Hobby Goodness

Snip snip go the scissors morning noon and night. Snippedy snipping every chance they get. The tingle buzz of the pleasure of creation, of forming shapes familiar to the eye of imagination. Bringing dreams to life. So goes the joy of hobby once adulthood ascends and every second of life starts to be precious and counted, counted by the snippedy snip.

I write often of mental wellbeing and mental health. I chair a mental health charity and have spent my life battling with own mental health experiences. Creativity, crafting and hobby bring enjoyment and a much needed boost to my wellbeing. Evidence shows creating, crafting, hobby is a critical part of wellbeing for so many people. It has been a bulwark to support mental wellbeing through the last two years of pandemic.

My personal hobby space, apart from writing, is dominated with table top gaming and creating all the elements that go into making a tabletop sing of the tale you are telling. Where as writing is both a profession and a realise, a creative juice fashioning worlds in the mind, hobby crafting is like meditation, a place of pure creative enjoyment. I don’t hobby fast, it like a multi course meal, to be savoured.

Yes there is glue, and paints, and paint brushes, and sculpting tools, and hobby knives, and stone and static grass and cork and felt and cloth. But it is the scissors, large and small, that bring the world together.

Without the snip snip of rubber sheet, of foam sheet, of cork, of paper, of card, none of these historical and fantastical worlds would be brought to life. Scissors bring the soul. Turn individual models and creations into worlds to play within.

The soul of family, that’s the tale I’ll tell today. How hobby brings family together. My daughter loves to craft. She will join in the making of things, proficiently wielding scissors with as great a skill as me despite her early years. My sons will join with the planning of building a world, contributing ideas, talking about the next evolution as we build. Then we will all come together as we put all the component pieces into place, so lovingly crafted. Together we give shape to the world we envisaged, each fitting our most treasured parts into the whole to create something anew. The result is always glorious, a wondrous retelling of the fable we each started. Brought into being as a combination of all our dreams.

Snip snip snip as hobby time with all its joy is poured to create our worlds and feed our souls. I find joy and restful calm in every step. Even when snipping steel coated rubber sheets to glue onto the bases of storage boxes. To these to fix magnets. Snippedy snip snip to cut steel coated rubber sheet to size to glue onto the bases of houses made of card, of fences made of foam, of hills cut from cork, of model figures painted. And with much aplom these pieces are stored safely, held fast by tiny magnets.

Grass fields need to be cut to size, in felt or card, river beds, lakes and cliff faces for fantastical waterfalls to crash over, the crescendo alive in your mind even though the model itself stands silent. So the soul is created. The snip snip snip invested for hobby joy, for wellbeing enhanced and for family bonds to engage and strengthen.

The only limit to your adventure is your imagination. Let it roam free and give your creativity the reigns to forage far and wide. Try new ideas, new projects all the time. Grow your skill and feed your mind and soul. Hobby is the perfect tonic, an essential not a nice to have, to grow and sustain in life.

Hobby on my friends. Hobby on.