Mail-Order Creativity
Exploring our creative sides with monthly arts and crafts subscriptions
A few weeks into the stay-at-home order, I realized I was going to need other forms of entertainment beyond TV and reading. Like many people, we now have regular virtual dinner parties, game nights and happy hours. But I was itching for something creative to do as well, so I looked into monthly arts & crafts subscription kits.
There are dozens of them out there, but two stood out for me: Smart Art Box and Adults and Crafts. I signed up for three months of monthly kits from each. My thinking was that the Smart Art box would expose me to more traditional art techniques and materials, while the craft box just looked straight-up fun.
My first Smart Art box arrived quickly, and to be honest it wasn’t my jam — it was focused on hand-lettering, which it turns out I’m not great at (and I’m not highly motivated to invest the time to become great). But that’s okay, I tried something new.
But the second box, which arrived last week containing everything we needed to try marbling, turned out to be a blast. If you’re not familiar with it, marbling is an art technique that creates swirled, marble-like patterns on paper or objects. The patterns are formed by first floating the paint on the surface of a liquid, and then you transfer the color to a sheet of paper or a 3D object by laying it on the surface or dipping it into the water.
Because the paints are toxic, you have to use containers that are disposable or that you don’t plan to ever serve food in. We had some Styrofoam containers left over from takeout over the weekend, so we used those. The process was pretty easy, but I’m glad we read the instructions and tips & tricks beforehand, because the paint sets fast, so you have to move quickly to get the paint on the water, swirl it with a stick to create cool patterns, then dip your paper or object in before it becomes too goopy.
It was fun seeing our creations come out of the water, and seeing the different color combinations that I’m drawn to vs. what Dave conjures up (I’ll leave it to you to guess which belongs to each of us). After trying the traditional paper and plastic “paper” sheets, we got bold and tried dipping small mason jars — I can’t say they turned out great, but I have some ideas about how we could evolve our technique in the future by using a deeper water vessel.
I’m really glad I signed up for these kits; it’s a nice motivator to do something other than just turn on the TV at night. Next up, I’ll be trying out my first Adults and Crafts kit, which recently arrived with materials to transfer laser-printed images (photos, sayings, etc.) onto canvases, wood boxes or other objects. Looking forward to it!
