DIY Book Nook Kits: The Perfect Indoor Hobby for Readers
Adults need downtime. To decompress, unwind, and keep their mental faculties sharp. Hobbies do all that and more. A very loose-fitting definition of a hobby is something you do in your leisure time that makes you feel good. Different hobbies do different things for different people.
For some, it’s the adrenaline rush from skydiving that’s a hobby. It's an expensive one, but a hobby all the same. Others golf, and readers, read. What do you do when there’s so much going on that you struggle to focus on the words in a book or feel frustrated having to reread pages?
6 Reasons DIY Book Nook Kits are the Perfect Indoor Hobby for Readers
1. They let you experience creative expression without being “artistic”
You can be non-artistic and still benefit from 3D puzzles and similar arts and crafts projects. The assembly of DIY book nook kits is a form of creative expression. The design, the artful decor, and the whimsical concepts of fictional (and some non-fictional) scenes have all been done by designers and illustrators to create the scene in puzzle form. That’s the benefit of DIY book nook kits. It starts as a 3D puzzle requiring assembly only. If it were just for the aesthetics, they’d be sold as fully assembled bookshelf inserts.
One doesn't need to be a talented artist to create a gorgeous bookshelf insert. The kits are pre-designed with pre-cut pieces and printed stickers or paper decals. Cut the paper, glue the wood, stick it together and put it in its place between books on a bookshelf. It's an organized method to build your own art. Unique pieces that can then be used as prized bookshelf inserts among the books on your shelves.
Talented artists and those up for a more complex challenge, or perhaps striving to work up to more challenging kits can progress to more mentally stimulating kits. It’s a hobby that lends itself to progression, gradually increasing the intensity of each challenge. Start with DIY book nook kits for beginners, progress to more challenging kits with more pieces, onto customizing book nook kits, and at the advanced level, curate the pieces needed for scratch building - build your own bookshelf insert from scratch.
2. An Ultimate Stress Buster
Assembly puzzles are well known for their therapeutic benefits. It's the focused nature of the assembly process that shuts off thoughts of what's going on in the world by focusing the entirety of your attention on the miniature world being created by your hands. When your mind feels too mentally cluttered to focus on reading a story, assembly puzzles can be an alternative book-related indoor hobby for de-stressing.
3. Strengthen Cognition (and your career prospects)
On your CV and at job interviews, the question about hobbies isn’t to get to know, and what you do in your spare time. It’s to see if what you do as a leisure activity can help you progress in a professional capacity.
Imagine this question being asked at an interview.
What’s your hobby and why? How would you respond?
'To decompress, I like assembling book nook kits because it’s therapeutic, forces me to focus, visualize the model finished, and use logic to assemble all the miniature parts in the right order, creating a one-of-a-kind ornamental decor piece for my bookcase'.
From a recruiting stance, research shows that hobby engagement plays a part in mental wellbeing too. From a perspective of healthy ageing, three things slow cognitive decline: Games, puzzles and reading. Doing those activities three to four times weekly helps to improve working memory, attention, and processing speed. You can look after your mental wellness and keep your wits sharp! They’re small enough to be portable, letting you work on them in short sessions of one to two hours, then store them away for the next time.
4. Enhance Your Social Interactions
Some types of puzzles are terrific for group activities like jigsaw puzzles with thousands of pieces. The larger the puzzle, the bigger a group can be involved. DIY book nook kits, being miniatures with multiple parts, can lend itself to a couple's activity. One person does the glueing, sticking, or painting and decorating of blank book nook kits, the other does the assembling and any wiring for lighting.
The most enjoyment from kits though is to be assembling a design that resonates with a personal interest. Many couples have different reading interests. It’s possible to match the theme of a book nook kit to a literary genre and partake in the hobby together. Being part of the miniature modelling pastime, it’s a perfect hobby for small spaces. Two people could share a dining room table, each assembling their own kit for their shelf on a bookcase.
Once assembled, it's the uniqueness of them as a bookshelf decor piece that catches the eye of guests, making them focal points and conversation starters. That's why, the designs are better when they are related to a topic of interest. That could be miniature library kits, fantasy-themed book nook kits, or romantic scenes as depictions from YA novels. Some kits, like the Tokyo Alley DIY book nook kit lends itself to a craft activity and could be memorabilia because it’s a non-fiction design. With assembled bookshelf inserts on display, particularly when lit up, they look mesmerizing.
5. It’s a budget-friendly hobby
Most assembly puzzles are budget-friendly. The vast majority of DIY book nook kits are under $100, with some budget book nook kits being priced between $20 and $50, depending on where you buy the kit. Other hobbies like photography, learning to play a musical instrument or even just cooking a variety of cuisines can be pricey for the ingredients needed for each recipe.
With book nook kits, everything for assembly is included with most kits, with there being relatively few additional accessories to make the process easier and more enjoyable if you were to continue assembling different kits.
6. Escapism and a Sense of Achievement
Long after book nook kits are assembled, they continue to make you feel good because you can look at your bookshelf and get a flashback of memories from it. That could be the experience of assembling it, or from looking at the miniatures inside the book nook that remind you of things. Like a cat beside a reading chair, a dog under a table, or a reminder of a telescope you used to enjoy peering through to look at the stars when you were younger.
The miniatures inside the bookshelf insert could be so evocative that you get back into a childhood hobby of stargazing, or step it up a notch to have a collection of astronomy books, a cosmic design (one of the most popular book nook kit themes) displayed with astronomy books to one side and celestial navigation books on the other. With a design for every genre, these are fantastic for personalizing your bookshelves.