Make any project your own with these genius tips to customize and personalize any craft project!
In a Pinterest world, there are so many amazing craft project ideas and tutorials to choose from. As someone who comes up with these kinds of ideas for a living, I can say with certainty that there really is no end to new craft project ideas.
But after a while you will probably also start to see a lot similar craft projects. And this is definitely the downside to any sort of craft project tutorial, class, or craft party, all of the projects end up looking pretty much the same.
The really wonderful thing about following instructions for a craft project is that you benefit of the experience of the teacher. You will know ahead of time what supplies you need, what problems you might encounter, how long it will take etc. But the downside is, of course, the homogeneity. And a lot of times, if your craft project looks like the sample, that’s absolutely fine. If you like it that way, make it that way!
But there are other times when you might want to add a personal touch and make a craft project your own.
So fear not, I’m here to rescue you from boilerplate crafts. Even though craft projects are kind of like recipes, if you mess with the wrong things, it might not turn out, there are some really genius tips and tricks that you can use to customize and personalize ANY craft project to make it your own without screwing up the tutorial and ending up with a craft fail.
Tips and Tricks to Customize and Personalize Any Craft Project
There are a few things you can change, add or adjust about almost any craft project that should personalize your project without ruining it.
- Change the colors – an incredibly simple change that can completely change a craft project. Pick the colors of your favorite sports team, or a college, or choose colors that match your home decor!
- Change the patterns – switching from stripes to chevrons or stars can make a craft project unique
- Change the font – either change a font in any lettering or consider switching to calligraphy if possible.
- Change the shape – ONLY change the shape of your craft project if that change won’t affect the rest of the project. A little common sense and thinking ahead is required for this. For example, if the project is to make an oval trinket dish and you want yours to be a circle, go ahead. If the project is to make a stuffed beaded Christmas tree and you want to yours to be a candy cane, skip it.
- Change the scent – Want to change your bath bomb project from vanilla to lavender, do it!
- Add a monogram or name – you can LITERALLY personalize your craft project whether that’s with vinyl or paint or iron-ons, or embroidery, anything goes.
- Add a date – make any craft project into a special project by commemorating a special date like a first date, an anniversary, graduation or birthday to name a few.
- Add a location – Can you incorporate either coordinates or a little bit of map in to your craft project?
- Change the fabric or ribbon – Make sure the new fabric or ribbon is the same material, thickness and size as the original though or you may cause problems.
- Change the theme – if you’re making a unicorn themed craft project and you prefer mermaids and can switch the theme without it being a completely different project, go ahead.
- Change the border – make the border thicker or thinner or wavy or striped or a different color and it can dramatically change the craft project. You can also add a border if there isn’t one.
- Add metallics or sparkle – if you can change any part of the craft project to be metallic or sparkly, go for it! You can also make any craft project less sparkly or metallic if that’s not your thing.
- Change an embellishment – if the tutorial uses tiny glitter, switch to chunky glitter, or change from panda stickers to dinosaur stickers. You get the idea.
- Add an embellishment – you can add more embellishments if the addition won’t materially change the project in a way that causes it to fail. In most cases that means stick to adding surface embellishments.
- Add a photo or logo – can you add a photo to a wood project with a photo transfer or add a logo with cut vinyl?
- Add a label or tag – can be decorative or informative
- For sewing projects, add appliqué or embroidery to your project
- Customize the presentation – add a custom frame or display your craft project in a way that makes you happy.
- Change the use – Is your craft project usable for something else? For example, maybe you’re making hot pads but you could use yours to put under a plant or as a coaster. Or perhaps you’ve made a coaster but you want to use it as a trinket dish or spoon rest instead!
- Use heirloom materials – proceed with caution but consider using a scrap of loved clothing, old costume jewelry, yarn from an old sweater, pieces of beloved broken china etc. in your craft project to make it your own.
- Put a bird on it – just kidding, ha! Bonus points if you get the joke.
Thing to avoid when you customize or personalize a craft project
If you trust the person giving you the instructions (and you should) there are some parts of a crafting recipe that you should not change because it will likely mess up your project.
- Changing materials – don’t switch from acrylic paint to watercolor, for example
- Substituting materials – don’t do it.
- Changing proportions of materials or supplies – this is a sure way to a craft fail
- Changing tools – Use recommended tools for best results always
- Changing order of assembly or creation – It may not be obvious but there’s usually a reason certain craft project steps are done in a certain order
- Not following supply or material instructions like dry time – this is just a good general life rule. Don’t “personalize” your project by rushing through it.
- Changing anything in a project that includes hazardous materials (resin, for example), fire or major power tools. Just follow the instructions, please!
BONUS: How to customize or personalize any kids’ craft project
Kids’ crafts are a different world and usually are a little more forgiving in terms of changes. Here are some fun and easy ways to personalize kids’ craft projects
- Add a handprint
- Add a fingerprint
- Add a footprint – cute for little kids, less so for teens, ha!
- Incorporate their name
- Add a picture of them
- Allow them to choose the colors or patterns
- Incorporate scraps of their artwork as backgrounds or other design elements-fingerpaintings work well for this!
- Include a self portrait
- Add the date so you can remember when they made it
- Add a dictated description – if your kids is too young to write, a description in their words of their craft project is usually amazing. You can even add this on the back just to remember later.
If you liked this, you may also like some of my other posts…
- Easy DIY Knit Halloween Costumes (Just Add Pajamas) - October 10, 2024
- Witchy Black Cat Hat Knitting Pattern - October 7, 2024
- Big Squishy Pumpkin Knitting Pattern - October 2, 2024
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