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Arts and crafts comprise a whole host of activities and hobbies that are related to making things with one's own hands and skill. These can be sub-divided into handicraft
Handicraft

Handicraft, also known as craftwork or simply craft, is a type of work where useful and decorative devices are made completely by hand or using only simple tools....
s or "traditional crafts" (doing things the old way) and "the rest". Some crafts have been practised for centuries, while others are modern inventions, or popularisations of crafts which were originally practised in a very small geographic area.

Most crafts require a combination of skill, speed, and patience, but they can also be learnt on a more basic level by virtually anyone.






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Arts and crafts comprise a whole host of activities and hobbies that are related to making things with one's own hands and skill. These can be sub-divided into handicraft
Handicraft

Handicraft, also known as craftwork or simply craft, is a type of work where useful and decorative devices are made completely by hand or using only simple tools....
s or "traditional crafts" (doing things the old way) and "the rest". Some crafts have been practised for centuries, while others are modern inventions, or popularisations of crafts which were originally practised in a very small geographic area.

Most crafts require a combination of skill, speed, and patience, but they can also be learnt on a more basic level by virtually anyone. Many community centre
Community centre

Community centres or community centers are public locations where members of a community may gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes....
s and schools run evening or day classes and workshops offering to teach basic craft skills in a short period of time. Many of these crafts become extremely popular for brief periods of time (a few months, or a few years), spreading rapidly among the crafting population as everyone emulates the first examples, then their popularity wanes until a later resurgence.

Terminology

Arts and crafts also refers to the Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts movement

The Arts and Crafts Movement was a United Kingdom, Canada, and United States aesthetic movement occurring in the last years of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century....
, a late 19th century design reform and social movement. Its proponents were motivated by the ideals of William Morris
William Morris

William Morris was an English architect, furniture and textile designer, artist, writer, and Socialism associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement....
 and John Ruskin
John Ruskin

John Ruskin was a British art critic and social thought, also remembered as an author, poet and artist. His essays on art and architecture were extremely influential in the Victorian era and Edwardian period eras....
, who proposed that in pre-industrial societies, such as the European Middle Ages
Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
, people had achieved fulfillment through the creative process of handicrafts. This was held up in contrast to what was perceived to be the alienating effects of industrial labour. These activities are called craft
Craft

A craft is a skill, especially involving practical The Arts. It may refer to a trade or particular art.The terms is often used as part of a longer word ....
s because originally many of them were professions under the guild
Guild

File:Windsorguildhall.jpgA guild is an association of artisan in a particular trade. The earliest guilds were formed as confraternities of workers....
 system. Adolescents were apprenticed to a master-craftsman, and they refined their skills over a period of years in exchange for low wages. By the time their training was complete, they were well-equipped to set up in trade for themselves, earning their living with the skill that could be traded directly within the community, often for goods and services. The Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, production, and transportation had a profound effect on the socioeconomics and cultural conditions in United Kingdom....
 and the increasing mechanisation of production processes gradually reduced or eliminated many of the roles professional craftspeople played, and today "crafts" are most commonly seen as a form of hobby
Hobby

A hobby is a leisure recreational pursuit....
 or art.

The term craft also refers to the products of artistic production or creation that require a high degree of tacit knowledge, are highly technical, require specialized equipment and/or facilities to produce, involve manual labour
Manual labour

Manual labour is physical work done with the hands, especially in an unskilled employment such as fruit and vegetable picking, road building, or any other field where the work may be considered physically arduous, and which has as a profitable objective, usually the production of good s....
 or a blue-collar work ethic, are accessible to the general public and are constructed from materials with histories that exceed the boundaries of western art history, such as ceramic
Ceramic

File:Bridge from dental porcelain.jpgFile:Qing vase p1070256.jpgA ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetal solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling....
s, glass
Glass

Glass generally refers to a Hardness, brittle, transparency amorphous solid, such as that used for windows, many Glass Bottles, or eyewear, including, but not limited to, soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, Muscovite , or aluminium oxynitride....
, textiles, metal
Metal

In chemistry, a metal is a chemical element whose atoms readily lose electrons to form positive ions , and form metallic bonds between other metal atoms and ionic bonds between nonmetal atoms....
 and wood
Wood

Wood is an organic material; in the strict sense wood is produced as secondary xylem in the stems of woody plants, notably trees but also shrubs, etc....
. These products are produced within a specific community of practice
Community of practice

The concept of a community of practice refers to the process of social learning that occurs and shared sociocultural practices that emerge and evolve when people who have common goals interact as they strive towards those goals....
 and while they differ from the products produced within the communities of art and design, the boundaries of such often overlap resulting in hybrid objects. Additionally, as the interpretation and validation of art is frequently a matter of context, an audience may perceive crafted objects as art objects when these objects are viewed within an art context, such as in a museum or in a position of prominence in one's home.

