10 Reasons to Take up Arts and Crafts as a New Year’s Hobby

2019 has arrived, leaving behind the bad habits and any negativity in 2018 and bringing in new opportunities, heaps of potential and new beginnings for the New Year.

At the stroke of midnight many of us (probably rather tipsily) vowed to embark on a selection of new ventures for our New Year’s resolutions: start walking to work, replace Wine Wednesdays with Meat-Free Mondays, read more, start meditating, swap kid’s lunch time chocolate treat with raw food cereal bar (sure they’ll love that..!). Whatever your resolutions, no matter how many you made, we think there is definitely room for one more that we think is very, very important… Taking up haberdashery based arts and crafts!

We’ve pulled together 10 reasons why you should consider taking up our favourite thing as your New Year’s hobby which we hope will persuade you…

1. It’s Inexpensive
New hobbies can sometimes be expensive, either to set up or maintain (yes gym fees, we’re looking at you!). Whilst arts and crafts isn’t free, haberdashery products are relatively cheap and you can get a lot for your buck. Often, haberdashery products are delivered in bulk meaning that once you buy a selection, you will not have to buy more for a little while. You can make this hobby more or less expensive depending on what you use for your projects. All of our products are high quality but great value – we don’t sell gold threaded fabric but our bright and colourful selection is even better!

2. Mindfulness
Mental health is gaining more and more recognition which is fantastic. Along with the improvement in diagnosis, comes with improvement in treatment and ways to manage it. One hugely popular and effective way to manage anxiety, low mood, worrying and stress is mindfulness. We’ve mentioned mindfulness a few times in our blogs because we understand how impactful it can be for mental health and wellbeing – lucky for us, arts and crafts and haberdashery projects are a fantastic way to practice mindfulness whilst also being productive! Mindfulness is all about putting yourself in the moment – immersing yourself in the now rather than focusing on the past or the future. By making our passion your hobby this New Year, you will allow yourself to have regular and enjoyable mindfulness sessions without even being aware of it.

3. Relaxing
Along the same lines of mindfulness, haberdashery projects are also relaxing (most of the time!). It’s a great way to unwind and take your mind off every day stresses and into a fun project. In this day in age, it’s important that we make an effort to get off technology and get away from screens – put down the phone, hide the iPad and close the laptop – it’s time to take your eyes away from blue glare and onto something softer and more relaxing…There’s no bad news to be seen in your sewing kit!

4. Sense of Accomplishment
Accomplishment looks different to everyone. It might be in the form of a promotion, making your fussy child eat a whole plate of roast dinner including the carrots and broccoli, or it might be creating something absolutely beautiful from scratch! When you physically create an item; whether it be a decoration, a piece of art, a bit of clothing, an accessory or a personalised gift, the sense of accomplishment is huge. In a world full of mass production, creating your own little piece of something that has tried and tested you, helped you acquire new skills and turned out just how you wanted is a truly remarkable feeling!

5. Making things for the Home
Why go out and buy what everyone else has for your home when you could create something beautifully bespoke yourself? By taking up haberdashery projects as this year’s hobby you can fill your home with beautiful things whilst saving a lot of money. Curtains, pillow cases, blinds, duvet cover, new artwork, tea cosy… You name it, you can make it.

6. Making Gifts for other People
In the same way that you can make your own homeware, you can also make your own gifts for other people that are personal and highly unique. There’s a big trend at the moment with present buying which is encouraging us to move away from mass consumerism of big shops and buy from independents, purchase experiences or make your own gifts for people. Once you master this new hobby, not only will you save money in your gift and card giving but your gifts will be highly memorable and sentimental too.

7. Create one of a Kind Clothing
Make sure your clothes are coming from an ethical source, are tailor made for your body and is in the exact material you want by making your own clothes! Clothes-making is quite a big project which will take time and attention so don’t embark on the project if you don’t think you have time to complete it!

8. Learning a New Skill that can be Passed Down
Pretty much what it says on the tin. Taking this up as a hobby will mean that you learn a new skill that will improve the more you do it. Honing a new skill is always a worthy thing to do and you will reap the benefits of it pretty quickly! Also, this is something that you can teach to other people and build their love and passion for it too. Whether that’s your friends, your children or family members, make sure you pass down your knowledge and spread the love!

9. Sociable
A lot of new New Year hobbies can be quite unsociable, such as going to the gym, running, cycling, reading, healthy eating etc. whereas arts and crafts can be incredibly social. You can take this opportunity to work on group projects, encourage friends to take it up too and block out a certain time in the week to get together and create something, you can do your projects whilst in front of the TV with loved ones or when you’re just relaxing with the family. This hobby means that you can do it without having to take yourself away from family and friends – even they’re not doing it.

10. It's Genuinely Useful
Becoming a whizz with the sewing needle and other haberdashery tools and needs can be incredibly useful in your everyday life. Whether you need your skill to perfectly sew a button back onto a coat, save yourself money on homeware, knit the cutest pair of sentimental new booties for your best friend’s baby, repair a ripped item of clothing so that you don’t have to bin it, create your own personalised accessories… The list could go on and on!

 We do hope that we’ve managed to persuade you to try a new haberdashery hobby this new year – we might be biased but we’re saying that it’s going to be the best thing you ever tried..