I always get sad when I talk to people about creativity. Two reasons.
- Most of us really believe creativity is something we are either born with or we never have it;
- Most of us still believe that creativity is a rather narrow tree with just a few branches that cover writing, painting and sometimes – crocheting.
Ok, maybe I did exaggerate on these claims, but not too much.
Because if you ask the ordinary housewife, the one without any hobbies, if she thinks she is creative, she will tell you she isn’t.
Yet, that same woman will tweak a well-known recipe and create a meal her children will remember in their 80s. She will also arrange the dinner table with the most beautiful napkins, cutlery and turn a normal dinner into an event. She will walk around her house adding her gentle touch and turning it into a beautiful home. She will come up with ideas for Halloween costumes, hand-make at least a few of this Christmas’s decorations and she will bake the most festive menu for Thanksgiving dinner.
And she will do that without realising she was exercising creativity all along.
You are the same, my friend. You create with your mind and hands all the time, sometimes knowingly, most of the time – unknowingly.
And it isn’t something you can put a stop to. We, as people, are born to be innovative and creative. We crave it.
So, having a creative hobby is logical, if not even necessary. There are probably hundreds of creative hobbies you could start today, but the most popular ones I can give you as examples are candle making, crocheting, scrapbooking, and of course, writing.
In this post, I am trying to show you 17 craft hobbies that are creative, but you might not have heard of them until now.
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Craft Hobbies for Adults
1. Cyanotype Printing
This creative art printing technique looks very attractive, and it is easy to get obsessed with. Cyanotype printing is a photographic process that uses UV light to create rich-blue monochrome prints. You don’t have to paint.
You lay objects (such as leaves, plants or anything that can give you a nice print) on paper (or natural fibres) that has been painted with a light-sensitive solution. Then you expose your project to UV light (the sun) for around 15 min (depending on the season) and you get to see immediate results. In the end, you wash it with cold water to help develop the colors and you get to enjoy your new art. If you wish to know more about it, start here. Also, you can get your first cyanotype print kit for less than $20 right here, which makes this creative hobby affordable.
2. Paper Marbeling
I have a small collection of vintage 1800s books with marbled endpapers and I have always loved the look of those.
Nowadays, you can create your own marbled pages, imitating those of the 1800s vintage books, or create your own swirls and color combinations that match your personality and vibe. This hobby also has its own just-add-water kit you can grab from here since a special thickening solution is required to hold your paint floating on the surface.
3. Pressed Flowers Art
This is one of the more popular creative hobbies, but I think it deserves a spot here as it is such a simple yet beautiful type of craft to make as a hobby. If you like walks in nature and would love to collect beautiful flowers and plants, you can create different types of art with them.
You can use your pressed flowers in your daily art journaling, for creating wall art or even bookmarks. The only tool you will need is this flower press; the rest is flowers and imagination.
4. Paper Cutting
This was something we used to do at school, I know. But it could also be a short free time activity when you want to do something creative but struggle to find time and don’t want to invest in tools.
Paper cutting could be something simple or very advanced, and it is all about starting with the easy designs and going further with the complicated ones. I can imagine it is also a fun creative hobby to share with your children.
5. Sticker Art Journlaing
This is art journaling but made just with stickers. The best thing about it is that you need to have zero drawing skills, just a box filled with stickers and a blank journal.
A spread could take you literally 3 minutes, and you can unleash your creativity every time you crave some time alone. I love doing this in the evenings, after I’ve put my son to sleep and before starting my evening shift of blogging. It helps me disconnect from the hectic day as a toddler mom and acts as a transitioning ritual towards something completely different.
6. Art Journaling in Old Books
Similar to the previous creative hobby, but still different enough to deserve a spot here.
Art journaling in old books is literally that – you get a second-hand book from the thrift store to use in this project. It is good to pick a low-value book that would likely never be bought by someone else. Make sure its pages have that vintage yellow, worn-out look, it will make your journaling much more enjoyable. The rest is imagination.
You can write, add stickers, paint, glue craft papers, add quotes or spray paint on those pages. Everything is allowed, including (safely) burning the fore edges (I’ve done that).
7. Book Binding
Book binding is one of the oldest arts, even if it doesn’t sound like it is. You can learn different styles of binding and create your own notebooks. You can rebind old books (or new ones) and change covers. If you love reading fan fics of your favorite books, you could print and bind those, giving them physical shape before adding them to your home library. You will need some basic tools, but it is a rather cheap hobby to start.
8. Paper Bead Making
I have always been fascinated by paper beads. They are strong, have the shape and feel of something made of any other material but paper. Yet, with the right technique and a bit of imagination, you can create beautiful jewelry, home decor pieces, keychains, garlands and much more. Any paper works, but most crafters prefer old magazines, maps and scrap paper. This could be a beautiful way of reporpusing waste paper from your home into something useful and fun.
9. Keeping a Commonplace Book
A commonplace book is a notebook (a journal) where you write down things that matter to you.
