A tiny crochet frog for your desk. Cookies you made with your grandma. An afternoon spent looking through a thrift store with your best friend.
Those all sound like pretty good senior-year plans.
If you’ve been wanting to try some grandma hobbies, you have options. Crochet, baking, embroidery, pressing flowers. Things you can do at home in your comfy clothes, with a friend or while watching a show you’ve already seen.
Some leave you with something to keep. Some give you a reason to spend an afternoon with someone you love. And some sound fun because, well, tiny crochet frog.
Here are a few to try this year.
Crochet
A bookmark is a good first crochet project. A blanket is a longer commitment, especially if you’re still figuring out how to hold the yarn.
Look for a beginner pattern with a short supply list. A video tutorial can help you see where the hook goes, and you can pause it as many times as you need.
Your first project might look a little different from the picture. Keep it anyway. There’s something sweet about having the first thing you made, crooked edges and all.
Baking from scratch
If someone in your family makes cookies you love, ask to make a batch together. You get cookies and an afternoon with them. That’s a pretty good senior-year plan.
It’s also a chance to learn the parts that never seem to make it onto the recipe card. What the dough should feel like. Which pan they use. How they know it’s done.
Chocolate chip cookies or banana bread give you somewhere to start if you’re baking on your own. And if today is a cookie-dough-from-the-fridge kind of day, enjoy those too.
Journaling
Your journal can hold whatever you want to keep from this year.
Something your friend said at lunch. A song you keep playing. A few lines about a day you liked. You might tuck in a ticket or add a photo beside the words.
Some pages might have doodles all over them. Others might be one sentence in whatever pen you found in your bag.
Little details are worth saving, too. You might be glad you wrote down the lunch-table story.
Thrifting
Thrifting with a friend gives you plenty to talk about, even when neither of you buys anything.
You can look for something specific, like a frame for your room or a sweater you want to wear this fall. Or spend some time browsing and see what catches your eye.
A small budget can make it fun to compare finds afterward. Who found something they’ll wear all the time? Who found a mug with a very specific name on it?
Leave a little time to look through the books, too. Someone’s old cookbook might be your next hobby.
Embroidery
Embroidery is worth a try if you like working on little details.
A beginner kit with a printed pattern gives you a design to follow while you learn the stitches. You could start with a flower, an initial, or a small picture you’d like to hang in your room.
It’s the kind of project you can keep coming back to. A few stitches while you watch something, a few more another day.
And if you end up making a tiny embroidered strawberry, I think that deserves a spot on the wall.
Growing something
A pot of herbs on a sunny windowsill is one way to start. Choose a plant that suits the light you have, then check what it needs for water and care.
You get to watch it grow. Eventually, you might get to use something you grew in your own kitchen, which is pretty fun.
If someone in your family gardens, ask whether you can join them for an afternoon. They might have a few things to teach you.
You might also leave with more tomatoes than you planned on taking home.
Bracelet making
Beads, string, and a table with room for everyone to spread out. That sounds like a good afternoon with friends.
You can make bracelets in your school colors, spell out names, or pick colors that remind you of each other. A small inside joke works, too.
A bracelet would be sweet to give a friend before graduation. So would one made on a random afternoon because you saw the beads and thought of her.
Leave a little time for untangling the string. That part seems to have its own schedule.
Reading physical books
A book you choose because you want to read it belongs on your senior-year list.
Try a new story, borrow something from a friend, or reread a book you loved when you were younger. It can be fun to return to a story you remember and notice what you think about it now.
You could ask someone in your family what they read at your age. Maybe you’ll find something you both want to talk about.
And yes, reading in your pajamas with a snack nearby sounds like a plan.
Pressing flowers
Pressed flowers give you something small to keep from a bouquet or a day you want to remember.
You can put them in a journal, use them on a card, or frame a few together. A flower from your own garden would be sweet beside a photo from the same summer.
If you’re using a book to press them, protect its pages with paper that absorbs moisture. And if the flowers belong to someone else, ask before picking.
The flower can take up half the page. You can write the date underneath and leave it at that.
Morning walks
A morning walk can be a way to spend a little time outside before the day gets going.
Choose a route you know and like. You could invite a friend when your schedules line up or walk with someone in your family.
There’s room for a longer route when you have time. On a school morning, a short walk might fit better.
And if the conversation continues on the front steps after you get back, that sounds like time well spent.
Something you want to try
If one of these sounds fun, start there. You might keep crocheting all year. You might make one bookmark and move on to baking.
If you learn a family recipe, keep a copy. If you make bracelets with your friends, take a picture of everyone wearing theirs.
And if your first crochet frog looks a little confused, please keep him. He’s part of senior year now.
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