I’ve tried sooooo many things to calm my mind when anxiety strikes. And because I have ADHD I tend to swap techniques more often than I’d care to admit.
Today I’ll walk you through my top crafts and how well they lowered my anxiety on a scale of one to five (five being the best of the best). They will be judged by how well they calmed me down, portability, cost, and ease of learning. Portability is judged on whether I can fit what I need in a standard Loungefly bag.
I’ll make sure to let you know what kits I’ve used for each one and how well they held up against others of the same type. Let’s get started.
Calming: 4 out of 5
Cost: 3 out of 5
Portability: 5 out of 5
Ease of Learning: 3 out of 5
Crochet is a crafting method that uses a single hook to weave loops of yarn or thread into fabric.
I’ve only done crochet successfully with The Woobles kit. I’ve tried other kits and they were not easy to pick up and go. Once I finish learning the basics with The Woobles, other kits might prove to be easier.
The Woobles provides you with everything you need to complete a project, including the proper needles. The kits themselves are well made and come with quality materials, perfect for beginners. They can be considered a bit pricy ($29.99 per kit at JoAnn), so once you’ve learned the basics, you can find cheaper kits.
For calming, this gets a four out of five because I haven’t finished a project yet due to the time it takes for me to complete one. I like to feel good about projects and that only happens if I’m able to complete them. It also didn’t feel like an easy enough craft to pick up when anxiety hit and then put down when you were calmed down, especially if you are just learning. Once you get the hang of it, it’s probably the most portable of the crafts on this list.
Calming: 3 out of 5
Cost: 5 out of 5
Portability: 5 out of 5
Ease of Learning: 1 out of 5
I’ve done a little bit of cross stitch in the past and it has helped. I like that if I screw up, it’s as simple as pulling out a stitch and doing it again. I couldn’t remember why I put down cross stitch so I gave it another try for the sake of this post.
You can get kits as small as a necklace or bookmark and as big as a tapestry. I prefer the small kits because I see the fruits of my labor quickly. The kit I tried is from Innovative Designs and had the Disney characters, Stitch and Angel as the projects.
Stitch and Angel came in a resealable bag with everything I needed to complete two projects. It cost me $3.99, which is average for this size kit. The kit was “stamped” meaning the design was printed on the cloth, which makes it easier to start and follow.
After attempting the Stitch pattern, I realized why I quit cross stitch. It takes a lot of work to see any of the effort pay off and there are multiple types of stitches in cross stitch that you need to learn to properly get started. This is not a “grab and go” craft. I’d say I had a harder time with this than crochet on a bad day.
Calming: 5 out of 5
Cost: 5 out of 5
Portability: 4 out of 5
Ease of Learning: 5 out of 5
I was introduced to punch needling by TikTok (another, TikTok made me buy it thing). With punch needlework, you are punching the fabric and then pulling out just enough for a loop to form in the back, then stabbing the fabric again and again to create the design. If you mess up, its easy to pull out the last loop and go again.
It was very meditative but didn’t take all my focus to the point that I couldn’t talk and create at the same time.
The kits I used were the Mondo Llama kit from Target and the Creatology kits from Micheals. They both were cute, came with everything I needed, and were reasonably priced at $6 – $10 per kit.
Stay away from the cheaper kits at JoAnn ($10 price range). They proved to be the worst of the kits I tried for this post.
Of the three kits, I prefer the Mondo Llama kit. It’s the best in pricing for what you get and the punch needle tool is the best of the kits I’ve bought so far.
For portability, this gets a four because you have to leave your punch tool in the fabric if you want to stop and pick it up later. That can be a pain if you want to toss it in your bag.
Calming: 3 out of 5
Cost: 3 out of 5
Portability: 2 out of 5
Ease of Learning: 5 out of 5
I’ve talked about art journaling here before (as well as bullet journaling). It’s a great hobby for mindfulness and it works well for helping me during the day. It’s not great for an instant calm down. Long short of it is you get a sketchbook or journal of sorts and make art in it. You can use paints, junk mail, magazines, or whatever your heart calls for.
