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Create & Craft

Create & Craft channel on TV screen
  • Posted at 11:29am
  • 18 October 2007
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT
  • 1 comment

If you've ever gone through a period of loneliness and introspection, you'll have inevitably ended up watching the QVC shopping channel. And if you've done that for any length of time, you'll have come across a woman by the name of Dawn Bibby. Dawn regularly turns up and spends an hour flogging us bits of card, ribbon, pens and rubber stamps – all in the name of something called "craft".

Dawn has proved popular. And, over the years, shopping channels have devoted more and more time to this thing called "craft". Practitioners of "craft" have even started referring to themselves as "crafters". Today, there's even a whole shopping channel devoted to "craft".

My dad used to teach craft during the 1960s, but back then it meant serious woodworking projects, well-made furniture held together by soundly constructed joints. His pupils were budding craftsmen. But the Create & Craft channel's viewers are budding crafters. The difference? Crafters just make greetings cards.

That's pretty much all they do. They churn out limitless quantities using holographic backing paper, tape, fluorescent marker pens, ribbon, beads, stickers, round-ended scissors and heaven knows what else. Millions of home-made cards are churned out daily, creating a situation where teetering card mountains build up because there's nowhere near enough events that actually require commemorating. Somewhere in the UK there must be people receiving cards saying "Sorry to hear you lost your eyes", or "Happy St Cuthbert's Day, patron saint of Northumbria", or "Delighted you're menstruating".

This was perfectly illustrated yesterday when Create & Craft plugged their "3-D Step by Step Decoupage Booklet (Lifetime)". This presented a range of cut-out images suitable for cards for every age group, from blue and pink fluffy animals for toddlers, through to pictures of wholesome teenage fun, to colourful depictions of alcoholism and messy divorce, right through to sincere messages of condolence. And all in 3-D. By which they mean "not flat".

For the crafting world, 3-D was a revelation. It's all very well punching images out along a perforated line and sticking them on a bit of card. But the thrill of the pop-up, pop-out or pop-under card has launched a thousand cottage industries obsessed with complex 3-D constructions. For crafters, the advent of 3-D was a moment akin to Filippo Brunelleschi inventing linear perspective during the Italian Renaissance. Except a bit rubbish.

Look, I know we all need a hobby, of course we do. But I'm already cynical because I'm suspicious of the notion of greetings cards – mainly because so rarely do Hallmark et al come up with a) appropriate imagery for my requirements or b) anything other than sickening poetry. Create & Craft don't improve matters much, because they essentially sell kits to produce the same stuff – ie cute images in a range of pastel shades.

The existence of this channel indicates that, as a nation, we have an enormous urge to be creative – but "craft" hardly inspires creativity, any more than a recipe for rock cakes inspires you to make anything other than rock cakes. There's only so much crafters can do with some A4 card, a cellophane butterfly and 72 metres of satin ribbon.

But give those same people some planks of wood, a workshop full of tools and some elementary instruction from my dad, and who knows – we could turn a nation of crafters into a nation of craftsmen! What's that, Dad? You've retired? Oh yes. I forgot. OK, so it's greetings cards, then. Fine.

To pick up useful cardmaking tips, watch Create & Craft on Sky channel 661.

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  • Posted on 01 August 2009
  • at 8:30am
  • by Butterscotch

Having attended Craft lessons at school I well remember the puzzlement of why we were making wooden ashtrays or tiny totem poles. What the reviewer fails to recognise is that the TV craft shopping channels encourage people to try new things and as in cooking, the ingredients are a starting point not necessarily the only conclusion.

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