4 Best After School Craft Clubs in Sydney

After school craft clubs were due for a real breakout year in 2020 but unfortunately, the pandemic had other plans. As social distancing laws start to roll back, after school activities in Sydney will also start to re-emerge from their government-imposed slumber. 

After-school crafts for kids are a wonderful alternative to help children build confidence and expand their social circle without shoehorning them into a weekend sport. Kid’s sport is fantastic, but not necessarily right for every child, and after school craft clubs are a creatively-fulfilling alternative that can offer the same social benefits. ClassBento has always had a strong focus on kids activities, and there’s a strong variety of after school kids activities in Sydney for you and your little ones to enjoy! There's no need to wait for school holidays to do fun activities!

Maker’s Loft  

Maker’s loft in Cammeray is an institution. Although famous for offering after school kids activities in a variety of artistic disciplines, Maker’s Loft is also a cafe and a creative studio for children and adults alike. Started in 2010 by sisters Sacha and Anouke, it’s been growing from strength-to-strength each year, offering a library’s worth of workshops, classes and creative experiences. 

Sacha and Anouke started their own craft studio after both becoming mothers. The pair were looking to create a healthier work/life balance that both satisfied their creative side, whilst also giving them the time, money and resources to support their family and their children. Having backgrounds in design, it didn’t take long for Maker’s Loft to take off and become the creative hub of adults and kids activities it’s known as today. 

Their arts and craft classes for kids can help your little ones make more friends, while also finding their “artistic voice.” Having a strong arts education themselves, Sacha and Anouke’s main goal with their children’s activities and workshops is truly unique. Instead of being goal-orientated, Maker’s Loft workshops art classes for kids focus around building an inclusive and safe space for children to be exposed to a wide variety of arts and crafts, allowing them to find their own creative confidence. As Sacha says, the real goal of their kids activities is to create “capable, creative, and confident little people.”

And, with the sheer range of arts and craft classes for kids on offer, your munchkin is spoilt for choice. Ranging from ceramics painting courses that focus on giving your child a fun environment to decorate everyday ceramic items, to more comprehensive arts classes for kids that allow a bit more artistic freedom, Maker’s Loft has you covered. 

Perfect as an after school craft club, there are no lock-in contracts or parental obligations, and even if you do want to be with your kids as they enjoy it, Maker’s Loft also has a coffee machine and a few sweet treats for you to indulge in. It’s a real triple threat. 

A select few workshops have also been made available as online classes for kids, so your child can enjoy them even with the current social distancing laws making it harder to connect in person. 

Pinta Crafts

As far as after school activities go, Pinta Crafts run some of the most hands-on arts and crafts classes for kids available in Sydney! Following on from owning a ceramics studio in the Philippines, Ria moved to Australia and worked as an architect. It wasn’t long before her love of ceramics inspired her to start Pinta Crafts, and now she runs the studio full time. Starting in 2015 as a mobile pottery studio, owner Ria Amoranto established her own permanent ceramic studio at St. Leonards in 2019, and Pinta Crafts has shown no signs of slowing down.

With an enviable range of kids activities, Pinta Crafts is a pottery studio with a real point of difference. Unlike specialised ceramic workshops, Ria started Pinta Crafts to give adults and children alike a space to be creatively free, and express themselves however they see fit. 

Running a variety of after school activities and online classes for kids, Pinta Crafts is one of the only walk-in painting studios in Sydney, and is a fantastic place to experiment with your artistic abilities. 

With a wide range of crafts for kids, Pinta Crafts is also an exceptional party venue, running ceramic painting workshops for kids of all ages! With arts and crafts for kids that are as varied as their paint selection, Pinta Crafts cater to kids activities for impromptu visits, workshop bookings, and large groups looking to celebrate! A Mum herself, Ria has plenty of experience teaching children how to use their imagination to it’s fullest potential!

Ria’s goal is to give people a space to feel creatively liberated and to meet likeminded people. She’s also designed a series of unique DIY crafts for kids that can be enjoyed at home and delivered straight to your door, in conjunction with ClassBento’s new LiveBox craft kit service! 

So whether you’re chasing arts and crafts for children at home, or in-person kid’s activities to get them working their creative muscles, Pinta Crafts has a variety of options to choose from for your next after school activities.

Pamela Woods

With an artistic resume that spans her entire life, Sydney-based artisan Pamela Woods runs a staggering variety of in-person classes and virtual kids activities, and really is a jack of all trades.

After leaving her career as a scriptwriter and lecturer in the UK, Pamela moved to Australia permanently to look after her mother. When she made the move she decided to swap the formal lecturing for a more rewarding path of informal teaching. Her range of DIY crafts for kids and after school activities are a fantastic example of her emphasis on self-directive learning. Similar to many of our instructors who run engaging kids activities and classes, being results-focused isn’t important. Her arts and craft classes for kids are about helping individuals grow self-confidence in their abilities, and, in her own words, “build their own learning path instead of putting them in a box.” 

And there’s a vast array of learning paths to choose from! Pamela’s arts and craft classes for kids can help your children build confidence in a variety of different disciplines and artistic mediums! Her Koinobori class shows your little ones how to build a Japanese carp streamer via a fully interactive live stream and accompanying craft kit delivered directly to your door. Traditionally flown in Japan for National Children’s Day, koinobori is not a well-known activity when it comes to crafts for kids, but make no mistake: this workshops is fun, decorative and will get your kids thinking outside the box when it comes to crafting! 

Her “Make a Fairy Garden” workshop is also an incredibly engaging and imaginative choice when looking for online classes for kids. Part terrarium building, part diorama making, and all-around imaginative fun, Pamela will show you and the little ones how to build your very own mini-garden, complete with figurines and colourful terrain! 

Pamela’s kids activities are thoughtfully designed to help children and parents connect, but also a gateway for getting children off their devices and focusing on crafts. With a strong emphasis on learning together, Pamela’s after school activities and crafts for kids are perfect for family team building and strengthening the parent/child connection. 

Her virtual workshops have been some of ClassBento’s most popular online classes for kids, and have also been a real hit with grandparents and grandchildren! Designing online classes for kids with special needs and working with children in remote communities has helped Pamela design after school activities that are versatile, inclusive, and suitable for anybody. With such an array of arts and craft classes for kids to choose from, Pamela is one of ClassBento’s after school activities MVP’s. 

Sew Make Create

Located in the highly creative suburb of Chippendale, Sew Make Create is your one-stop-shop for all of your after school activities that involve stitching, sewing and embroidery. With an incredible variety of crafts for kids, you can also help the more serious stitchers get a comprehensive understanding of the materials and tools necessary with their in-depth sewing workshops and longer dressmaking courses. Not only this, but Sew Make Create is one of our best class providers when it comes to school holiday workshops!

Sew Make Create is also one of the only places in Sydney where you can discover the adorable Japanese art of Amigurumi. Although one of the arts and crafts classes for kids that are slightly older, Amigurumi is the art of crocheting and knitting small stuffed yarn creatures, and is an incredibly cute and exciting workshop for adults and kids activities, alike!

Started by fashion and accessory designer Melissa Tan-Lu, Melissa has taken the idea of a collective workspace and turned it into one of the most popular creative hubs in Chippendale! Not only does Sew Make Create offer a range of exciting after school activities and arts classes for kids and adults, but you can also hire the sewing machines yourself! With a hire-by-the-hour policy, you and your little ones are also free to do your own thing in a creatively inspiring space. Melissa also runs an online shop with a range of products made in-house, and also offer sewing machine repair services. Sew Make Create isn’t just perfect at crafts for kids, it’s also a fantastic hub for all things fabric.