DIY Woven Pillow, Watercoloring, and FREE Classes!

I love learning new things! I think it is important to take the time to acquire new skills. It challenges our minds, gives us a useful new talent, and allows us some "me time".  Some of the things on my bucket list are water coloring, welding, and pottery. I dream of having a large workshop where I can do woodworking and pottery and maybe a little welding too.

I follow the site Skillshare on Facebook (Skillshare is an online learning community with over 17,000 creative, design, and DIY classes) and each time something of theirs came up in my feed I kept thinking that I needed to sign up so I could take some classes. I kept putting it off using the excuse that I was too busy. When they contacted me about trying out some of their classes for free AND offering you guys the chance to try classes out for free for 2 months, I jumped at the chance! I decided the first class would be water coloring and then I would find something new that I hadn't even thought of, which ended up being weaving. They have tons of pottery classes too (which I watched) and I hope to start collecting supplies to try that soon.

 

DIY Woven Pillow

I built the loom using square dowels and nails. Super easy! I built it to be 18 inches x 18 inches. The inside was 16x16 and by the time you trim and sew around the edges you will end up with a 14x14 pillow.

*Tip* I came up with using a hair pick to push down each row to keep it nice and tight.

I watched several weaving classes and they were all really helpful.

 

It took a couple of days to weave. I didn't do it the whole day (obviously, I am a mom!) but I watched a couple Hallmark Christmas movies here and there until it was done.

 

 

I love the fading in and out of the black and white yarn. I think I will experiment with different designs next time.

 

 

 

Watercolor 

I also took a watercolor class that taught how to paint leaves. The goal was to try different techniques and then paint a botanical print to frame.

 

 

 

 

I had watched the class on my computer but it was nice to bring it up on my phone to watch again while I was painting.

 

 

I still have some practicing to do before I make something worth framing, but it was a lot of fun and not as hard as I had thought it would be!

 

 

My kids as they came in the office to ask me questions or to get something, saw the classes I was watching and soon all four of my boys had pulled up chairs and were watching the video classes with me. The pottery, painting, and leather working classes were their favorites. It would be great for kids to learn something new too! I would much rather my kids learn a fun new skill over Christmas break than to veg in front of the couch watching TV.

Skillshare is offering all my readers 2 months of access to Skillshare for FREE! Just click here to redeem and you and your family can learn anything from graphic design to calligraphy to music production!

 

What is one skill you have always wanted to learn?

 

 

This post was sponsored by Skillshare but all opinions and ideas were my own.