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My Favorite Indoor Hobby Ideas For Winter

It’s January, the armpit of winter. I won’t sugarcoat things…this time of the year is the toughest for me! My mental health tends to dip during these cold, gloomy days, and with the holidays in the rearview mirror and 2021 goals at the forefront of my mind, there’s only hard work ahead. However, January is a great time for sharing indoor hobby ideas. I’ve built up a substantial arsenal of indoor hobbies to ward off the wintertime blues, and each year, I experiment with new things to keep busy. Here are a few indoor activities that I’m loving in early 2021!

Indoor Hobby Ideas to Stay Busy During Winter

Watercolor Painting

Watercolor painting is fun, soothing, and very forgiving as far as an art form goes. I’m not much of an artist – I can copy images with some success and I enjoy working with different mediums, but I’m firmly in the “amateur” category. However, watercolor is fun to work with because you can create so many different colors and effects.

Affordability is something I always investigate when considering indoor hobby ideas. When I began painting, I started out with a $5.00 paint kit, cheap brushes, and watercolor paper from Wal-Mart, but I decided to upgrade my supplies (slightly) this winter since I’ve been spending more time on this hobby. I purchased new brushes and a paintset from Amazon for less than $40.00 total. Even though I didn’t spend much, I’m quite happy with the supplies – the paints are vibrant and the brushes work well for the price. That’s a win!

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Resin Crafts

Even if you only have 20 minutes of spare time, you can create cool resin crafts. Resin is a lot of fun to work with. For those who are unfamiliar with it, resin is a substance that starts out as a viscous liquid and hardens over a period of 24-48 hours. You can cast resin in all kinds of molds to create accessories like keychains, hair clips, or pendants. It’s easy to make things that look impressive even if you’re a newbie to crafts. I like to experiment by adding dyes, dried flowers, glitter, and sprinkles – fun stuff!

This hobby is also affordable to get into, and all the supplies are readily available on Amazon. I bought resin, hair clip molds, and resin dyes for around $55.00 total. I had dried flowers leftover from another project, but those aren’t expensive (or necessary) to obtain for resin crafting. Time-wise, this hobby doesn’t require a huge commitment. Once you’ve gathered your supplies, you can mix, color, and cast your resin within 10-15 minutes.

 

Reading Books & Watching YouTube

Let’s be honest…would a list of indoor hobby ideas be complete without books and shows? Even though these are the most generic things ever to include on a hobby listicle, they’re some of my favorite things to do.

On YouTube, I’ve watched everything from intriguing mysteries by Atrocity Guide to how-to videos on starting different types of businesses. I’ve gone on unexplained side tangents and have found myself mesmerized by in-depth guides for Southeast Asian wedding makeup. I’ve been gripped by videos of this man doing anything. I’ve gotten lost in documentaries and philosophy videos, and have fled back to makeup and clothing hauls when my brain wants to turn off.

I’m probably breaking the algorithm with my all-over-the-place approach, and I swear, I do productive things in life…but long story short, YouTube is filled with a ridiculous amount of content. A lot of it is valuable and informative, and the best part is that it’s free!

Books can be free too, although I’ve paid for a few this winter simply because they seemed worthy of the price. I’m currently enjoying How to Be Everything by Emilie Wapnick (which speaks to my soul, 100 percent). In addition to self-help and productivity books, I’ve read some memoirs, free fiction books on Kindle, and everything in between. It goes without saying that “content consumption” is one of my favorite indoor hobby ideas!

Content Creation

On the flip side of content consumption, we have content creation. This is what motivated people do (and what I attempt to do 🙃). Blogging and videos have been my main focus, although my blog has gotten much more love this winter than my puny YouTube channel. Frankly, I’ve found it much easier to stay on top of blogging than video creation. I regularly churn out 30,000+ words per month for work, so what’s a few thousand extra?

I’d love to focus more on video, but I totally see why people get started and fizzle out – it’s time-consuming! Someday, I’ll stop neglecting my malnourished YouTube child.

Like content consumption, content creation can be low-cost or completely free. You might need to pay a small fee to get a domain for blogging or invest a bit of money in camera and editing equipment if you want to up your video game, but it’s not a huge expense.

Starting or Working on a Business

A business blurs the lines a bit between fun and work. But working on a business can be a lot of fun (not to mention challenging and fulfilling), so it deserves a spot on this list.

Our focus this winter has been getting things off the ground for our Hatchlet Caress Baby Carrier, which was in testing and development for more than two years! We’re finally selling, which is a relief – but now the real work has started. We’ve been arranging photoshoots, gathering reviews, and fine-tuning our listing so that we’re in a good position to grow. It’s fun to track our progress and to experiment with different marketing methods. And sometimes I get to hang out around babies, which is the best part of the job!

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Cooking

For most of my adult life, I’ve come up with excuses for why I can’t cook: I don’t own a stand mixer, Instant Pot, or other expensive kitchen gadgets. I insist on doing dishes by hand even though I finally own a dishwasher. There was once mouse poop on my baking trays (true story).

Basically, I avoided cooking until I realized it was time for me to get back in the kitchen where I belong (that’s sarcasm!)

This winter, I’ve discovered that cooking is actually a lot of fun. I don’t do anything crazy – I follow recipes and then tweak them with different seasonings and additions until they’re to my liking. Then, I test them out on a highly discerning crowd that includes my ever-complimentary husband, my mom, and my brother, who will eat just about anything. I’m not impressing top chefs any time soon, but at least I’m having fun! And cooking doesn’t have to cost much either if you buy low-cost ingredients and shop with coupons.

I’m thankful for low-cost, fun hobbies that help me stay sane during winter! Now it’s your turn – what are your favorite winter hobby ideas?

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