[Christina]

I already enjoy coloring books, and have thought of getting into cross-stitch. Art is expensive!

[Francesca]

Put it out in the world–your family, neighbors, work colleagues, social network, faith community, etc that you looking to try a new hobby…there are folks sitting on stashes of supplies that may be happy to share their hoard with you for free…they may want their treasures to go to a good home rather than just donating. Wanna try embroidery?

Ask around for a kit. Card making? Ask around, maybe ask the crafter to show you the basics…no need to go buy a bunch of stuff!

[Martha]

Drawing, walking, reading.

[Kelly]

I’ve been a dancer, all my life. It is a great hobby. Anyone can dance. Just look at little children and how they naturally dance. I’m always dancing, when I’m cooking, cleaning, even when I’m driving! You might try a cheap gym that has a Zumba class to start out with.

A lot of people offer free outdoor dance/ Zumba classes.

[Laurel]

Cross stitch is tedious and expensive. Embroidery is a lot less tedious, but as expensive. If you have strong hands and want to sell your work, you could get into sewing embroidered shoes(google etsy, then embroidered shoes).

If you are looking just for pleasure, look into line embroidery in a single color as quilt squares. It would cost little to embroider something like the snowman below, but would give practice. The cat tattoos would be more difficult, but are gorgeous.

Take it one step further, and put them in a quilt, then hand quilt it(hand quilting is my zen).

It would take you years to finish an entire quilt, but not be hugely expensive. If you would wear embellished clothes, the pockets below would take a boring shirt or pair of jeans, and make them extraordinary.

[Melissa]

Some things I enjoy.

The outdoors; bird watching, hiking/walking, planting and tending flower, herb and vegetable gardens, I love getting on the mower and mowing the back acres. I volunteer with an outdoor food outreach, target shooting, camping/car travel.

Indoors, reading, playing games on my phone, writing actual letters to family and friends, preparing and organizing an emergency pantry, learning survival skills, dehydrating foods and making hiking/camping meals. I do lots of volunteering. I have a FB page for one of the pantries I manage. I post money saving meals and pantry meals; I love looking at what people have and suggesting meals with it. I also love posting challenges like eating on $15. a week…

I am not a crafty person.

[Susan]

Walking, library, are you a Sr. Does your town have a Sr center? Can you volunteer at the library, a food bank, or somewhere you would enjoy? Puzzles?

[Melissa]

Go to thrift shops and start collecting cross stitch supplies. I’ve got heaps all around $2 for kits. $10 for a big box of floss.

[Carrie]

Real quilts using scraps and old clothing. The quilts where people buy new and matching material sections are nice and all, but it’s not why quilts came into be and goes against the original nature of quilting. Quilts began because people wasted nothing.

They used scraps too small to make clothing or clothing too small or trn to patch or re-purpose.

There’s a real art to quilting especially when done as originally designed.

[Diana]

In Portugal, yarn for crochet/knitting is way too expensive. But for cross stitch, it’s a lot more manageable, especially as a beginner. A yard of cross stitch fabric is like 15€ and with like 10€ more you can get a needle and like 3/4 colours, depending on where you buy.

I’ve seen that in the USA you can find the skeins below 1 dollar. I do big projects with big colours so I order my threads from AliExpress. You can get like 200 for 25€.

And they’re just as good. All you need in the beginning is really like maybe 6 colours, a needle and fabric. If you want to ask anything related to cross stitching, I’m not an expert, but I’m happy to talk about it, you can message me.

[Mois]

Cross stitch is a great hobby. You can pick up kits on eBay cheaply to get a feel for it. I’ve stitched for most of my life and now just do very big full coverage pieces that take a couple of years, yes I spend a reasonable amount on it but it’s my main hobby

[Tonya]

I have seen ladies taking empty metal cans that soup and veggies come in and make crafts out of them. They are making hanging flower baskets, centerpieces, flower pots and more. Check pinterest. Lots of great ideas.

[Celia]

I saw a TikTok where someone was talking about junk journaling.

As a kid this is how I journaled. I would tape or glue things in my journal. Mostly things I had from the day, a movie ticket, a gum wrapper from a boy who I thought was cute. Notes from friends, little drawings. I used to make collages out of junk mail and wrapping paper, I had put some of those in the journal as well. And fern prints. We had lots of ferns.

A leaf from the trees in my yard. Sometimes I’d make animals out of the leaves, or a person. A stone, or moss, or liken from a hike, a shell from the beach.

Anyway as a kid it was cheap, because I used what was available.

Look up junk journals. It looks very creative and personal.

Also I love the craft section at thrift stores, or yard sales.

I have a friend who uses old clothes to up cycle into anything she can think of. She used bright fabric from clothing to reupholster some old funky dining room chairs. 

[Author]

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