looking for beads and I was really surprised that there was only literally a 2 metre area designated to jewellery making! The bead trays were almost empty and I wondered it they were winding down the jewellery making section altogether.
I must admit I haven’t been in for ages but they used to have a whole aisle dedicated to jewellery making. It was the same with rubber stamping too…the selection was so small.
I went to The Range afterwards and it was exactly the same there.
Have I been living in a bubble for the last few years and hadn’t noticed? Are jewellery making and rubber stamping crafts on the decline or do people just buy their supplies online now?
Theyve wound down that section in our Hobby craft too. There was a whole of one aisle and now its a small corner upstairs. The beads were originally four of five shelves are now just one small shelf. I don’t really use them but my daughter caught the bug of making bracelets.
I have seen a lot of people give up jewellery making as a business recently, I think it is due to the market being so saturated it is really hard to get sales.
I also think the jewellery selling market has moved on from cheaper beads to silversmithing and artisan beads such as lampwork and ceramic.
I went to ours a couple of months ago, I went to look at the dies for the big shot machines and there wern’t any, they only had the cricut machines which was a bit of a surprise. They had a lot of tacky Easter decorations at the time. They had also changed their storage boxes from good quality ‘Really useful storage boxes’ to a cheaper version, what looked like a copy of them and what I actually went in to buy. I actually didn’t buy anything at all last time i went.
I guess they need to move with the times but I thought jewellery making was always so popular.
I didn’t really look round properly but it looked like they were stocking more craft kits and the kids craft section looked a lot bigger.
I went to Hobbycraft this morning as well, and I know exactly what you mean. There were only a few metal dies and stamps, but I think this is down to digital cutting & stamping. I guess there is a lot more profit in selling cricut machines & vinyl, than it is with metal dies & rubber stamps. I cannot really compare with the past as I only found out recently one “near” me, and the last time I went was more than 4 years ago, in the store in Reading, which was massive and over two floors, while the one I went today it was only 1 floor, so I guess that plays a small part as well. Craft kits are also very popular at the moment, and I will agree about the kid’s craft section, it seemed to have a lot more variety.
I’ve always had an issue with Hobbycraft and only use it in an emergency as they don’t really stock what I want. I also think the quality has gone down as well - card and envelopes seem very flimsy - in the past they used to stock a few quite nice items.
