Creative DIY trends

At Créations & savoir-faire, the art of doing things yourself goes hand in hand with conviviality. With the ID-Gourmandes space, we're putting the spotlight on home cooking as a genuine vehicle for meeting new people and exchanging ideas. Because what could be better than cooking together, sharing fresh produce and turning a dish or dessert into a shared memory? Here's a closer look at five inspiring initiatives across France, where cooking becomes much more than a culinary gesture: it becomes a veritable language for creating social links.

Need a new lease of life for your creative projects? What if the secret was to get away from it all for a while? These five artistic retreats in the four corners of France offer an enchanted opportunity to reconnect with your imagination, discover new techniques or simply take some time for yourself, to the rhythm of nature and materials.

Quilting is a hobby, a passion, sometimes even a veritable philosophy of life. Assembling pieces of fabric, from modest scraps to precious fabrics, it is expressed through blankets, clothing, decorative objects or works of art. Whether made from simple coloured squares or clever geometric compositions, popular and anonymous or a textile artist's masterpiece, patchwork combines memory and modernity.

What better way to have a decoration that reflects your personality than to do it yourself? So you can choose the materials, patterns and colours to suit you.

Arras lace, Auvergne lace, Bayeux lace, Le Puy lace, Alençon lace, Binche lace, Bruges lace, Brussels lace, Honiton lace, Tenerife lace… This list alone takes us on a journey across Europe. This magnificent technique, whether carried out by hand by lace-makers or mechanised using incredibly ingenious looms, is of paramount importance for the preservation of traditional skills.

Are you going on holiday and want to keep creating whilst you’re away? It’s hard to fit your workshop into your suitcase! So, for a holiday filled with creativity, here are 5 ideas for portable art activities that are easy to pack in your luggage.

Why was macramé such a big part of the 70s? It was a time when a return to nature was being advocated on a number of fronts... and it is perhaps this response that partly explains the reputation but also the revival of this craft, which has resurfaced in recent years in contemporary dimensions.