This is not a very portable method. You can take your art supplies with you, but compared to punch needle kits or even watercolors, this is not as easy to grab and go.
Calming: 4 out of 5
Cost: 4 out of 5
Portability: 4 out of 5
Ease of Learning: 4 out of 5
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve noticed that friendship bracelets have made a comeback. This is all thanks to one line in the Taylor Swift song, “You’re On Your Own Kid” where she declares, “So make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it.” Now, you can’t walk into any store without seeing a friendship bracelet kit being sold.
There is no real “good kit” that I’ve found for friendship bracelets because of the variety of bracelet types out there. I have worked with seed beads, pony beads, and fashion beads.
My favorite to work with has been the pony beads. They were the easiest to create with. I had a goal to make 50 bracelets to hand out to random people and my speed was around 10 bracelets per 30 minutes. If I wasn’t doing a design and instead just focusing on putting beads on elastic, it was meditative.
Making bracelets anytime I get anxious leaves me with a lot of bracelets. To get rid of them, I hand out the bracelets to kids and fellow Swifties and it gives me a dopamine kick every time.
When it comes to price, Hobby Lobby has the best prices and selection of beads. Michaels has colors in their Creatology line that the other stores don’t have. JoAnn comes in last with the least variety of the three (my store at least).
Calming: 3 out of 5
Cost: 3 out of 5
Portability: 0 out of 5
Ease of Learning: 5 out of 5
This was fun but I wouldn’t call it calming and because of that, I’m giving it a three. It’s a lot like cooking in that you have to pay attention to what you’re doing or you screw it up. Portability-wise, this is the least portable of the options on the list. Cost-wise, it isn’t too bad, but it can be expensive because of everything you need.
It doesn’t take up a lot of space at home (a medium-sized shoe container will hold everything you need) and I like it because it’s the most useable craft I’ve done. You can customize it to your liking and then when you’re done, you can use it for something. Eventually, your supplies run out and the soap you made is used up, so no storage or space worries with each batch you make.
As far as kits go, there are some for kids that you can pick up, but I went the “al a carte” method and bought what I needed individually. If you plan it right, you can use JoAnn and Micheals to get what you need pretty inexpensively.
Calming: 4 out of 5
Cost: 5 out of 5
Portability: 5 out of 5
Ease of Learning: 5 out of 5
Watercolors is my second favorite on this list. I learned a few ways to use watercolors for calming. My favorite is where you pick a color and paint a line until the color runs out, then you grab another color and continue the line (squiggle, or whatever you want to do). You can also do this with shapes. I found this method to be the most calming.
Watercolors are the most forgiving medium in the art world and are great for beginners. You can also get self-contained portable watercolor kits, complete with brushes that hold water (water brushes) for travel. I’ve taken my Arteza mini-pallets and my bullet journal with me to the bookstore cafe for some relaxing painting time.
If you don’t feel like you can paint with watercolors, try drawing with water-soluble pencils or markers and then brushing over the design with a wet paintbrush. It’s pretty cool to watch a marker drawing turn into a painting.
Calming: 3 out of 5
Cost: 3 out of 5
Portability: 3 out of 5
Ease of Learning: 5 out of 5
Diamond art as become popular over the years. Kits range from small standees to wall sized creations. It’s one of the easiest things on this list and every kit that I’ve found is self-contained.
I’ve tried the Make Market kits and the Disney individual character kits by the Craft Buddy Shop. Both have their charms. The Disney kits are perfect for taking places because they fit in a ziplock bag. The larger kits, are not as easy to transport, but can be done easier art journaling.
The Make Market kits at Michaels will run you $10 and up. The Craft Buddy Shop kits will cost you around $10 for a single standee character.
Calming: 2 out of 5
Cost: 3 out of 5
Portability: 2 out of 5
Ease of Learning: 4 out of 5
Last but not least, air-dry clay. This took me back to my art class days in high school. If you use a coupon at JoAnn, you can get a bucket of air dry clay for around $10 or less. If you want to just try it out or use the colored variety, Crayola makes some that are easy to use. I’ve used that for quick cosplay parts before and it held up well.
This isn’t something that you can realistically take with you places. However, if you wanted to take it to someone’s house you could with the smaller packs.
