I learnt new skills from Klook Home, but was it worth it?

Klook, usually a travel experience website, is currently offering a new home-based experience initiative called Klook Home. It consists of things like DIY craft and cooking kits, online workshops and classes, as well as free virtual tours.

What I’m interested in are the online classes and DIY kits, as they not only give you instructions for things like art and sports—you would get a kit of materials sent to you so you won’t need to get the items yourself. To embrace my inner female protagonist in a 1800s novel, here’s what I booked:

Online Class: Floral Embroidery Hoop Online Workshop

I’ve always wanted to learn embroidery. I liked learning to sew when I was a kid and I wanted to pick it up again. Luckily, Klook Home had an online class that could let me enjoy a creative floral embroidery hoop workshop at the comfort of your own home.

This is how you can book a class for yourself:

• Click here to visit the Floral Embroidery Hoop Online Workshop page
• Read the info given to make sure you don’t miss out on key details
• Under ‘Package Options’, press ‘Check Availability’ and choose the date of when you’d like to do the class (Take note: since it’s not a live class, it doesn’t really matter but the date might be for Klook Home to decide when to send the package to you)
• After confirming the details, press ‘Book Now’ or ‘Add To Cart’
• If you haven’t signed in or registered, you’ll be taken to a page to do so
• Type in additional info including contact information
• Confirm your booking and wait for your confirmation email

From this, I was already feeling weirded out about the booking. I initially thought the ‘online class’ were live classes like what I tried with Airbnb’s Online Experiences. I even had to confirm a specific date to book the class.

However, I received an email from Craft La, the company responsible for the class giving me my username and password for the ‘video tutorials’—which I could watch even without being sent the materials yet.

I received the box of materials quite quickly (about 2-3 days after booking). I opened it to reveal the basic materials as promised, including an embroidery hoop, cloth with flowers already drawn on it, some coloured thread, and embroidery needles.

The classes were just step-by step instructions to do different kinds of stitches that made the rose pattern as seen in their page. It wasn’t too fancy but it was easy to follow. It took me almost 3 hours to finish it but I really liked how it turned out.

The classes weren’t that long and I was glad that they taught me the basics so I could do my own thing while watching TV shows. What I didn’t like about it was how little the amount of thread was and because I was a beginner, I made a lot of mistakes and couldn’t use as much red thread as it was intended.

I did however use the other coloured thread that was meant for other parts of the flower design but I made it work. The needles given were also too small for the thread to go through and I only managed to thread the needles after a few tries each time.

Even with the setbacks, it was a great experience. I even bought myself a bigger hoop for more projects now that I’ve learnt the basics.

DIY Kit: Forest in a Bottle Terrarium

I’ve never really had a green thumb, but I think terrariums are so pretty and I’ve been interested in learning how to make them. Here’s what you need to do if you want to book the DIY kit for yourself:

• Click here to visit the Forest in a Bottle Terrarium DIY Kit with Home Delivery in Malaysia page
• Read the info given to make sure you don’t miss out on key details
• Under ‘Package Options’, press ‘Check Availability’ and choose the date of when you’d like to do the class (Take note: again, this is the exact same problem as the Online Class issue. I’m not really sure as to why DIY kits needed to have a specific date. Although it might just be the best time for them to send the kit so that the plants won’t die)
• After confirming the details, press ‘Book Now’ or ‘Add To Cart’
• If you haven’t signed in or registered, you’ll be taken to a page to do so
• Type in additional info including contact information
• Confirm your booking and wait for your confirmation email

You have to be careful and make sure you know the difference between Online Classes and DIY kits. Online classes, like the embroidery class, includes a lengthy video class that teaches you how to do the activity. DIY kits, like this terrarium one, only provides a short 1 minute tutorial. You’ll need to figure out the rest.

I was happy with the box sent to me. Like the Embroidery Class kit, it was sent fast as well. I was also told to assemble the terrarium as soon as I could so that the plants don’t die by the time i get to them.

The box included the egg-shaped glass case, the plants, soil, pebbles, a big decorative rock, a water spray, a cloth bag and accessories to help assemble the terrarium. In the description, they also mentioned that I would receive a “digital guide book and video”.

However, I didn’t receive any digital guide book, and the only video I could find was the simple 1 minute tutorial that I got on the Klook page. I even had to Google my own more detailed instructions.

I didn’t enjoy this as much as I did with the embroidery class. I was worried I might have assembled the terrarium wrong and killed the plants in the process. But I did enjoy how nice it looked as decoration.

To recap, I managed to spark an interest in embroidery for myself and I can’t wait to do my own designs. I could have instead gotten the initiative to buy my own materials in a craft store and saved some money for the embroidery class, but there’s still some magic to getting a box which includes the “exact amount” of items you need for the project (if you don’t mess up your red thread).

As for the terrarium, the same couldn’t be said about buying the items separately to save money. For example, soil is often sold in big bags, so you’d have to spend more money on soil you don’t need.

So is Klook Home worth it? If you have RM128.50 for the terrarium kit and RM150 for the embroidery class, go for it! But if you’d rather watch plenty of YouTube videos basically teaching you the same thing, that’s your decision, too. Just weigh your options for the price of the items if you plan to buy it yourself.