The lovely girls of A Beautiful Mess, who run the vintage boutique Red Velvet, are offering a DIY Dress Up e-Course where you can learn sewing techniques to help you make a variety of projects. From a headband to a stylish bag to even drafting your own patterns for a dress that fits you perfectly – the course is organized into 17 “sessions” on a private, password-protected blog. You can take this course any time, 24/7, to view the in-depth photo tutorials for each session. In the tutorials they instruct you on utilizing your sewing machine to its fullest, thinking like a designer in designing your DIY pieces, reading patterns, and making many items to add to your closet. And the cost? A mere $29!
They’ve posted a FAQ here as well.
So here’s a question for all of you: do you believe reading a blog series online would be beneficial in upping your DIY skills? Or do you feel the online format would not be able to provide enough of the assistance necessary? Or perhaps that photo tutorials on blogs are a dime a dozen and that all of these techniques could be learned elsewhere?
Discuss! Is this the future of DIY classes?
xoxox
Carly
~If you liked this post, please share it!~
Great question! I’ve actually been eyeing off this e-course since it was released. I think it looks wonderful. I’ve never done an e-course before, but I imagine the format would be able to provide all of the necessary information and assistance, much like a craft or sewing book does. It seems kind of like an e-book, but online. I also think that while there are tonnes of DIY tutorials for free online (gosh, I post quite a few myself!), I think that the value in something like this goes beyond just the instructions. Also the fact that the sessions are all compiled together is more convenient that searching for things on different websites. I’m guessing that the quality of the sessions will be high (if the blog is anything to go by), and that they will be full of the personalities and styling of A Beautiful Mess. It’s about buying a unique experience, not just information. It’s also very cheap considering the work that must have gone into it. Thanks for starting this interesting discussion, Carly! ps. I think with your great DIY skills, you could run a class or write a book, too 😉
Angela recently posted…Teal and Mustard Outfit with DIY Belt
I think there is a niche market, creating something unique along encouraging subscriber participation and marketing to their demographics would be key.
There are tons of free tutorials on the internet for anyone for just about anything if someone is willing to the time and effort to look for them and the elbow grease to work through them even when instructions are unclear.
I think to be successful they would need to offer a lot of “free” samples that are above and beyond what can be found elsewhere, encourage “student” participation and post submitted projects and constructively critique and praise progress and motivate so the participant feel they are part of something, not just an anonymous subscriber.
hey hey!
I really believe that all available ways of learning to diy can be of use, it’s just a matter of a personal choice whether one will search for blogs, yt films, e-courses, books or workshops.
majority of diy things are not that difficult or complicated to do and – I have a feeling – most readers of blogs such as yours are not totally green in this matter so it’s ain’t difficult to get it all. but I can also imagine that for beginners a live-workshop would be much better. I can imagine myself wanting to learn to knit. I’d chose workshops, just to get the notion of what is what and how to move on. later I’d look for some online ‘extensions’ to develop my skills.
if I wouldn’t be able to join workshops, I’d go to yt and search for what I need.
and by the way – I adore elsie’s energy;)
staklene bombone
staklene bombone recently posted…tralalala
Well I have just started this course and I am documenting my progress in my blog! I find it very helpful for practising my skills but I have to say that I am not entirely a beginner sewer. However I am pretty much self tought mostly learning from online resources anyway…
Maddie recently posted…DIY Dress UP & The Tote!
Thanks, Maddie, for the input! I will definitely be checking out your blog to hear your thoughts about the course and see your results! Thanks for letting us know:-)
xoxox
Carly