Simple and Slow Living Hobbies for a Happier Life at Home
You step inside the thick wooden door and the scent of cinnamon rolls fills the air. As you pass happy kids on the way to the kitchen you notice they’re writing letters to mail to their cousin. Birds chirp at the feeder and the sun shines down on the freshly cut grass outside. In the kitchen, you notice homegrown garlic hanging to dry in the corner, ready to be turned into homemade sauce for Saturday night’s pizza. You come to the sun room and find a spot on the bench among the soft pillows and pick up your knitting project to the sounds of happy voices in the background.
No, that’s not from a dream or a movie.
This is actually a regular occurrence in our yellow farmhouse, but it wasn’t always that way!
This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no additional cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.
Before we moved to our 1834 country farmhouse, we lived in the busy Chicago suburbs.
It was like we were living in fast forward. Every weekend was full of parties and local events. On weekdays I’d pack up the girls and some lunches and spend the morning at the park or the zoo until nap time. It was like we weren’t able to be at home, to just do nothing.
When we finally stopped keeping up with the Joneses, became “unbusy”, and moved to the country, we were able to slow down. We became more intentional about how we spent our time, and learned how to create a peaceful home.
The importance of being bored
When we moved to the country, my girls didn’t know what hit them.
They adore our home, are genuinely excited in our backyard, and are weirdly obsessed with our neighbors. But it wasn’t always that easy for them.
For the first few months living here, they didn’t know what hit them because they didn’t know what to do without the park across the street, or the big window to watch kids walk home from school. And they definitely needed to get used to the incredibly slow WiFi that our little house in the big woods gets. We all did!
The thing that surprised me was how quickly we all got used to this new normal.
The girls spent more time playing make believe with Barbies in the trees, and it didn’t take John and I long to stop defaulting to turning on the TV on weeknights. Less TV and especially watching less of the news has done us all some good!
We all learned how to be bored, and through boredom comes creativity, imagination, and learning more about what we like to actually do. Not what we should do to keep up with everyone else, but what things we enjoy doing in our free time.
We keep all of the supplies for these hobbies where the kids can access them anytime!
And when we allow ourselves pockets of time to be unscheduled and let time slow down, that’s where the magic happens.
Slowing down and finding a hobby
When you find yourself more in control of your time instead of it controlling you, you learn more about yourself. There’s something to do even on the hottest of summer days.
If you allow yourself to be home and get bored, you’ll quickly find what kinds of things you’re attracted to. Are you spending more time inside cuddled up, or do you like being outside in nature?
To discover the right slow living hobby for you, start by asking yourself these questions:
- Do I enjoy the outdoors, or am I a little bit indoorsy?
- Would I rather create something or learn something?
- What supplies and equipment might I already have?
- What have I been pinning on Pinterest?
- Have I been daydreaming about learning, making, or doing something but never started?
Slow living hobbies
The best slow living hobbies are ones that are done intentionally. Instead of going through the motions to get something done, you’re focused on the process of the actual doing.
There are plenty of slow living hobbies that are creative, done with your own two hands, and are screen-free.
In our homeschool, we incorporate all of these slow living hobbies right into our cozy homeschool room.
Knitting
I have to start with knitting! It’s my favorite slow living hobby to do at home. Actually, you can find me knitting pretty much anywhere if I need a cozy distraction to keep my hands busy. I once knit at a Blackhawks hockey game and got quite a few stares!
All you need to knit is yarn and a pair of knitting needles. If you’re new to knitting, be sure to check out the beginner knitter’s guide. And if you already know your way around knitting needles, you can browse my knitting pattern library full of beginner and intermediate patterns.
Most people’s skills range from knitting a square dish cloth to a rectangular scarf. The next step? Knitting braided cables, color changes, and knitting socks with circular needles.
Knitting involves muscle memory, and if you practice you can knit without even looking! The day that I started being able to knit and watch TV, or knit while reading a book was such a happy and proud one!
This is a great post if you’re knitting for a baby!
Crochet
Crochet is a lot like knitting, and is often confused for it, much to a crocheter’s dismay!
But crochet is its own art and hobby. Instead of making loops with needles, when you crochet you create a series of small knots.
Crochet has seen an increase in really pretty designs in the past bunch of years, so there is way more out there than granny squares. So if you’re interested in picking up knitting or crochet, I suggest looking around on Pinterest or Our Maker Life’s Instagram account for some inspiration.
Like knitting, you can make some pretty things all without looking away from your favorite show!
Gardening
There’s something incredibly calming about getting your hands dirty in the garden. Gardening is a great slow living hobby because it’s a constant, everyday project. Your garden will always need planting, watering, weeding, and checking up on to make sure it’s healthy and to watch for a harvest.
Starting a garden is cheap. Seed packets from the stores are inexpensive, but if you want more variety you can look at catalogs like Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Seed Saver’s Exchange. Whatever you plant, make sure you save the seeds at the end of its season to replant next year. It’s a great way to save money and keep rare varieties you can’t find in Menards or Lowe’s.
