Why have a Craft Art Hobby? What are the Benefits of crafting?
If you’re looking for a new activity to fill up your time, consider taking up a crafting hobby.
Many adults haven’t tried making any crafts since they were kids, but a crafting hobby is a fun and rewarding way to stay busy and create something with your own hands.
In fact, there are many mental, emotional, and social benefits of starting a crafting hobby.
Here are the top five benefits of a crafting hobby:
Creativity
Even if you follow step-by-step instructions for making a craft, you’ll probably have a chance to put your own creative spin on the project at some point. This will give you the pride of knowing that you’ve created something unique.
Stress Relief
Crafting requires mental and physical focus, so it takes your mind away from worries in your life. Many crafts involve repetitive physical motions, which can be very soothing and almost meditative. Most people report feeling calmer and happier after a crafting session.
To have a creative side to your every day life can take you right away from the day to day humdrum and stresses. It is the perfect distraction to de-stress and chill out.
Cognitive Improvement with a Crafting Hobby
Crafting hobbies can help anyone improve their focusing skills and increase their attention span, and they’re a great way to slow down cognitive decline in the elderly.
In one study of more than 1,000 people between the ages of 70 and 89, those who crafted were less likely to suffer from cognitive impairment. No matter your age, you can keep your brain in shape by starting a crafting hobby.
Knitting and is a great example of a low cost easy to master hobby that doesn’t take up a lot of space and can be available to dive into at any time virtually anywhere. All you need is needles and wool and a little bit of know how and you are up and running. In this on line world you can learn almost anything through articles, downloadable guides and Youtube videos.
Social Opportunities
Crafting is also a great social activity. You can craft with your family or friends, or you can join a class or club to meet people who also love crafting. Although crafts take some focus, you can chat with your fellow crafters while you all work on your projects, and you can offer each other advice and encouragement.
Chance for Profit
If you find that a craft art hobby is really your calling, you may be able to profit from your work. You can sell your finished products online or at flea markets or community yard sales.
Especially around the holiday season, many people want to buy unique, handmade crafts to decorate their homes or to give as gifts. How many people actually get to make money from their hobby?
The idea of taking up crafting might seem overwhelming to you if you haven’t experimented with anything artistic in a while. Many adults claim that they’re not creative or that they’re bad artists, and they use this as an excuse to avoid crafts.
However, there are so many different types of crafts that everyone can find something they enjoy and that they’re good at. You’ll never know what you find fun and exciting until you try it. If you want to take up a creative hobby, crafting might be perfect for you.
Get down with the kids!
When you were knee high to a grasshopper getting your hands dirty with pens, pencils, clay, plasticine and all sorts of other sticky, gooey craft stuff was an everyday thing.
Now that you are a big kid why not really encourage your own children to see the benefits of arts and crafts themselves. You never know you might just enjoy it yourself!
Here is a great article that I have just read by momlovesbest.com giving you plenty of ideas on the benefits of art for kids!
Here are a few Crafting hobby Ideas
- Candlemaking
- Crochet
- Clay sculpting
- Quilling
- Wood Carving
- Knitting
- Sewing
- Sublimation printing
- Cross stitch
- Quilting
- Pen turning
- Scrap booking
- Lace making
- Etching
- Jewellery making
- leather crafts
And some more practical solutions to get your crafting Hobby started
Candlemaking
Candle making starter kits get you up and running quickly without breaking the bank. It is also the best way to dip your toe in the water without getting your wallet cremated!
There are many different sets available and the Natures Blossom set is an excellent starter kit including 2Lb wax, rich scents, dyes, wicks, pitcher for melting the wax, tins and more.
Polymer Clay sculpting
Polymer clay is fantastic for creating figurines, jewellery ornaments, plaques and a host of other things. The polymer clay is extremeley colorful and can be shaped and baked to be permanently set. You can also paint and varnish it, sand it, drill it – in fact it is one of the most versatile crafting hobby materials you will find.
A really good starter kit is the Magic Fly Polymer Clay Starter kit which has a wide range of 45 colors, plus five modelling tools and forty jewellery accessories. The clay comes in non toxic oven bake blocks. There are plenty of kits available to suit your new crafting hobby.
Quilling
Quilling was a hobby that I had never heard of until a couple of years ago. It is an art form where thin strips of paper are glued onto a surface ‘end on’ to build up pictures or patterns. It is like drawing with paper rather than with a pen or pencil and you can get some quite remarkable effects with quilling as there is an element of 3D depth to your creation.
It was thought to have originated over 500 years ago when French and Italian nuns devised a method of cheaply decorating religious objects.
It is called quilling because the shape of the paper when rolled is not unlike a birds feather.
If you would like to see a master of this art form I have an article/interview I did on Yulia Brodskaya who is an amazing quilling artists. On the right is one of her superb creations which I still find myself wondering how long it took to create with so many individual strips of paper to be glued into place. The overall effect looks like a painting and the 3D effect of the strips on end enhances to scene – it just bursts with movement!
Again, it is always wise to try this art form out on a smaller scale before you dive right in and spend a kings ransom.
There are several starter kits available on Amazon with quite a range of prices. It just depends on what scale you want to create your first few pieces of artwork on and how many colors you want to use.
The Yurroad Paper Quilling Kit has a large 1740 colored paper strips and a set of comprehensive paper quilling tools plus a neat storage box to keep your hobby neat and tidy when you are not using it.
A perfect starter kit that you can find out if this would be a good hobby for you without spending much money to investigate. I guarantee you will have fun doing this!
Wood Carving
There is real satisfaciton in this hobby using 100% natural products to create a whole host of artwork, kitchen utensils and much more.
I recently got into wood carving and wood turning and absolutely love it. I am foremost a cartoonist but there is always scope to adapt and i have recently developed some of the cartoon characters I have drawn over the years and moved them Off paper and ito the 3D world of wood. Drift wood to be precise.
I first got the idea when interviewing Kirsty Elson on my Podcast. Kirsty, an artist based in Cornwall in the UK makes all sorts of wonderful items out of driftwood such as small models of coatal Cornish Villages, houses, lighthouses and other Cornish features all in a semi cartoon style. As a result I looked around at what other drift wood artists were creating and decided to combine it with my other hobby brass bands.
If you would like to get into wood carving there are many wood carving chisel sets on the market and base wood that you can buy.
A quality set with some great accessories is the VonHaus 8 Piece Wood Carving Chisel Set. It is good quality and comes with a sharpening stone (essential!) and a honing guide.
All this contained in a sturdy storage case – a great set for a beginner!
To see more take a look at the Craftsfinder blog to give you even more ideas