The term can also refer to the useful rural crafts
Rural crafts

Rural crafts refers to the traditional crafts production that is carried on, simply for everyday practical use, in the agricultural countryside....
 of the agricultural countryside. Craftsmanship refers to Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
's idea of specialization, in which the lower society has a specific job in the greater society so that it functions properly as a whole.

Types of arts and crafts

There are almost as many variations on the theme of "arts and crafts" as there are crafters with time on their hands, but they can be broken down into a number of categories:

Crafts involving textiles

  • Banner-making
    Banner-making

    Banner-making is the ancient art or craft of sewing banners. Techniques used include applique, embroidery, fabric painting, patchwork and others....
  • Calligraphy
    Calligraphy

    Calligraphy is the art of writing . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner" ....
  • Canvas work
    Canvas work

    Canvas work is a type of embroidery in which yarn is stitched through a canvas or other foundation Textile. Canvas work is a form of counted-thread embroidery....
  • Cross-stitch
    Cross-stitch

    Cross-stitch is a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches are used to form a picture. Cross-stitch is usually executed on easily countable evenweave fabric....
  • Crocheting
    Crochet

    Crochet is a process of creating fabric from yarn or thread using a crochet hook. The word is derived from the Middle French word croc or croche, meaning hook. Crocheting, similar to knitting, consists of pulling loops of yarn through other loops....
  • Curve stitching
    String art

    String art usually refers to an arrangement of string that forms abstract geometric patterns or patterns that resemble an object, such as a ship's sails, sometimes with other artist material comprising the remainder of the work....
  • Embroidery
    Embroidery

    File:Kazakh rug chain stitch embroidery.jpgEmbroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating Textile or other materials with sewing needle and yarn....
  • Felting
  • Knitting
    Knitting

    Knitting is a method by which yarn may be turned into cloth. Knitting consists of loops called stitches pulled through each other. The active stitches are held on a needle until another loop can be passed through them....
  • Lace-making
  • Lucet
    Lucet

    Lucet is a method of cordmaking or braiding which is believed to date back to the Viking and Medieval periods, when it was used to hang useful items from the belt....
  • Macrame
    Macramé

    Macram? or macrame is a form of textile-making using knotting rather than weaving or knitting. Its primary knots are the square knot and forms of hitching ....
  • Millinery
    Millinery

    Millinery refers to hats and other clothing sold by a milliner to women, men and children or the profession or business of designing, making, or selling hats, dresses, and hat trim to women....
  • Needlepoint
    Needlepoint

    Needlepoint is a form of canvas work embroidery, in which yarn is stitched through a canvas ground textile. Unlike surface embroidery, needlepoint uses the canvas, or ground fabric, to create a new fabric....
  • Patchwork
    Patchwork

    APatchwork or "pieced work" is a form of needlework that involves sewing together pieces of Cloth into a larger design. The larger design is usually based on repeat patterns built up with different colored shapes....
  • Quilting
    Quilting

    Quilting is a sewing method done either by hand, by sewing machine, or by a Longarm Quilting system. The process uses a needle and thread to join two or more layers of material together to make a quilt....
  • Ribbon embroidery
  • Rug making
    Rug making

    Rug making is an ancient craft, and covers a variety of techniques....
  • Sewing
    Sewing

    Sewing or stitching is the fastening of cloth, leather, furs, bark, or other flexible materials, using Sewing needle and yarn. Its use is nearly universal among human populations and dates back to Paleolithic times ....
  • Shoemaking
    Shoemaking

    Shoemaking is a traditional handicraft profession, which has now been largely superseded by industry manufacture of footwear.Shoemakers or cordwainers may produce a range of footwear items, including shoes, boots, sandal s, clogs and Moccasin s....
  • Spinning (textiles)
    Spinning (textiles)

    Spinning is an ancient textile arts in which fiber crop, animal fiber or synthetic fiber fibers are twisted together to form yarn . For thousands of years, fiber was spun by hand using simple tools, the Spindle and distaff....
  • Spirelli (also see Scrapbooking
    Scrapbooking

    "Scrapbook" redirects here. For the Mac OS application see Scrapbook . For the Switchblade Symphony album, see Scrapbook . For the film, see Scrapbook ....
    )
  • String art
    String art

