People constantly tell me that “burn out” will happen to you many times during your life, especially in college. It doesn’t exactly give me hope to hear that. The thing that usually accompanies that statement is the statement that the only way to avoid burnout is to do things you enjoy. Now, I don’t know if it kept me from burning out, but a group of my friends and I have started a weekly craft night.
Craft Night is just what it sounds like: three girls sitting in a dorm room using craft supplies they’ve scrounged up to create random ideas that have popped into their heads. The only things that we have for crafts is paper, coloring supplies, and a hot glue gun, so we’ve had to get creative. We’ve borrowed a whole bucket of paint from the front desk (it was neon yellow and shaped like a monster) and we’re probably the only non-education majors that use the paper cutters in the library, but we’ve all had a lot of fun doing it.
It started off mostly as a joke. I had suggested that we make witch hats for tiny things in our room. We made over thirty hats for random objects ranging from a tiny dragon figurine to Leonardo Decaprio on a Once Upon a Time in Hollywood poster. We did the same thing with Santa hats this past week, and at one point we even made paper gnomes.
This all sounds pretty trivial, and that none of this should be remotely enjoyable, but crafting has always been a source of relaxation for me. Growing up I was always making or building something whether it be from Legos or craft supplies. It was a way to occupy my brain without overwhelming it much like school does after nine consecutive months.
College has only been going on for only fifteen weeks, but as quick as they go, they are some of the hardest weeks of your life. At the end of those weeks it is nice to have something to look forward to. My friends and I countdown the days until Craft Night is upon us when we can go hog wild on crafts, impromptu cheesy bread, and reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Not everyone understands craft night. For us, it’s a creative outlet to end the monotonous, exhausting work week, and helps heal some of the inevitable burn out people talk about. Maybe you should create your own “craft night”.