TMST: Pandemic-Born Hobbies

Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly feature started by the lovely Rainy Day Ramblings, and now hosted by a team of bloggers, Roberta @ Offbeat YA, Karen @ For What It's Worth, Berls @ Because Reading Is Better Than Real Life, Jen @ That's What I'm Talking About, and Linda @ Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell.

Have you kept any hobbies that you started during the pandemic?

Yes and no. The two main hobbies I picked up during the pandemic were gardening and working with polymer clay. Now, prior to this I had done some gardening before, but during the years of the pandemic I really brought this into overdrive. I have to admit that I have not only not calmed down, I have actually sort of gotten worse. My house is being taken over by plants haha.

With polymer clay, I used to use air dry clay, and always loved working with it. I finally decided to try polymer clay (you need to bake it in the oven to cure it, rather than the air dry variety), which I had been interested in for years but had been intimidated by it. I made a sort of palm stone/emblem to help a friend going through a really tough time and learned how the medium worked. Then my clay obsession transferred to this new style, and I haven't looked back. Now I mostly make magnets and figurines for my friends, and have tried a few pairs of earrings.

So although those two hobbies were definitely kicked into hyperdrive during the pandemic, they were activities I enjoyed in some form or another prior to.

What are some hobbies you picked up during the pandemic? Did you continue doing them afterwards?