Classes at Michaels

Do the Michael's stores in your areas offer classes? The store near me has a little craft room on the left hand side (as soon as you walk in) with tables and chairs. Back in December, I picked up a schedule of classes and they had all kinds of stuff: scrapbooking, knitting, crochet, paper crafting, beading, etc... I really wanted to check out the scrapbooking class but I never got around to it. So finally I was just in there last week and I asked the girl for a class schedule...Well she said they didnt HAVE ANY classes anymore!!! (except for cake decorating) WTF? I guess not enough people came to the other classes? Anyway, I was so dissappointed! I was really looking forward to finding some other women to scrap with! (none of my girlfriends are into it) I guess I'll have to start my own scrapbooking group....

Our Michaels does classes but they arent usually very good. The people there dont seem to really care. Last time I wound up showing people more what to do than the instructor did. Maybe next time you are there ask them why they dont have classes... maybe they just need someone good to teach them... could be an opportunity for you.

I work at Michaels and as of some time in April all classes at Michaels have been canceled besides the Knack (Kids club) and the Wilton classes. My manager told me classes MIGHT start back up in the fall. Even the birthday parties are canceled.

If I am correct all M's canceled all of their class except the cake and Kid Club classes. They let go all the teachers. In many ways I could see why because they were not train teachers. And many times their employees did the class or demos and knew nothing about the product. It's sad when a customer could tell them more about the product than the person holding the class or doing the demo.

I also hear that they are trying to hire people who are train people to do the class and demo. I would like to see the classes/and crops come back.

But check with your LSS and see what they can do for you.

I took a crocheting class one time and the teacher was about 45 minutes late.

I haven't seen classes at my M's either ... I used to always take a peek at the projects (never signed up for any though). I haven't seen them in a long time.

I had the same problem - I wanted to scrap with people but none of my friends scrap. I ended up started my own crop group and we get together every 2 weeks and have found some really great friends that way. One of the girls actually had posted an ad on kijiji and that's how I found her ... and now we're great friends. I also posted something on a Facebook group (where there were scrappers in my area) and since then I've been invited to 2 other crops and the LSS crops as well ... you just have to look a bit and you'll find people to crop with - there are TONS of scrappers out there!

I know that Michael's use to have a child store called Recollections here in Texas in the DFW area. It was a GREAT store. They had stuff in sections to corrdinate what you were working on. They had TONS of classes. But the stupid thing to me is that Michael's closed them all down because they didn't want to have to deal with the inventory of the store. That they had to many "small" things to count. Well I know one of the managers of the Recollection store asked the Head people at Michael's if they would sell her the store and she would keep it open with the same name. They told her NO!!! So now with that store gone and another locally owned business gone there isn't anywhere for us to go cropping.. So to me Michael's made a huge mistake. Then they brought in the "Martha Stewart" collection. They have a coupon in the sales paper each Sunday and each coupon says "excludes Martha Stewart collection". Then what's the point of her stuff being in the store. To me it's too expensive and since they say you can't use a coupon the stuff rarely is being purchased. So to me they are losing money and that's what they get. Why close a store that is bringing you in great revenue just to jump on the band wagon to get Martha Stewart's stuff in your store?? I know a Halloween class that I took last year was $60.00. They had to have two sessions to accomodate everyone. The class area held like 20-25 people. So $60.00 times 20-25 people twice. You do the math. It would have been better to just keep Recollections open. People would have had classes plus crops to enjoy. Now us in the DFW area really don't have anything to enjoy as far as cropping grows..

You can also go onto meetup dot com & join or start a group. That's how I have found an awesome group of fellow scrapbookers in my area.

meetup.com is where i found a local group who get together to crop, sadly i haven't made it to one yet but i did find them

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This is inaccurate now. About 5 months ago, Michaels' Coupons stopped excluding Martha Stewart's stuff. I used it when I purchased her craft knife back then. None of the Michaels' Coupons I've had in the past 5 months have excluded Martha Stewart's craft stuff anymore. They just exclude all the Cricut stuff.

