Dear CraftWorld community,

When we launched CraftWorld back in August 2019, our mission was to provide an inspirational and inclusive community platform for crafters, part social network and part craft content library. We hope you’ve enjoyed sharing in the knowledge and passion that CraftWorld has been able to focus.

In the five years since, it would be an understatement to say that a lot has changed in the world around us. CraftWorld and its parent business are not immune to the effects of these changes, and there is considerable complexity and cost involved in maintaining and further developing the site in its current format. Consequently, we've taken the decision to retire this version of CraftWorld in the weeks ahead.

But this is absolutely not the end of the line for CraftWorld! It will be reborn as the go-to site for exclusive craft products and content. We’re already in the process of building a brand new, shiny website offering a fabulous range of beautiful craft products, downloadable projects and patterns, and informative how-to guides.

Premium memberships

To our Premium and Premium Plus members – we’re incredibly grateful for your support over the years! The new site will not offer Premium or Premium Plus membership packages, but we want to reassure you that you won’t lose out as a result of the changes.

Premium Members will have any outstanding time translated into generous credit on the new CraftWorld, so you’ll still be able to get your fill of crafting inspiration and knowledge. We’ll be in touch nearer the time with more details.

For customers our Premium Plus package, the March 2025 gifts/magazines (despatched at the start of April) will be the last. Premium Plus memberships will be cancelled in early April and if you made a payment in the month of April you will be refunded. If you have any queries around this, please get in touch with our customer service team, on customerservice@craftworld.com

Social features

When the new CraftWorld arrives, we’ll be waving goodbye to the social features of the current site, including personal feeds, the Inspiration Gallery, Groups, Forums and Direct Messaging. We built these features back in 2019, but data analysis and surveys show that nowadays they are used by a very small proportion of our users. Behind the scenes, these features add considerably to the complexity and cost of maintaining the site, which is why we’ve taken the decision to retire them.

If you do currently use the social features, we’d encourage you to plan accordingly. For instance, if you’ve uploaded images to a personal feed or the Inspiration Gallery, please ensure you have copies of these images elsewhere, because they’ll no longer be available in the new CraftWorld.

We’re really looking forward to sharing the new CraftWorld with you in the coming weeks. We’re confident it will provide us with a much improved platform for us to support your crafting endeavours for many years to come!

Best wishes,

The CraftWorld Team

Originally posted Monday 31st March 2025; updated Monday 7th April 2025.