, snacks and more. Learn more and buy tickets here.
