'Craft' and 'Snark' are not words you'll often hear in the same sentence. The gentle, supportive craft community is usually exempt from the scrutiny and bitchiness applied to policics, music and celebrities, and most people like it that way.
Or so you might think. I've recently chance upon a few sites that are designed to poke fun at craft 'errors' - the shockingly ugly, the ill-advised and the downright pointless - and have found that snark in the craft community is alive and well. I haven't made my mind up what I think of all this yet: on the one hand I don't like the culture of encouragement without criticism that can flourish in this world and feel a bit of brutal honesty is sometimes needed to help creativity. On the other hand, I quite like the warmth and cameraderie that exists in craft. What do you think? And while you're making up your mind, take a look at our mini-guide to craft snark sites.
Top 6 Craft Snark sites
Etsy Bitch
'Biting the hand that feeds us', this site aims its venom not so much at fellow crafters (phew) but at the alleged 'mismanagement of the Etsy.com site'. With categories entitled 'bullying' and 'don't quit your day job', its writers claim to only want what's best for Etsy, so they make posts about customer service failings, technical glitches and regularly suggest 'Etsy alternatives' for those who just can't take it anymore. Interesting reading!
Etsy WTF?
A straight down the line point-and-laugh site, Etsy WTF swoops on 'ugly' craft items and proceeds to pick holes in them. Nothing is sacred here: they'll laugh just as much at the poor spelling and grammar in your advertisement as they will at your missed stitches. The site mostly relies on easy targets (the more deliberately 'bizarre' end of the crafting spetrum) but this at least makes its observations 'harsh but fair'. There are some truly ugly items here...
Craftastrophe
This site ominously disclaims on its front page that its contents are 'strictly a matter of opinion', and it certainly has plenty to spare. Much along the lines of Etsy WTF, it picked out the ugliest speicmens its writers can find and graphically hammers home the point that 'handmade isn't always pretty'. Sadly, neither is this website, as the design is a little confusing!
Craft Fail
Craft fail is yet another sin-bin for projects gone wrong, but I like the cleaner design of this site. Expect to find fashion crimes, cake wrecks and toys that are supposed to look cute but is actually damn creepy. Unusually, the writer of this blog posts openly about her own unsucessful crafting endevours, which I think deserves credit for honesty. You'll grow to love this blog, but just pray that your own work doesn't end up here!
Why Would you Knit That?
This site comes in from the 'get a life' angle, parading items that someone obviously spent a good chunk of their time knitting but failed to notice at any point in the process that their creation was of no import or value whatsoever. Some of our all-time favourites come in for criticism here, including the knitted digestive tract and lab rat - but in the case of the knitted 'poo', I think they have a point.
What Not to Crochet
Crochet will never quite escape its 'granny' image, and this is perhaps why it comes in for such a lot of flak. It's also possible to make all manner of overly-revealing fashion monstrosities in crochet, so along with the kitsch stuff, these feature heavily on the site.
Who is weefish:BIGPOND? Well, firstly, let me reassure you that this is not my real name and I have not been forced by Big Brother or Davina to change my name by deed poll. weefish:BIGPOND is just how I see myself in the world generally and how I see myself in the world of crafting in particular.
In terms of creativity, I have always loved making things, despite what my craft teacher will tell you and eventually I knew that all of the hours I spent glued in front of Blue Peter, with a collection of cardboard in one hand and some sticky backed plastic in the other, would eventually pay off.
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Emily Tan writes: The Crafty team at Shiny Media decided to take up Gossypium's invitation to start up our own sweatsthop. So, I (the intern) was handed the kit and told to get cracking! Read about my first day of work after the jump.
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Feeling a bit low on inspiration? Katie Lee knows the feeling only too well, and has come up with some great ideas to kickstart your creativity.
Each year, around October/November time, I start making big plans to make everyone on my Christmas list a present - big or small. As soon as I make this decision I nearly always fall into a craft slump. A craft slump is what I call the periods in my life when I just can't even begin to muster up the enthusiasm to make something. And from years of experience, I know that there *are* ways to get yourself out of a slump - and here's my top five tips. If you've got any suggestions, please go ahead and add them in the comments!
Keep reading for my Top 5 craft slump killers!
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Katie Lee writes...
Ever since I started crocheting, making gifts for people has been the thing that has really brought me pleasure. Every Christmas I make big plans to crochet everyone on my Christmas list a gift. Invariably, I run out of time before the big day arrives, but it's the thought that counts.
Of course, I always beat myself up about my failure to produce goodies for all, but I don't think anyone on my gift list is ever too cut up about it. Most of the presents I've made people (often at their request, might I add) seem to languish unused and unloved in some cupboard somewhere, acting as nothing more than a glorified moth restaurant. My sister's tea cosy sits unused and unloved in her spare bedroom (taunting me every time I visit), My boyfriend's grandma has hidden the cosy I made her in her kitchen drawer and uses a different one, and I've never seen any evidence of the little bag I made my niece being put to use (in fact, I've never seen it since that fateful day it was unwrapped with much false glee.) As for my friend Lia and her various gifts: well, the least said about those the better.
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How often have you complimented a stranger, or received a compliment, for some hand-crafted accessory or item of clothing and then forgotten who made it by the time you got back home? I know it happens to me all the time. I'm often complimenting strangers, though.
If only the person had a business card for the artist or crafter who made the item! Then I'd be able to take something with me and find the appropriate etsy shop or website. Fortunately, there are plenty of great resources for business card printing. My personal favorite, here in the US, is Overnight Prints.
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Howdy! I'm Kelly, and I'm a little late to the CraftyCrafty party, but hopefully you won't hold it against me.
I live in Portland, Oregon, basically Craft Central. My theory is that even though it doesn't rain as much as everyone thinks it does, it's still a big hunk of the year we tend to spend inside. This means Portlanders are not only a pale people, but armed with a virutally endless list of indoor activities. Our "crafty cred" includes: the Church of Craft, CraftyPod, and SuperCrafty to name a few.
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