The Really Crafty Link Party #493 featured posts!

Hello and welcome! It's Friday again, so it's time to share the features of this week's link party!

Thank you all for joining the party and sharing with us. It's always a pleasure and an inspiration to go through all your wonderful posts!

Scroll down to check out this week's lovely features:

Cute pouches gift set

Hello and welcome! Popping in here quickly today to show off a new gift set I recently finished sewing: one zipper pouch and a matching envelope pouch, all done in the cutest fabric ever!

Intertwined Hearts - free cross stitch pattern

Hello, and welcome! Lately I've been seeing a lot of Valentine's Day related posts already, so I decided this week's free cross stitch pattern would fall into that trend too:

Boxy zipper pouch - tutorial

Hello, and welcome! Remember the boxy school bag I made for my daughter at the end of summer last year (find it here)? Well, at the same time I also created a matching boxy zipper pouch, that my daughter uses as a pencil pouch. 

So today I'm finally posting here the tutorial for the boxy zipper pouch:

Upcycled gift package

Hello, and welcome! Keeping up with my frugal goal for 2026 (read about it here), today I'm sharing here how I upcycled a package (leftover from a Christmas gift) into a new gift package ready to be used:

 

Welcome to The Really Crafty Link Party #493!

Hello, and welcome! I hope you've had a lovely weekend and I'm glad you could join is for a new link party this week.

If you can, please try to visit at least a couple of other posts and/or leave a nice comment on other people's creations, and help spread the word on social media - the more, the merrier!

As usual, the party will be open until Thursday and I will post the features on Friday, January 16th.

 

Please note that there's a 50 entries limit, so make sure you link up early!

Missed last week's features? Click the image below to check them out:

And now, let's party!

2026 Craft Trends: Embracing the Slow, the Meaningful and the Sustainable

While I was doing some research in order to set up my 2026 goals/keyword (read about it here), I learned a lot about the crafting trends that are expected to dominate this new year and ended up deciding to write a post about them.

Apparently, the world of crafting is moving beyond a simple hobby and transforming into a meaningful lifestyle (like maybe it always should have been?). 

In the past, people had no choice but to make things at home - back then they did it out of necessity either because there were very few shops available or because they couldn't afford to buy certain items. Then what had been necessary before turned into a simple hobby (sometimes being shunned or deemed a useless waste of time - why spend hours crocheting or knitting a sweater when you can just go and buy half a dozen for the same price?). 

And now I believe people are realizing that both from an economical and an environmental perspective, those hobbies can and should take central place in their lives again. Not because there aren't products available to be purchased, but because makers are seeking connection, self-care, and a way to balance the digital world with something beautifully tactile. 

So I'm very glad to hear that handmade is a new official goal of many people. Scroll down to know what I found out are to be the top trends shaping the crafts world in this new year.