My mom is artsy, and I grew up taking different art classes, going to museums on craft days, and painting ceramics at Creatively Yours at Crossroads Mall every year. We even had a room in our house called “the art room,” where you could find fun scissors, scrapbook paper, tissue paper, stickers, jewelry-making supplies, pastels, crayons, colored pencils, mod podge, watercolors, acrylic paints, ribbon, hot glue guns…pretty much a mini-Michael’s store. I took art classes as electives in middle and high school and was always making something outside of school as well. Puffy painted t-shirts for all my middle school friends. Friendship bracelets with embroidery floss for my soccer teammates.
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I got into photography when I was 16, and that became my main creative medium for the next decade of my life. I still love it, but I have found myself doing a lot less shoots lately in my upper twenties. I don’t know if it’s because I’m jaded by the Instagram algorithm or just too tired from generating shareholder value for corporate America 40+ hours a week. Probably a mix of both.
I’ve done a few photo shoots this year, but I’ve realized I’ve missed working with my hands and making physical art. While I don’t have room in my LA apartment for a whole craft store, I realize this year I’ve done more crafts than I have in a long time!
- My friends and I made charm bracelets and necklaces at CharmedLA in West Hollywood. This was so cute and fun for a girls’ day! You pick the type of chain and length you want (tbh a difficult decision), then you can select your charms (in LA they were $3-$7 apiece), and then sit down at a table and use the pliers to connect your charms to the chain. There are several charm bars that have opened in the LA and NY areas now!
- I hosted a bouquet brunch where my friends each brought a bouquet of flowers and we mixed and matched to create bouquets of flowers.
- My friend hosted a crafty breakfast housewarming party, and I made a perler bead heart. Haven’t done one of these in years! Note to self, you don’t need to iron the back for that long!
- My friend and fellow photographer, Lilly, and her mom are very artistic and put on a little art class for us in her house in Laguna Beach! We painted flowers and vases with watercolor and pastels, and then cut them out and put them in little frames.
- I made posters for my friends who ran marathons this year.
- It took us all year to finally schedule, but my friends and I took a quick 60-minute intro to pottery class at Artime Barro in Santa Monica. We spent half the time shaping a little ball of clay into little bowls and half the time using the pottery wheel to make bowls or mugs, with a lot of assistance from the instructor. It happened to be a rainy day in LA, and we had a blast! I’d definitely recommend! Check Groupon for classes like this near you.
My main new hobby from 2025 is embroidery. When I first moved into my apartment, I was decorating my bathroom and purchased this 6-inch embroidery sampler from Etsy that says “Please don’t do coke in the bathroom,” (a saying that I learned started in a bar in Washington DC), which cost $34 with shipping and taxes. In the same vein of how I started photography, I said “I could totally do that myself.” But I couldn’t at the time, and it’s a great conversation piece, so I still bought it. Three years later, and now I can indeed confirm that I can make that myself!
There’s this art studio that I’ve driven past a hundred times on the way to Costco in Marina Del Rey, called These Hands Makers Collective. It offers all sorts of art classes from perfume making to watercolor to mixed media collages. I signed up for an embroidery class in February. It cost $70 and it was a 3.5 hour workshop midday on a Saturday. I went alone and joined a half dozen older women (literal grandmas) at a long table. A few other gals around my own age showed up, and it was such a wholesome communal experience, 10/10 would recommend. One woman needed to add money to her parking meter but didn’t have any more quarters, and this other girl immediately offered up her credit card.
The class was taught by Melissa Galbraith, who is actually from WA, and she was an excellent instructor! We learned all the embroidery basics: how to put fabric in the hoop, how to separate embroidery floss threads, how to tie off our thread, how to use thread conditioner, and 4 fundamental stitches (stem stitch, French knots, lazy daisy, and leaf stitch). We didn’t have time to finish our sampler in the class, but she also provided printed instructions for all the stitches, as well as how to use the water-soluble pattern and finish off the embroidery sampler in the hoop. This in-person workshop was invaluable and I am so glad I took it! I finished the class sampler a few weeks later.
From there, I purchased this kit of 3 samplers from Amazon that had 3 samplers for learning more stitches. I watched a lot of YouTube Shorts videos, which I think are more helpful than the photos and written descriptions. It took me several months to complete them, but once I did, I decided I was ready to start making my own designs and creating samplers for my friends.
Sadly, Joann Fabrics just went out of business, so I first purchased fabric from Fabric Planet in Venice Beach. This place was very chaotic, with bolts of all kinds of fabric everywhere. I got some really pretty purple, blue, and red linen; however, it was very expensive. I also went to Sewing Arts in Sawtelle, which was super organized. However, they are only open for very limited hours and they didn’t really have any colored linen options, but I did find some very affordable uncolored linen/cotton blend. I’ve also purchased a pack of pre-cut fabric squares from Amazon.
DMC is known for having the highest quality embroidery floss. Thankfully, I already had a ton of embroidery floss (some DMC, but mostly not) from when I used to be really into making friendship bracelets, so I only bought a pack of gold and silver thread. I also got a pin cushion while I was in Europe. Other materials I purchased to get me started:
- craft tackle box to hold all my floss
- sewing scissors
- beeswax thread conditioner to make it easier to keep all strands of thread together
- clip-on reading light because you need bright light for embroidery and my roommate hates turning on the overhead lights
- a pack of 6-inch embroidery hoops
- pack of water-soluble fabric markers
- needles with large eyes for when I use all 6 strands
- felt sheets from Michael’s for the back of the sampler
- +2.5 strength reading glasses from Dollar Tree because I was straining my eyes
Social media has been very helpful for making my own embroidery. I joined a few embroidery Facebook groups (how millennial of me) like this one with over 400K members from around the world. None of my friends are into embroidery (yet), so it’s helpful to read through people’s questions and the hundreds of comments to see how other people do their embroidery work and what creative solutions they’ve found. For example, I learned there are a lot of different ways to finish the back of the embroidery so it looks clean and all the threads don’t show.
While DMC has 1,000 free patterns on its website, I quickly started drawing my own to make personalized samplers for friends and family. I browse posters and designs on Pinterest for inspiration for many of my designs that I free-hand draw directly on the fabric with a water-soluble marker (since I don’t own a printer that could print out a pattern on). As you can see from the photos below, sometimes I end up changing my mind as I stitch. Once I’ve finished embroidering, I rinse the fabric until all the marker dissolves.
The goal is to get through one year of making them for fun before I consider selling them at my neighborhood farmer’s market and/or starting an Etsy shop. I’ve had a lot of fun so far, and I can tell I’m getting better with each sampler I make!
