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While market economy could be the reason for some DIY projects, but differing from popular belief, one would like to maintain that it’s not about saving money but about the enjoyment of creating something that provides immense satisfaction. From interest to income!
DIYers as buyers
Creating communities The best thing about belonging to a DIY community is the knowledge that is available to the avid DIYer. The net is full of DIY ideas, instructibles and apps. You can join communities of learning and discovery where you can show off your skills, instruct and pin them or share them on Facebook. Many makers say they have no place to share what they do and here’s where the DIY community blogs and sites come to their rescue. Uncommon to India yet, DIY clubs, fairs and communities are spreading like wildfire. Anupriya, an avid baker, creates fragrant and delicious apple pies, plum cakes, biscotti, red velvet cakes with equal élan, because doing baking takes her to her “secret happy place.” Ready to bake for her friends and family, Anupriya has been ferreting out old recipes and contextualising them with the present, with some help from blogs and books. Upcycle
Local NGOs in Chandigarh are doing upcycling consciously. DIR (Developing Indigenous Resources), which has a line of salwaars, laptop bags, scarves etc. as their product line, insists on using old newspaper and rassi, which they upcycle into bags. Hamari Kaksha cuts up old cards and colourful lifafas, adds attractive painted motifs to them and some ribbons, and lo! Pretty bookmarks are ready. Economical fashionistas
Kanchan Rana, alumna of National Institute of Fashion Design, says: “An inclination towards design had been evident through the early years of my life. I went ahead and pursued textile design, and then accessory design. This education helped me to develop a more fundamental understanding of design and its role in our lives.” Kanchan has followed design in surprising ways and as she continues to explore, has created several products that have also enabled livelihoods. The jewellery that she got the local labour colony women to make is trendy and colourful. Kanchan taught them innovative ways to use left-over brocade, beads, wires and fabrics and the result was some trendy, Indo-Western jewellery. Expressions of themselves DIYers or Makers spend numerous hours shaping their projects and homes into an expression of themselves. DIY is often invisible, insofar as it takes place in shops, garages and on kitchen tables. So, most makers end up managing things themselves. However, these innovators have ideas that we don’t commonly encounter. Mona Chopra is an avid Maker Mom, whose innovative birthday themes have children vying for an invite. Always creative, Mona allowed her passion for art to develop into full-fledged theme parties, much before these really became the trend. “It all started with my daughter’s first birthday. The movie Finding Nemo had just become popular. So we did a ‘Found-Nemo’ theme for her party.” Since then she’s had a “Superman-Turns-One” theme, a Hawaiin — aloha party and parties with themes of dinosaurs, jungle, Ice Age and even a pirate party. Starting from the invites to the party games, the food, gifts and return gifts are always true to the theme and created by Mona and her family. “The best thing about doing this project is that it involves the family for several days. The kids learn to work together, it’s fun and gives us the chance to trade ideas, innovate and work with our hands. In the end, when the kids come in for the party…that’s the ‘aha moment’!” says Mona The Eureka moment Every maker agrees that all the sweat, tears and labour are made up in the final ‘Eureka’ moment. Says Rakesh Batra, “When I lie in bed, spending sleepless nights conceptualising the design in my mind and when it all comes together, I just want to jump out of bed and shout ‘Eureka’ and put it all on paper.” For Anupriya, “The true motivation that got me on the path to baking was the look of delight on the faces of people who would take a bite of my cakes.” Mona agrees that all the fuss, mess and planning is worth it when kids come excitedly in her home and stop short with starry, wonderstruck eyes and the look of pride and happiness on her own kids’ faces. Col Gurpreet says that when he hears the purring of an engine perfectly tuned by him, it’s like the sound of a mother’s lullaby. Doing it yourself makes sense! Not economic sense perhaps, but the satisfaction that achievement begets. Also, how cool it sounds when someone says: “This old thing? I made it!” DIY sites to browse * Let’s Make Everything website http://www.instructables.com/index Video games, woodworking, winter, cooking, crafts…. Let’s Make Everything features how to make, literally, everything — from golguppas to a portable 12V air conditioner. * The RadioShack DIY Project Center https://www.radioshackdiy.com/ Let the making begin! The RadioShack DIY Project Center encourages people to come up with “great creations” by using RadioShack parts. Their “goal is to gather the coolest projects from their most creative customers and share them” on their site. * Maker faire — the greatest show and tell on earth http://makerfaire.com/ Maker Faire is an event in the USA created by Make magazine to “celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset”.
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DO it Yourself or the DIY trend is gaining immense popularity as people go ahead and do things with their own hands, instead of depending on the marketplace for their needs. Armed with the knowhow and the material, they create things of their interest. DIY is not just about learning, but actually doing. Working with their hands, the DIYers create something new.
Colonel Gurpreet Singh and his son, Zorawar, who run Performance Motorsport in Mohali, are father- and-son mechanical DIYers. When the Colonel retired in 2006, he decided to transform his deep knowledge of vehicle engines into a revenue-generating enterprise. They first restored a 1913 Triumph bike, following it up with equipping vehicles for off-roading, remodelling BMWs and Audis to order, even designing vehicle body parts with innovation and creativity. Zorawar, a lawyer by profession, now runs a tremendously successful Motorsport Store, where he does the specialised work himself, leaving the finishing up for the less-gifted staff. You often find him bent over the hood of the engine or emerging from under a vehicle.
While tighter budgets do power the DIY trend, but that doesn't mean customers are staying out of malls. However, DIY consumers are armed with information, experience and input from others that help them ask the right questions and set standards and expectations for the goods and services they intend to purchase. Yes, These folks are also buying. Rakesh Batra, a regular tinkerer with woodwork says: “Doing it myself may not even have made any business sense, as compared to buying from market in some of the stuff made, because of the lack of economy of scale in making a one-off thing. It is more of a hobby in which one can use creativity in design and fabrication.” Rakesh goes to the regular furniture shops when doing major buying for his home and office, but armed with the awareness of wood, the corners that can be cut and the nitty gritty of making the furniture, he asks the right questions that helps him to choose the furniture, thus getting more out of his purchase than many would. 
Upcycling is the mantra of the DIYer. This entails putting thought into making something old into something new. Some people have made businesses out of upcycling. Many curiosity shops stock items that have been upcycled from previously used products. The shop in Pune called “Either Or” stocks many items that are produced by NGOs that recycle and upcycle. Soft toys, old records made into wall clocks, pencil holders made of bangles, paper jewellery, the common chai glasses painted funkily and goodness knows what else. Very charming and very useable. 
Trendy clothes are hardly cheap any more — ask any collegegoer’s mother that. But the intelligent collegegoer will manage to create a huge wardrobe, along with accessories if she’s imaginative and good with her needle — or her mother is. Making scarves of old dupattas; upcycling old denims into trendy totes; using borders from old sarees to edgy skirts or kurtas — are things that make the wardrobe stand out by its differentness and cool value. And if you’ve done it yourself…well, that’s seriously cool! Most DIYers put a lot of thought into making something old into something new. 