    String art usually refers to an arrangement of string that forms abstract geometric patterns or patterns that resemble an object, such as a ship's sails, sometimes with other artist material comprising the remainder of the work....
  • Tapestry
    Tapestry

    Tapestry is a form of textile art. It is Weaving by hand on a vertical loom. It is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike cloth weaving where both the warp and the weft threads may be visible....
  • Tatting
    Tatting

    This page is about a form of lace making Tatting is a technique for handcrafting a particularly durable lace constructed by a series of knots and loop ....
  • Weaving
    Weaving

    Weaving is the textile arts in which two distinct sets of yarn, called the Warp and the filling or weft , are interlaced with each other to form a textile....
  • T-shirt art
    T-shirt

    A T-shirt is a shirt which is pulled on over the head to cover most of a person's torso. A T-shirt is usually buttonless, collarless, and pocketless, with a round neck and short sleeves....


Crafts involving wood, metal or clay

  • Metalworking
    Metalworking

    Metalworking is the process of working with metals to create individual parts, assemblies, or large scale structures. The term covers a wide range of work from large ships, bridges and oil refineries to delicate jewellery....
  • Jewelry
  • Pottery
    Pottery

    Pottery is the ceramic ware made by potters. Major types of pottery include earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. The places where such wares are made are called potteries....
  • Sculpture
    Sculpture

    Sculpture is Three-dimensional space artwork created by shaping or combining hard and or plastic material, sound, and or text and or light, commonly Stone sculpture , metal, glass, or wood....
  • Woodworking
    Woodworking

    Woodworking is the process of building, making or carving something using wood....
  • Cabinet making
    Cabinet making

    Cabinet making is the practice of utilizing various woodworking skills to create cabinets, shelving and furniture.Cabinet making involves techniques such as creating appropriate Woodworking joints, dado_, bevel, chamfer and shelving systems, the use of finishing tools such as Wood routers to create decorative edgings, and so on....
  • Chip carving
    Chip carving

    Chip carving, also sometimes called spoon carving, is a style of wood carving in which knives are used to remove small chips of wood from the project surface in a single piece....
  • Marquetry
    Marquetry

    Marquetry is the craft of covering a structural carcass with pieces of wood veneer forming decorative patterns, designs or pictures. The technique may be applied to case furniture or even seat furniture, to decorative small objects with smooth, veneerable surfaces or to free-standing pictorial panels appreciated in their own right....
  • Wagae-nuri
    Wagae-nuri

    is a traditional lacquerware of Japan created by Michiko Suganuma ....
     Japanese lacquerware
  • Wood burning
  • Wood turning


Crafts involving paper or canvas

  • Altered Books
  • Altered Art
  • Artist Trading Cards
    Artist trading cards

    Artist Trading Cards are miniature works of art about the same size as baseball cards and thin enough to fit inside standard card-collector pockets, sleeves or sheets....
  • Bookbinding
  • Calligraphy
    Calligraphy

    Calligraphy is the art of writing . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner" ....
  • Cardmaking
    Cardmaking

    Cardmaking is the craft of handmaking greeting cards. Many people with interests in allied crafts such as scrapbooking and stamping have begun to use their skills to start making handmade cards....
  • Card Modelling
  • Collage
    Collage

    Sorry, no overview for this topic
  • Decoupage
    Decoupage

    Decoupage is the art of decoration an object by glue colored paper cutouts onto it in combination with special paint effects, gold leaf, etc....
  • Embossing
    Embossing

    Embossing is the process of creating a three-dimensional image or design in paper and other ductile materials. It is typically accomplished with a combination of heat and pressure on the paper....
  • Iris Folding
    Iris Folding

    Iris Folding is a paper craft technique that involves folding strips of colored paper in such a way to form a design. The center of the design forms an iris -- a shape reminiscent of the iris of an eye of of a camera lens....
  • Marbling
    Paper marbling

    Paper marbling is a method of aqueous surface design, which can produce patterns similar to marble or other stone, hence the name. The patterns are the result of color floated on either plain water or a viscous solution known as sizing, and then carefully transferred to a sheet of paper ....
  • Origami
    Origami

    is the traditional Japanese art of paper folding. The goal of this art is to create a representation of an object using geometric folds and crease patterns preferably without the use of gluing or cutting the paper, and using only one piece of paper....
  • Papercraft
  • Papier-mâché
    Papier-mâché

    Papier-m?ch? , sometimes called paper-m?ch?, is a construction material that consists of pieces of paper, sometimes reinforced with textiles, stuck together using a wet paste ....
  • Parchment
    Parchment

