Whether you have a room dedicated to your crafting or a little tackle box in your closet, I find that carving out a space in my life and home for my hobbies allows me to respect the time and space more knowing that it’s important to my mental health to create beautiful things!

There are several different crafting/DIY genres, in my opinion those are as follows:

• Textiles: Creating decorative or practical items from cloth, fibers, tissues etc., my favorite textile crafting is knitting. I find knitting to be very relaxing, calming and productive. Who doesn’t love to get a little blanky for a baby shower gift or a scarf and mittens for Christmas!
• Papers: Creating decorative or practical items from paper products, my favorite paper crafts are hanging paper stars and greeting cards – everyone likes getting mail, especially when it’s a homemade cute card with a little inside joke or shared memory.
• Accessories: Wearables! I love working on planning something, procuring the supplies, sorting out the details, spending my time creating it, and then wearing it out. Imagine how great it feels to receive a compliment about an accessory – now imagine you made the accessory yourself! I love creating jewelry and hair pieces! These make great gifts for a bride to be, birthday girl or sassy young theatre major.

Once you’ve set aside a space for your crafting and supplies, set aside a time. This could be one hour a week or three hours a day – depends on your schedule. But put it in your schedule! It’ll help you stick to it until it becomes a habit.  And don’t forget to budget it into your life. Crafting is a great stress-relief and like most stress-reliefs, it’s expensive!

Come back in about a week and we’ll get going on some easy starter crafts for novice. We’ll do one a week from each category so you can decide if any of these genres of crafting are more your speed!