This is another Bad Craft which is not inherently bad. In fact, you can create a lot of cool stuff with plastic needlepoint canvas. This canvas basically lets you create your own custom-designed three-dimensional object decorated with needlepoint, and the possibilities there are endless. (Check out this great kitschy plastic needlepoint RV lamp!)
Plastic needlepoint involves regular cross stitch, but instead of doing it on a swath of fabric, you use this thick plastic mesh. The mesh can be cut and shaped to a certain extent, although in practice you are pretty much limited to squares (and squarish shapes).
No, the big problem with plastic needlepoint canvas crafts is that it is a craft which is beloved by your fusty great aunt Mildred. You know the one. She probably has a plastic needlepoint canvas cozy for every tissue box in her house, and I bet they are decorated with cat faces and clowns and poodles and rainbows.
So many plastic canvas needlepoint crafts are for things which are not quite useful. A tissue box cover is a great example. It acts like something which is useful, but it is not. No one needs a tissue box holder. It's entirely unnecessary. And yet, here is someone who has dedicated her life to making them.
Fridge magnets. Bookmarks. Business card holders. Light switch covers. That's the caliber of craft we're talking about here. It's a whole ocean of things that no one needs and no one wants, but people keep making nonetheless.
I have a great aunt who for decades sent every family member a plastic needlepoint canvas Christmas tree ornament. Santa in a sleigh, a mailbox with a letter inside, a little elf, that kind of thing. They were horrible, but no one had the heart to say anything. (We're sarcastic; we're not monsters.) I have a huge box of them somewhere in storage. Sorry, auntie N!
Image courtesy Flickr/ohsohappytogether
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