4 BOREDOM BUSTING HOBBIES

Ever find yourself hanging around the house with nothing to do? Find a hobby to keep boredom at bay.

---

START A COMMUNITY GARDEN
If there’s a patch of unused land in your community, get together with your neighbours and start a vegetable, fruit, herb or flower garden. Local children can be roped in to help in their free time, and everyone will be rewarded with the fruits (or vegetables or flowers) of your labours. You might even find that you have enough produce to feed yourselves and still sell some at a community market.

UPCYCLE
Upcycling is the art of using discarded objects or materials to create something of better quality or more value than the original. There’s no limit to what you can use or create – let your imagination run wild! To give you some ideas, think an old pair of jeans with worn-through legs – turn their top into a sturdy handbag. Or use old bottle tops to make patterns on a picture frame or side table. Or turn an old car tyre into a children’s swing; or empty coffee cans into decorative stationery holders. You can even get creative with things like broken furniture, jewellery or children’s toys, as well as tin foil, sweet wrappers or corks – the possibilities, are endless…

MACRAMÉ (OR STRING ART)
This is the art of making things with string by knotting it in patterns. You can make anything from really simple things like wristbands, placemats or table runners to more elaborate pot-plant holders, wall art, handbags, lampshades, cushion covers and even hammocks if you’re really ambitious. Once you’ve got the hang of it, your finished articles can be sold for a good price, depending on their intricacy and size. This is a satisfying, useful and profitable hobby. Go to www.free-macrame-patterns.com for free patterns.

RECIPE CLUB
If you enjoy cooking and socialising, this one kills two birds with one stone. Create a group with like-minded friends and family members who meet once a week or month to share recipes and meals. Rotate the venue each time between members’ homes. You can theme each evening (or lunchtime or even breakfast) around types of cuisines, meal courses or whatever else takes your fancy. For instance, one week you might each make a dish of African origin, with one person doing a starter, another a main and others desserts. Or you could each do a soup, casserole, or dessert. You could also each do a dish from a different country. The idea is that everyone shares their recipes, and members can bring a friend so you all get to widen your circle of friends and learn how to make new dishes. If you collect all the recipes, after a while you could even create your own recipe-club cookbook. They could simply be pasted into a notebook or, if any of you have access to a computer they could be typed up and then printed out.

Text Themba Dikela