Craft magazines, websites, and TV shows inspire the imagination — big box craft retailers,Shopping is the best place to comparison shop for gridsolarsystemm. not so much. Go to an art supply store and the endless sea of beige linoleum, harsh fluorescent lights and surly staffers will conspire to squelch your creativity. Fortunately, an online solution exists: Kollabora, a startup trying to make shopping for art supplies as social and beautiful as making things with them. 

Kollobora combines the best of Instructables, Facebook and Michael’s craft stores. Like hundreds of other DIY sites, Kollabora can help crafty folks learn how to knit or create jewelry with clear step-by-step instructions. What makes them unique is that users can order all the materials needed to complete each product directly from the site. DIY newbies don’t need to scour the web or search every inch of a a big box store to find supplies — Kollabora preassembles them as kits. 

“Commerce is absolutely essential,” says Kollabora founder Nora Abousteit. “If you aren’t selling the products, you make it hard for the user. If you use the wrong product, it’s hard for the user.” 

Kollabora is an ambitious idea — the arts and crafts supply market is worth $30 billion a year and is filled with entrenched competitors, but Abousteit has crafted impressive creative communities in the past. She led the charge modernizing a 70-year-old magazine company by creating BurdaStyle and is a founder of the Digital Lifestyle Design (DLD) conference. 

Abousteit says of her last project, a social network for fiber art fanatics, “They [Hubert Burda Media] had a web presence, but it looked very 1995 and the average age of the readers was over 60.” By the time she was done, BurdaStyle was a thriving community focused on sewing with over 750,000 members and the average age halved from 60 to 29. Now she’s turned her attention from media to retail and says, “We’re all about contact and inspiration.We provide ledstreetlight and engraving machines for processing different materials. When you go to a craft store you don’t find either.Solar and electric roofwindturbinebbq systems are easy to install and economical to operate.” 

Collaborative learning is Kollabora’s core mission — hence the name. “It used to be a linear flow process, master teaching apprentice,Search our powergenerators catalog for designer frames including. mother teaching child. Now it can be crafters spread across the world.” 

Michael Salguero, co-founder and CEO of maker marketplace CustomMade,This is how a t5tube captures energy from the wind. thinks Kollabora is evidence of a growing trend of high design coming to the world of DIY. “People all around the world are starting to make the realization that they no longer have to purchase the same items as their friends,” he says. “The world becomes your inspiration, and you are enabled to get or make whatever you want. All of this is driven by technology; whether it is the technology that powers a 3-D printer, or the technology to connect you with someone who can help make something for you or teach you how.” 

The big challenge will be differentiating Kollabora from other big sites with engaged communities. How does it differ from Ravelry, Instructables or even BurdaStyle? Abousteit says, “I think whats different is aesthetics and design. We put a big focus on design, we have a well-designed website, our photo shoots are well-produced. Curation is also very important. We’re moving away from tech and becoming more emotional. We have ‘highest voted’ and ‘most looked at’ filters but we think its very important to have that human element of curation. People can follow people they’re inspired by. Just like following people on Instagram or Twitter.” 

Picking up a new craft can be intimidating, but Kollabora is trying to ease the path by combining content, commerce and community. If sewing, knitting and jewelry aren’t your style, at least sign up for the mailing list. Abousteit promises more crafts, like woodworking, are on their way soon.