HOL

January tends to be a time where people take on new goals and ambitions, take up new habits. But it also tends to be dead smack in the middle of winter (For us Northern Hemisphere folks at least). Which means that many of us are turning to crafts and hobbies to beat the gloom and occupy ourselves inside during the cold.

So, we know there are some hobbies expressed in the Harry Potter world that might be similar to ours but have a magical twist. There's wizard chess, where the pieces actually move based on your command. We see Molly Weasley knitting by magic, with the needles moving by themselves. There are also hobbies that are purely magical, such as dueling club. Photography is a weird one, in that you have to really manipulate muggle technology to make it work for magical film. And just how do you make a living painting, like the Fat Lady?

So I want you to take a hobby, maybe even your preferred one, and talk about how it can be magical. You can either make it up or you can reference something from the books and films. But let's do a little deeper dive into the world-building.

One of my favorite hobbies is beading. Several different types of beading honestly. The first kind i'll talk about is perler beads. when you see a jar of perler beads, it seems pretty useless and stagnant because what could you possibly make out of these tiny pieces of plastic? once you combine that together with a pegboard and an iron though, BAM! you have a magical tool at your disposal. Jewelry, clocks, coasters, keychains, etc. The list seriously goes on forever. there's also magic in the community as you can think you've thought of all possibilities, and here comes your friend with a new design you never even dreamed of. Another type of beading thats pretty magical is just regular ole' beading on a thread. A person's personality really shines through when beading. will you make a necklace? a fancy design on some clothing? or make up a whole new magical idea? And you could give five people the same exact beads and they will all bring you back a different finished piece. That's pretty magical.

Blake, I just wanted to comment that reading your post actually made me remember how I felt when I used to do beading and jewelry making. So thanks for making me remember that time in my life.