You can use it for everything, but most of the time it is for book quotations and random thoughts. You can write your own poetry or poetry you come across, song lyrics, reviews of books or movies. You can use it as a reference tool and keep lists of books to read, podcasts to listen to or facts and ideas to check on.
A commonplace book is a place where you have the freedom to store whatever matters to you in this season of your life, including favorite recipes and special moments and blessings from your everyday life.
10. Writing Tiny Poems
You might need a tiny sketchbook for this one, but the rest is your imagination only. You can sometimes come across a phrase or a word that triggers your imagination and you suddenly have a beautiful short string of more words and phrases. Write those down in your tiny poems book.
You could also use this creative hobby as a way to explore and nudge your creativity. At the beginning, writing tiny poems might be hard, and you could come up with a two-row poem, but if you stick to it and keep writing, you will soon realise the world is a big compilation of tiny poems and that is just wonderful to capture.
11. Gift Wrapping
Don’t you get lost on Tik Tok watching gift wrapping videos just around Christmas time? I do. Yes, this is a weird hobby according to your family, but I believe it is a hobby nonetheless. The art of gift wrapping and presenting an ordinary object in perfect packaging is very eye-pleasing and satisfying. You can become the person everyone wants to get a gift from because they are eager to see how you’ve wrapped it.
I used to watch videos for hours just to learn how to wrap books better for my reselling business, and it is a skill I still have. Also, my reviews on Etsy prove that I’ve done a good job at learning that skill.
12. Natural Pigment Making
Many artists love extracting colours from the earth, minerals and plants. Years ago, I used to make different-coloured paper using boiled avocado skins, onion skins, cabbage and simple tea leaves. It was an obsession I had for months, so let me tell you — it is a fun creative hobby to have.
You can take this a step further by learning how to turn natural colours into pigments that you can use to make your own paints and inks. The process involves extracting the colour from plants, separating it into a usable pigment, and mixing it with a binder. It takes a little more work, but the result is something you can use in your own art projects.
13. Wire Wrapping
Bending and weaving wire around gemstones to create beautiful swirls and pieces of jewelry is almost like a witchy craft. That makes it perfect for the darker days of the year. It will make you feel like a proper smith, and the end results are always so beautiful. You can learn how to make your own jewelry and even start gifting it to friends and family around the holidays. You would usually start with easier metal such as copper or craft wire. You will also need basic pliers and your imagination to create.
14. Soundscape Recording
I recently watched a video by a favorite YouTuber and artist of mine – Jonna Jinton. She lives in the deep mountains of Sweden, a beautiful place with vast lakes and long winter months. Every winter, she likes to record the sounds the ice creates (see video below) – its cracks and movements creating otherworldly songs that are hauntingly beautiful. Recording the sounds of nature is a creative hobby you can also have.
Maybe you will get to invest in proper gear one day, but just a simple microphone would also work just fine in the beginning. Record the sounds of rain on your windowsill or on your umbrella. Record how a sunny day in nature sounds. Record the early morning buzz of creatures. There are so many ways you could go with this, and you will enjoy them all.
15. Fold and Dye Fabrics
This hobby had a huge buzz a few years ago, and many small businesses were born out of it. Now, as it has almost lost its popularity, people forget that they can play with natural fabrics by tying knots and dyeing them with fiber-reactive dyes or natural extracts. In this way, you can create beautiful swirls and shapes on the fabric. This would only work with natural fabrics such as linen, cotton and silk. This is a beautiful way to give new life to your old clothes as well (or clothes from the thrift store), so sustainability is absolutely possible.
16. Needle Felting
This is a slow, meditative creative hobby you could practice when you’re watching TV in the evenings, or while listening to podcasts, or even waiting in a queue. You work with unspun sheep’s wool (called roving) and you shape it using a special felting needle. To be honest, you basically stab that wool until it starts acting as you wanted it to, so that’s a very therapeutic-sounding hobby for most women. No, seriously, you shape it by rotating, adding different colors and sculpturing the object you want to create to over time. There are plenty of tutorials for beginners so if you’re curious, I would start right here.
17. Pyrography
We used to do pyrography at school, and I really enjoyed it. Pyrography is popular as wood brurning using special tools to create shapes and designs. But it isn’t just wood you could brun, you could also burn leather, cork, paper or even fabrics. You need a special burner that comes with different tips and allows you to stay safe while creating your art. I did some digging online while writing this post, and let me tell you, there are stunning designs you could create with this technique, and it is a great art hobby for almost anyone.
Final Thoughts
I hope your creativity already got its spark of inspiration reading through the 17 hobby ideas above. Which one would you start? I would choose bookbinding and keeping a commonplace book, but I am a paper girly, so that’s my choice. What would yours be?
Blogger, dreamer, procrastinator, and lover of everything soul-touching. My mission is to make you laugh, provoke your thoughts, light up your day and inspire you to fall in love with life and yourself.
