Reasons To Craft: It’s About Community
Research shows that to live a long and happy life, you need to eat well, exercise regularly, visit the doctor, and drink plenty of water. But there’s another huge component to a long and fulfilling life, and the good news is that it is fun: community and friendship lead to longer, happier lives.
Women who meet with other women regularly are happier, have better health, and live longer. However, it can be difficult to find an activity that brings people together regardless of their age, gender, or location. Enter crafting: a perfect blend of creativity and community.
Crafting with friends can create meaningful bonds that insulate you against the tough times in life. The crafts themselves (whether a card, decoration, or scrapbook page) serve as reminders of the importance of your friends and family.
Why Craft? Understanding What’s Beyond the Hobby
Regardless of your skill level, crafting is for you. And not just for the final product (although that is a wonderful bonus!). Crafting is for everyone, regardless of the finished product, because crafting is about expressing your creativity and building community. The community and creativity that come from crafting are fundamental to our health and well-being.
Studies show that creativity helps with stress management and prevention and increases dopamine in the brain (dopamine helps us feel happy, balanced, and hopeful). We are meant to create, and we are meant to be in community with others. In our modern society, both of these crucial components are harder to come by, which is why our team at Stampin’ Up! feels so strongly about the importance of a crafting community to foster connection. Whether you are a beginner or an advanced crafter, finding a crafting community also gives you a chance to learn from the experts and/or teach up-and-coming crafters the tricks of the trade.
Reasons to Craft
Every crafter has their reasons to create. Beginners might start crafting to learn a new skill but then find that the joy of creating is so profound they continue to craft for life. Advanced crafters might craft to polish a satisfying technique, but they find that teaching new crafters is as rewarding and offers new connections. And, of course, the beautiful final products, whether it’s a card, gift tag, invitation, scrapbook page, or note, are a wonderful bonus.
Show Appreciation Through Handcrafted Gestures
There’s nothing better than a thank you card, whether you are the giver or the receiver. But a personalized, homemade card adds even more depth and meaning to the thank you itself. A personalized card means you took the extra time, attention, and love to make something special to show gratitude.
Not only do handcrafted thank you cards mean more, but they are one of the most versatile crafting projects you can do. Beginners can use basic crafting supplies and a kit from Stampin’ Up! to create beautiful designs, while advanced crafters can use their wealth of experience, knowledge, and a suite from Stampin’ Up! to build intricate and meaningful cards. You can let your loved ones know how thankful you are for their presence in your life to show your love and keep your community strong and connected.
LEARN MORE: Reasons To Craft: Celebrate the Year
Keep The Memories Going
Crafting is fun but also a way of keeping memories alive and ready to share with others. Reminiscing about shared experiences reinforces the bonds we’ve created with our family and friends. It’s easy to keep those connections strong when you have a scrapbook complete with pictures, beautiful pages, and meaningful quotes. The process of preserving memories through scrapbooking and other crafts leads to pages full of memories, and the activity itself can lead to lasting memories, especially when you do it with friends and family.
When you look at your completed scrapbook page, you’ll see the final product, but you’ll also see the time and consideration in every detail and know that your hard work paid off. If you created the pages with someone else or joined a crafting group, you’ll remember the conversations and feelings you had while creating together. When your family flips through the pages, laughing at silly pictures and pausing on the special memories, you’ll know that your legacy and memories will live on.
Celebrate the Year
Celebrations are fundamental to keeping connections strong with friends and family, whether the celebration is a traditional Thanksgiving dinner or your annual family reunion. Traditions, celebrations, annual events, and other highlights from the year are important to memorialize. When you use Stampin’ Up!’s products and kits, it is easier than ever to make something truly magical to remember your year.
When you think through all the big moments of your year, you might get overwhelmed with the many events and different products you’ll need to make stunning projects. But the reality is, with a little creativity and inspiration, you can use just a few products to create pages that celebrate everything from New Year’s to Christmas.