Our Michaels stopped having classes last month because they started that Knack Club. I'm still trying to figure out where the HUGE display is for this Club. They're supposed to have a special area and I just never see it when I go in there.

Well for us in the DFW it still says "excludes Martha Stewart collection" But two weeks ago was the first time I saw a Martha Stewart coupon. The coupon was just for her collection. That was new.. Maybe different stuff for different areas..

The Coupons no longer exclude her stuff. The Coupons that will be in Sunday's paper will include her stuff...I think they're realizing it's not selling so well.

• auntieant Said:

That's really sad then because it's been like that for 5 months here in Nebraska.

Also I just saw the ad for the upcoming TWO weeks. Martha's stuff is marked 25 percent off from Sunday, May 18th until Saturday, May 24th. I also checked (there are two 40 pecent Coupons for different dates) and the MS stuff isn't excluded except you can't use the Coupons on her stuff next week because it's on sale.

Cricut Design Studio will be on sale for $69.99 for anyone who cares.

In my opinion, classes at Michael's are only as good as the store manager's who promote them. I have met plenty of talented teachers who languished because the store managers didn't support them and help promote the classes. If they want to be known for crafts, they really should develop a following by supporting classes and the teachers!

The M's here in Alberta had a 50% coupon off MS stuff like 2 weeks ago.

I dont have a M in my town, but when I go to the nearest one, I would always look in. It looks like it would be fun and I always wanted to try it. Too bad they quit

Guess I dont go to our M's that much.. I didnt even realize that they had all stopped their classes... at our store I doubt it was a big loss. What is this Knack Club you all have been talking about??

I use to teach stamping and scrapbooking classes at Michaels until corporate decided that they are going to quit classes except for the Wilton cake classes. The only reason they continue those is because Michaels gets reimbursed by Wilton. The instructors are actually paid by Wilton. All of the class instructors at our Michaels were all offered positions working on the floor. I declined. I only worked there because I loved teaching classes and being with the people. (I liked the discount too ) I met alot of people at my classes. I also sold ALOT of stuff. In fact, our store manager told me I should get paid commission for all the stuff I sold. I only promoted items that I believed in tho. At times, I was alittle to honest and would tell people to go Walmart and get it because it was cheaper, or tell them not to buy something at all if I didn't believe in the product. I bought the first Cuttlebug at Michaels before it was even on the shelf. I did some cards with the embossing folders and took the cards to work and to my stamp club and the 12 girls in my stamp club and the 6 people I work with all bought it. They were on a waiting list so it took a while for them all to get it. I've also used it alot in my classes and did demos with it and sold alot that way too. A friend of mine taught jewelry classes there. I went to a class of hers and was hooked immediately. Since then, I've gotten at least a dozen people hooked. We buy all our supplies from Michaels (thats all we have here) I don't think corporate thought about that when they made the decision to stop classes. They may start again in the fall and if they do, I will go back there to teach.

I've been teaching paper crafting at Michaels for 5 years. They have discontinued these classes as of next month. I am heartbroken as I loved Crop Night, aka Maker Night, even though I got paid the least for that, and had just convinced my CE manager to have 2 a month. I have a bevy of loyal students who love to scrap and I found it most rewarding and inspiring to work with them. In a way, however, I am not surprised, as the actual classes were really poor the past 2 years. Just rehashes of things already offered or very much uninspired. I had no desire to encourage any of my students to take them lately as they are all way beyond the basics and these classes at any price offered no challenge to them. So I am not surprised they've been discontinued - someone gave up on them a long time ago. We used to offer technique classes for example, stamping and using tools - this was useful to anyone who crafted and I tried to tie them in to whatever my students were working on so they could learn more skills, etc, but those stopped altogether a year or so and only generic card classes were being offered. Then no cardmaking classes for 2 Christmases, for example, which was the time almost all my students took a class or 2. Very sad. Not alot done for the dedicated crafter now and no Crop Night, which was for me, the thing I just loved most.