If you’re anything like us, you have an unfinished craft project lying around your house. Perhaps an abandoned needlepoint? A half-knitted scarf?

A boxful of scrapbooking supplies purchased with good intentions, but never used? Candle-making materials you bought on clearance and never found the time to open? Dawn has enough pretty paper, rubber stamps, and ink to make holiday cards for an entire village. What was she thinking when she purchased it all? Well, she was following the time-honored desire of many women to “craft”—to make something with their hands—a desire that leads us to spend money on craft supplies, and is often followed by guilt! Here’s the good news about misguided craft purchases: They make a great excuse for a girls night! Let’s put our “unfinished craft guilt” by having the girls over for a therapeutic craft session.

November is the perfect month for a craft night with the girls. It’s cold and dark, and all you need to feel cozy are some glowing candles or a lit fireplace. You will need a place for your friends to work. Clear the kitchen or dining room table, and set up a folding table or two, to provide extra work surfaces. Serve a simple spread of soup and bread, a chili bar with toppings, or try a finger-food buffet. Just keep the food away from the crafts to prevent staining anyone’s handiwork. Here are a few ways to approach this easy-peasy girls night celebration:

Scrapbooking

We know many of you scrapbookers get together for “crop night” on a regular basis, so we won’t go into much detail here. Invite over your scrappin’ friends to pool supplies, steal ideas, hear feedback on your pages, and get some tedious cropping done while you chat. We’re not scrapbookers, so if this is something you do, we’d love to hear some tips on what makes a scrapbooking girls night a success.

Holiday cards and gifts

Always meant to make your own holiday cards? Here’s the perfect opportunity to get them done on time. If you have girlfriends who like rubberstamping and paper crafts, you can pool your resources for a greater variety of materials. Or, pick a design to make together, and have each girlfriend bring one of the materials. If you’re not into cards, maybe some crafty holiday gifts will float your boat. Make some bath salts, ornaments, or wreaths together.

Stitch and bitch

Knit-wits and crochet hounds will love to get together and work their needles while they work their jaws! Some yarn shops even host girls nights so you can peruse the newest fibers (and they ARE so pretty), garner new ideas and make progress on your project. Stitch away, girlfriends!

Each one, teach one

If you’re the crafty one in your group, offer to show your girlfriends how to make a special craft. Our girlfriend Kim once had a group over to make precious miniature photo albums using paint sample strips. She provided the materials and tools, and we brought our own photos to put in the albums. We never would have made this on our own, but we treasure them today. Your girlfriends will appreciate your expertise, too. And plenty of laughs can be had around the crafting table.

Open crafting

We did this a couple of years ago: Simply invited our girlfriends to bring whatever craft project they were working on and do it side-by-side. Some made holiday cards, some crocheted, some just came to chat. We seem to remember wine and chocolate were involved, too! Everyone was pleased that they had a chance to finish a project while chatting with the girls.

Craft supplies swap

You know how we love the swap party, girlfriends! Why not complete your crafty evening by inviting your friends to bring along their unwanted craft supplies. Surely another girlfriend can use them – or at least she thinks she can (wink wink). Another way to get rid of unfinished craft guilt!

Do you have a favorite crafting blog or website you can share? Leave it in the comments!