There are points in our lives where we find ourselves feeling a bit lonely, bored, or restless. This is when a good hobby is called for.
The best hobbies are those that catch our interest for fun, rather than practicality, though they can certainly be both fun and practical. Just make sure that whatever you choose has that inspired spark!
Without further ado, here are 11 hobbies for women in their 30s:
1 Soap Making
Have you ever considered making homemade soap? It’s not too difficult, as long as you know the proper ingredients and processes.
The two most popular types of soap to make are cold press and melt and pour.
Cold press soaps are the most complicated of the two but yield the most luxurious results. These call for lye, fragrance, pigment powder (optional), lye, and moisturizers like almond oil, palm oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, and shea butter.
For melt-and-pour soaps, all that you need is a plain, base soap block. This is melted down, fragranced, colored (optional), and poured into molds. Simple!
With homemade soap, you can control the ingredients, and make sure they are skin-friendly, and suit your personal tastes. Soaps are also perfect to gift or sell!
2 Flower Pressing
If you love flowers, you will almost certainly want to try flower pressing one day! Why not now?
You can save your favorite blooms in detailed shape and color, to admire again later.
Fortunately, flower pressing couldn’t be simpler. All that you need are the fresh, crisp blooms of your choice, a book or press, and absorbent paper (such as plain facial tissue or white paper).
Flattening the flowers serves to press the moisture from them, where it’s absorbed by the paper.
The result is a flower preserved in the prime of its beauty, to enjoy for years. Store your flowers in a special pressed flower book!
Read our guide to flower pressing here. Learn a new hobby today!
3 Kickboxing
A super empowering hobby that’s available to nearly anyone is becoming a kickboxer. It will enhance your self-esteem even as you become physically stronger.
Not only that but channeling your stress or anger into a high-energy exercise like this can provide invaluable stress relief. It’s also good for the heart and a great excess fat burner!
To become a kickboxer, all that you need is a class or some online courses, and a punching bag, wrist wraps, and gloves (optional. It is possible to kickbox without these, by learning the forms and practicing them on the air).
4 Hiking
Not only is hiking a wonderful way to escape day to day life and out in nature, it’s also great exercise.
You will build leg and glute muscles, and burn lots of calories as a hiker. Remember to bring lots of snacks and water!
On hikes, you can get your heart rate up and enjoy glorious scenery, while taking in lots of super-healthy fresh air.
It’s an activity that can make you feel alive, and take you back to your roots, offering invaluable stress-relief.
5 Foraging
You can find a variety of edible goods in the wild if you’re a canny forager. What does this involve?
First off, you must be well-informed of the plants in your area. This means which are poisonous, which are endangered, which are edible, and which are toxic edible lookalikes.
Armored with this knowledge on foraging, you can venture into a forest or meadow and see what you can find.
In the autumn, there are sure to be plenty of fruits and nuts available. You’ll find the most flowers and greens in the spring and summer.
What can you do with the food you forage? These delicious, freshly-picked harvests are perfect for homemade salads, stir-fries, smoothies, jams, cookie toppings, candied… you name it. There are definitely perks to becoming a forager.
Just remember not to pick more than ¼ of what you find in a given area, so the wildlife can enjoy nature’s bounty, too!
6 Candle Making
If you have a keen nose and love pleasant aromas, you may be a natural candle maker.
This is an art that relies heavily on the olfactory senses. You can create custom fragrance blends, like pine and rosehip, and choose the color of the wax.
Not only that, but you can choose the type of wax. Paraben is the lowest-quality, as it creates smoke and toxins. Soy and coconut candles, on the other hand, burn more cleanly. Which do you prefer?
Candles also make lovely, quality gifts, and some people will even make custom candles to sell.
Read our candle making guide here!
7 Gardening
Would you like to be a gardener? This is one hobby that can be seriously rewarding, with literal harvests to reap for your efforts.
All you need is a tilled garden plot and some quality soil to plant the fruits, veggies, and greens of your choice.
You can plant strawberries, pumpkins, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, and more!
Plant according to their individual requirements, which range from early spring to summer. Bulbs prefer to be planted in autumn and early winter.
Or, perhaps you’d prefer a flower garden? With these, heaps of sunlight and frequent pruning are what matter most of all.
To get started, the supplies you will need are a hand trowel, the plants of your choice, and quality gardening soil. Sow and reap your own harvest in the sunlight and fresh air!
Complete guide to gardening as a hobby here!
8 Sculpting
As far as hobbies go, sculpting can be a great form of stress-relief. It is a tactile activity that involves the kneading and shaping of clay.
It’s hands-on and allows you to look at your art from every angle. If you haven’t given sculpting a try yet, you should.
Just get together a few clay-shaping tools and your choice of clay. Polymer clay is super-soft and easy to work with, making it ideal for a beginner.
Sculpt whatever your heart desires, and look online for guides and inspiration. Some common creations are ball-jointed dolls, realistic baby dolls, fanciful creatures like dragons and unicorns, animals, jewelry, and more!
9 Weight Lifting
If you’re looking to feel better (and maybe a bit stronger) in day to day life, you can take up weight lifting. You will not only become fitter, but also more confident, and more able to defend yourself.
On the fun side, weight lifting is one of the workouts that just fills you with endorphins, which translates to great stress relief.
10 Wood Carving
As a woman, it’s possible you haven’t considered becoming a woodcarver. This is one of the many activities that’s encouraged mostly toward men. But really, anyone can become a woodcarver.
It’s a rewarding hobby that can be used to make little wooden figurines, wooden necklaces, rings, and beads, wooden jewelry boxes, even plates and bowls (depending on what sort of wood carving you’re after).
11 Bird Watching
Last but not least, you may find that you are a fan of bird watching. We tend to let these beautiful little animals pass us by without much notice, but there are countless breeds in a myriad of shapes and colors, all with different chirps, songs, and calls.
You can venture out into the forest to watch wild birds at play, or bring them to your own backyard with a bird feeder.
Perhaps you will see a stunningly-blue scrub-jay or a super-round super-cute Dark-Eyed Junco. There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?
Final Thoughts
So there you have it: 11 hobbies for women in their 30s. If your life feels like it’s lacking something, maybe it’s just a good hobby.
There’s a world of hobbies out there and all kinds of passions that you can discover. All that you need to do is look!
