The world is a different place at the moment and many people are spending a lot more time at home than they ever have before. If you are an active, busy person, this can be a frustrating time where you might not be able to involve yourself in the activities you enjoyed pre-pandemic.
But all is not lost, for most people, they just need to find another interest they can engage themselves in and you never know, you might find something that you love and are quite good at too!
Rather than suggest the usual hobbies of painting, reading and music. We’ve put together some interesting practical hobbies that cover a range of price points to keep your hands and brain busy while you are at home.
Model Building
Most people are familiar with the snap-together model kits they may have used as a child but only a few carried this interesting hobby through to adulthood. Model building can be a hugely rewarding hobby that starts with pre-made kits and progresses to complete control once you’ve built up some skills.
Once you understand the fundamentals, you can create anything your mind can dream of, whether you want to create mixed media art to display, build some famous movie scenes in miniature or fancy creating an aluminuim sculpture of your nearest and dearest! Although a quality set of tools is going to be an investment, the parts themselves don’t need to cost the earth and plenty of quality metal and aluminium stockists offer no minimum order with materials cut to the size that’s most beneficial to your needs.
Pyrography (wood-burning)
The art of wood-burning has been growing in popularity over the last few years amongst crafters as the equipment has become much more affordable. Gone are the days you’d need to spend close to $100 to get yourself a quality tool and now you can often find a decent starter kit for below $20 with a few wooden pieces to get you started. The wooden material you use isn’t restricted to what you find outside and there are plenty of suppliers that provide pre-cut and designed wooden pieces for you to decorate and adorn with patterns. If you ever attend craft fairs, you are bound to have seen some interesting pyrography pieces before and it’s a great hobby for creating lovely home gifts for giving on those special occasions.
3D-Printing
You might be wondering if 3D-printing can be considered a hobby and it absolutely can! 3D-printers can be a fantastic addition to a busy household and provide a fascinating opportunity to watching models or practical home fixings be printed. Learn more about digital 3D models and how to create your own custom models and print 3D puzzles to solve, figures for painting and sculpture parts to build. Once you’ve got an understanding of how 3D printers work, the sky really is the limit and your only restriction is your imagination. 3D-printers used to be out of many people’s budgets but the recent developments have made is more accessible than ever before. In particular, Creality is a 3D printer brand that offers excellent kit 3D-printers for less than $200 that produce prints with the same quality as a professional $700+ model.
Origami
A calming hobby that you don’t need a garage or workshop to do safely, just a pad of coloured paper to get you started. Origami is the art of paper folding that is often attributed as a part of Japanese culture and although it can take a little bit of trial and error, is soon a skill you will love to show off! There are plenty of free resources online for finding origami models to attempt from the super simple to the complex and amazing. You can create moving models, palm-sized games and incredible confetti-filled structures that are great for parties.
Hobbies are not only something to keep you busy and engage your brain but they are something you can talk about and share with friends and families. This helps bring people together and introduces others to ideas they have never considered before. So what are you waiting for! Why don’t you start something new today?