Our round-up of craft kits will inspire you to settle into a new project and create something truly original for your home. Whether you’re a knitting novice or a skilled seamstress, a pottery professional or punch needle newcomer, learn a new skill and light a spark in these darker winter months.
1/ Basket Weaving
The trend for baskets isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and where better to learn how to make your own than with La Basketry. Launched in 2017, La Basketry was founded by two sisters, Tabara & Mamy, after meeting artisan weavers in a village outside their parents’ hometown in Senegal. While Mamy has now stepped down from the business, Tabara continues to champion Senegalese craftmanship by working collaboratively to honour this cultural tradition – and now it’s your turn to get inspired. La Basketry’s kits are designed for beginners and contain everything you need to get started. Choose your material between rope, twine or natural grasses, then coordinate your colours, from lavender to sage green. Their Mini Basket Kit is a colourful first step to making your very own Senegalese basket, and includes seagrass, coloured raffia, a video tutorial, a needle and a signed copy of Tabara’s ‘Baskets’ book, which features 16 DIY weaving projects should the weaving bug catch hold.
Mini Basket Kit, £38 – La Basketry
2/ Macrame Hangings
When Posh Totty Designs founder, Alice Rivers Cripps, set off to Mexico with little more than $60, she had no idea she would return to the UK with first-hand experience of working with local Mayan jewellers – an experience that would set in motion the start of Posh Totty Designs. Now, personalised jewellery and accessories is their trademark, but you can also recreate their workshop in your living room with one of their weaving kits. Their macrame pom-pom weaving pack comes in soft pink, navy or green and includes macrame rope, wool, a brass hoop, a cotton tote for storage and instructions to make your very own pom poms.
Macrame Pom Pom Wreath Craft Kit, from £35 – Posh Totty Designs
3/ Macrame Coasters
Macrame has seen a resurgence that’s here to stay and it’s time to embrace it hands-on. If a wall-hanging is less your style, opt for a low-key macrame coaster with My Little Wish, a small family-run business that supports independent artisan producers and traditional craft techniques. Not for the faint fingered, this activity is recommended as a moderately difficult task. Their DIY coaster-making kit includes step-by-step instructions, a video tutorial, macrame yarn, comb and a cotton drawstring bag. Choose from a beautiful selection of yarn shades, such as blush pink, terracotta, peacock blue, cinnamon red and more.
DIY Macrame Coaster Kit, £30 – My Little Wish
4/ Craft your child’s room
Expecting a new addition to the family? Spend the run up to their arrival crafting beautiful objects for the nursery using a DIY set from Mamahoela, a craft kit brand specially for babies and children. Choose from their felt mobile, name garland, soft book or rattle kits, among others. Our favourites are their baby blanket kit, made of organic cotton and soft flannel, designed to be all-season friendly with the look and feel of a pieced quilt-top, without any complicated quilting tools, and the cute punch needle musical toy with wooden ring pull cord.
Baby Blanket DIY Kit, €42.50, Musical toy kit, €44.50 – Mamahoela
5/ Kintsugi
Give your porcelain a new lease of life and save your ceramics from the scrap heap. Enter the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where you learn to fix broken pottery using gold to fill the cracks. The grounding philosophy of this practice is seeing the beauty in the scars of something imperfect and Humade’s Kintsugi Repair Kit, from Holly.co, is a beautiful reminder of celebrating individual character – cracks and all. This Kintsugi kit comes with a guide, bison epoxy fast glue, bison epoxy putty, gold powder, gloves and a mixing stick. All you need is your next smashed plate, mug or plant pot and you’re set to get mending in style.
Kintsugi repair kit, £23.50, Holly.co
6/ Pottery
With the growing trend for house plants showing no signs of abating, neither does our need for pottery. But with a Sculpd Pottery Kit, you’re not just limited to plant pots, you can make just about anything your fingers can pinch, carve and seal, including trinket dishes, vases, candles holders, coasters and wall hangings. You dream it up and Sculpd gives you the tools to bring it to life –no kiln necessary. Each kit contains their air-dry clay, a beginner’s pottery guide, carving tools, tool bag, white acrylic paint, glossary varnish, sealant, paintbrushes and a sponge.
Sculpd Pottery Kit, £39 – Sculpd
7/ Loom Weaving
Keep your hands busy with one of The Squid Ink Co’s loom weaving kits. Each kit comes themed with coloured wool, from autumnal tones to rainbow hues, in little or large sizes. Their mini weaving kits are the perfect starter pack for wannabe weavers, and includes a wooden needle, six balls of wool, a guide book and cotton warp thread. You can buy some of their assorted wool bundles to weave a colourful tapestry of your own making into the mix.
Weaving Loom Kits, from £27 – The Squid Ink Co
8/ Candles
Long, dark nights call for candlelight and there’s no better candle than one homemade. Hazel & Blue provide all the ingredients you need to create two luxury candles, including two amber glasses containers, aluminium lids, natural soy wax, two cotton and linen wicks, wick stabilisers and instructions. Each of their candle-making packs are eco-friendly, vegan and sustainable, with 100% recyclable packaging. The only tricky part is deciding on the scent, choosing from Calm & Cosy (cedarwood and geranium), Revive & Uplift (lemon balm and eucalyptus) or Tea Lovers (Darjeeling and jasmine), among others. Our favourite scent to set the mood is their Relax & Unwind, specially blended with notes of bergamot, amber, lavender and lemon leaf.
Relax & Unwind Soy Candle Making Kit, £28 – Hazel & Blue
9/ Punch Needle
If you’re a newbie to needlework, then punch needle is a fun place to start. Owned by crafter & weaver, Lucy Rowan, Peas & Needles has a selection of must-haves for embroidery beginners, including weaving kits, looms, punch needles and guide books. Their punch needle kit has a hoop to make the needlework easier and comes with a punch needle, punch needle threaders, fabric, yarn snips, yarn needle, how-to guide and a printed canvas bag to store your knitting needles proudly at the sofa-side.
Punch needle kit with hoop, £35 – Peas & Needles
10/ Knitting
If you’ve previously disregarded knitting as a ‘cool’ craft, then you must explore the range of kits offered by We Are Knitters, including this stylish Kilim Blanket. Ideal for beginners, this knitting kit will hold your hand through the steps from wool balls to a beautiful blanket. Each kit includes three different colours of wool of your choosing, wooden knitting needles, a knitter’s sewing needle, an embroidered label and a pattern guide. Take delight in this being a first endeavour behind the knitting needles – and not a lumpy sweater in sight.
The Kilim Blanket, £63.75 (25% off, otherwise £85) – We Are Knitters
