Would you like to meet more creative women in real life?

Are you new to town and want to make like-minded friends?

This was the situation I found myself in back in 2010. We had just moved back to Perth, Western Australia and I was missing the small town atmosphere of Kalgoorlie, where I had a number of friends who loved nothing better than an afternoon of chatting and creativity.

So, I headed to Meetup.com. "Meetup is the world's largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 9,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities. Meetup's mission is to revitalize local community and help people around the world self-organize. Meetup believes that people can change their personal world, or the whole world, by organizing themselves into groups that are powerful enough to make a difference." 

I was so excited to see several crafting groups in Perth, so I set up my free profile at Meetup for free and joined a few groups.

I ended up attending a craft group where everything from doll-making to digital scrapbooking to quilting has happened I've learnt a lot about different crafts, and though I'm not ready to pick up my knitting needles again, I have made:

at least 20 cards
progress on my cross-stitch
a quiltcover
repaired 10 cloth nappies
Christmas card kits
and more
Over the past 3 years I've grown close to the ladies I've met - even inviting them to birthday parties, Australia Day celebrations and counting them as among my best friends. 

What if there's not a meetup in my area? You can start one. 

Meetup will help by walking you through the process of setting up a group and inviting people that may be interested (it found 61 people for me!). It does cost about $12 a month to host a meetup, but it's well worth it!

An awesome way to use the internet to create a local community

If you are in Perth why not join me over at our craft group?  I'd love to see you there!

PS For more about digital scrapbooking join me over at Digital Scrapbooking HQ