Getting Started With Arts and Crafts

An arts and craft hobby could be the answer to more of your problems than you think. Crafting can help to foster a mindful state – a form of meditation that can help you stop dwelling on repetitive, anxiety inducing thoughts and feel more peaceful and resilient. Crafts can also give you a lot of satisfaction and reward that is missing from many of our modern lives. We don’t often get to work with our hands, to create something on our own that we can feel a sense of pride in – work is an embattled placed for many of us, and with a lot of jobs involving digital admin, the satisfaction of working with our hands isn’t something we get to enjoy day to day.

A crafting hobby can provide all this, but getting started can be difficult and intimidating. What should your first project be? Where do you get your equipment and materials? Where do you get your inspiration?

Today, we’re looking at some of the questions and helping you get started with your new hobby!

Where to buy?

You can get lots of craft supplies in a moderately sized supermarket. Sharp scissors, paper, coloured pencils and basic PVA glue give you a lot to work with! If you’re looking for specialist equipment and perhaps some inspiration too, then a visit to a craft store might be the answer: these specialist stockists keep the best materials as well as magazines and books that might give you some ideas for your first projects.

If you value convenience it’s well worth ordering an art craft box – these subscriptions come with everything you need for a new project and can be delivered to your door on a regular schedule. While this takes away some of the individual choice that goes into a craft hobby, that can be liberating in the early days! You can just open your box, follow the instructions, and watch your skills and experience grow!

What to make?

The craft you focus on needs to provide what you need. Think about what you want to get out of your crafting hobby? Are you excited to make gifts for friends? To get practical use out of your new crafting abilities? Or the satisfaction of mastering a new skill?

Try to experiment with different crafts to find out what feels best to you: knitting and sewing are good skills to learn if you want to make items you can use! If you’re interested in giving things to friends then cardmaking is a fun skill to master, allowing you to express yourself while developing your creative instincts.

If what you’re looking for is a more solitary, reflective craft, then scrapbooking might be the one for you! You can choose different ways to frame and display mementos from your past, either simply or with increasingly creative flourishes!