Crafting is one of those things I used to say I’d love to do, but never got around to. It just felt overwhelming: where was I supposed to start? There were so many options, and I felt like I had to be perfect right at the beginning. I wanted to be one of those aesthetic Instagram craft girlies, with fairy lights and a new project every week. Somehow, that still turned into doing absolutely nothing. Getting started is the hardest part, as they say.
Now, I do actually have a new craft project every week – or close to it, anyways. So what changed? I didn’t magically get more time than I used to have or suddenly become a crafting genius. Instead, I changed my mindset about crafting. I started taking it less seriously.
Let me explain. At the beginning of 2026, I made a punch card with a goal of crafting 10 projects throughout the year. I didn’t say what they had to be: that would be up to me. I counted the punch card itself as my first craft. Then, I started looking for ways I could punch the rest out. Instead of striving to be a perfect crafter, I wanted to find a way to do 10 craft projects.
This is a subtle but important change. A lot of us want to embody an identity: we want to be someone who crafts, someone smart, someone pretty. We have an idea of who we want to be perceived as, rather than what we want to do. Being a “crafter” is different from doing a craft. One is an Instagram aesthetic; the other is cutting up paper and gluing it together.
The other thing I did was start thinking about crafting like I was an elementary schooler. What sounds fun? What looks cool? I think a lot of us get stressed that we’re not “doing it right,” but there’s not a right way to do it. It’s an activity, not a graded assignment. You should have fun with it. If you’re stressed about it, take a step back.Â
One good piece of advice for getting started is to make a bad project on purpose. Go crazy. Pick a medium, and do your worst. I’m serious – I don’t want it to look good, I want it to be fun. Throw things together, use the wrong techniques, make it clash. When you’re done, see how you feel. You might notice that you feel a little lighter. That makes sense. After all, we don’t have a lot of space to do things badly in college: everything demands your best at all times. When you do a craft badly on purpose, you remind your nervous system that it’s okay to do something badly: nothing is going to happen to you. The world keeps turning.
If you don’t know where to start at all, and you don’t want to spend money on the materials, take advantage of the Union Arts Center. If you’re a UNT student, the UAC has daily crafts in the Union, and almost all of them are completely free to drop-in to. Try things you haven’t done before, and make something that would make 8-year-old you proud.
If you do have an idea of what you want to do, but you don’t want to spend a ton of money on craft supplies, try going to Thistle Creative Reuse. Thistle is a secondhand craft store close to UNT. They have lots of crafting materials for cheap, and lots of people you can ask questions to if you’re new to a craft. If you don’t live in Denton, do some research and see if there are any secondhand craft stores in your area.
Want to get more into crafting? Make a Pinterest board! See what other people are doing and get inspiration from them. There are all sorts of easy crafts that you can learn to do from a tutorial on YouTube, too. Instead of making social media a stressor, use it as a tool. You can even go to a store and buy a kit if you’re interested in a new type of craft but don’t want to fully commit.
Crafting can seem stressful, but it doesn’t have to be. Give yourself room to be a beginner, and do a craft project because it sounds fun. This is your life: you don’t owe perfection to anyone.