Makerland

If you keep an eye out, you’ll notice pottery studios cropping up in cities and towns across Ireland. You’ll spot it in a way that makes you smile windows showing shelves of mugs and bowls, a neatly stacked kiln outside, maybe the soft sound of clay being shaped inside. These days, pottery studios are quietly becoming part of the fabric of Irish towns and cities, and they’re doing more than just teaching people how to work with clay. They’re becoming spaces where people connect, create, and belong. Ireland’s relationship with clay isn’t new. Excavations in Kilkenny revealed a medieval pottery production centre where Highhays Ware was made and traded a reminder that ceramics have been part of life here for centuries. In the 20th century, pottery businesses like Carrigaline Pottery in Cork and Arklow Pottery in Wicklow were significant local employers, shaping everyday tableware for Irish homes. And organisations like the Society of Cork Potters, founded in the 1970s, helped sustain c...

  For a long time, scrapbooking lived in the same mental box as novelty scissors and dusty craft cupboards. Something your aunt did. Something you definitely didn’t post about online. And yet, here we are. Scrapbooking is back. Not ironically. Not as a throwback joke. Genuinely, creatively, joyfully back. So what changed? Scrapbooking never really disappeared. It just went quiet. When social media took over, we started documenting everything digitally. Photos lived on phones. Memories became Stories. Albums disappeared into cloud storage we rarely opened again. But something got lost along the way. Scrapbooking offers what digital memory can’t. It’s slow. It’s tactile. It’s intentional. Cutting, arranging, gluing and layering asks you to stay with a moment instead of scrolling past it. And right now, that feels radical. The aesthetic has also changed a lot. Old-school scrapbooking didn’t do itself many favours, but today’s version looks completely different. Muted colour palett...

For a while, craft felt like it had to prove something. Be polished. Be fast. Be good on camera. In 2026, more makers are opting out of that entirely. The grandmacore revival has less to do with looks and more to do with how making actually feels. It’s about crafts that take time, invite repetition, and don’t mind if you’re a bit slow at first. You see it clearly in workshops. Knitting, crochet, embroidery, patchwork, weaving. Techniques that ask you to sit down, pick up the same motion again and again, and trust that something will eventually emerge. Progress is quiet. Mistakes happen. Conversations drift. No one’s rushing you toward a finished result. That atmosphere matters. Grandmacore craft assumes care of materials, of tools, of each other. Pieces are made to be used, washed, repaired, and used again. Fixes stay visible. Wear is expected. Nothing is treated as precious in a way that makes it untouchable. Across Ireland, these kinds of workshops are drawing people in not becaus...

In 2026, nature-inspired crafts are quietly everywhere. Pressed flowers, botanical patterns, earthy textures, and pieces that feel slower and more thoughtful are finding their way onto craft tables and into homes. Not in a precious or overly styled way more like this felt good to make, so I kept going . It’s a trend that feels less about what looks impressive and more about what feels right. Nature-themed crafts have always been part of the maker world, but something has shifted in how they’re showing up. There’s a growing preference for real materials, visible imperfections, and work that reflects time spent rather than time saved. Makers are allowing things to be uneven, slightly imperfect, and personal. A crooked stem or faded petal isn’t a mistake it’s a record of the process. It’s creativity as a form of noticing, and that’s proving surprisingly appealing. The botanical craft trends shaping 2026 Pressed flowers, reimagined Pressed flowers have moved well beyond their childhood...