You don’t need a lot of space to grow your own produce for eating and flowers for decorating. A really good way to plan your garden layout is to start a board on Pinterest of anything that stands out to you. Without thinking, just pin! After you have around 100 pins, you can start to look at similarities and discover why you were drawn to certain pictures. If you have 60 flower pins but only 10 herbs, that could be a sign that you might have more fun starting a cut flower garden. You’ll also find ways to create a cozy garden that you want to spend time in.
One hobby that I discovered years after starting our garden is braiding garlic and onions! It stores really well, and just plain looks pretty hanging in our home!
>>Combine slow hobbies and knit the garden!
Baking
Baking is very cozy, especially in the colder months.
The benefits of baking are good for your belly and good for your soul. Bread baking, making muffins, and taking cookies over to a neighbor are all ways to practice self-sufficient slow living in your home (and make it smell amazing!).
I bake every week at Christmastime, and try to keep that inspiration going through the new year, too. There’s something cozy and nostalgic about baking throughout the winter wonderland months!
Embroidery
Embroidery can either be done by hand or by machine.
There are some really pretty things being made with embroidery hoops these days. I really admire what Alex from Alex’s Embroidery is doing over on Instagram!
I’ve sat down with hand stitching every once in awhile. It’s the kind of hobby that you can come back to after months away and you don’t have to reteach yourself how to use a machine or try to remember that tension works best.
I also have an Brother PES 525 embroidery machine that I use for projects beyond the hoop.
Cooking
Cooking is very hygge to me, but it didn’t used to be. I was someone who hated cooking and thought of it more like a chore.
But I realized it was because I didn’t actually know how to cook and I was feeling insecure about that! You don’t have to cook all natural straight from your garden every night, but there’s nothing like salsa or a salad made fresh!
Once you take the time to learn and just get into it, cooking is very relaxing and you find yourself not even needing to follow a recipe every time. That creativity in making is wonderful, and sitting down with family to eat what you made is so cozy!
Reading
There is maybe nothing cozier than reading. Curling up with a good book or the coziest magazine is just as relaxing outside in the heat of summer as it is in the dead of winter next to a fireplace.
With audiobooks and ebooks, there really is no way to not find a whole bunch of books you’ll love! Read aloud time is our favorite time of my family’s homeschool day.
Classics like Jane Austen, nostaglic Harry Potter rereads, and discovering new series are what I love about reading.
Even if you’ve already visited the world and know the story, a good story never gets old.
I also discovered cozy mysteries, which are books with themes about, get this: hobbies! Cozy mysteries about knitting, baking, reading, sewing, and even realtors are the themes for a huge list of cozy mystery books. You can find more on this complete list.
>>See the booklist of my favorite knitting resources and my children’s favorite picture books about knitting
Writing
Writing is good for the soul. It forces you to think about what you’re writing before you write, as opposed to when you speak and words can get tangled up and fly out at once.
It’s a very relaxing way to remember things, organize, plan, and goal set.
Sometimes when you’re going through something you just need to get it out on paper. Whether your experience is good or bad, writing it down preserves your memory and clears your mind.
I love writing, I always have since high school English classes. But it’s so much more fun to write about what makes you happy, or what’s happening in your life. Sometimes in order to even work out a situation or your feelings about something, you need to write it out.
I always write rough drafts with a pencil on lined paper. I have since school. While everyone else was typing their drafts and proofreading right there, it was like my words connected better with the pencil to paper. And proofreading is so much more organized in my mind when I can erase and scratch out rather than copy, cut, and paste.
Photography
I love taking photos of my kids, nature, and my hobbies.
A good knitting photo can make my morning a little brighter. If I can share the feeling of sitting there knitting and eating cinnamon rolls with someone through just a picture, it makes me happy. It makes me feel like we’re sitting there together, enjoying our coffee and having a good chat.
Photography is such an open-minded slow living hobby. Something catches every eye differently. You can look at the same flower as someone else and see a totally different angle or aspect of it that just jumps out at you.
Puzzles
Puzzles are addicting, aren’t they?
You don’t need anything more than that tiny box and the ground. One of which is everywhere you go!
You can walk into the room and do 5 pieces of a puzzle quickly, or sit down for two hours until it’s halfway done.
Puzzling can be a solitary hobby, when you just need a few minutes of quiet calm. But it can also be something you do with others that creates a strong sense of togetherness. Slow living and hygge are really deep into community and being together. Puzzles invite spectators and contributors, and make long term guests out of quick visitors.
There is joy in slow living hobbies
Are you in a space of overwhelm?
Clear your calendar of the unnecessary, slow down, and discover a hobby that brings you joy and comfort. Or find ten slow living hobbies!
When you spend your time in your hobbies, you’re the one scheduling your life with what you actually want to do. And you’ll wind up feeling happier and recharged from filling your cup instead of using your time to fill everyone else’s cups.
