{"id":3552,"date":"2021-03-18T08:58:55","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T08:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/host-students.com\/uncategorized\/creative-crafts-recycle-old-items-to-make-macrame-pieces\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T12:22:57","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T12:22:57","slug":"creative-crafts-recycle-old-items-to-make-macrame-pieces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/host-students.com\/information\/new-students\/creative-crafts-recycle-old-items-to-make-macrame-pieces\/","title":{"rendered":"Creative crafts: recycle old items to make Macrame pieces"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Blog by Lisa\u00a0\u2013 Masters Student & Customer Service Advisor at Central Quay<\/a>, Sheffield.\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n

\u201cFor the past 12 months everything seems like it has been placed in suspended animation. For students, our mental health has taken a drastic blow and the rhetoric of thriving through these \u201cuncertain times\u201d has been replaced by affirmations of \u201csurvival\u201d and \u201ccoping\u201d. It is no wonder that certain things had to take the back bench to prevent burn-out; we can\u2019t do it all right? Big picture recycling projects and zero waste shopping all of a sudden became very overwhelming.<\/p>\n

Turning to crafts to cope<\/strong><\/h3>\n

At the start of the first national lockdown with all of its doom- scrolling and gloom, I noticed that the extra time people now had was being filled with creative projects. As well as knocking up a couple of batches of banana breads, people were starting to make; and it was amazing to see.<\/p>\n

Art supplies were flying from the virtual shelves. Hobbycraft announced a 200% increase in sales since the pandemic hit and some stores boasted that wool was back in popular demand after a revival in knitting, especially from the younger generations.<\/p>\n

What was so refreshing was to see how this was positively affecting my peers. Instead of the constant dread of seeing perpetual pandemic propaganda on my social media, I now got to witness the projects that gave my friends so much joy. And it didn\u2019t stop. So many of my friends are still creating and, due to lack of funds among so many other joys COVID-19 has inflicted, they are doing so on a budget or using supplies they already had.<\/p>\n

Giving Macrame a go <\/strong><\/h3>\n

My friend Amy, a student from North Yorks, introduced me to Macrame; a crafting technique that uses knots to create various textiles. She had some cord left over from a previous project and wasn\u2019t sure how to put it to good use. However, she had seen that Macrame plant hangers were popular to make and wanted to give it a go. After seeing her success, I wanted to try it out too. So, she sent me a YouTube video so I could get started with the basics.<\/p>\n