Creative Buzz: Five Unusual Crafts You Might Like To Try
February 22, 2012 2:05 pm
If you enjoy using your creativity but you’re tired of typical hobbies likes knitting, doing puzzles, and collecting coins or stamps, consider trying a new craft. Here are five great suggestions for unique craft-making skills to tryt:
Papercutting
Papercutting is an absorbing craft that involves cutting designs into paper. Cultures all over world have engaged in different forms of papercutting throughout history, and it has been a particularly celebrated art in Chinese culture. You can start out simply and then progress to more complicated designs. This is an especially useful skill to develop when it comes to making cards for friends and loved ones.
Quilling
This craft is another paper-based art. It’s a great choice if you’re looking to immerse yourself in an extremely detailed and intricate activity. Quilling involves the use of paper strips that are rolled, shaped, and glued together to create designs. As an art form, quilling goes all the way back to the Renaissance, when monks used quilling to adorn the covers of sacred books. It has become an increasingly popular craft today because of the low cost of materials.
Kumihimo
Kumihimo is the art of braid-making, a craft with roots in Japanese culture. It involves a complex and satisfying process of finger-loop braiding in which you interlace strands in order to make cords and ribbons. Practitioners of Kumihimo use a foam disk to help them as they braid the strands together. The disks are available in a variety of sizes and styles so that you can make whatever kind of braid you wish, ranging from flat to circular to four-sided to hollow.
Temari
This is another craft worth looking into if you enjoy intricacy and complexity while working with your hands. Temari is a Japanese art in which craftspeople create beautiful and vividly colored decorative balls made of thread. It is an especially good choice for you if you have a history of experience with stitching-based crafts. An added benefit is that Temari balls make lovely gifts.
Tablet Weaving
This fun craft, also known as card weaving, involves a weaving approach in which tablets or cards are used to create the shed through which the weft passes. This is an ideal form of weaving for narrow arenas of work such as thin straps, belts, or the trim on various garments. The materials and tools are relatively cheap, and once you get over the initial learning curve you’re sure to find this an absorbing and rewarding activity.
Category: Miscellaneous Tags: Crafts, Paper Arts, Quilling
