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Goodbye to teaching at Michaels, HELLO shopping in other craft stores again!

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Will miss being able to grab yarn off the shelf and yarn bombing things! 

As many of my readers know for the last 2 years ( longer than I have been blogging) I have worked Michael's arts and crafts as a crochet teacher.
I put in my notice a little over 2 weeks ago and I am now free to discuss my honest opinions about working as a crochet teacher.

Lets start with the PROS
FREE YARN - from what I have heard not all stores follow the same rules but any yarn I demo'ed with and stayed at the store I didn't have to pay for. This was great because I got to try out the more expensive brands I could not afford. In fact many projects here at the blog were demos I did in store ( demos I came up with to sell various products) and I never had to spend a penny on! This is a great bonus if you don't have a large craft budget.
ACCESS TO YARN- You will be in the store more often and therefore see when new yarn comes in! My managers sometimes would call me in to design a project when a new yarn came in... My bellini and sashay patterns came out that way!
MONEY- this is a pro and con but here I will just say hey you are making money doing what you love!
GOOD COMPANY- They are a great company! It is an inspiration to be in the store all the time it's like the creativity just rubs off on you!
Hours- you get to set them.. work at more than one store and really rake in the hours!!!!!!!!!!!
PEOPLE- you get to meet so many awesome and wonderful people! I have students who I now concider friends!

Now to the maybe not so good.......

MONEY- before you can teach at Michael's you have to be Craft Yarn Council Certified and while I know for a fact it has greatly improved my crochet it did cost my 125 plus I had to pay to ship my sample binder... so if you are tight on money ( who isn't?) this could be a hardship!
Then there is the money you make...... the first year and a half I was very happy with it :) However then we got a new not so supportive teacher manager, the rules kept changing on how many students you needed per class and my blog started making more! (THANK YOU FOR READING I am astounded that so many come here and read and I am able to help support my boys with what used to be my stress relief and an escape from a bad relationship) I would also like to mention I rarely taught the provided classes.. People seemed to be more excited by my own designs, however designing new classes off the clock every month was a lot of work and over time it felt like I was under valuing my time. ( crocheting as a artist is not something I expect to get rich off of but it is not something everyone can do.. make sure you feel valued for your talent)  The last few months as I have rarely posted new patterns because I was frustrated with my job and couldn't seem to get the inspiration...
If no one signs up for your classes you don't go in and don't make anything... sometimes you don't know until the day before if you can teach it or not.

I think my time at Michael's was invaluable to me as a teacher, and crochet artist, and would do it over in a heartbeat! I have no hard feelings for the company and if you read the pro con list and want to work there I say HECK YES! I am now excited to go to other craft stores again! When I started working at Michael's I quit going to others so i didn't accidentally bring in supplies to my classes or demos that were only at other stores!  And yesterday I went to joanns! And don't worry i am still teaching crochet I am just doing it privately now and I love it :)

I have 2 new patterns to write out today that I made with the cool things I found yesterday! I love feeling the excited feeling I used to get all the time and it's great to be back! Have you ever experienced a slow in your inspiration? Did you change things up to get over it?
LOOK it's like extreme hairpin lace!!! I am filming this later today!!



Garden party bag coming soon! 

*I am no longer an employee of Michaels and my thoughts are my own and anything written on my site is my opinion and not micheals! **

Comments

  1. WalkermommyJune 8, 2013 at 5:38 PM

    Hi, Mary so sorry to hear this. I've been looking at he class schedules to see when you'd be there and NADA! Where can we find you now? We have lots of questions and we really want to continue learning. Leah, Rainy and Rorie Walker (From Michael's class)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pixiemom05May 15, 2014 at 5:30 AM

    Thank you for this pros and cons blog! I've been debating making the plung to try this out.

    ReplyDelete
  3. miraMarch 9, 2018 at 8:38 AM

    Hello there. I wonder if you can say exactly how much money you were getting. It would help me decide. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownAugust 12, 2018 at 12:23 PM

      I just started August 2018 in Laurel, Maryland. The pay is MW $10.00 an hour with the projection of 16 - 20 hours a MONTH!. I am a recent retiree and right now I want the experience more than money. I believe everyone that work at arts and crafts there is for the joy or another agenda. NOT FOR THE MONEY

      Delete

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