Craft CEB’s Meream Pacayra
IF YOU want to try your hand at crafting but unsure where to begin, Craft CEB is the best place for you.
Tucked nicely in Barangay Guadalupe in the midst of the hustling metro, Craft CEB offers a friendly working space where you can enjoy making cute little things with your hands, from learning the strokes of calligraphy and watercolor to creating the right loops for crochet.
As Meream Pacayra of Craft CEB puts it, it is a studio space for hire, where art teachers can hold craft classes and share their views, tastes, experiences and aesthetics with one another, to hopefully cultivate among students an appreciation for handmade and handcrafted designs.
The bungalow studio, perfect for any creative pursuits has been adorned with pages of books pasted on some of its wall with black pen marks that read, “Make and Mingle.”
The workspace also has windows for walls with an unfinished paper curtain draping, where students can enjoy a view outside in any kind of weather, either some dose of sunshine piercing through the window or rain dripping outside on afternoon classes that could last up to three hours.
“Craft has been my outlet and I like doing it. I’ve always been drawn to art and creative pursuits. My boyfriend asks me why I share my craft like I have a blog where I post video tutorials, he said they are just going to copy my work, but I don’t mind it,” Meream shared.
Yam, short for Meream, shared that it gives her pure joy seeing some of her students posting their crafts online, some of their works are more even awesome than the things she made.
“It’s great. Though I don’t want to take credit for it, it feels good that they have pursued art (after my classes),“ Yam said.
Most of her students want DIY items, to give a personal touch to their own wedding invitations or to hone their skills in calligraphy, something that has to do with joy in using two hands to create art pieces.
Yam handle classes for Free form florals watercolor, where students get to learn the basic strokes by following some of her past works. The students can also get materials to continue crafting at home.
On display in a corner of the studio are handmade postcards for sale, which Yam painted herself, watercolor paper, threads, yarns and other art materials.
Known for her Bored and Crafty blog, Yam has already established a handicraft brand named Thimble Cap, where she sells handmade bags and purses.
“I was blogging and stuff, that’s when they (Craft MNL) found me and the rest was history,” she said.
Craft CEB is a branch of Craft MNL, where a group of artists gather together to learn, create and share their craft to celebrate the work of hands.
The crafting community started September last year.
Yam said they started organizing crafting events and workshops outside the studio. But for July, she looks forward to make studio workshops more frequent for students.
FOR JULY CRAFT
CEB WORSHOPS
July 23 – Basic Watercolor
July 24 – Polymer Clay Art
July 30 (AM) – Pointed Pen Calligraphy
July 30 (PM) – Crochet
July 31 – Free Form Florals Watercolor