I can’t say that this was all that calming. It was more frustrating because I’m a perfectionist and my stuff never came out like the ones I’d see online. Air-dry clay gets points that it’s easy to learn. All you have to do is break open the pouch and make a shape and you’re good to go. Drying time can take some patience (48 hours to fully dry).
To call some of these “crafts” might be a stretch of the imagination. A couple are more machines to use to make crafts than crafts themselves. I feel they still deserve a mention though.
Calming: 3 out of 5
Cost: 5 out of 5
Portability: 3 out of 5
Ease of Learning: 5 out of 5
Sticker by Number Books are great for those who want a self-contained calming activity. You can do the pages by themselves for fun or tear them out and frame them. Portability is a three out of five because most of the ones I’ve found have been rather large.
They get high marks for being inexpensive and not requiring any other materials than the book itself. I generally find them in the Book Anex section of my local Barnes and Noble.
Calming: 3 out of 5
Cost: 3 out of 5
Portability: 0 out of 5
Ease of Learning: 3 out of 5
Glowforge is my favorite tool in my arsenal of crafting tools. With that said, it’s more of a tool for crafting than a craft itself. You can make hundreds of hundreds of things with it that make it great for anxiety.
The thing I like most about Glowforge is the ability to make things in batches. I’ve cut 10 ornaments at a time on it. The calming part of the Glowforge comes after the cutting when you assemble the project. For Christmas, I made everyone ornaments and keychains and it was meditative assembling them while listening to Christmas music.
This is not a portable machine and the start-up cost is not cheap. However, once you get over the initial cost, the doors open wide to a plethora of creative options.
Calming: 1 out of 5
Cost: 3 out of 5
Portability: 0 out of 5
Ease of Learning: -1 out of 5
3D printing can be a lot of fun…if you have a printer that doesn’t require maintenance and dialing in for it to work. I’d love to hear about a printer out there right now that fits that bill (call me).
I mention 3D printing on this list only because, like the Glowforge, it can be meditative in the end after you’ve gotten over the anxiety of “will it print right.” There’s always that chance the print could fail, which makes it more of an anxiety inducer than calmer for me.
You can make some great fidgets for anxiety with a 3D printer, but the activity itself is not great in my opinion.
Calming: 3 out of 5
Cost: 3 out of 5
Portability: 3 out of 5
Ease of Learning: 3 out of 5
Finally, we get to Cricut. Cricut is, like the Glowforge and 3D printing, a tool more than a craft itself. You can do a lot of different things with a Cricut and it’s the most portable machine of the honorary mentions. If you get the Joy or Joy Xtra, you can grab a small case and take it anywhere with power. I’ve seen people take these on vacations to make gifts in their hotel rooms.
The crafts I’ve made with the Cricut have given me a sense of accomplishment. They also are meditative in the way that you need to pay attention to what you’re doing or, like soap making, you will mess something up.
You can make anything from stickers to coasters to t-shirts with a Cricut. The variety is nice for those who may want to mix it up every time they have an anxiety episode. If you make a list of things you want to make before you have any anxiety then when the panic hits, you can grab from the list and go. Otherwise, this might give you more anxiety trying to figure out what to make in the moment of an attack.
There are even more crafts out there that I haven’t tried. This just barely scratches the surface of the options available. Punch needle kits so far reign supreme for me in terms of calming, portability, ease of learning, and cost. Crochet comes in second, especially if we are talking about The Woobles kits.
Click through to read all of “Crafting Through Anxiety – The Battle of the Crafts” at GeekDad.If you value content from GeekDad, please support us via Patreon or use this link to shop at Amazon. Thanks!
Like many others, I jumped directly into my Apple Music Replay this year filled with…
It's time to stuff the stockings that were hung with care with our must-have stocking…
It's time to get styling and stocking up on everyday necessities that we think you…
Every geek loves a new gadget. Here’s a selection from the GeekDad and GeekMom writers,…
If you enjoy 3D printing with filament and are interested in something new, resin printing…
After spending some time with xTool's M1 Ultra, the other tools in my maker arsenal…