Handcrafters Club creates spook-tacular crafts while preparing for donation drive

by Adriana Gasiewski

During their weekly Monday meeting, the Handcrafters Club members divided their work, assigning one person to wrap Tootsie Pops in a sheet with white thread, another to insert the ghost in a Dixie cup and a final individual to draw faces onto the ghosts.

These 84 ghoulish creations will decorate the tables at the Brecksville Human Services Center’s weekly Thursday luncheon for the month of October.

Although the origins of the Handcrafters Club remain unknown, the club has been crafting table toppers for the center for more than 20 years, meeting every Monday from 1-3 p.m.

“Given we’ve been doing this for 20 years, you’ll run out of ideas eventually,” said member Grace Bush, who came up with the Tootsie Pop ghost centerpieces.

As part of their monthly luncheon craft, the group has designed centerpieces, such as apples to hold candy or place cards filled with fun facts about different monthly holidays including St. Patrick’s Day, explained Karen Dedich, who spearheads the club.

Dedich joined the club in 1995 and has since made it her mission to collect every piece of artwork the organization produced – not only to keep track of their past masterpieces but also to have ideas to reuse in the future.

To assemble their creations, the club often purchases its own materials, as it did with a white sheet found at a thrift store to create the ghosts. In the past, they also have received donations, which they store in a craft closet.

“We do a lot out of pocket,” she said. “We work with what we have but then usually we add to it.”

Besides beautifying the tables of the human services center, the Handcrafters host an annual donation drive on the first Monday in November.

Because each member brings something different to the table, with some specializing in knitting and others preferring to crochet, they accept any handmade items for the drive.

Following the Nov. 2 drive, the items collected will be donated to the Cleveland-based Laura’s Home Women’s Crisis Center.

Looking ahead, Dedich anticipates the club will be constructing wreaths for table toppers to be used during a luncheon.