By Rogene Teodoro
Starting a new hobby can be intimidating—especially in the face of first-time expenses. It can be an investment into developing a skill for personal or even professional use.
Still, the cost of materials, services and subscriptions can inevitably add up, making it easy to go over budget. Most of the time, higher-quality items from specialty craft stores are ideal for achieving a final product. But if you’re just getting started, it might be better to use affordable alternatives until you are certain you have found a hobby to pursue. Here are some affordable ways you can try a new creative hobby.
Craft Kits
Discount stores like Dollarama offer a range of craft and drawing materials for affordable prices. Sketchbooks, pencil sets, sewing materials, clay, and others from the craft section are available for prices ranging from $1.25 to just under six dollars.
Craft kits focusing on visual arts contain an array of materials and the instruction manual needed to create a project. They can be found online at local stationery shops or craft stores like Michaels. For anyone just starting out, Klutz is a good brand since many of their kits come with just about everything needed to create your projects. These boxes, filled with drawing utensils and moldable crafting materials, might just bring out your crafty side: with pastimes like working with clay, sewing and sticker making. The prices range between $12 to $28 on Indigo’s website.
Audio and Video
Editing software services like Adobe require expensive subscriptions to be used at their full potential. While you can stick with the free option, it can feel restricting when certain effects, filters and export options are locked behind a paywall.
Premiere Rush is beginner-friendly editing software with a handful of basic tools. You can adjust the frames, crop videos, add transitions and more with either a few taps or sliders moved. You can also split the audio from a video and edit them separately. However, be careful when splitting and editing clips or audio because deleting a video clip can also discard the audio. Thus, it’s best to attach the audio to another part of the video before deleting the segment.
InShot is another useful app that is also available for iOS. This application notably allows you to reverse a video and use a green screen and a system for adding text to your video. You can pay for a monthly ($4.99) or yearly ($22.99) subscription, but if you plan to use it long-term, the app has an option to make a one-time payment ($49.99). Once that fee is paid, you have unlimited access to InShot features without a subscription.
For anyone seeking a free resource, look to DaVinci Resolve! While a subscription offers 4K quality for exporting videos, the free version offers the same editing controls, colour grading, special effects and audio editing capabilities as the previously mentioned apps.
Journaling and Scrapbooking
Some dollar stores sell decorative tape, stickers and paper. However, it can be hard to find something that fits your personal style— especially if you’re aiming for a specific aesthetic. Craft stores like Michaels and Paper Plus Cloth have a wide variety of themes and materials. Ink pens for calligraphy wax seals and origami paper are among their catelogue. You can even look towards local businesses and markets for their selections.
If you prefer a sentimental approach to journaling, you can collect a plethora of items while you are on the go. Receipts, used tickets, tags and packaging are popular items that can be recycled into journaling materials instead of being discarded. You can paste them into your journal and write about the experiences you had with that particular item.
Printing images is another fun, cost-effective way to customize your scrapbooks. You can find any image that piques your interest online and print it out either at home, at any printing store or local library. You can take it a step further and print photographs. Big box stores like Walmart will give you options for formatting the photos printed. Mini-prints are recommended since you can fit up to four photographs on a sheet, and they might be easier to arrange in a collage.
Community Workshops
There are many beginner-friendly workshops for aspiring artists to partake in right around the corner. TMU offers a variety of workshops free fo cost for students to push their creativity with—the best part is that they are usually free and accessible.
The Digital Media Experience Lab is a program at Toronto Metropolitan University students with a passion for creativity. They have staff willing to train students and alumni so they know how to utilize technologies such as working a 3D printer or threading a sewing machine.
Libraries, community centres and campus events are places in your local neighbourhoods to consider as well. For more details, scroll through social media explore pages, corkboards with flyers or on the City of Toronto’s website.
Creative hobbies do not have to break the bank as long as you are resourceful and do your research. A small budget should not prevent your self-expression; it is up to you to decide what to do to show it.
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