Strange craft kits from the 70s

[Throughhistory]

Anyone else remember them?

Plasticraft - I mean who doesn't want to make a penny embedded in a plastic blob?

Enamelcraft - at least that resulted in a few hardly wearable items of jewellery

A board covered in black velvet. You banged small nails in, then wound gold thread from one nail to another to create the illusion of curves in a picture, often a boat. Yes really.

Did I miss out on any gems?

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

Oh yes! On a knitting needle.

Those were the days!

@Throughhistory

Again not a craft kit per se, but who else made beads out of long triangles of Sunday magazines?

Or was it just me

How did you do this?

You cut really long narrow triangles (starting about an inch wide) from a colourful magazine, then as been said, roll it tightly round a knitting needle fatter end first. Does that make sense?

Did we dip them in wallpaper paste or just glue them at the end? I can’t remember.

I can't remember. But I think we varnished them at the end didn't we?

I've just googled it, and people are actually selling them on Etsy

I remember so many of these. Some things I rescued from my parents' house include these books, back when all costumes were homemade and relied on SAHMs handy with a needle

Yes, that's right - they had to be varnished to finish them off.

I remember a weaving kit where you had an oval shape with wholes round the outside , stuck sticks in it and weaved rafia round to make a pot or basket

@bruffin I had that set too! I'd completely forgotten but the oval one sat on my chest of drawers holding my hair bobbles until I was well into my teens. Pretty sure the kit was simply called "Raffia Baskets" and the "raffia" was really just scrunched up coloured polythene.

@ApplePenPineapplePen

I remember so many of these. Some things I rescued from my parents' house include these books, back when all costumes were homemade and relied on SAHMs handy with a needle

Im sure the geometric colouring books we had were something like altar design

Also the "pullouts" from mums Woman's Weekly and Woman's Realm with amazing toys and things to make. I still have loads of these with 70s romance stories and adverts mixed in .

@Throughhistory I had Plastic Craft and Enamel Craft too! The plastic stuff used to smell so strong you’d get high on it 😂 Would never be allowed now!
I also used to get amazing kits to grow beautiful blue copper sulphate crystals on string. I loved those.

@NotMeNoNo

Also the "pullouts" from mums Woman's Weekly and Woman's Realm with amazing toys and things to make. I still have loads of these with 70s romance stories and adverts mixed in .

Oh my goodness, these magazines deserve a thread on their own!!!

With Woman's Own!

Oh goodness. I had all of these. When you think about it, 'Things to make' was basically 'Crap presents to make for your poor granddad who'd much rather have a nice pair of socks than a comb case'.

Not a kit, but my family went through a massive tissue flowers phase. You folded an ordinary tissue into quarters then snipped at it as if making a paper doily.

Then you twisted the centre to make a stem, & dunked it into successive saucers of dilute food colouring, watching as the colour diffused into bands.

When you dried the tissue & opened up the layers, if you'd got it right, you'd have a sort of ombré effect of different colours expanding from the centre.

@HearMeSnore

I remember a weaving kit where you had an oval shape with wholes round the outside , stuck sticks in it and weaved rafia round to make a pot or basket

@bruffin I had that set too! I'd completely forgotten but the oval one sat on my chest of drawers holding my hair bobbles until I was well into my teens. Pretty sure the kit was simply called "Raffia Baskets" and the "raffia" was really just scrunched up coloured polythene.

I had that!!! Had completely forgotten about it.

oooh not even a kit, but I have remembered I was very into making flowers and appliqué type things out of the foil you got around chocolate bars. I was thinking of doing this 80s throwback activity with my poor DS and was gutted when I realised you don't get a nice sheet of green or orange foil round an aero any more!

We did those oval basket things at school, but I think we used wool instead of raffia. My friend's mum worked at a psychiatric hospital and told us that the patients made them as occupational therapy, which we found amusing for some reason.

I had a crystal growing kit at home that smelled interesting. I got a huge fake diamond on a string out of mine.

Did anyone else have ceramic dishes shaped like hedgehog bodies, for growing cress in? The cress was meant to grow and form the spines of the hedgehog.

I had loopy zoo which were stiff paper chains you joined together to make an animal

Wheezy snake was a funny creature on invisible string - can't explain

And those sewing craft kits pictured on thread

Mum had those golden hands books and cloth kits outfits she made us

Who had a flower press? Or the poor relation, a couple of hardbacks and a sheet of blotting paper?

@Squeejit

Who had a flower press? Or the poor relation, a couple of hardbacks and a sheet of blotting paper?

Meeee!

Yes to the books and blotting paper. Now the proud owner of a press does a little twirl

@woodhill

I had loopy zoo which were stiff paper chains you joined together to make an animal

Wheezy snake was a funny creature on invisible string - can't explain

Where I live it was called a squirmel or squiggle. I loved mine.

Plasticraft! God knows what was in those chemicals. My dad did it, rather than me aged 8. I did rather like the end result of a shell in resin!