Start with a basic set of stamps for each “season,” like the More Wishes Stamp Set, the Flower Cart Stamp Set, the Sparkling Snowflakes Set, and the Gone Fishing Stamp Set. Add a few textured sheets of paper, like the Wood Textured Speciality Paper, and a few colors of ink, and you can find ways to commemorate all the year’s big days. Here’s where the community plays a big role in crafting: finding inspiration and support from other crafters who have used their Stampin’ Up! products in unique ways.
Creating for Your Kids
Think about the gifts you’ve received from kids, and you’ll probably imagine something homemade, like a card, craft, or decoration. Kids love making homemade gifts personalized to the person they give them to, which is why we love giving homemade crafts to little ones. They know, better than most adults, the work, attention, and skill it takes to make something unique and meaningful for someone else.
So when you hand a kid in your life a card, decoration, gift tag, or scrapbook page you made with them in mind, they know how important they are to you. Not only do you get to show them how much you love them with your handcrafted gift, but your gift might spark interest in crafting in the receiver, and suddenly, you have a crafting buddy!
Whether you are commemorating a first birthday or celebrating a graduation, the Flying By Stamp Set is perfect for accenting your craft. With the Let’s Wander Cling Stamp Set, inspire your loved ones to take big adventures, search for their path, and feel confident as they grow. Using crafts to encourage and celebrate the kids in your life (young and old!) is a legacy that will live on through generations, and the craft itself will serve as a reminder of your support, even from afar.
Show Kids Why You Love to Craft
Sharing your love for crafting is easier than ever, especially when it comes to involving the little ones in your life. It can be overwhelming for young minds to look at a pile of crafting supplies and know what to do next, but with the expertise and supervision of an adult and an easy-to-use kit made especially for them, kids can find the joy and accomplishment that comes with creating something magical.
Invitations: Be RSVP Ready
Without invitations, there’s no community. Of course, invitations can be informal texts or phone calls, but there’s something special about receiving a custom invitation for the big and small events in life. This is why we love creating invitations at Stampin’ Up!
We have seen thousands of stunning invitation ideas using a variety of products, and each one is as unique and personalized as the crafter themselves. So many events require a formal invitation, including showers, birthday parties, retirement celebrations, graduations, class reunions, religious celebrations, and holiday gatherings.
Finding the right crafting supplies to create invitations for so many occasions can feel overwhelming to a new crafter, but with basics like the Chantilly Lace Cling Stamp Set and the Perennial Lavender Designer Series Paper, you can mix and match paper color, ink, dies, and embellishments to create invitations for just about any occasion. Check out the paper crafting community online or in person if you need more inspiration. There are so many ideas for personalized invitations for every event.
Craft for Your Home
There’s something special about original arts and crafts, especially when they are used as decor in your home. Creating decor for your home gives you the sense of satisfaction that comes with using your skills and sense of style to create a unique and custom piece of art for your space. Whether adding pretty tags to the storage bins in your linen closet or adding a pop of color with wall art to your powder room, crafting your decor adds that special personalization to your home.
Use the From Our Home Stamp Set to create welcoming art and decor and complement it with the soothing blue tones of the Countryside Inn Designer Series Paper. There are so many ways to craft new decor into your home, whether it’s a grouping of darling plant illustrations or framed landscapes, we’ve got something for you to make with friends.
Crafting for Community with Stampin’ Up!
We are social creatures, and with the busy demands of modern life, it can be easy to let our social connections and community fall by the wayside. We create connections in the Stampin’ Up! community of crafters. We’ve witnessed the power and magic of crafting together and how it opens up communication, laughter, joy, and connection.
From expert crafters sharing their skills with new crafters to younger generations finding connection with their families through a shared love of creating, we know that the true beauty of crafting comes from the people making the craft. Whether you are inviting your loved ones to a bridal shower or you want to give a unique thank you card, Stampin’ Up! is here with supplies, tutorials, and, most importantly, community.
If you want to connect with someone, we’ve got so many wonderful Stampin’ Up! independent demonstrators who would love to include you in their next craft night. Connect with someone today.