Today’s feature is a bit of a departure from our usual posts, it has to be said, but no less exciting we’re sure. If you’re looking for a hobby to take up in the coming winter days, perhaps Sam Reece and the Shitty Craft Club can get you started! But don’t just take our word for it, take a peek at Shitty Craft Club: A Club for Gluing Beads to Trash, Talking about Our Feelings, and Making Silly Things to get yourself started!
You can also catch up with Sam and the Shitty Craft Club on TikTok and Instagram, and you can get your own copy of Shitty Craft Club here!
Welcome to the Shitty Craft Club! Based on the TikTok sensation by comedian Sam Reece, Shitty Craft Club is an empowering guide to creativity, embracing chaos, and finding inner calm.
Did you know that you are a glorious and incredible artist? Wait, really? Well, you are. Shitty Craft Club gives you permission to have fun and be as weird, wild, and wonderful as you want to be. It’s about trying your best, not perfection.
With step-by-step instructions and funny, deeply relatable tales from her life, Sam Reece, founder of the Shitty Craft Club movement, hilariously guides you through dozens of projects. Melding the nihilistic spirit of millennial/Gen Z humor with Amy Sedaris’s gonzo crafting style and a healthy dose of Lisa Frank vibes, Reece proves there’s no limit to what a craft can be.
Making a bunch of pom-poms so you can be your own cheerleader? That’s a craft. Sculpting a rhinestone shrimp out of aluminum foil and a glue gun? A craft. Having literally one sip of water (congrats, by the way)? Yup, you bet—a craft. Because life is hard. So why not spend a bit of time gluing some trash to more trash if it makes you happy?
Shitty Craft Club
Sam Reece
Excerpt
Pom-Poms, Three Ways
These are just three of the many ways you could (and, in some cases, potentially shouldn’t) make pom-poms. You can make pom-poms into earrings, sew them to hats, or hot glue a bunch together into a very uncomfortable blanket or unstable wall hanging!
VARSITY- SQUAD LEVEL: THE STORE-BOUGHT POM-POM MAKER
I know at first glance it looks like both Hubba Bubba Bubble Tape gum and an IUD, but this little contraption (wow, so close to the word contraception) is the trick to making fluffy pom-poms quickly. Sort of. You’ll see.
SUPPLIES:
- Pom-pom maker. You can find these at your local craft shoppe or online.
- Yarn, obviously. How much yarn? Great question. I don’t know. More than 1 bundle but less than 5 bundles. I get my yarn from the dollar store that’s fifteen steps from my front door.
- Tiny, sharp scissors. They should scare you a little bit. Dental floss (optional for crafts but required for TEETH).
- A solid impression of a woman in an arthritis commercial. Because making more than five of these pom-poms can destroy you.
I moved a few times growing up—specifically right before sixth grade and in the middle of eighth grade, which are, historically, two of the worst years to exist.
Who was I in sixth grade? Great question. It was the year 2000. We had just moved to the rural town of Landenberg, Pennsylvania. I listened to West Side Story alone in my room on repeat. I had a small gap between my two front teeth. I played the alto saxophone, even though it was the same size as my body. I played on three soccer teams simultaneously. And I was deeply obsessed with Billy Joel’s River of Dreams album.
The arrival of seventh grade brought some relief. And by “relief,” I mean BANGS! Blunt yet wispy. Opaque and also somehow translucent. But, whatever, I had bangs and I was no longer the new girl. I had friends who were all really tall! We played The Sims together until the family computer was about to explode. I straightened AND curled my hair every single day. I blasted my treasured Now That’s What I Call Music! CDs on my blue see-through Discman! I played the Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods JR.! My birthday is 9/11, so that was interesting! I was a jock! I played soccer, basketball, lacrosse, and handball (oh my god, how did I not know I was gay?). And somehow, against all odds, I became obsessed with cheerleading. Not in a “I’m actually gonna do it” kind of way. Mostly in a “can’t stop pretending I’m a cheerleader when I’m alone in my room, actually getting really good at a toe touch and a Herkie, referencing a Herkie in conversation even though no one knows what the hell I’m talking about, and listening exclusively to cheerleading megamixes” kind of way. Regular, normal stuff.
Smash cut to 2002. I have braces. I told my friends to call me “Sammie” and they DID. I just got home from eight weeks of overnight camp and even though I was lightly bullied by rich North Jersey girls, I was excited to go back! The day after I’m home, my parents bring me into the computer room and play a DVD about a faraway land called “Summerlin, Las Vegas!” And I’m like, “OK, cool?” And they’re like, “We’re moving there in October sorry are you excited do you have any thoughts?”
I was not excited, and I had a LOT of thoughts. Here are some direct quotes from my diary:
“My family says I’m outgoing but I dunno.”
“AHHH! I haven’t had 1 bf all my years here (1½) in Pennsylvania grrr! I don’t wanna leave!”
“I am completely depressed. I cry myself to sleep almost every night.”
“I need to buy some thongs. I just got tight pants and you can see my underwear line so you know what that means . . . THONG TIME!”
According to the archives (my diary), I was clearly frustrated about starting at a new school AGAIN and not having an older sister to console me and tell me what to wear—my imaginary older sister would obviously agree that I needed the orange satin bell-bottoms and GRL PWR top from Limited Too, MOM. I had also decided that when I got to Las Vegas I was going to become a whole new person. I was going to be a CHEERLEADER.
There was something so optimistic about my belief that I could go from “really shy for the first three months of knowing anyone” to “outgoing and brave and somehow also naturally blond just like Lizzie McGuire!!” How hard could it be? I played the LEAD in Into the Woods JR.! I could be anyone I wanted to be. I remember believing I could do it. And being mad at myself when I couldn’t switch on this imaginary-fun-time-outgoing Sam with the first person I met. What’s that saying? “Wherever you go, there you are.” And wherever I was, there were my cheerleading megamixes and my dream. According to science (every movie ever), if I was a cheerleader, that meant I was popular and had friends and a thousand tall boyfriends who loved me.
Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news? My middle school didn’t have a cheerleading squad. The good news? I joined show choir and wore an embarrassing purple sequin dress. And sang weird Christmas songs in the mall! And belted “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” on the classically monotone alto line!
But I was still (definitely legally) downloading cheerleading megamixes and practicing toe touches and Herkies in my room just in case my high school had a cheerleading squad. And guess what? It most certainly did not. My high school—the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts— did not even have a single sports team.
So, the dream lives on. Except that if I tried to do a toe touch now, I would certainly die from my injuries.
Instead, let’s make POM-POMS.
Excerpt from pages 59-61. Reprinted with permission from Chronicle Books (C) Sam Reece 2023
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam Reece is a Los Angeles–based comedy writer and actor with a very serious crafting hobby. Reece has been writing and performing in NYC since 2011 and has written for Comedy Central, MTV, Buzzfeed, NBC, and Refinery29. In addition to performing in the comedy duo Girls with Brown Hair, Reece has appeared in prominent national advertisements including a spot in a Super Bowl ad for DoorDash, where she appeared alongside Daveed Diggs (Hamilton) and Super Grover (Sesame Street). For more information, visit www.shittycraft.club and www.samreece.com.
