Craftster is an online community

Online community

An online community is a virtual community that exists online and whose members enable its existence through taking part in membership ritual. An online community can take the form of an information system where anyone can post content, such as a Bulletin board system or one where only a restricted...

 for crafting and do it yourself enthusiasts. Users post pictures of craft projects they have made and others comment and ask questions about how it was made.

The site's tagline, "No tea cozies

Tea cosy

A tea cosy is a cover for a teapot, traditionally made of cloth or wool, which is used to insulate the tea, keeping it warm while it brews. Cloth tea cosies often have padded inserts, which can be removed and washed separately.Tea cosies are often available in matching sets with other items such...

 without irony", refers to the fact that many of the projects posted are irreverent, off-beat, humorous, clever, etc. While projects posted on the site tend to be made using traditional techniques such as knitting

Knitting

Knitting is a method by which thread or yarn may be turned into cloth or other fine crafts. Knitted fabric consists of consecutive rows of loops, called stitches. As each row progresses, a new loop is pulled through an existing loop. The active stitches are held on a needle until another loop can...

, crochet

Crochet

Crochet is a process of creating fabric from yarn, thread, or other material strands using a crochet hook. The word is derived from the French word "crochet", meaning hook. Hooks can be made of materials such as metals, woods or plastic and are commercially manufactured as well as produced by...

 and sewing

Sewing

Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era...

 they often convey modern sentiments such as images of a favorite rock band, or motifs from a favorite 1980s video game.

The site has over 190,000 registered members. It has been written up in publications such as TIME Magazine, the New York Times, The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, and the Washington Post.
The membership is over 190,000, and readership is over 1,000,000 unique visitors per month and over 10,000,000 page views per month.

The site has been called be one of the forces behind the renaissance of crafting among a new, young, contemporary demographic.

History

The site was started in August 2003 by crafter and computer programmer

Programmer

A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...

 Leah Kramer

Leah Kramer

Leah Kramer is an American author, computer programmer, store owner and website founder.She is the author of The Craftster Guide to Nifty, Thrifty, and Kitschy Crafts: Fifty Fabulous Projects from the Fifties and Sixties and the founder of Craftster...

., Prior to starting the site, Kramer was one of the organizers of the Boston Bazaar Bizarre

Bazaar Bizarre

Bazaar Bizarre is both a 2005 craft how-to book by Greg Der Ananian and a craft fair of the same name organized by him which happens once every December in cities such as San Francisco, Boston, Cleveland, and Los Angeles.-History:...

, a yearly "punk rock craft fair," begun in 2001.