About Us | Our Story

Project of the Month Club (POM as we call it around here) never would have started if it weren't for a little boy named Charlie, although he's quick to tell us that he's not so little now! After Charlie's parents (that's us) started seeing his eyes "glaze over" while he was watching cartoons at age 3, we stepped up our effort to try and do more constructive things with him: coloring, Play-Doh, puzzles - you know the drill. When the old standbys didn't work, and the toys with batteries were blaring, we tried to get a little more resourceful. What we found was that is was difficult to constantly think of creative projects, drive to the craft store, get all the supplies, take an extra trip back for something we always seemed to forget and then come home and still have the time, patience or energy to help Charlie learn and have fun with the project.

We happened across a local home center that had small woodworking projects for kids to put together. After seeing Charlie embrace these seemingly simple projects, an idea struck us: Why not provide all-inclusive woodworking projects to parents & kids? We started putting some ideas on paper and talking to friends and family. These conversations evolved into focus groups and we learned three important things: 1) a lot of other parents shared our desire for convenient creative projects for their kids; 2) although woodworking projects would be fine for our two boys (Brady is Charlie's little brother), many of the girls were looking for more than just woodworking projects; and 3) moms, dads and grandparents really wanted us to incorporate an educational component in our offering.

We're committed to delivering on all three points. Project of the Month Club is designed to eliminate the hassle factor of arts and crafts shopping so parents and grandparents can spend time with their children and grandchildren as they explore and learn from a wide range of projects.

Thanks for your interest in the Project of the Month Club and even if you don't sign up, hopefully you'll make some time each month to do something special with your children or grandchildren!

Kerry & Jim Thiede
Wilmette, IL