Craft competition ups ‘cutesy’ factor but is still lovable

“Making It,” a crafting competition show that premiered Tuesday on NBC, is so good-hearted and adorably inventive that it’s almost impossible to criticize. But let me try. Sooner or later, American culture will need to have a strong talk with itself about adult-onset cutesiness, which began about 20 years ago, then gained hold as a comforting response to frayed 9/11 nerves. And it hasn’t stopped.

Among the aspects of everyday life subsumed by cutesiness: the hobby of making things. This interest got cutesified — and commodified — into the new activity of crafting.

With the world around us deteriorating, people probably shouldn’t take mental and emotional refuge armed with a glue gun.

Nevertheless, in a barn at some idyllic countryside farm, eight crafters (woodworkers, paper sculptors, decorators, junk hounds, felt fiends) assemble for the “Making It” craft-off.

With limited time but plenty of resources and tools, the contestants are challenged to make something along a theme: a three-dimensional representation of themselves as an animal, for example, or a play space for kids.

The show hosts are Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman, the former stars of the satirical TV series “Parks and Recreation,” who need no introduction in Cutesyville. She is a sharply funny idol to young women everywhere, ever willing to mock her own inability to identify basic tools; he is a feminist grizzly with crafting bona fides, a woodworker who builds canoes and furniture. • “Making It” can be seen at 10 p.m. Tuesdays on NBC.

Contestants win scoutlike patches for individual rounds — a “fast craft” opens each competition, followed by a more complex task that seems to take up most of the day (although “Making It” never explains how long the efforts really take to finish). After six episodes, the big winner gets $100,000.

Weekly eliminations fall to judges Dayna Isom Johnson, a “trend expert” at the craft market website Etsy; and Simon Doonan, a designer famous for his Barneys New York store windows.

For all its mutual happiness, “Making It” could pay a little more attention to the crafting part of the show.

Jemma Olson, a 60-year-old grandmother from suburban Dallas, struggles to rise above her “hodgepodge” approach, as the show drops subtle hints that she just might not be hip (read: young) enough to craft in the modern day and the modern way.

Then again, Khiem Nguyen, 28, a woodworker from Austin, Texas, who oozes nerdy determination, is dinged for ideas that are stark and moody (read: art school).

A surefire win comes from Los Angeles art teacher Billy Kheel, 43, who builds a kid-sized taco truck as a play space, replete with felt taco shells and ingredients.

The charm of “Making It” rests in its recognition of the value in human endeavor, even the frivolous kind.

“Cutesiness” rages, but the show hosts are genuine. There truly is something beautiful and heartbreaking in the things we create on our own time.