Do you often think of crafting as a solitary activity, and crafters as "lone wolves," creatives and artisans who spend most, or a fraction, of their time, alone while engaged in their hobby?
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What if I tell you that crafting can be integrated into various social events and situations to serve different purposes?
Why Integrate Crafts Into Social Events?
As an activity, working on a craft side by side creates an amiable and non-competitive ambience.
Due to its non-discriminatory nature, people of all ages, gender, and level of skill and creativity can engage in crafts.
Through crafts, participants or guests can freely explore and express their tastes and preferences, and hone their creativity.
And think about a group of women or even men who get together and quilt? Quilting with a group is proof that crafting can be cooperative rather than competitive.
Crafting helps strengthen family ties.
Crafts can also help family members bond with each other. Couples can alternate a creative activity with music lessons, movie nights, an afternoon of reading or boardgames.
And as long as parents make an effort to look for resources, stretch their imaginations, and think outside the box, the possibilities and opportunities can be endless.
Staying connected to people or a community is crucial for overall well-being.
Being with like-minded people is important for one's mental, psychological, and social well-being. Crafting with others can serve as a recreation or even a much-needed diversion.
You may be pressured to meet responsibilities at work or with your family. Engaging in something creative in a welcoming and non-competitive atmosphere can provide a welcome change.
Crafting can be frugal.
Talk about a definite advantage! Craft materials can be bought in bulk from hobby stores or smaller, specialized stores at cheaper prices.
A pub crawl with friends or ladies' lunch can occasionally be replaced with an afternoon or evening of crafts. It can be lighter on the pocket since guests can pool their resources for craft materials.
To top it off, food and refreshments can be simple and fuss-free. If you and your friends have set a goal to taper off on the alcohol consumption, sober activities like crafting is a good way.
Crafting can be turned into a virtual event.
The aftermath of the 2020 pandemic has brought a few positive innovations, with virtual events being one of them.
You can schedule a creative session through Zoom with a bunch of friends, or even have fun with nieces and nephews who live far away from you.
Having said all of the above, here are 9 ways crafts can be integrated into social events:
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(1.) Entrepreneurs and small business owners can make additional profit by facilitating a series of workshops.
There are a variety of independent artists, crafters, and other creatives who weren't only able to monetize their passion by turning it into a small business of handmade products, they were even able to charge tuition by training others.
Facilitating a series of crafts-centered workshops or classes can be done while keeping in mind whether they want participants to learn creative as well as entrepreneurial skills to start businesses of their own, or as a side gig to augment their regular salaries, or merely to derive pleasure out of creative endeavors.
(2.) Art therapists can give classes to special needs children and adults.
Regardless of developmental delay or type of disability, special needs children and adults must be able to freely express their individuality while being accepted within a community.
And kids and adults with special needs can find a number of crafts to which their skills are suitable. Everyone needs a safe space or outlet to explore and hone their creativity.
Art therapists are highly qualified to teach classes focused on creative activities. Usually, participants are being required to be more mindful with the procedure rather than the results.
(3.) Crafts can be the focal point of parties and celebrations.
Skip rented venues, catering services, and paid entertainment, and think more towards hosting intimate events and parties at home.
Craft parties will be appreciated by people from nearly all demographics, as there are endless ways to incorporate creative projects into nearly every occasion.
The following is not an exhaustive list, but just a few ideas to get you started:
- To make it less complex for your guests, choose a couple of inclusive crafts. You can paint tote bags, ceramic pots, or onesies, try calligraphy, or make accessories from beads.
- Tie the nature or theme of the crafts to the occasion. For Easter, use poster paint to decorate eggs of different sizes cut with a craft knife from styrofoam or cardboard. Recycle toilet paper tubes into Frankenstein's monster, Count Dracula, or a mummy for Halloween, or make a Christmas wreathe out of old magazines or scraps of ribbons.
- For Christmas parties, guests can exchange a handmade or DIY item like a snow globe or decoupaged tissue holder for Secret Santa instead of giving store-bought stuff.
- Substitute a ladies' lunch or a night out with an afternoon of crafts.
- Host a crafts-centered hen do or bachelorette party for an engaged gal pal.
- Throw a crafty baby shower if you're a soon-to-be parent, aunt, or grandmother.
- Instead of the usual round of parlor games, make crafts the focal point of children's birthday parties.
- For guys, consider doing masculine crafts. Gather any old issues of sports, car, technology, guitar, or magazines and turn them into coasters.
(4.) Volunteers can craft for a cause.
Whoever thought that one can reach out to the less fortunate and make her community a better place by doing crafts?
Image from freepik
And even something as simple as cardmaking can help brighten the days of the elderly at nursing homes, patients getting treatment for a chronic illness, rehabilitation or therapy, deployed troops, inmates, and children at orphanages.
For more ideas for volunteer activities for crafters, read --
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