    Parchment is a thin material made from calfskin, sheepskin or Goatskin . Its most common use is as the pages of a book, codex or manuscript. It is distinct from leather in that parchment is not tanned, but stretched, scraped, and dried under tension, creating a stiff white, yellowish or translucent animal skin....
     craft
  • Quilling
    Quilling

    Quilling or paper filigree is an art form that involves the use of strips of paper that are rolled, shaped, and glued together to create decorative designs....
     or Paper Filigree
  • Scrapbooking
    Scrapbooking

    "Scrapbook" redirects here. For the Mac OS application see Scrapbook . For the Switchblade Symphony album, see Scrapbook . For the film, see Scrapbook ....
  • Rubber Stamping/Acrylic Stamping
  • Teabag Folding
    Teabag folding

    Teabag folding is a form of origami the development of which is credited to Tiny van der Plas, who as a practitioner of origami developed the technique in 1992 as a papercraft art for embellishing greeting cards....


Crafts involving plants

  • Basket
    Basket

    A basket is a container which is traditionally constructed from stiff fibers, often made of willow. . The top is either left open or the basket may be fitted with a lid....
     weaving
    Weaving

    Weaving is the textile arts in which two distinct sets of yarn, called the Warp and the filling or weft , are interlaced with each other to form a textile....
  • Corn dolly making
    Corn dolly

    Corn dollies are a form of straw work made for, and associated with, harvest customs of Europe before mechanisation.Before Christianisation, in traditional pagan European culture it was believed that the spirit of the "corn" lived amongst the crop, and that the harvest made it effectively homeless....
  • Floral Design
    Floral design

    Floral design is the art of using plant materials and flowers to create a pleasing and balanced composition. Evidence of refined floristry is found as far back as the culture of Ancient Egypt....
  • Pressed flower craft
    Pressed flower craft

    Pressed flower craft consists of drying flower petals and leaves in a flower press to flatten and exclude light and moisture. Pressing flowers makes them appear flat, and often there is a change in color, ranging from faded colors to a greater intensity of vibrant colors....
  • Straw Marquetry
    Straw marquetry

    Straw marquetry is a craft very similar to that of wood marquetry, except that straw replaces the wood veneer. It is thought to have first been practised in the East; examples were brought to England in the 17th century....


Other crafts

  • Balloon animal
  • Beadwork
    Beadwork

    Beadwork is the art or craft of attaching beads to one another or to cloth using a Sewing needle and thread. Most beadwork takes the form of jewellery or other personal adornment, but beads are also used in wall hangings and sculpture....
  • Doll making
  • Dollhouse
    Dollhouse

    A dollhouse is a toy home, made in miniature. For the last century, dollhouses have primarily been the domain of children but their collection and crafting have also fascinated a large number of adults....
     construction and furnishing
  • Egg decorating
    Egg decorating

    Egg decorating is the art or craft of decorating egg s. It is quite a popular art/craft form because of the attractive, smooth, oval shape of the egg....
  • Etching
    Etching

    Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal ....
  • Glassblowing
    Glassblowing

    Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating the molten glass into a bubble, or parison, with the aid of the blowpipe, or blow tube....
  • Lapidary
    Lapidary

    A lapidary is an artisan who practices the craft of working, forming and finishing Rock , mineral, gemstones, and other suitably durable materials into functional and/or decorative, even wearable, items ....
  • Miniatures
  • Mosaics
  • Pioneering
    Pioneering

    In scouting pioneering is the art of using ropes and wooden spars joined by lashing knot and knots to create a structure. Pioneering can be used for constructing small items such as camp gadgets up to larger structures such as bridges and towers....
  • Stained glass
    Stained glass

    For the Blackford Oakes novel, see Stained Glass The term stained glass can refer to the material of coloured glass or the craft of working with it....
  • Toy making
  • Polymer clay
    Polymer clay

    Polymer clay is a sculptable material based on the polymer polyvinyl chloride . It usually contains no clay minerals, and is only called "clay" because its texture and working properties resemble those of mineral clay....


See also

  • Art4Charity
    Art4Charity

    Art4Charity is the title of a group that uses the sale of arts and crafts to raise money for Charitable organization. Artists and craft workers can submit their work to be sold, with the proceeds given to various not-for-profit organizations....
  • List of acronyms used in arts and crafts
    List of acronyms used in arts and crafts

    This is a list of acronyms used in arts and crafts. These acronyms may be used by Arts and crafts, Handicraft, Scrapbooking, etc. These acronym can been seen in listings at Etsy, eBay, etc....


External links