YouTube: Finding Crafty Inspiration in YouTube Videos #AtoZChallenge

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter Y post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I want to talk about YouTube and showcase some of my favorite crafty YouTubers.

When I first started working with polymer clay about nine years ago, I didn’t know much about YouTube. It did exist, of course, and there were definitely tutorials out there, but I was clueless. Now that I’ve restarted the craft, I get most of my inspiration from YouTube videos.

Of course, it helps if the YouTuber talks me through the process of doing the craft, although that too can get confusing. At least, I’ve found with macrame that it gets really hard when someone says one thing and essentially does another. With polymer clay, thankfully, I haven’t run into this problem that much.

My favorite YouTuber, for this reason, is Creative Rachy. Her voice-over is great and her tutorials are easy to follow. I particularly love her “Easy Charms for Beginners” tutorials.

I also love other YouTubers who share polymer clay charm tutorials, such as CupOfCuteDIY. This YouTuber in particular has some great compilations of kawaii (a Japanese term for “cute”) polymer clay charms sorted by theme or color.

When I want to do something specific in polymer clay, I now usually do a YouTube search for this term. For example, when I wanted to create the tulip for my mother’s birthday, I searched for the terms “polymer clay” and “tulip”. I then select a video that’s not too long in length. In this case, the video was about five minutes. Unfortunately, there was no voice-over. This is okay if my staff can explain what the YouTuber is doing in the video, which some staff are better at than others.

I usually watch a video in its entirety before starting the project, because that way I can tell if I need any supplies that I don’t have or whether any techniques will be used that I don’t understand yet. In the latter case, I can then look up another YouTube video with the explanation of said technique.

So far, YouTube has been of great help and inspiration on my polymer clay journey. Now of course I will need to step outside of my comfort zone and start experimenting.