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How you approach this "all you can craft" buffet will depend on your interests and level of experience (not to mention, the amount of time you have available). For example, if you're a relative newbie at a few crafts — and remember, Craftsy has courses running from baking to woodworking — you should plan your visit by making a list of classes that you want to see and prioritize them according to your schedule.
From my position as an experienced sewer (with no interest in sewing clothing, which greatly reduced the number of sewing classes that caught my eye), I discovered that I neither wanted nor needed to see as much as I originally thought.
GRAB THE CLASS MATERIALS
What I mostly did was jump in, fast forward past the introduction, stay long enough to get the "flavour", and then download the class materials if I was interested. (I almost hate to say this, but if you have a certain level of experience, just grabbing the class materials will enable you to get 90% of the benefits of a class. As I've recommended to folks who have purchased classes on Craftsy to save them for later viewing, download the materials sooner rather than later.)After this initial "nibbling", I came back to the classes that most interested me and watched them reasonably thoroughly; I ended up completing three, with definite plans to "make something" based on what I'd seen. Considering that Craftsy has over 1,300 classes, that was a pretty good winnowing down of my needs, don't you think?
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And speaking of food, the last thing I wanted to watch was a cooking class (given the number of food shows on TV), but I went in and grabbed some materials — i.e., recipes — from the Low & Slow BBQ at Home, Cinnamon Rolls: Classic to Contemporary, Coffee Shop Cakes: Good to the Last Crumb, Mexican Comfort Food: Enchiladas, Tamales & Rellenos, and Mexican Street Food: The Basics classes. I know my way around the kitchen enough to follow a recipe and those specific ones were intriguing enough for me to want to keep for future reference.
That's right: this buffet lets you take stuff home with you!
PICK UP YOUR PERKS
As a member of Craftsy Unlimited, you're entitled to monthly perks in the way of new content that is supposedly not available to non-members. |
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The graphic at the top of this post is a shot of the landing screen of Craftsy Unlimited. The white menu bar provides a link to new PATTERNS. Here's what I found when I was there last weekend.
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| image courtesy of Craftsy... |
This is a set of free sewing patterns. I downloaded the last one, which is a reversible bag pattern called Livia by RLR Creations. The second one is obviously an apron. The first one is hard to see; it's a wristlet pattern.
I know what you're thinking. There's nothing earth-shatteringly new or unique about those patterns, and my assumption is that there never will be. However, they're a free component of the Unlimited membership and perhaps reason enough for some folks to continue from month to month.
Not to be outdone, here's a set of free quilting patterns.
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And here is a set of free knitting patterns.
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Last but not least, here is a set of free crochet patterns.
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| image courtesy of Craftsy... |
I found that I could download the January patterns as well as the current month's patterns. I don't know if accessibility to past free content will continue to be the case for memberships going forward.
SLOW DOWN & SAMPLE
Finally — just as a regular food buffet presents a great opportunity to try out new foods — after you've taken care of your priorities, use your Craftsy Unlimited trial to sample some of the other offerings.
Coming into the free weekend of Craftsy Unlimited , it was not a class that I would ever have guessed would catch my attention (not being a quilter), but catch my attention it did. The title may have been the kicker, as a couple of weeks back, I had been in a creative funk. This class (which I will likely be back to discuss in greater detail at some point) was extremely helpful in amping up my creative energy.
It's a perfect example of something that I had no previous inclination of sampling, that arguably had the biggest impact on me after the freebie weekend at Craftsy.
Maybe there's a similar surprise waiting for you.
I did not join in on the latest Craftsy bargain, but in the past when they had free all you can watch videos weekend, I did look through a few videos. The only thing with seeing those videos for free is that they did not offer any downloads at all, so you could not download any class material. Still I really didn't need any for the videos I watched. I can only say after viewing several videos I am glad I did not purchase any. I think the videos are well done and all, but I did not learn anything new or anything that I could not have found somewhere online for free. But that is me. I have done a lot over several decades and so I don't need a class for most things they offer. But for people who are new to certain crafts, the videos can be great. I also don't have the patience to sit through viewing them, as I get sleepy watching. I would rather be sewing than watching, lol!
ReplyDeleteIf you have the need to download videos offline from YouTube, Craftsy, you may try Allavsoft with this guide https://www.allavsoft.com/how-to/download-craftsy-lessons-classes-videos.html
ReplyDeleteI'm going to leave this comment up for now, but I will tell my readers that I have not tried this software and therefore cannot vouch for it.
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