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?

Altair books are still available! (or available again, I think is probably more accurate - they went out of fashion for a while, then came back in when the internet meant you could get printable pages etc, and then again in actual books). The original patterns are still the best, the really geometric ones, not just doodle type colouring pages.

I had rug hooking as well, following a painted pattern on canvas, with a special tool and all the yarns in the right colours in pre-cut pieces. Tapestry and cross-stitch too, with patterns printed on the canvas so you didn't have to count any patterns.

The craft with straws was called Art Straws and it was basically basket weaving with long paper straws - very satisfying but fairly pointless.
I had a perfume making kit with different potions in bottles I remember raiding my mum's rose bushes to crush the petals into it.

Oh and paint by numbers with felt tip pens??

I had Plastercast, Shaker Maker and the wire flower craft.

You can make your own version of scraperfoil by scribbling different coloured crayons on a piece of card then cover it all with black crayon then you can carefully scrape the black off and make pretty patterns.

I had a Touch Tapestry HearMeSnore. I had totally forgotten about it until you mentioned it. Mine was a picture of Irises.
I finished it. It was nice. I expect it got binned many years ago though.

We used to get stained glass kits with tiny glass beads that you melted in the oven (very smelly) in wee metal frames.
There’s a company in America now called “makit and bakit” who do similar, but I’d love to find similar kits that are more grown-up in their designs. Maybe there’s a market there?

There was also a box containing three hollow glass swans, and you made differently coloured water by soaking dyed tissue paper in water and then filling the swans up with the coloured water. (who needs an X-Box, eh?)

Oh my god, I remember them now. Can't remember if I had one or my best friend did.

Just found another kit 'things to make', needless to say it made a raft of completely pointless items

oh yes, I loved the stained glass with beads too! They were called 'suncatchers', I think. I had an owl one first, and I think others later.

I vaguely remember one from the 80s where you made wire loops and dipped them into coloured liquid then left them to harden to make a sort of stained glass inside the wire loop. The liquid had really strong fumes, like marker pens and glue. Can't for the life of me remember the name of it but I remember my mum standing all the loops of wire with their red "stained glass" in a vase as a decoration.

Oh god, we had that! I thought I had dreamt it - I must’ve been quite young.

We also had one of the gold thread boat pictures on our living room wall.

I remember making corn dolly’s too, and a knitting thing that was like a wooden doll with metal loops on its head - can’t remember what you actually did though!

@BeautifulStar that was French knitting, discussed upthread! Utterly useless though.

All of these plus Pom Pom pet sets, Fimo clay and also tissue paper flower making sets. Used to love crafting.

I must have had everything on this thread.
I had completely forgotten touch tapestry! Before I progressed to proper tapestry.

You can still get Scraperfoil. Ds2 unimpressed.

The only Shrinky Dinks we ever had came free in Shreddies and had Tom and Jerry on them. You had to punch a hole in it with a hole puncher before putting it in the oven.

I had garbage pail kids stickers and my mum banned them! I had to stick them to the underside of my bed - I remember the smell of them too. I remember not getting my mums problem with them at the time but having just googled them I now understand. I remember having crater Chris and swell Mel (whom I think my dm took particular offence to!)

I remember some of these so well, especially French knitting (I'm now doubting its true provenance , straw art and shrinking crisp packets in the oven to turn them into badges.

Not quite a home craft thing, but did anyone used to go the seaside or a fair and have a go at a spinny art thing? Canvas was stuck on a spinning board thing, you chose a few colours and blobbed them down, then they spun it for a few minutes and sold you your amazing canvas for like £5?

Isopon

I had that Spears Things To Make kit but the colours were different- think the purse was yellow.

Aren't some of these kits more 80s and therefore not in keeping with the spirit of this thread ??? 🤔🤨😆

Oh, and making endless pom poms. Where the hell did they all end up?!

A mix up of a few things mentioned here - velvet colouring pictures. They were just a normal colour in picture of something like a duck in a pair of wellies with a velvet border. Why we thought they were exciting, I have no idea.

Random, the perfect use for them was when Blue Peter (likely to derail thread here I suspect) showed you how to turn them into Flumps. The Flumps were literally made of pom poms. Posey, Pootle and Grandpa Flump, and a Mum and Dad iirc.

Oh liked making pompoms.

@RandomGrammarPun

I remember some of these so well, especially French knitting (I'm now doubting its true provenance , straw art and shrinking crisp packets in the oven to turn them into badges.

Not quite a home craft thing, but did anyone used to go the seaside or a fair and have a go at a spinny art thing? Canvas was stuck on a spinning board thing, you chose a few colours and blobbed them down, then they spun it for a few minutes and sold you your amazing canvas for like £5?

Yes I went to Benbon Brothers in Margate, aka Dreamland, and made those pictures.

I have done almost all of these within the last year 😂. I've made a latch hook cushion, from Hobbycraft. Dd and I have made player of Paris models, and shrinkles, and paint by numbers, and she's got a load of scratch art pictures. And I've got art straws, they were bought for a technology project with school, but I thoroughly enjoyed making corn dolly type things with them. I made quilling snowflakes at Christmas, and did the nails and wool art things with the Brownies last February (we made hearts). I think I must be living in the early 80s

I bought an original Altair design book from a charity shop a couple of years ago. Turns out I no longer have the patience to do them 😂

Yes Shaker Maker , French knitting and Das modelling clay.