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9 Easy Crafts to Help Relieve Stress
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9 Easy Crafts to Help Relieve Stress
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9 Easy Crafts to Help Relieve Stress

Take a break from the computer with these simple activities.

May 14, 2015 Samantha Cowan
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Crayon Art

Crayon Art

Mix your love of school supplies with a little heat, and—voilà!—you’ve got a melted masterpiece. Beginners can start by hot-gluing a line of crayons to a canvas, adding heat with a blow-dryer, and letting the color seep down to the center. Get a little more complicated by fanning the crayons into shapes or around a favorite drawing to add color.

(Photo: David Amsler/Flickr)

Collage

Collage

The days of gluing images to paper don’t have to end after elementary school. Building a more sophisticated collage with crisper cut lines and a smoother glue job allows adults to tap into that same playful imagination and create one-of-a-kind visual representations.

(Photo: Amanda Krueger/Flickr)

Personalized Inspiration Poster

Personalized Inspiration Poster

The mass messages touting determination and strength can feel a bit clichéd. Make your own poster by picking up an old painting from a thrift store and spelling out your message of choice with adhesive letters. (Pro tip: Use a ruler and a pencil to mark each letter to create a straight and evenly spaced phrase.) Then head outside and coat the entire image with white spray paint. The light-colored paint allows the old colors to peek through. Once it’s dry, gently peel off the letters to reveal colorful words that mean something to you.

(Photo: Dimitra Tzanos/Flickr)

Zentangle

Zentangle

Even if you can’t draw more than a stick figure, Zentangle’s repetitive patterns allow doodlers of all abilities to turn simple shapes into complex images.

(Photo: Terry Lynn/Flickr)

Knitting or Crocheting

Knitting or Crocheting

Making scarves and hats is not just a hobby for grandmas. The rhythmic and repetitive act of “knit one, pearl one” or looping the crochet hook through yarn quickly becomes a thoughtless process. Just remember to count your stitches if you’re new to scarf making.

(Photo: Gislene Modesto/Flickr)

Garden Stones

Garden Stones

Talented painters who also have a green thumb can put their skills to good use by creating stone garden markers for the vegetable patch. With acrylic paint, get as detailed as you like on a smooth stone, creating images of tomatoes, peas, carrots, or whatever else you’re growing. Writing a word in paint can prove tricky, but outlining the letters with thin permanent marker can cover up minor mistakes.

(Photo: Facebook)

Clay Beads

Clay Beads

The constant kneading and rubbing of polymer clay can be a relaxing task in itself. Use as many shades of clay as you like to create colorful mosaic spheres. Pierce a hole through the bead with a toothpick before placing it on aluminum foil to bake in the oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes. After the beads have cooled, thread them on twine, elastic string, or—if you’ve got jewelry pliers and cutters—metal earring posts.

(Photo: Flickr)

String Art

String Art

What better way to relieve yourself of frustration than by hammering nails into a board? Arrange them to outline a desired word or shape. Using a few spools of bright string, wind the threads around the nails to create a colorful image that can liven up a blank wall.

(Photo: Tara Faul/Flickr)

Cork Bulletin Board

Cork Bulletin Board

Relaxing with a glass of wine? Keep the cork. Pick up a shadow box or heavy-duty wood and Super Glue. Then place the flat rounds of the cork into the box to create a useful bulletin board. You’ll need upwards of 200 corks, so keep on drinking.

(Photo: Kelly Sillaste/Getty Images)

Fat Batman
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See What Happens When Your Favorite Comic Characters Eat Junk Food
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See What Happens When Your Favorite Comic Characters Eat Junk Food

Batman sports a rippling six-pack and fits into a tight superhero suit, but all that might end if he chowed down on junk food all the time. Thanks to the talents of Chicago-based graphic designer and illustrator Alex Solis, we can see what size the Dark Knight might balloon to if he slurped soda and munched on fries.

The Caped Crusader isn’t the only pop culture figure Solis has transformed. As part of his Famous Chunkies series, Solis has drawn 112 iconic characters that have packed on the pounds because of unhealthy food choices.

Solis, 31, came up the idea while watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie with his daughter. He noticed how much energy the turtles have even though all they eat is pizza. So he decided to show his little girl what characters from cartoons, comic books, video games, and movies might look like on that kind of diet. “I love food as much as I love drawing,” he says, which made the project a fun, satirical way for him to raise awareness about why food choices matter.

He began sharing the drawings on his Instagram account, and last fall he ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of a Famous Chunkies book. Given that one in five children ages 5 to 17 in the developed world is overweight or obese, let’s hope these illustrations inspire kids to eat more fruits and veggies. Click through to see a few of our favorite illustrations in the series.

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After a hard day’s work, sitting in front of a television or a computer screen doesn’t always help people forget about stressful deadlines, looming bills, or demanding family and social obligations.

Crafting can be a relaxing way to clear the mind. Repetitive motion can put you in a trance-like state, allowing you to unwind and momentarily forget your troubles—no Internet connectivity required.

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TakePart is the digital news and lifestyle magazine from Participant Media, the company behind such acclaimed documentaries as CITIZENFOUR, An Inconvenient Truth, and Food, Inc. and feature films including  Lincoln and Spotlight.

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